composed of good material!

Maurice Roger was ordered from his battalion to Colonel Lantz, and did
his duty like a true soldier's son, following his chief into the most
perilous positions, and he no longer lowered his head or bent his
shoulders at the whistling of a bomb. It was genuine military blood that
flowed in his veins, and he did not fear death; but life in the open
air, absence from his wife, the state of excitement produced by the
war, and this eagerness for pleasure common to all those who risk
their lives, had suddenly awakened his licentious temperament. When
his service allowed him to do so, he would go into Paris and spend
twenty-four hours there, profiting by it to have a champagne dinner at
Brebant's or Voisin's, in company with some beautiful girl, and to eat
the luxurious dishes of that time, such as beans, Gruyere cheese, and
the great rarity which had been secretly raised for three months on the
fifth floor, a leg of mutton.

One evening Amedee Violette was belated upon the boulevards, and saw
coming out of a restaurant Maurice in full uniform, with one of the
pretty comedienes from the Varietes leaning upon his arm. This meeting
gave Amedee one heart-ache the more. It was for such a husband as this,
then, that Maria, buried in some country place, was probably at this
very time overwhelmed with fears about his safety. It was for this
incorrigible rake that she had disdained her friend from childhood, and
scorned the most delicate, faithful, and tender of lovers.

Finally, to kill time and to flee from solitude, Amedee went to the Cafe
de Seville, but he only found a small group of his former acquaintances
there. No more literary men, or almost none. The "long-haired" ones had
to-day the "regulation cut," and wore divers head-gears, for the most
of the scattered poets carried cartridge-boxes and guns; but some of the
political "beards" had not renounced their old customs; the war and
the fall of the Empire had been a triumph for them, and the fourth of
September had opened every career for them. Twenty of these "beards"
had been provided with prefectures; at least all, or nearly all, of them
occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National
Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid
ones, were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as
the thing may seem today, this commission existed and performed its
duties, a commission according to a