The Point Of Honor: A Military Tale

nels without regiments, D'Hubert and Feraud carried the musket in the ranks of the sacred ba

ster. Their passage did not disturb the mortal silence of the plains, shining with a livid light under a sky the colour of ashes. Whirlwinds of snow ran along the fields, broke against the dark column, rose in a turmoil of flying icicles, and subsided, disclosing it creeping on without the swing and rhythm of the military pace. They struggled onward, exchanging neither words nor looks-whole ranks marched, touching elbows, day after day, and never raising their eyes, as if lost in despairing reflections. On calm days, in the dumb black forests of pines the cracking of overloaded branches was the only sound. Often from daybreak to dusk no one spoke in the whole column. It was like a macabre march of struggling corpses towards a distant grave. Only an alarm of Cossacks co

ther; this not so much from inimical intention as from a very real indifference. All their store of moral en

rades. And they never exchanged more than a casual word or two, except one day when, skirmishing in front of the battalion against a worrying attack of cavalry, they found themselves cut off by a small party of Cossacks. A score of wild-loo

l D'Hubert; I'll settle the next on

shoulders were pressed against the trunk of a large tree; i

way out of range. The two officers managed to rejoin their battalion, halted for the night. During that afternoon they had leaned upon each other more than once, and towards the last Colo

letons muffled in rags crowded greedily the windward side, stretching hundreds of numbed, bony hands to the blaze. Nobody had noted their app

Colonel Feraud. I can

t on getting a place in the front rank. Those they pushed aside tried to greet with a faint cheer the reappearance of the two indomitabl

mere bony fines and fleshless hollows, looked out of a woman's black velvet hood, over which was rammed forcibly a cocked hat picked up under the wheels of an empty army fourgon which must have contained at one time some general officer's luggage. The sheepskin coat being short for a man of his inches, ended very high up his elegant person, and the skin of his legs, blue with the cold, showed through the tatters of his nether garments. This, under the circumstances, provoked neither jeers nor pity. No one cared how the next man felt or looked. Colonel D'Hubert himself hardened to exposure, suffered mainly in his self-respect from the lamentable indecency of his costume. A thoughtless person may think that with a whole host of inanimate bodies bestrewing the path of retreat there could not h

y teeth, Colonel D'Hubert uncovered a couple of mats of the sort Russian peasants use to line the sides of their carts. These, shaken free of frozen snow, bent about his person and fas

ing indignation against men and things nursed by Colonel Feraud, oppressed the equable spirits of Colonel D'Hubert. Recruiting his strength in a little German town for three weeks, he was surprised to discover within himself a love of repose. His returning vigour was strangely pacific in its aspirations. He meditated silently upon that bizarre change of mood. No doubt many of his brother officers of field ra

lso some philosophical generalities upon the uncertainty of all personal hopes if bound up entirely with the prestigious fortune of one incomparably great, it is true, yet still remaining but a man in his greatness. This sentiment would have appeared rank heresy to Colonel Feraud. Some melancholy forebodings of a military kind expressed cautiously would have been pronounced as nothing short of high treason by Colonel Feraud. But Léonie,

of that desperate time, he had never voiced his misgivings. He concealed them under a cheerful courtesy of such pleasant character that people were inclined to ask themselves with wonder whether Colonel D'Huber

mily at dinner with the Commandant de Place, to say of his lifelong adversary: "This man does not love the emperor,"-and as his words were received in profound silence Colonel Feraud, troubled in his conscience at the atrocity of the aspersion, felt the need to back it up by a good argument. "I ought to know him," h

Feraud learned that Colonel D'Hubert had been made a general. He glared at

ses me on the p

elling General D'Hubert at the first opportunity that his advancement saves him f

officer re

this time when every life should be conse

verses had spoiled Colonel Feraud's character. Like

r safety of France," he snapped viciously. "You don't pretend, perhaps, to know hi

, was silenced. Colonel Ferau

ror. He picked up his general's stars under the boots of Marshal Berthier. Very well. I'll get min

ose royalist hopes were rising higher every day, though proud of her brother, regretted his recent advancement in a measure, because it put on him a prominent mark of the usurper's favour which later on could have an adverse infl

hat Providence was shaping his future. Travelling slowly south to his sister's country house, under the care of a trusty old servant, General D'Hubert was spared the humiliating contacts and the perplexities of conduct which assailed the men of the Napoleonic empire at the moment of its downfall. Lying in his bed with the windows of his room open wide to the sunshine of Provence, he perceived at last the undisguised aspect of the blessin

d on nothing more solid than the unsupported pronouncement of General Feraud, was directly responsible for General D'Hubert's retention on the active list. As to General Feraud, his rank was confirmed, too. It was more than he dared to expect, but Marshal Soult, then Minister of War to the restored king, was partial to officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the marshal's prote

ll menaced by the loss of a limb, was discovered one night in the stables of the chateau by a groom who, seeing a light, raised an alarm of thieves. His crutch was lying half buried in the straw of the litter, and he himself was hopping on one leg in a loose box around a snorting horse he was trying to saddle. Such were the effects of imperial magic upon an unenthusiastic temperament and a pondered mind. Beset, in the light of stable lanterns, by the tears, en

ng the Hundred Days. He was not given active command but was kept busy at the cavalry depot in Paris, mounting and despatching hastily drilled troopers into the field. Considering this task as un

e in the stable, he was received there with distinction. Military to the very bottom of his soul, the prospect of rising in his profession consoled him from finding himself the butt of Bonapartist malevolence which pursue

h at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the peculiar uplifting happiness of a man very much in love. The charming girl looked out by his si

