their death, they cried out: "Vive l'Empereur!" There is nothing more touching in history than this death-agony bursting forth in acclamations.

The sky had been overcast all day. All at once, at this very moment it was eight o'clock at night — the clouds in the horizon broke, and through the elms of the Nivelles road streamed the sinister red light of the setting sun.

Arrangements were speedily made for the final effort. Each battalion was commanded by a general. When the tall caps of the Grenadiers of the Guard with their large eagle plates appeared, symmetrical, drawn up in line, calm in the smoke of that conflict, the enemy felt respect for France. They thought they saw twenty victories entering upon the field of battle with wings extended, and those who were conquerors thinking themselves conquered recoiled; but Wellington cried: "Up, Guards, and at them!" The red regiment of English Guards, lying behind the hedges, rose up; a shower of grape riddled the tricolored flag. All hurled themselves forward, and the final carnage began. The Imperial Guard felt the army slipping away around them in the gloom, and the vast overthrow of the rout. They heard the "Sauve qui peut!” which had replaced "Vive l'Empereur!" and, with flight between them, they held on their course, battered more and more, dying faster and faster. There were no weak souls or cowards there. The privates of that band were as heroic as their general. Not a man flinched from the suicide.

The army fell back rapidly from all sides at once, from Hougomont, La Haie Sainte, Papelottle and Planchenoit. The cry "Treachery!" was followed by "Sauve qui peut!" A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole bends, cracks, snaps, floats, rolls, falls, crashes, hurries, plunges. Ney borrows a horse, leaps upon him, and, without hat, cravat, or sword, plants himself in the Brussels road, arresting at once the English and the French. He endeavors to hold the army; he calls them back, he reproaches them, he grapples with the rout. He is swept away. The soldiers flee from him crying, "Vive Marshal Ney!" Durutte's two regiments come

and the fire of the brigades of Kempt. Rout is the worst of all conflicts; friends slay each other in their flight; squadrons and battalions are crushed and dispersed against each other, enormous foam of the battle. Napoleon gallops among the fugitives, harangues them, urges, threatens, entreats. The mouths which in the morning were crying "Vive l'Empereur," are now agape. He is hardly recognized. The Prussian cavalry, just come up, spring forward, fling themselves upon the enemy, sabre, cut, hack, kill, exterminate. Teams rush off; the guns are left to the care of themselves; the soldiers of the train unhitch the caissons and take the horses to escape; wagons upset, with their four wheels in the air, block up the road, and are accessories of massacre. They crush and they crowd; they trample upon the living and the dead. Arms are broken. A multitude fills roads, paths, bridges, plains, hills, valleys, woods, choked up by this flight of forty thousand men. Cries, despair; knapsacks and muskets cast into the rye; passages forced at the point of the sword; no more comrades, no more officers, no more generals; an inexpressible dismay. Ziethen sabring France at his ease. Lions become kids. Such was this flight.

A few squares of the Guard, immovable in the flow of the rout as rocks in running water, held out until night. Night approaching and death also, they awaited this double shadow, and yielded unfaltering to its embrace. At every discharge the square grew less, but returned the fire. It replied to grape by bullets, narrowing in its four walls continually. Afar off the fugitives, stopping for a moment out of breath, heard in the darkness this dismal thunder decreasing.

When this legion was reduced to a handful, when their flag was reduced to a shred, when their muskets, exhausted of ammunition, were reduced to nothing but clubs, when the pile of corpses was larger than the group of the living, there spread among the conquerors a sort of sacred terror about these sublime martyrs, and the English artillery, stopping to take breath, was silent. It was a kind of respite. These combatants had about them a swarm of spectres, the outlines of men on horseback, the black profile of the cannons,

colossal death's head, which heroes always see in the smoke of the battle, was advancing upon them and glaring at them. They could hear in the gloom of the twilight the loading of the pieces. The lighted matches, like tigers' eyes in the night, made a circle about their heads. All the linstocks of the English batteries approached the guns, when, touched by their heroism, holding the death-moment suspended over these men, an English general cried to them:

"Brave Frenchmen, surrender!"

The word "Never!" fierce and desperate, came rolling back.

To this word the English general replied, " Fire!"

The batteries flamed, the hill trembled; from all those brazen throats went forth a final vomiting of grape, terrific. A vast smoke, dusky white in the light of the rising moon, rolled

out, and when the smoke was dissipated, there was nothing left. That formidable remnant was annihilated-the Guard was dead! The four walls of the living redoubt had fallen. Hardly could a quivering be distinguished here and there among the corpses; and thus the French legions expired.

HOW LISA LOVED THE KING.

GEORGE ELIOT.

IX hundred years ago in Dante's time,

SIX

Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme

Six hundred years ago, Palermo town

Kept holiday. A deed of great renown,

A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke
Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe's rock
To where the Bosphorus caught the earlier sun,
'Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon,
Was welcomed master of all Sicily,

Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace,
Where generous men rode steeds of generous race;
And in all eyes King Pedro was the king
Of cavaliers as in a full-gemmed ring
The largest ruby, or as that bright star
Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are.
And Lisa was of no long noble line,
Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine,
Who from his merchant-city hither came
To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame.

He loved his riches for his Lisa's sake,
Whom, with a father's care, he sought to make
The bride of some true, honorable man;
Of Perdicone (for so the rumor ran).

For Perdicone she cared not; her young mind
Dreamed not that any man had ever pined
For such a little simple maid as she.

She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be
To love some hero, noble, beauteous, great,
Who would live stories worthy to narrate.
And now the flower of heroes must he be
Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily,

So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.

She watched all day that she might see him pass
With knights and ladies; but she said, "Alas!
Though he should see me, it were all as one
He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone
Of wall or balcony; some colored spot
His eye just sees, his mind regardeth not.
I have no music-touch that could bring nigh
My love to his soul's hearing. I shall die,
And he will never know my spirit rose

As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose."
Father and mother saw, with sad dismay,

For without Lisa, what would sequins buy?
What wish were left if Lisa were to die?

Yet one day, as they bent above her bed,

And watched her in brief sleep, her drooping head
Turned, and her eyes she oped in utterance dumb
Of some new prayer that in her sleep had come.

66

"What is it, Lisa ?" Father, I would see
Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me."
Minuccio then entreated, gladly came.
(He was a singer of most gentle fame-
A noble, kindly spirit, not elate

That he was famous, but that song was great
Would sing as finely to this suffering child,
As at the court where princes on him smiled.)
"The grave were rest if, lying cold and lone,
Minuccio," she said, "I knew my love had flown,
And nestled in the bosom of the King;

See, 'tis a small, weak bird, with unfledged wing.
But you will carry it for me, secretly,

And bear it to the King; then come to me,

And tell me it is safe, and I shall go

Content, knowing that he, I love, my love doth know."

Minuccio had his summons to the court,

To make, as he was wont, the moments short,
Of ceremonious dinner to the King.

This was the time when he had meant to bring
Melodious message of young Lisa's love.

He waited till the air had ceased to move

To ringing silver, till Falernian wine

Made quickened sense with quietude combine,

And then with passionate descant made each ear incline. The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry,

And yet a rounded, perfect melody.

Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose;