"Oh! who can tell what heroes feel,
When all but life and honor's lost!"
And here let me notice the conduct of the French soldiery on the
dismemberment of the army of the Loire, when two hundred thousand men were
suddenly thrown out of employ; men who had been brought up to the camp, and
scarce knew any other home. Few in civil, peaceful life, are aware of the
severe trial to the feelings that takes place on the dissolution of a
regiment. There is a fraternity in arms. The community of dangers,
hardships, enjoyments; the participation in battles and victories; the
companionship in adventures, at a time of life when men's feelings are most
fresh, susceptible, and ardent, all these bind the members of a regiment
strongly together. To them the regiment is friends, family, home. They
identify themselves with its fortunes, its glories, its disgraces. Imagine
this romantic tie suddenly dissolved; the regiment broken up; the
occupation of its members gone; their military pride mortified; the career
of glory closed behind them; that of obscurity, dependence, want, neglect,
perhaps beggary, before them.
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