" And she was not
far wrong. The battle of the Porte St. Antoine was at hand.
Conde and Turenne! The two greatest names in the history of European wars,
until a greater eclipsed them both. Conde, a prophecy of Napoleon, a
general by instinct, incapable of defeat, insatiable of glory, throwing
his marshal's baton within the lines of the enemy, and following it;
passionate, false, unscrupulous, mean. Turenne, the precursor of
Wellington rather, simple, honest, truthful, humble, eating off his iron
camp-equipage to the end of life. If it be true, as the ancients said,
that an army of stags led by a lion is more formidable than an army of
lions led by a stag, then the presence of two such heroes would have given
lustre to the most trivial conflict. But that fight was not trivial upon
which hung the possession of Paris and the fate of France; and between
these two great soldiers it was our Mademoiselle who was again to hold the
balance, and to decide the day.
The battle raged furiously outside the city. Frenchman fought against
Frenchman, and nothing distinguished the two armies except a wisp of straw
in the hat, on the one side, and a piece of paper on the other. The people
of the metropolis, fearing equally the Prince and the King, had shut the
gates against all but the wounded and the dying.
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