Excerpt from The Country Doctor The traveller - a man of tall stature - was dressed wholly in blue cloth, as carefully brushed as the glossy hide of the horse on which he sat erect and firm as an old cavalry officer. If his black cravat, his doeskin gloves, the pistols protruding from his holsters, and the port manteau securely fastened to the crapper of his saddle had not proclaimed him a soldier, his bronzed face, pit ted with the small-pox, and its regular features stamped with evident insoucicmce, his decided manner, the as surance of his glance, the carriage of his head, would all have betrayed the regimental habits of which a sol dier never divests himself, even after. His return to do mestic life. Other men might have marvelled at the various beauties of this alpine nature, so smiling as it nestles in the upland valleys of France but this officer, who had doubtless traversed many lands with the French armies of the imperial wars, enjoyed the landscape without apparent surprise at its manifold changes; for astonishment is an emotion which Napoleon seems to have eradicated from the minds of his soldiers. The composure of a man's face is a sure sign by which an observer may recognize the men who were formerly enrolled under the ephemeral, but imperishable, eagles of the great emperor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.