“I am the last of the first batch of Marshals,” said the Prince. “Listen, Hector. You do not know the extent of my attachment to you; you shall see. On the day when I retire from office, we will go together. But you are not a Deputy, my friend. Many men want your place; but for me, you would be out of it by this time. Yes, I have fought many a pitched battle to keep you in it.--Well, I grant you your two requests; it would be too bad to see you riding the bar at your age and in the position you hold. But you stretch your credit a little too far. If this appointment gives rise to discussion, we shall not be held blameless. I can laugh at such things; but you will find it a thorn under your feet. And the next session will see your dismissal. Your place is held out as a bait to five or six influential men, and you have been enabled to keep it solely by the force of my arguments. I tell you, on the day when you retire, there will be five malcontents to one happy man; whereas, by keeping you hanging on by a thread for two or three years, we shall secure all six votes. There was a great laugh at the Council meeting; the Veteran of the Old Guard, as they say, was becoming desperately wide awake in parliamentary tactics! I am frank with you.--And you are growing gray; you are a happy man to be able to get into such difficulties as these! How long is it since I--Lieutenant Cottin--had a mistress?” He rang the bell. “That police report must be destroyed,” he added. “Monseigneur, you are as a father to me! I dared not mention my anxiety on that point.” “I still wish I had Roger here,” cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his groom of the chambers, came in. “I was just going to send for him!--You may go, Mitouflet.--Go you, my dear old fellow, go and have the nomination made out; I will sign it. At the same time, that low schemer will not long enjoy the fruit of his crimes. He will be sharply watched, and drummed out of the regiment for the smallest fault.--You are saved this time, my dear Hector; take care for the future. Do not exhaust your friends’ patience. You shall have the nomination this morning, and your man shall get his promotion in the Legion of Honor.--How old are you now?” “Within three months of seventy.” “What a scapegrace!” said the Prince, laughing. “It is you who deserve a promotion, but, by thunder! we are not under Louis XV.!” Such is the sense of comradeship that binds the glorious survivors of the Napoleonic phalanx, that they always feel as if they were in camp together, and bound to stand together through thick and thin. “One more favor such as this,” Hulot reflected as he crossed the courtyard, “and I am done for!”