I learnt from the peasants, that what I had thought to be merely a serious defeat was an irretrievable disaster; and, in spite of wounds, hunger, and want of clothes, I held on my way towards home.
"The enemy were in possession of the country, so I had to travel by night alone, and beg from such poor cottages as I dared to approach.
Sometimes got a night's rest, but generally lay abroad in the fields.
But at length, after every sort of danger and hardship, I stood above the broad, sweeping Maine, and saw the towers of my own beloved castle across the river, perched as of old above the vineyards, looking protectingly down upon the little town which was clustered on the river-bank below, and which owned me for its master.
"I crossed at dusk.

I had to act with great caution, for I did not know whether the French were there or no.

I did not make myself known to the peasant who ferried me over, further than as one from the war, which my appearance was sufficient to prove.

I landed just below a long high wall which separated the town from the river, and, ere I had time to decide what I should do first, a figure coming out of an archway caught me by the hand, and I recognised my own major domo, my foster-brother.
"'I knew you would come back to me,' he said, 'if it was only as a pale ghost; though I never believed you dead, and have watched here for you night and day to stop you.' "'Are the French in my castle, then ?' "'There are worse than the French there,' he said; 'worse than the devil Bonaparte himself.

Treason, treachery, adultery!' "'Who has proved false ?' I cried.
"'Your brother! False to his king, to his word, to yourself.