We prefer the cannon, with the chance of becoming captain or colonel, marshal, king--or invalid; that's better than to perish with hunger, cold, and age, on straw in a garret, after toiling forty years for others.'" "Even in France--even in Paris, that beautiful city--do you mean to say there are poor people who die of hunger and misery, Dagobert ?" "Even in Paris?
Yes, my children; therefore, I come back to the point, the cannon is better.

With it, one has the chance of becoming, like your father, duke and marshal: when I say duke and marshal, I am partly right and partly wrong, for the title and the rank were not recognized in the end; because, after Montmirail, came a day of gloom, a day of great mourning, when, as the general has told me, old soldiers like myself wept--yes, wept!--on the evening of a battle.

That day, my children, was Waterloo!" There was in these simple words of Dagobert an expression of such deep sorrow, that it thrilled the hearts of the orphans.
"Alas!" resumed the soldier, with a sigh, "there are days which seem to have a curse on them.

That same day, at Waterloo, the general fell, covered with wounds, at the head of a division of the Guards.

When he was nearly cured, which was not for a long time, he solicited permission to go to St.Helena--another island at the far end of the world, to which the English had carried the Emperor, to torture him at their leisure; for if he was very fortunate in the first instance, he had to go through a deal of hard rubs at last, my poor children." "If you talk in that way, you will make us cry, Dagobert." "There is cause enough for it--the Emperor suffered so much! He bled cruelly at the heart believe me.