My father was glad enough to find himself once more in Paris, as soon as he saw they were not going to guillotine him. He had been troubled for long by a wen on his forehead, which had caused him great pain. This wen had grown upon the old sword-cut he had received in one of those three army duels he fought to sustain the pre-eminence of the queen over the king. The wen was found to have adhered to his skull, and its removal meant a rather critical operation. The operation was very successfully performed by M. Pelletan. On the 15th of Thermidor this year, an order from the Committee of Public Safety appointed my father as commandant of the military school established at the camp of Sablons. This appointment did not last long. On the 18th Thermidor, three days, that is, after this appointment, he was ordered to join the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. But before quitting Paris my father had an account to settle with his old colonel, St. Georges. We mentioned previously that instead of joining his regiment St. Georges had found it more convenient to settle at Lille, where he induced the Government to place him in charge of a remount depot; in addition to this, by virtue of the powers which regimental heads arrogated to themselves at this period, he requisitioned an immense number of pleasure-horses, in which he traded. The price these horses fetched was estimated at upwards of a million francs. Although people were not very strict in those days at this kind of peccadillo, St. Georges went to such lengths that he was summoned to Paris to show his accounts. As St. Georges' books were very badly kept, he hit on the idea of throwing the blame upon my father, by saying it was Lieutenant-Colonel Dumas who had had charge of the regimental remounts. The minister of war therefore wrote to my father, who immediately proved that he had never ordered a single requisition, nor bought nor sold a single horse. The reply of the minister entirely exculpated my father from blame. But this did not lessen his grudge against St. Georges, and as his wen caused him horrible suffering and kept him in a perpetual state of irritability of temper, he positively swore he would fight a duel with his old colonel.