Nobody smiled, however, for the captain was known not to be an easy customer. He was execrated by his men, whom he kept at a distance. A regular vinegar-bottle, as Rochas put it. Since the earlier defeats he had seemed quite offended, and the disaster, which everybody foresaw, appeared to him above all things improper. A Bonapartist by conviction, having had a prospect of rapid and high advancement before him, backed up as he was by several influential Parisian _salons_, he felt that his fortune was sinking in the mud and mire of this disastrous war. It was said that he possessed a very pretty tenor voice, to which he was already deeply indebted. Moreover, he was not without intelligence, though he knew nothing of his profession, being simply desirous of pleasing, and when necessary proving very brave, without, however, displaying any excessive zeal. 'What a fog!' he quietly remarked, feeling more at his ease now that he had found his company, which he had been looking for during the last half-hour, almost fearing that he had lost himself. However, orders had at length arrived, and the battalion immediately advanced. Fresh clouds of mist must have been ascending from the Meuse, for the men almost had to grope their way through a kind of whitish dew, falling upon them in fine drops. And Maurice was struck by the sudden apparition of Colonel de Vineuil, who, erect on his horse, rose up before him at the corner of a road; the old officer looking very tall and very pale, motionless like a marble statue of despair, and the animal shivering in the early cold with dilated nostrils which were turned towards the cannon over yonder. And Maurice was yet more struck when, at ten paces in the rear, he espied the regimental colours carried by the sub-lieutenant on duty, and looking, amid the soft, shifting white vapour, like a trembling apparition of glory, already fading away in the atmosphere of dreamland. The gilded eagle was drenched with water, and the tricoloured silk, embroidered with the names of victories, soiled by smoke, and perforated with ancient wounds, seemed to be paling in the mist; well-nigh the only brilliant touches, amid all this obliteration, being supplied by the enamel points of the Cross of Honour, which was hanging from the tassel of the flag.