Morning Star

For the Morning Star.

A VISION OF WAR.

Count Lavalette, one of Napoleon's aids-de-camp, but imprisoned, under sentence of death, after the fall of his master, relates in his memoirs that he had the following dream in his prison; a dream which finds many a counter-part equally horrid in the actual realities of war. and even in the sketches of Lavalette's own experience and observation:

"I dreamed." says he, "that I was standing in the Rue St. Honore, at the corner of Rue de l'Echelle. A melancholy darkness spread around me. All was still; but a low, uncertain sound soon arose. All of a sudden I perceived at the street, and advancing towards me, a troop of cavalry, the men and horses all flayed!

The men held torches in their hands, the red flames of which glared upon faces without skin, and bloody muscles. Their hollow eyes rolled fearfully in their vast sockets; their mouths opened from ear to ear: and helmets of hanging flesh covered their hideous heads. The horses dragged along their own skins in the kennels which were overflowing on both sides with blood. Women, with pale faces and dishevelled hair, appeared and disappeared alternately at the windows in dismal silence.

Low inarticulate groans filled the air; and I remained in the streets alone, petrified with horror, and retaining too little strength to seek my safety in flight.

This horrible troop continued passing in a rapid gallop and casting frightful looks upon me. Their march, I thought, lasted for five hours; and they were followed by an immense number of artillery-waggons full of bleeding corpses whose limbs still quivered. The air seemed too foul to breathe; and a disgusting smell of blood and bitumen almost choked me."

This dream doubtless sprang from the scenes Lavalette had witnessed in the wars of Napoleon; and often did the reality exceed in atrocity even this strange picture of blood and horror.

Peace Gleaner.