was,
provisionally, the central point of his existence. There he felt himself
loved, hated, feared, admired--in a word, well known. He knew that in
that sub-prefecture his name could not be spoken without awakening an
echo. But what attached him more than all to modern times, was his
well-established relationship with the great family of the army.
Wherever a French flag floats, the soldier, young or old, is at home.
Around that church-spire of the fatherland, though dear and sacred in a
way different from the village spire, language, ideas, and institutions
change but little. The death of individuals has little effect; they are
replaced by others who look like them, and think, talk, and act in the
same way; who do not stop on assuming the uniform of their predecessors,
but inherit their souvenirs also--the glory they have acquired, their
traditions, their jests, and even certain intonations of their voices.
This accounts for Fougas' sudden friendship, after a first feeling of
jealousy, for the new colonel of the 23d; and the sudden sympathy which
he evinced for M. du Marnet as soon as he saw the blood running from his
wound. Quarrels between soldiers are family quarrels, which never blot
out the relationship.

Calmly satisfied that he was not alone in the world, M. Fougas derived
pleasure from all the new objects which civilization placed before his
eyes. The speed of the rail-cars fairly intoxicated him. He was inspired
with a positive enthusiasm for this force of steam, whose theory was a
closed book to him, but on whose results he meditated much.

"With a thousand machines like this, two thousand rifled cannon, and two
hundred thousand such chaps as I am, Napoleon would have conquered the
world in six weeks. Why doesn't this young fellow on the throne make
some use of the resources he has under his control? Perhaps he hasn't
thought of it. Very well, I'll go to see him. If he looks like a man of
capacity, I'll give him my idea; he'll make me minister of war, and
then--Forward, march!"

He had explained to him the use of the great iron wires running on poles
all along the road.

"The very thing!" said he. "Here are aides-de-camp both fleet and
judicious. Get them all into the hands of a chief-of-staff like
Berthier, and the universe would be held in a thread by the mere will of
a man!"

His meditations were interrupted, a couple of miles from Melun, by the
sounds of a foreign language. He pricked up his ears, an