de Boulogne on the morning that the affair with Cambacères was to come off, and Lanty held him as I went in, "sure to win," as they say in the ring.

Cambacères was known to be the best shot in the French army; but I, who am a pretty good hand at a 5 snipe, thought a man was bigger, and that I could wing him if I had a mind. As soon as Ney gave the word, we both fired; I felt a whizz pass my left ear, and putting up my hand there, found a large piece of my whiskers gone; whereas at the same moment, and ΤΟ shrieking a horrible malediction, my adversary reeled and fell.

"Mon Dieu, il est mort!" cried Ney.

"Pas du tout," said Beauharnais. "Ecoute; il jure toujours."

15

And such, indeed, was the fact: the supposed dead man lay on the ground cursing most frightfully. We went up to him; he was blind with the loss of blood, and my ball had carried off the bridge of his nose. He recovered; but he was always called the Prince of 20 Ponterotto in the French army afterwards. The surgeon in attendance having taken charge of this unfortunate warrior, we rode off to the review, where Ney and Eugène were on duty at the head of their respective divisions; and where, by the way, Cambacères, as the 25 French say, "se faisait désirer."

It was arranged that Cambacères' division of six battalions and nine-and-twenty squadrons should execute a ricochet movement, supported by artillery in the intervals, and converging by different épaulements on 30 the light infantry, that formed, as usual, the centre of

the line. It was by this famous manœuvre that at Arcola, at Montenotte, at Friedland, and subsequently at Mazagran, Suwaroff, Prince Charles, and General Castanos were defeated with such victorious slaughter: but it is a movement which, I need not tell every military man, requires the greatest delicacy of execution, and which, if it fails, plunges an army in confusion.

"Where is the Duke of Illyria?" Napoleon asked. "At the head of his division, no doubt," said Murat: 10 at which Eugène, giving me an arch look, put his hand to his nose, and caused me almost to fall off my horse with laughter. Napoleon looked sternly at me; but at this moment the troops getting in motion, the celebrated manœuvre began, and his Majesty's attention was 15 taken off from my impudence.

Milhaud's Dragoons, their bands playing "Vive Henri Quatre," their cuirasses gleaming in the sunshine, moved upon their own centre from the left flank in the most brilliant order, while the Carbineers of 20 Foy, and the Grenadiers of the Guard under Drouet d'Erlon, executed a carambolade on the right, with the precision which became those veteran troops; but the Chasseurs of the young guard, marching by twos instead of threes, bore consequently upon the Bavarian 25 Uhlans (an ill-disciplined and ill-affected body), and then, falling back in disorder, became entangled with the artillery and the left centre of the line, and in one instant thirty thousand men were in inextricable confusion.

"Clubbed, by Jabers!" roared out Lanty Clancy. 30 "I wish we could show 'em the Fighting Onety-oneth, Captain darling."

"Silence, fellow!" I exclaimed. I never saw the face of man express passion so vividly as now did the livid countenance of Napoleon. He tore off General Milhaud's epaulettes, which he flung into Foy's face. He glared about him wildly, like a demon, and shouted 5 hoarsely for the Duke of Illyria. "He is wounded, sire," said General Foy, wiping a tear from his eye, which was blackened by the force of the blow; was wounded an hour since in a duel, Sire, by a young English prisoner, Monsieur de Fogarty."

"he

"Wounded a Marshal of France wounded! Where is the Englishman? Bring him out, and let a file of grenadiers

"Sire!" interposed Eugene.

ΤΟ

"Let him be shot!" shrieked the Emperor, shaking 15 his spy-glass at me with the fury of a fiend.

This was too much. "Here goes!" said I, and rode slap at him.

There was a shriek of terror from the whole of the French army, and I should think at least forty thousand 20 guns were levelled at me in an instant. But as the muskets were not loaded, and the cannon had only wadding in them, these facts, I presume, saved the life of Phil Fogarty from this discharge.

Knowing my horse, I put him at the Emperor's 25 head, and Bugaboo went at it like a shot. He was riding his famous white Arab, and turned quite pale as I came up and went over the horse and the Emperor, scarcely brushing the cockade which he wore.

"Bravo!" said Murat, bursting into enthusiasm at 30 the leap.

"Cut him down!" said Siéyès, once an Abbé, but now a gigantic Cuirassier; and he made a pass at me with his sword. But he little knew an Irishman on an Irish horse. Bugaboo cleared Siéyès, and fetched the 5 monster a slap with his near hind hoof which sent him reeling from his saddle, and away I went with an

army of a hundred and seventy-three thousand eight

hundred men at my heels.

VI.-CHARLES DICKENS.

(1812-1870.)

LIFE.-Charles Dickens was born in Portsea, England, Feb. 7, 1812. His father, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, was stationed in Portsmouth dock-yard. Two years later the family moved to London, and in 1816 to Chatham in Kent. In 1821, on returning to London, the father became so involved in financial difficulties that he was finally imprisoned, while the son was set to work in a blacking warehouse. For a few years after the release of his father from prison Dickens obtained rather desultory schooling. In 1827-28 he was in a solicitor's office. Then, following his father's lead, he studied short-hand, and became a reporter in Doctors' Commons. In December 1833, he begun to contribute to the Monthly Magazine, and not long afterward, he joined the staff of the Morning Chronicle. On April 2, 1836, he married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of George Hogarth of the Chronicle. The Sketches by Boz that had appeared in the Monthly Magazine and the Evening Chronicle were steps to a literary success that became extraordinary popularity on the publication of Pickwick Papers in 1836–37. Henceforth the record of his literary life may be read in the account of his works. In 1842, and again in 1867-68, he visited America, on the second visit giving readings from his own works. In May, 1858, soon after he withdrew from London to Gad's Hill, Kent, he separated from his wife. Constant writing and public readings over-taxed his physical endurance and at length resulted in death, on June 9, 1870. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Unlike Thackeray, Dickens fills his works with constant bits of autobiography. Late in life Dickens confessed to his friend and biographer, John Forster, how fully David Copperfield told his own history. The blacking warehouse was converted into a wine