CHAPTER V.

IN GARRISON.



I am almost afraid to dwell on those happiest days of my life that I
spent in garrison. My eyes, old as they are, fill with tears when I
am about to write of them, and yet they passed without my knowing how
happy they were; for much of my time was spent in solitude, much in
waiting, much in anxiety; but ah! there then always was a possibility
that never, never can return!

Nancy seems to me a paradise when I look back to it, with its broad
clean streets and open squares, and the low houses with balconies,
and yet there I often thought myself miserable, for I began to learn
what it was to be a soldier's wife. Madame de Rambouillet had kindly
written to some of her friends in the duchy of Lorraine respecting
me, and they assisted us in obtaining a lodging and servants. This
might otherwise have been difficult, for the Duke was I the Spanish
army, while we held his territories, and naturally we were not in
very good odour with the people.

My husband had to leave me, immediately after he had placed me in my
little house at Nancy, to join the army in Germany under Marshal
Guebrian. I lived through that time by the help of the morning mass,
of needlework, and of the Grand Cyrus, which I read through and then
began again. My dear husband never failed to send me a courier once
a week with letters that were life to me, and sometimes I heard from