f it again the second reign of Napoleon, the
Hundred Days of feverish agitation and supreme effort passed away like a
terrifying dream. The tragic year 1815, begun in the trouble and unrest
of consciences, was ending in vengeful proscriptions.

How General Feraud escaped the clutches of the Special Commission and
the last offices of a firing squad, he never knew himself. It was partly
due to the subordinate position he was assigned during the Hundred Days.
He was not given active command but was kept busy at the cavalry depot
in Paris, mounting and despatching hastily drilled troopers into the
field. Considering this task as unworthy of his abilities, he discharged
it with no offensively noticeable zeal. But for the greater part he
was saved from the excesses of royalist reaction by the interference of
General D'Hubert.

This last, still on convalescent leave but able now to travel, had been
despatched by his sister to Paris to present himself to his legitimate
sovereign. As no one in the capital could possibly know anything of the
episode in the stable, he was received there with distinction. Military
to the very bottom of his soul, the prospect of rising in his profession
consoled him from finding himself the butt of Bonapartist malevolence
which pursued him with a persistence he could not account for. All the
rancour of that embittered and persecuted party pointed to him as the
man who had _never_ loved the emperor--a sort of monster essentially
worse than a mere betrayer.

General D'Hubert shrugged his shoulders without anger at this ferocious
prejudice. Rejected by his old friends and mistrusting profoundly the
advances of royalist society, the young and handsome general (he was
barely forty) adopted a manner of punctilious and cold courtesy which
at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh
haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in
Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the peculiar uplifting happiness
of a man very much in love. The charming girl looked out by his sister
had come upon the scene and had conquered him in the thorough manner in
which a young girl, by merely existing in his sight, can make a man of
forty her own. They were going to be married as soon as General D'Hubert
had obtained his official nomination to a promised command.

One afternoon, sitting on the _terrasse_ of the Cafe Tortoni, General
D'Hubert learned from the conversation of two st