Hussar

Zola, read by Fawn.

Hussar, read by Nemo.

To visit a series of foreign celebrities at home without including Emile Zola in the list would be very like refusing to listen to the lines of Hamlet in Bacon's immortal tragedy of that name.

Furthermore, to call upon the justly famous novelist presupposes a visit to Paris, which is a delightful thing, even for a lady journalist.

Zola, read by Fawn.

Hussar, read by Nemo.

To visit a series of foreign celebrities at home without including Emile Zola in the list would be very like refusing to listen to the lines of Hamlet in Bacon's immortal tragedy of that name.

Furthermore, to call upon the justly famous novelist presupposes a visit to Paris, which is a delightful thing, even for a lady journalist.

The Marriage of the Brigadier.

I am speaking, my friends, of days which are long gone by, when I had scarcely begun to build up that fame which has made my name so familiar.

Among the thirty officers of the Hussars of Conflans there was nothing to indicate that I was superior in any way to the others.

I can well imagine how surprised they would all have been had they realized that young Lieutenant Etienne Gerard was destined for so glorious a career, and would live to command a brigade and to receive from the Emperor's own hands that cross which I can show you any time that you do me the honour to visit me in my little cottage.

You know, do you not, the little whitewashed cottage with the vine in front, in the field beside the Garonne? People have said of me that I have never known what fear was.

It shocks you to hear it? Well, some day it may comfort you when your own courage has reached its limits to know that even Etienne Gerard has known what it was to be afraid.

I will tell you now how this experience befell me, and also how it brought me a wife.

For the moment France was at peace, and we, the Hussars of Conflans, were in camp all that summer a few miles from the town of Les Andelys in Normandy.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa Have I ever told you, my friends, the circumstances connected with my joining the Hussars of Conflan at the time of the siege of Saragossa, and the very remarkable exploit which I performed in connection with the taking of that city? No? Then you have indeed something still to learn.

I will tell it to you exactly as it occurred.

Save for two or three men and a score or two of women, you are the first who have ever heard the story.

You must know, then, that it was in the second Hussars, called the Hussars of Chamberin, that I had served as a lieutenant and as a junior captain.

At the time I speak of, I was only twenty-five years of age, as reckless and desperate a man as any in that great army.

It chanced that the war had come to a halt in Germany, while it was still raging in Spain.

So the Emperor, wishing to reinforce the Spanish army, transferred me a senior captain to the Hussars of Conflan, which were at that time in the Fifth Army Corps under Marshal Lannes.

The collegians, decorated on the collar with a golden fleur de lys, fought each other apropos of the King of Rome.

The counter-police of the chateau had denounced to her Royal Highness Madame the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d'Orleans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a Colonel General of Hussars than M. the Duc de Berry in his uniform of Colonel General of Dragoons.

A serious inconvenience.

The city of Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense.

It was not pleasant to have twelve masked faces turned upon you and to see twelve pairs of vindictive Italian eyes fixed with fierce intentness upon your face.

But I stood as a debonair soldier should, and I could not but reflect how much credit I was bringing upon the Hussars of Conflan by the dignity of my bearing.

I do not think that anyone could have carried himself better under such difficult circumstances.

I looked with a fearless face from one assassin to another, and I waited for some reply.

There may still be times when the peace of the cloister is broken by the memory of the old soldier who loved her in those distant days.

Youth is past and passion is gone, but the soul of the gentleman can never change, and still Etienne Gerard would bow his grey head before her, and would very gladly lose his other ear if he might do her a service.

End of section 3 End of How Brigadier Gerard Lost His Ear Section 4 of The Adventures of Gerard This LibriVox recording is in the public domain How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa Have I ever told you, my friends, the circumstances connected with my joining the Hussars of Conflan at the time of the siege of Saragossa, and the very remarkable exploit which I performed in connection with the taking of that city? No? Then you have indeed something still to learn.

I will tell it to you exactly as it occurred.

munsor granted said i in a sudden decision munsor during the term of my office that was but a month i was only a locum tinens during leave only a month and the poor old beggar had waited fourteen years to praise god on the little drum the pathos and bathos of it hit me hard but a stare of infinite surprise had replaced the circumambient smile the fakir himself seemed flabbergasted i think he felt lost without his petition for i saw him fumbling in his pocket as the janissaries hustled him out of court as janissaries love to do east or west that night as i was wondering if i had smoked enough and yawned enough to make sleep possible in a hundred degrees of heat and a hundred million mosquitoes i was suddenly reminded of the proverb charity begins at home it had with a vengeance i had thought my sarishtadar's language a trifle too picturesque now i recognised its supreme accuracy the fakir was a damnably noiseful man it is useless trying to add one iota to this description especially to those unacquainted with the torture of an indian drum by dawn i was in the saddle glad to escape from my own house and the ceaseless rumpa tum tum which was driving me crazy when i returned the old man was awaiting me in the verandah his face full of a great content and the desire to murder him which rose up in me with the thought of the twenty-nine nights yet to come faded before it perfect happiness is not the lot of many but apparently it was his He salaamed down to the ground.

Hussar, he said, the great joy in me created a disturbance last night.

It will not occur again.

The protector of the poor shall sleep in peace, even though his slave praises God for him all night long.