ou to govern, it was not that
you might authorize the vices of the old regime!' You may tell me that
women--oh yes! we must have women, that's all right. Good soldiers of
course must have women, and good women; but in times of danger, no!
Besides, where would be the good of sweeping away the old abuses if
patriots bring them back again? Look at the First Consul, there's a man!
no women for him; always about his business. I'd bet my left mustache
that he doesn't know the fool's errand we've been sent on!"

"But, commandant," said Merle, laughing, "I have seen the tip-end of
the nose of the young lady, and I'll declare the whole world needn't be
ashamed to feel an itch, as I do, to revolve round that carriage and get
up a bit of a conversation."

"Look out, Merle," said Gerard; "the veiled beauties have a man
accompanying them who seems wily enough to catch you in a trap."

"Who? that _incroyable_ whose little eyes are ferretting from one side
of the road to the other, as if he saw Chouans? The fellow seems to have
no legs; the moment his horse is hidden by the carriage, he looks like
a duck with its head sticking out of a pate. If that booby can hinder me
from kissing the pretty linnet--"

"'Duck'! 'linnet'! oh, my poor Merle, you have taken wings indeed! But
don't trust the duck. His green eyes are as treacherous as the eyes of
a snake, and as sly as those of a woman who forgives her husband. I
distrust the Chouans much less than I do those lawyers whose faces are
like bottles of lemonade."

"Pooh!" cried Merle, gaily. "I'll risk it--with the commandant's
permission. That woman has eyes like stars, and it's worth playing any
stakes to see them."

"Caught, poor fellow!" said Gerard to the commandant; "he is beginning
to talk nonsense!"

Hulot made a face, shrugged his shoulders, and said: "Before he swallows
the soup, I advise him to smell it."

"Bravo, Merle," said Gerard, "judging by his friend's lagging step that
he meant to let the carriage overtake him. Isn't he a happy fellow? He
is the only man I know who can laugh over the death of a comrade without
being thought unfeeling."

"He's the true French soldier," said Hulot, in a grave tone.

"Just look at him pulling his epaulets back to his shoulders, to show he
is a captain," cried Gerard, laughing,--"as if his rank mattered!"

The coach toward which the officer was pivoting did, in fact, contain
two women, one of whom seemed to be the servant of the ot