AN AFFECTING INCIDENT.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 29, 12 July 1888, Page 2

AN AFFECTING INCIDENT.

The following affecting incident, related as one of the romances of real life, occurred during the Peninsular war. A young conscript was taken from his home in the south of France to recruit the army of the Emperor. A brilliant action placed epaulets on the shqulders of the young soldier, and in the course of three years only Napoleon nominated him colonel in the line, and attached him as aide-de-camp to his own person. At Austerlitz a cannonball nearly spent, struck the rising officer on the back of the head. He fell senseless from his horse, and so continued, despite all the surgical skill that was brought to l^ear upon, his case. A fellow conscript that had come from the same village, but who only had the rank of a sergeant,, was profoundly .touched by his comrade's situation, and personally obtained leave of. \h,? $mpercn? to pQ^Ydy bin}

to his native village, insensible to , all surrounding .objects as he was, ■with the hope that old familiar . scenes • would rouse him ; for the surgeons declared that he was. not suffering from any severe physical injury, but that the shock only had produced the deadening effects upon ; his intellect. _ •- . After a long and tedious travel the colonel reached the cottage in which he . was born. They placed him upon the little bod upon which he had slept from childhood to the time when the conscription called hiuito tne field of battle. They placed all the old familiar objects in the room as they" were before ; "and opening the casement, they let the odour of flowers he had with his ownliands planted stream in upon Mm* while the vine-leaves that •shaded, the little window rustled faintly in^ the breeze. ; The book-he loved to read was by him. Thegun he proudly called bis own — his peasant clothing — all were placed to meet his gaze ; and still he lay as dead a thing as ever yet breathed the Weath of life. And then, while the mother wept,, the father prayed in the adjoining; chamber, a little bird alighted on the window sill, and nestling among the clustering vine-leaves, he sang his well-re-membered wood-notes wild, and the soldier, opening Ms eyes, with a deep sigh rose from his couch.; He looked around him upon the wellremembered and fondly cherished scene _all his life amid the storm of battle seemed but as a dream; and, witn a 1 sob of joy, ;he burst into tears. •'- He clasped the old book to his : ' bosom ; he kissed tlie gun, and the flowers in the old vase; he thought he had placed them there. He called aloud, " Mother ! Father ! ■Louise ! :Jaques V*. He rushed from the room, and upon a table in that adjoining lie saw a sword, a military hat and feathers, and a cross of the -Xegion; of ;Honour^ The mother sprang to Mm. and clasped Mm in her arms. He pointed to the in- •• signia ; of ,■■ war and with, one sad . smile he said— t "It was not a dream !"■ and fell dead upon the floor. .