honor as of old, the adherence to truth, the abhorrence of falsehood and especially of treachery, the purity of hospitality, and the sacredness of our own hearthstone to an invited guest, that I trust will continue to ennoble mankind. Unwittingly the cross we bore on mantle and gonfalon assumed a sable hue, and I fear sable must characterize its symbolism.”
Here the veteran drew forth a gold chain collar interlaced with oak leaves and acorns, supporting a medallion with the figure of a black bear having under it a hillock enameled in green. “It is a memorial of the unrequited Frederick,” he said; “but my possession of it is associated with Rudolph. Not happily appropriate as an emblem; yet it is intended to represent the native patriotism of the Swiss under the symbol of their best known and most familiar quadruped. Rudolph esteemed the gift to me a compliment. But I entertain strong apprehension that Rudolph and his advisers are of those who assume heroic virtue in order to conceal clandestine villainy. A palpable contradiction between the pretense and the act constitutes the abhorred vice that chivalry especially repudiated.” Boppo next drew forth, suspended from a plain, short silk ribbon, a cross potent, sable, charged with another cross double potent, gold, surcharged with an escutcheon of the empire; the principal cross surmounted by a chief semé of France.
“Ah!” said the old man, “I have some right to this. It recalls the day of Damietta, criminally glorious as it was. My special charge, that won the day and the