othed. He looked round. The strangers wore civilian clothes. Lean and weather-beaten, lolling back in their chairs, they looked at people with moody and defiant abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes. It was not difficult to recognise them for two of the compulsorily retired officers of the Old Guard. As from bravado or carelessness they chose to speak in loud tones, General D'Hubert, who saw no reason why he should change his seat, heard every word. They did not seem to be the personal friends of General Feraud. His name came up with some others; and hearing it repeated General D'Hubert's tender anticipations of a domestic future adorne

he two, speaking in a bitter tone, affirmed that General Feraud's account was settled. And why? Simply because he was not like so

ouched glasses before they drank to an impossible return. Then the

y showed more

" asked the youn

ch promotion they fought a duel. Haven't you

understood the allusion. General Baron D'Hubert woul

ever saw this D'Hubert-a sort of intriguing dandy, I understand. But I can well

e and we

irl was swept from his view in the flood of moral distress. Everything he had ever been or hoped to be would be lost in ignominy unless he could manage to save General Feraud from the fate which threatened so many braves. Under the impulse of this almost m

ché, ex-senator of the empire, traitor to every man, every principle and motive of human conduct, Duke of Otranto, and the wily artisan of the Second Restoration, was trying the fit of a court suit, in which his young and accomplished fiancée had declared her wish to have his portrait painted on porcelain. It was a c

ery which had served his turn so well in the endless intrigues of his self-seeking career. Without altering his attitud

Pray approach. Well?

ter went on feeling the fit of his collar, settling the lappels before the glass or buckling his back in his efforts to behold the set of the gold-embr

Florian, General of Brigade of the promotion of 1814?" he repeated in a slightl

the valuation of men of his time, should have thought

d Bonap

uality of General Feraud can have no more weight than that of any casual grenadier. He is a man of n

g tongue though,"

mit, but not

. I know next to nothing of

ed by the king to point out those who were to be tried," said Gener

nto a high-backed armchair whose overshadowed depth swallowed him up, all but the gleam of gold

D'Hubert

r that if I did not take it quickly into my hands my own name would head the list of the proscribed. Such are the times in which we live. But I am minister of the king as yet, and I ask you plainly why I should take the name of this obscure Feraud off the list? You wonder how his name got there. Is it possible tha

ry to satisfy the exigencies of the allied sovereigns. The Prince de Talleyrand told me only yesterday that Nesselrode had informed him officially that his Majesty, the Emper

ency deigns to favour me with any more confidential information I don't know what I wil

?" interrupted the minister sharply. After a short pau

rnment of

government of returned exiles, of men who have been without country for twenty years. Of men al

ered court costume before a mirror. But they were a hot-headed lot in the army, and it occurred to him that it would be inconvenient if a well-disposed general officer, received by him on th

ation-thi

relation

ate fr

intimate connection of a nature which mak

y silver candelabra for the writing desk, the Duke of Otranto stood up, his breast glistening all over with gold in the strong

urn this time.... Diable d'homme! There was just a moment here in Paris, soon after Waterloo, when he frightened me. It looked as t

gesture of renunciation. The Minister of Police turned his eyes away from hi

. Twenty. A round number. And let's see, Feraud. Ah, he's there! Gabriel Florian. P

eling as though he had gone

erference a profound secret. I attach the

self. This is the only list in existence. If you are careful to take up enough ink no one will be able to tell even what was the name thus struck out. But, par example, I am not resp

was saying to his sister after the

med to me I couldn't get aw

she suggested with

t with profound seriousness. "I hav

sgust. And as his sister looked

er the misfortune of having to breathe the air of the same room with that man, a sense of diminished digni

s. Moreover, the scorn and loathing of mankind were the lot of the Jacobin Fouché, who, exploiting for his own advantage every wea

compassionately, "what co

d I've got it. It had to be done. But I feel yet as if I c

own firmly persuaded that this could not last. There he was informed of his retirement from the army, and that his pension (calculated on the scale of a colonel's half-pay) was made dependent on the circumspection of his conduct and on the good reports of the police. No longer in the army! He felt suddenly a stranger to the earth like a disembodied spirit. It was impossible to exist. But at first he reacted from sheer incredulity. This could not be. It could not last. The heavens would fall presently. H

od came, to lie for days on his bed with his head thrust under the pillow; but they arose from sheer ennui, from the anguish of an immense, indescribable, inconceivable boredom. Only his mental inability to grasp the hopeless nature of his case as a whole saved him from suicide. He neve

ting a certain little café full of flies when one stuffy afternoon "th

a condemned man on the eve of execution could be expected to show in the news of the day. A cluster of martial, bronzed f

he matter

e out the small print better. He was reading very low to himself over again fra

leave... is to be called to the com

e more... "Called to the command"... and

him," he cried in a co

veteran shouted

iny of the gove

aud, "are innumerable. One more, one less!..." He lowered h

I am alive yet," he declared in a dogmatic tone.... "However, this is a private affair. An old affair of honour. Bah! Our honour does not matter. Here we are driven off with a split ear like a

h visible emotion upon the one-eyed veteran cuirassier and the officer of the Chasseurs à

affair this

. C'est juste... Parbleu c'est connu..." Everybody was satisfied. T

t nearly right across. The overheated little town of gray stones and red tiles was drowsing away its provincial afternoon under a blue sky. Far off the l

mbago. We must have pistols. He's sure game for my bag. My eyes are as keen as ever. Always were. You should have

in a massed lot of personal contests, a sort of gregarious duelling. And here he had on hand a war of his own. He revived. The shadow of peace had passed away from him like the shadow of death. It was a mar