I.'s lavishness
-- An instance of it -- Vaillant never dazzled by the grandeur of
court entertainments -- Not dazzled by anything -- His hatred of
wind-bags -- Prince de Canino -- Matutinal interviews -- Prince
de Canino sends his seconds -- Vaillant declines the meeting, and
gives his reason -- Vaillant abrupt at the best of times -- A
freezing reception -- A comic interview -- Attempts to shirk
military duty -- Tricks -- Mistakes -- A story in point -- More
tricks -- Sham ailments: how the marshal dealt with them -- When
the marshal was not in an amiable mood -- Another interview --
Vaillant's tactics -- "D----d annoying to be wrong" -- The
marshal fond of science -- A very interesting scientific
phenomenon himself -- Science under the later Bourbons --
Suspicion of the soldiers of the Empire -- The priesthood and the
police -- The most godless republic preferable to a continuance
of their regime -- The marshal's dog, Brusca -- Her dislike to
civilians -- Brusca's chastity -- Vaillant's objection to
insufficiently prepaid letters -- His habit of missing the train,
notwithstanding his precautions -- His objection to fuss and
public honours.

About two or three days after the ball at Versailles, I went to see
Marshal Vaillant at the War Office, to thank him for his kindness in
sending me the ticket for the review. Our acquaintance was already then
of a couple of years' standing. It had begun at Dr. Veron's, who lived,
at the time, at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue de
Castiglione. The old soldier--he was over sixty then--had a very good
memory, and used to tell me garrison stories, love-adventures of the
handsome swashbucklers of the First Empire and of the beaux of the
Restauration. The language was frequently that of Rabelais or Moliere,
vigorous, to the point, calling a spade a spade, and, as such, not
particularly adapted to these notes, but the narrator himself was
neither a swashbuckler nor a beau; he hated the carpet-knight only one
degree more than the sabreur, and when both were combined in the same
man--not an unusual thing during the Second Empire, especially after
the Crimean and Franco-Austrian wars--he simply loathed him. He fostered
not the slightest illusions about the efficiency of the French army,
albeit that, to an alien like myself and notwithstanding his friendship
for me, he would veil his