are as a father to me! I dared not mention my anxiety
on that point."

"I still wish I had Roger here," cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his
groom of the chambers, came in. "I was just going to send for him!--You
may go, Mitouflet.--Go you, my dear old fellow, go and have the
nomination made out; I will sign it. At the same time, that low schemer
will not long enjoy the fruit of his crimes. He will be sharply watched,
and drummed out of the regiment for the smallest fault.--You are saved
this time, my dear Hector; take care for the future. Do not exhaust your
friends' patience. You shall have the nomination this morning, and your
man shall get his promotion in the Legion of Honor.--How old are you
now?"

"Within three months of seventy."

"What a scapegrace!" said the Prince, laughing. "It is you who deserve a
promotion, but, by thunder! we are not under Louis XV.!"

Such is the sense of comradeship that binds the glorious survivors of
the Napoleonic phalanx, that they always feel as if they were in camp
together, and bound to stand together through thick and thin.

"One more favor such as this," Hulot reflected as he crossed the
courtyard, "and I am done for!"

The luckless official went to Baron de Nucingen, to whom he now owed a
mere trifle, and succeeded in borrowing forty thousand francs, on his
salary pledged for two years more; the banker stipulated that in the
event of Hulot's retirement on his pension, the whole of it should
be devoted to the repayment of the sum borrowed till the capital and
interest were all cleared off.

This new bargain, like the first, was made in the name of Vauvinet, to
whom the Baron signed notes of hand to the amount of twelve thousand
francs.

On the following day, the fateful police report, the husband's charge,
the letters--all the papers--were destroyed. The scandalous promotion of
Monsieur Marneffe, hardly heeded in the midst of the July fetes, was not
commented on in any newspaper.

Lisbeth, to all appearance at war with Madame Marneffe, had taken up
her abode with Marshal Hulot. Ten days after these events, the banns of
marriage were published between the old maid and the distinguished old
officer, to whom, to win his consent, Adeline had related the financial
disaster that had befallen her Hector, begging him never to mention it
to the Baron, who was, as she said, much saddened, quite depressed and
crushed.

"Alas! he is as old as his years," she added.

So Lisbe