persons have made the glory.
It is the same men, they say; there is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone on the earth.
The hero of the day is the vampire of the night.
One has assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when one is the author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so; it seems to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the shoes from a dead man.
One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow thieves.
But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary soldier, out of the question.
Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers'' servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,-- we are not speaking of the present,--dragged all this behind them, so that in the special language they are called "stragglers."
No army, no nation, was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and taking him for one of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on the battle-field itself, in the course of the night which followed the victory of Cerisoles.