Every one was accustomed to see him walk like this, and the country people recognised him in the distance by his step, his long frock-coat, all buttoned up, his officer's gait, his head always slightly bent, and the stick, made from a vine-stalk, which he used as a cane. The only break in his secluded and laborious life was at election time. M. Mauperin then put in an appearance everywhere from one end of the department to the other. He drove about the country in a trap, and his soldierly voice could be heard rousing the electors to enthusiasm at all their meetings; he gave the word of command for the charge on the Government candidates, and to him all this was like war once more. When the election was over he left Chaumont and returned to his regular routine and to the obscure tranquility of his studies. Two children had come to him--a boy in 1826 and a girl in 1827. After the Revolution of 1830 he was elected deputy. When he took his seat in the chamber, his American ideas and theories were very much like those of Armand Carrel. His animated speeches--brusque, martial, and full of feeling--made quite a sensation. He became one of the inspirers of the _National_ after being one of its first shareholders, and he suggested articles attacking the budget and the finances. The Tuileries made advances to him; some of his former comrades, who were now aides-de-camp under the new king, sounded him with the promise of a high military position, a generalship in the army, or some honour for which he was still young enough. He refused everything point-blank. In 1832 he signed the protestation of the deputies of the Opposition against the words "Subjects of the King," which had been pronounced by M. de Montalivet, and he fought against this system until 1835. That year his wife presented him with a child, a little girl whose arrival stirred him to the depths of his being. His other two children had merely given him a calm joy, a happiness without any gaiety. Something had always seemed wanting--just that something which brightens a father's life and makes the home ring with laughter. M. Mauperin loved his two children, but he did not adore them. The fond father had hoped to delight in them, and he had been disappointed. Instead of the son he had dreamed of--a regular boy, a mischievous little urchin, one of those handsome little dare-devils with whom an old soldier could live over again his own youth and hear once more, as it were, the sound of gunpowder--M. Mauperin had to do with a most rational sort of a child, a little boy who was always good, "quite a young lady," as he said himself. This had been a great trouble to him, as he felt almost ashamed to have, as his son and heir, this miniature man who did not even break his toys.