not
violate or elude it. The impossibility resulting from it
is so absolute that if, in your ardor to serve the
country, you were willing to lay aside your epaulettes
for the sake of beginning upon a new career, your
enlistment could not be received in a single regiment of
the army. It is fortunate, Monsieur, that the Emperor's
government has been able to furnish you the means of
subsistence in obtaining from His Royal Highness the
Regent of Prussia the indemnity which was due you; for
there is not even an office in the civil administration
in which, even by special favor, a man seventy years old
could be placed. You will very justly object that the
laws and regulations now in force date from a period
when experiments on the revivification of men had not
yet met with favorable results. But the law is made for
the mass of mankind, and cannot take any account of
exceptions. Undoubtedly attention would be directed to
its amendment if cases of resuscitation were to present
themselves in sufficient number.

"Accept, &c."

A gloomy silence succeeded the reading. The _Mene mene tekel upharsin_
of the oriental legends could not have more completely produced the
effect of thunderbolts. The _gendarme_ was still there, standing in the
position of the soldier without arms, awaiting Fougas' receipt. The
Colonel called for pen and ink, signed the paper, gave the _gendarme_
drink-money, and said to him with ill-suppressed emotion:

"You are happy, you are! No one prevents you from serving the country.
Well," added he, turning toward the Marshal, "what do you say to that?"

"What would you have me say, my poor old boy? It breaks me all up.
There's no use in arguing against the law; it's express. The stupid
thing on our parts was not to think of it sooner. But who the Devil
would have thought of the retired list in the presence of such a fellow
as you are?"

The two colonels avowed that such an objection would never have entered
their heads; now that it had been suggested, however, they could not see
what to rebut it with. Neither of them would have been able to enlist
Fougas as a private soldier, despite his ability, his physical strength
and his appearance of being twenty-four years old.

"If some one would only kill me!" cried Fougas. "I can't set myself to
weighing sugar or planting cabbages. It was in the career of arms that I
took my first st