They
came to know our haunts in time, and they avoided them as if they
had been hornets' nests.
There was one of these--the Sign of the Great Man --in the Rue
Varennes, which was frequented by several of the more
distinguished and younger Napoleonic officers. Nearly all of us
had been colonels or aides- de-camp, and when any man of less
distinction came among us we generally made him feel that he had
taken a liberty. There were Captain Lepine, who had won the
medal of honour at Leipzig; Colonel Bonnet, aide-de-camp to
Macdonald; Colonel Jourdan, whose fame in the army was hardly
second to my own; Sabbatier of my own Hussars, Meunier of the Red
Lancers, Le Breton of the Guards, and a dozen others.
Every night we met and talked, played dominoes, drank a glass or
two, and wondered how long it would be before the Emperor would
be back and we at the head of our regiments once more. The
Bourbons had already lost any hold they ever had upon the
country, as was shown a few years afterward, when Paris rose
against them and they were hunted for the third time out of
France.
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