Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/67



—Aide-de-camp to General Wirion, member of the legion of honour; ''dismissed the army''.

Besides these honourable members so disgraced, many others narrowly escaped, and a long list of insignificant delinquents, might be added, whose rogueries are not comprised in the foregoing calculations.

Having thus noticed some of the most notorious characters, most of whom had sprung from the revolution, I now turn from this painful detail, to bring forth characters, as truly honourable as generous, whose actions indicated the strictest sense of duty, united with feelings, the most refined, and which could only flow from innate benevolence—from a "veritable grandeur d'âme:" such indeed were the noble minded De Beauchêne, De Meulan, Du Croix Aubert, and a few others; this I do with the greater satisfaction, not only because the system they adopted proved the national feeling of the prisoners to have been in accordance with those venerated soldiers, but also to show, how very little the then French ministers were capable of appreciating true greatness; or why