tion an easy virtue.
His sister was delighted with his reasonableness. "I leave myself
altogether in your hands, my dear Leonie," he had said.

He was still laid up when, the credit of his brother-in-law's family
being exerted on his behalf, he received from the Royal Government not
only the confirmation of his rank but the assurance of being retained on
the active list. To this was added an unlimited convalescent leave.
The unfavourable opinion entertained of him in the more irreconcilable
Bonapartist circles, though it rested on nothing more solid than the
unsupported pronouncement of General Feraud, was directly responsible
for General D'Hubert's retention on the active list. As to General
Feraud, his rank was confirmed, too. It was more than he dared to
expect, but Marshal Soult, then Minister of War to the restored king,
was partial to officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the
marshal's protection could secure for him active employment. He remained
irreconcilable, idle and sinister, seeking in obscure restaurants the
company of other half-pay officers, who cherished dingy but glorious
old tricolour cockades in their breast pockets, and buttoned with the
forbidden eagle buttons their shabby uniform, declaring themselves too
poor to afford the expense of the prescribed change.

The triumphant return of the emperor, a historical fact as marvellous
and incredible as the exploits of some mythological demi-god, found
General D'Hubert still quite unable to sit a horse. Neither could he
walk very well. These disabilities, which his sister thought most lucky,
helped her immensely to keep her brother out of all possible mischief.
His frame of mind at that time, she noted with dismay, became very far
from reasonable. That general officer, still menaced by the loss of a
limb, was discovered one night in the stables of the chateau by a groom
who, seeing a light, raised an alarm of thieves. His crutch was lying
half buried in the straw of the litter, and he himself was hopping on
one leg in a loose box around a snorting horse he was trying to
saddle. Such were the effects of imperial magic upon an unenthusiastic
temperament and a pondered mind. Beset, in the light of stable lanterns,
by the tears, entreaties, indignation, remonstrances and reproaches of
his family, he got out of the difficult situation by fainting away there
and then in the arms of his nearest relatives, and was carried off to
bed. Before he got out o