lodging assured for some time, a means of becoming known, and of laying aside a few thousand francs with which he could support himself until he could obtain appointment to some good post. Beyond this, Boyer did not know anything about the soldier whose papers he had to classify. In that old house at Combes, which had remained unchanged during three-quarters of a century, he had commenced to give himself up to that retrospective semi-hallucination known only to those who have a scholarly disposition. Taine has pictured it in that eloquent page, where he describes himself at the archives, following over the yellowed paper the old writings of the men of the Revolution. "I was," he says, "tempted to speak aloud to them." In that poor mansion where the old hero had sheltered himself in his last few days, the walls were covered with relics of his glorious adventures, brought together in confusion; here, swords of honor hung on the wall, next to them some engravings representing feats of arms; there, portraits of the marshal himself, the first Consul, the Emperor, Frédet's chosen companions, among others that of Ney, who had been one of the witnesses to his marriage. Frédet's wife was there, frail and delicate in her rich costume of a court lady, painted by Gérard, in an attitude identical with that of the Duchess of Rovigo, on the edge of a park leaning on a small column ornamented with helmets and cuirasses in high relief. She had survived her husband forty years, and to her piety was due the preservation of the home to which the eldest son of the family had not returned until 1875, after having served in the army and resigned while simple lieutenant-colonel, when another had--unjustly as he maintained--been promoted over him. His carelessness produced at least this advantage, that the species of family museum brought together through the sorrow of the grandmother had remained undisturbed. In the mean while, that is to say, under the monarchy of July and the Second Empire, the Frédets had lived in Paris; the second Prince of Augsbourg as a peer of France, and then as Senator; the third, the present Prince, as an officer of the staff of Napoleon the Third. Physically the colonel was the living image of his illustrious grandfather. He had the leonine face, the calm and powerful mien, the grave eyes, the serious mouth, and also the athlete's muscles, broad shoulders and powerful neck. There the resemblance stopped. Was it lack of education or opportunity? Did he take morally after some ancestor on the mother's side? His father had married a girl of noble birth, but of that country nobility with whom hunting is the sole hereditary occupation. In his old age it was the only pleasure that seemed to survive in this heir to an illustrious name, the first ambition of a disappointed career.