The fumes of wine, spices, and eloquence mounted into his brain.

He became familiar, spoke affectionately to some and rudely to others, and poured out a torrent of absurdities big enough to turn forty mills.

His drunkenness, however, had in it nothing brutal, or even ignoble; it was but the overflowing of a spirit young, affectionate, vain-glorious, and unbalanced.

He proposed five or six toasts--to Glory, to the Extension of our Frontiers, to the Destruction of the last of the English, to Mlle.

Mars--the hope of the French stage, to Affection--the tie, fragile but dear, which unites the lover to his sweetheart, the father to his son, the colonel to his regiment! His style, a singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness, provoked more than one smile among the auditory.