aracter, were sufficient in themselves to account for his
tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He had been thrown at
the age of twenty into the whirlwind of men directed by Napoleon; his
interests were bounded by himself, any day he might lose his life; it
became a habit of mind with him to live by his own self-respect and
the consciousness that he had done his duty. Like all shy men, he was
habitually silent; but his shyness sprang by no means from timidity;
it was a kind of modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity
intolerable. There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in
action; nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his
chums with unshaken coolness; he could go under fire, and duck upon
occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but his expression was haughty
and stern, and his face gained him this character. In everything he was
rigorous as arithmetic; he never permitted the slightest deviation from
duty on any plausible pretext, nor blinked the consequences of a fact.
He would lend himself to nothing of which he was ashamed; he never asked
anything for himself; in short, Armand de Montriveau was one of many
great men unknown to fame, and philosophical enough to despise it;
living without attaching themselves to life, because they have not found
their opportunity of developing to the full their power to do and feel.

People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was not
very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, but to
decline to descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin.
In their feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and
fear. Too much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing
forgiven neither to the living nor to the dead.

After the Emperor's farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble though
he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War Office took
fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of antiquity, or perhaps it
was known that he felt bound by his oath to the Imperial Eagle. During
the Hundred Days he was made a Colonel of the Guard, and left on the
field of Waterloo. His wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present
at the disbanding of the Army of the Loire, but the King's government
declined to recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand
de Montriveau left France.

An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied by
the hazards