When one of our former comrades returned to pay us a
visit in uniform, and his arm in a scarf, we blushed at
our books, and threw them at the heads of our teachers. Our
teachers were always reading us bulletins from the _grande
armee_, and our cries of _Vive l'Empereur_ interrupted Tacitus
and Plato. Our preceptors resembled heralds of arms, our study
halls barracks, and our examinations reviews."
'Thus was he led into the army; and, he says, "It was only
very late, that I perceived that my services were one long
mistake, and that I had imported into a life altogether
active, a nature altogether contemplative."
'He entered the army at the time of Napoleon's fall, and,
like others, wasted life in waiting for war. For these young
persons could not believe that peace and calm were possible to
France; could not believe that she could lead any life but one
of conquest.
'As De Vigny was gradually undeceived, he says: "Loaded with
an ennui which I did not dream of in a life I had so ardently
desired, it became a necessity to me to detach myself by night
from the vain and tiresome tumult of military days. From these
nights, in which I enlarged in silence the knowledge I had
acquired from our public and tumultuous studies, proceeded
my poems and books.
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