Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/83

 boxes already blackened with fire, all testified my courage. I might have been proud, but I was only satisfied: my companions would henceforward have no right to taunt me with their offensive jokes. We went onwards, and scarcely had we advanced a single step, when the whole atmosphere seemed one blaze of fire; the flames appeared in seven places at once, and the brilliant and horrible light seemed at the harbour: the slates cracked, whilst the roofs were burning, and we thought we heard the report of musquetry. Some detachments, deceived by this, scoured about to discover the enemy. Nearer to us, at a short distance from the ship building yard, clouds of smoke and flame rose from a thatch, whence the burning straw was driven in all directions by the wind. We heard a cry of distress—the voice of a child—which struck to my heart; it was perhaps too late, but I determined to attempt its rescue, and succeeded in restoring the infant to its mother, who having left it for an instant, was returning to it in an agony of distress.

"My honour was now redeemed, and cowardice could no longer be charged upon me. I returned to the battery, when every person congratulated me. A chief of a battalion promised me a cross, which, he had, however, been unable to procure for himself for forty years, because he had always had the bad luck to get always behind, and never in front of, the cannon, was now in a fair way of getting renown, and opportunities presented perpetually. There were mediators appointed between England and France to negociate for peace. Lord Lauderdale was in Paris as plenipotentiary, when the telegraph announced the bombardment of Boulogne, which was but the second act to the attack of Copenhagen. At this information, the emperor, indignant at a causeless renewal of hostilities, sent for lord L., reproached him with the perfidy of his cabinet, and ordered him to quit France instantly. A fortnight afterwards, lord Lauderdale arrived here at the Canon d'Or. He was an Englishman, and the exasperated