Go into the kitchen. There is a good fire there, and you will
get something to eat."
Truth to tell, the larder was nearly empty, but I secured a little cheese
and some bread and some very indifferent wine, which, however, in my then
condition, seemed to me to be nectar. I helped myself to a bowl, I
remember, and poured about a pint of wine into it, so as to soak my bread,
which was stale and hard. Toasting my feet at the fire whilst I regaled
myself with that improvised _soupe-au-vin_, I soon felt warm and
inspirited once more. Hardship sits on one but lightly when one is only
seventeen years of age and stirred by early ambition. All the world then
lay before me, like mine oyster, to be opened by either sword or pen.
At a later hour, by the light of a solitary guttering candle, in the
little _cabinet_ upstairs, I wrote, as best I could, an account of the
recent fighting and the loss of Le Mans; and early on the following
morning I prevailed on a railway-man who was going to Rennes to post my
packet there, in order that it might be forwarded to England _via_ Saint
Malo. The article appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, filling a page of
that journal, and whatever its imperfections may have been, it was
undoubtedly the first detailed account of the battle of Le Mans, from the
French side, to appear in the English Press.
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