Halfway up the avenue they found the old man
sitting on the trunk of a felled tree. With his stick in one hand, he
was amusing himself with drawing lines in the sand. On looking at him
narrowly, they perceived that he had been breakfasting elsewhere than at
Bicetre.

"Good-morning, Colonel Chabert," said Derville.

"Not Chabert! not Chabert! My name is Hyacinthe," replied the veteran.
"I am no longer a man, I am No. 164, Room 7," he added, looking at
Derville with timid anxiety, the fear of an old man and a child.--"Are
you going to visit the man condemned to death?" he asked after a
moment's silence. "He is not married! He is very lucky!"

"Poor fellow!" said Godeschal. "Would you like something to buy snuff?"

With all the simplicity of a street Arab, the Colonel eagerly held out
his hand to the two strangers, who each gave him a twenty-franc piece;
he thanked them with a puzzled look, saying:

"Brave troopers!"

He ported arms, pretended to take aim at them, and shouted with a smile:

"Fire! both arms! _Vive Napoleon_!" And he drew a flourish in the air
with his stick.

"The nature of his wound has no doubt made him childish," said Derville.

"Childish! he?" said another old pauper, who was looking on. "Why, there
are days when you had better not tread on his corns. He is an old rogue,
full of philosophy and imagination. But to-day, what can you expect! He
has had his Monday treat.--He was here, monsieur, so long ago as 1820.
At that time a Prussian officer, whose chaise was crawling up the hill
of Villejuif, came by on foot. We two were together, Hyacinthe and I,
by the roadside. The officer, as he walked, was talking to another, a
Russian, or some animal of the same species, and when the Prussian saw
the old boy, just to make fun, he said to him, 'Here is an old cavalry
man who must have been at Rossbach.'--'I was too young to be there,'
said Hyacinthe. 'But I was at Jena.' And the Prussian made off pretty
quick, without asking any more questions."

"What a destiny!" exclaimed Derville. "Taken out of the Foundling
Hospital to die in the Infirmary for the Aged, after helping Napoleon
between whiles to conquer Egypt and Europe.--Do you know, my dear
fellow," Derville went on after a pause, "there are in modern society
three men who can never think well of the world--the priest, the doctor,
and the man of law? And they wear black robes, perhaps because they are
in mourning for every virtue and every illusi