you again."—"Yes, commandant," replied Dufailli, at this order, and we went away down the Rue des Prêcheurs.
There is no occasion to mention the profession of the fair Magdelaine le Picarde; it must have been already guessed. She was a tall woman, about twenty-three years of age, remarkable for the bloom of her complexion, as well as the beauty of her figure. It was her boast, that she belonged to no one person. She devoted herself, from a principle of conscience, entirely and solely to the army—the whole army—but nothing but the army: fifer or field-marshal, all who wore the uniform were equally well received by her; but she professed great contempt for what she called the snobs (pequins). There never was a citizen who could boast of her favours: she was somewhat tenacious with marines, whom she called "tar-buckets," and fleeced at pleasure, because she could not make up her mind to look on them as soldiers; and she used to say, that the navy filled her purse, and the army was her lover. This lady, whom I had occasion to visit at a subsequent period, was, for a long time, the delight of the camp, without her health being at all impaired, and was supposed to be rich. But whether Magdelaine (as I know) was not mercenary, or whether as the old proverb goes, "What is got over the devil's back is spent under his belly," Magdelaine died in 1812, at the hospital of Ardres, poor, but true to her flag: but two years more, and, like another nymph well known in Paris, after the disaster of Waterloo, she would have had the grief of calling herself the "widow of the grand army."
The memory of Magdelaine still lives all over France, I might say Europe, amongst the remnants of the old phalanxes. She was the "cotemporaine" of that period; and, if I did not well know that she is no more, I should fancy that I had again found her in the "cotemporaine" of this period. However, I must remark, that Magdelaine, although her features were
