Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/370

 a venerable old soldier, and entered into conversation with him. Soldier during more than thirty years, he had much to relate. The Moscow campaign was spoken of, and I heard from the lips of this veteran the sufferings to which Napoleon's armies had been exposed. He had been taken prisoner, sent to the interior for two years, fed on musty bread by the Cossacks, who forced them to march all day. He had lost his toes and one ear by the frost, and sighed, as he said, "And to lose the campaign after all this!" I offered him a franc, and to my surprise he refused it, saying he had his pension, and was well fed. The garden was now crowded, children were scrambling for horse-chestnuts, which were beginning to fall, ladies playing battledore and shuttlecock, venders of fruit and lemonade were calling their wares, and I was interested and amused by all. Now to Baron Cuvier again. I found him sitting in his arm-chair; a gentleman was translating the dedication of Linné (Linnæus) to him, as he was anxious that the Latin should not be misconstrued; he often looked in some book or other, and I dare say often entirely forgot Parker, who notwithstanding has laid in a good likeness. The Baron wishes me to be at the Institute to-morrow at half-past one.

September 22. I was at the Institute at half-past one—no Baron there. I sat opposite the clock and counted minutes one after another; the clock ticked on as if I did not exist; I began the counting of the numerous volumes around me, and as my eyes reached the centre of the hall they rested on the statue of Voltaire; he too had his share of troubles. Savants entered one after another; many bowed to me, and passed to their seats. My thoughts journeyed to America; I passed from the Missouri to the Roanoke, to the Hudson, to the Great Lakes—then floated down the gentle Ohio, and met the swift Mississippi which would carry me to thee. The clock vibrated in my ears, it struck two, and I saw again that I was in an immense