And at last they were fain to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not till then, were the inmates of the armor dispatched.

Now it was deemed very hard, that the mysterious state- prisoner of France should be riveted in an iron mask; but these knight-errants did voluntarily prison themselves in their own iron Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered there-in.

Days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths! And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and prophetic friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly mourned.

Yes, they were glorious times.

But no sensible man, given to quiet domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet..