aively, to the general, to excuse this anti-liberal
action taken against a brother of the Christian Doctrine whom the Abbe
Brossette wished to establish as a public school-master in Blangy.

The general, delighted with his old Groison, returned to Paris and
immediately looked about him for other old soldiers of the late imperial
guard, with whom to organize the defence of Les Aigues on a formidable
footing. By dint of searching out and questioning his friends and many
officers on half-pay, he unearthed Michaud, a former quartermaster at
headquarters of the cuirassiers of the guard; one of those men whom
troopers call "hard-to-cook," a nickname derived from the mess kitchen
where refractory beans are not uncommon. Michaud picked out from among
his friends and acquaintances, three other men fit to be his helpers,
and able to guard the estate without fear and without reproach.

The first, named Steingel, a pure-blooded Alsacian, was a natural son of
the general of that name, who fell in one of Bonaparte's first victories
with the army of Italy. Tall and strong, he belonged to the class
of soldiers accustomed, like the Russians, to obey, passively and
absolutely. Nothing hindered him in the performance of his duty; he
would have collared an emperor or a pope if such were his orders. He
ignored danger. Perfectly fearless, he had never received the smallest
scratch during his sixteen years' campaigning. He slept in the open
air or in his bed with stoical indifference. At any increased labor or
discomfort, he merely remarked, "It seems to be the order of the day."

The second man, Vatel, son of the regiment, corporal of voltigeurs,
gay as a lark, rather free and easy with the fair sex, brave to
foolhardiness, was capable of shooting a comrade with a laugh if ordered
to execute him. With no future before him and not knowing how to employ
himself, the prospect of finding an amusing little war in the functions
of keeper, attracted him; and as the grand army and the Emperor had
hitherto stood him in place of a religion, so now he swore to serve the
brave Montcornet against and through all and everything. His nature was
of that essentially wrangling quality to which a life without enemies
seems dull and objectless,--the nature, in short, of a litigant, or a
policeman. If it had not been for the presence of the sheriff's officer,
he would have seized Tonsard and the bundle of wood at the Grand-I-Vert,
snapping his fingers at the la