Lieutenant Raoul D'Haberville, or rather the Chevalier D'Haberville, whom everybody called Uncle Raoul, was a younger brother of the captain by two years. He looked fully ten years his senior. A little man was Uncle Raoul, almost as broad as he was long, and walking with the assistance of a stick; he would have been remarkably ugly even if the small-pox could have been induced to spare his countenance. It is hard to say how he came by his nickname. One may say of a man, he has a paternal air, he is _un petit père_; but one accuses nobody of having an avuncular appearance. For all that, Lieutenant D'Haberville was everybody's uncle. Even his soldiers, unknown to him, used to call him Uncle Raoul. In like manner, to compare great things with small, Napoleon was to the grumblers merely "the little corporal." Uncle Raoul was the _littérateur_ of the D'Haberville family, and, therefore, something of a pedant, like almost all men who live in daily contact with people less learned than themselves. Uncle Raoul was the best fellow in the world when he had his own way; but he had one little defect. He held the profound conviction that he was always right, which made him very bad tempered with any who might dare to differ with him. Uncle Raoul prided himself on his knowledge of Latin, fragments of which language he was wont to launch freely at the heads of cultured and ignorant alike. Endless were his discussions with the curé over some line of Horace, Ovid, or Virgil, who were his favorite authors. The curé, who was of a mild and peaceable humor, almost always grew weary of the contest and gave way before his fiery opponent. But Uncle Raoul also prided himself on being a profound theologian, which was the cause of much embarrassment to the poor curé. The latter was deeply concerned for the soul of his friend, who had been in his youth a rather risky subject, and whom he had had great difficulty in leading into better courses. He found it necessary, however, sometimes to give way on points not absolutely essential to the safety of Uncle Raoul's soul. When points were attacked which he durst not yield he was wont to call in the aid of Blanche, whom her uncle idolized. "Dear uncle," she would say to him with a caress, "are you not already learned enough without encroaching on the field of our good pastor? You are victorious on all the other points under discussion," she would add, with a sly glance at the curé; "be generous, then, and suffer yourself to be convinced on those points which are the especial province of God's ministers." Thereupon, as Uncle Raoul argued simply for the pleasure of argument, a peace would be concluded between the disputants.