From early childhood, he was imbued with a military spirit; his father
and uncles at table talked of nothing but their perils in war and
feats of arms; his imagination took fire; he got accustomed to looking
upon their pursuits as the only ones worthy of a man of rank and
feeling, and he plunged ahead with a precocity which we no longer
comprehend. I have read many records of the service of gentlemen who
were assassinated, guillotined or emigr?s; they nearly always began
their careers before the age of sixteen, often at fourteen, thirteen
and eleven.[63] M. des Echerolles,[64] captain in the Poitou
regiment, had brought along with him into the army his only son, aged
nine, and a dozen little cousins of the same age. Those children
fought like old soldiers; one of them had his leg fractured by a ball;
young des Echerolles received a saber stroke which cut away his cheek
from the ear to the upper lip, and he was wounded seven times; still
young, he received the cross of St. Louis. To serve the State, seek
conflict and expose one's life, seemed an obligation of their rank, a
hereditary debt; out of nine or ten thousand officers who discharged
this debt most of them cared only for this and looked for nothing
beyond.
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