In measure as we draw away from the latest campaign in which Austria had a part, the experiences of eye-witnesses vanish out of conversation. All the more advisable does it seem to hold fast those warlike fragments of a disappearing age, which, while already historical, can yet, on the strength of a few survivors—at their head that crowned survivor who still sits upon Austria's throne—be called, at a stretch, “Our Day.”

Of how far back these links with the past sometimes reach, I was reminded by a small incident which took place some years ago in the drawing-room of a Polish count. Among the guests assembled there one evening was Colonel M——, at that time in command of a cavalry regiment in Galicia. He and a few others were talking to the ladies, while at the other end of the room a couple of generals were taking a hand at whist—for the sole reason, I presume, that bridge had not yet penetrated so far East. Colonel M—— having in the course of conversation referred to himself as an old man, was taken to task by one of the ladies, who declared that—considering the presence of the generals—this was absurd, and that he was really one of the “greenest” of the company.

“Well,” said he in self-defence, “surely a man who has fought against the bodily brother of the great Napoleon may lay claim to being at least of ripe age.”