t no man in the army, not even the general himself, could
approach him without an involuntary feeling of respect. It is possible
that he was not forgiven for this indisputable superiority by those who
ranked above him; but, on the other hand, there was not one of his men
that did not feel for him something of the affection of children for a
good mother. For them he knew how to be at once indulgent and severe. He
himself had also once served in the ranks, and knew the sorry joys and
gaily-endured hardships of the soldier's lot. He knew the errors that
may be passed over and the faults that must be punished in his men--"his
children," as he always called them--and when on campaign he readily
gave them leave to forage for provision for man and horse among the
wealthier classes.

His own personal history lay buried beneath the deepest reserve. Like
almost every military man in Europe, he had only seen the world through
cannon smoke, or in the brief intervals of peace that occurred so seldom
during the Emperor's continual wars with the rest of Europe. Had he
or had he not thought of marriage? The question remained unsettled.
Although no one doubted that Commandant Genestas had made conquests
during his sojourn in town after town and country after country where
he had taken part in the festivities given and received by the officers,
yet no one knew this for a certainty. There was no prudery about him;
he would not decline to join a pleasure party; he in no way offended
against military standards; but when questioned as to his affairs of
the heart, he either kept silence or answered with a jest. To the words,
"How are you, commandant?" addressed to him by an officer over the wine,
his reply was, "Pass the bottle, gentlemen."

M. Pierre Joseph Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There
was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him--he was too thoroughly
commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although
he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to
look to in the future, the major always kept two years' pay untouched,
and never spent his allowances, like some shrewd old men of business
with whom cautious prudence has almost become a mania. He was so little
of a gambler that if, when in company, some one was wanted to cut in
or to take a bet at ecarte, he usually fixed his eyes on his boots; but
though he did not allow himself any extravagances, he conformed in every
way