In the earlier stages of army reorganization, changes were made without much regard to personal merit, the dearth of efficient officers being such that even the most indifferent had some value. About the first of June, 1791, Buonaparte was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, with a salary of thirteen hundred livres, and transferred to the Fourth Regiment, which was in Valence. He heard the news with mingled feelings: promotion was, of course, welcome, but he shrank from returning to his former station, and from leaving the three or four warm friends he had among his comrades in the old regiment. On the ground that the arrangements he had made for educating Louis would be disturbed by the transfer, he besought the war office for permission to remain at Auxonne with the regiment, now known as the First. Probably the real ground of his disinclination was the fear that a residence at Valence might revive the painful emotions which time had somewhat withered. He may also have felt how discordant the radical opinions he was beginning to hold would be with those still cherished by his former friends. But the authorities were inexorable, and on June fourteenth the brothers departed, Napoleon for the first time leaving debts which he could not discharge: for the new uniform of a first lieutenant, a sword, and some wood, he owed about a hundred and fifteen livres. This sum he was careful to pay within a few years and as soon as his affairs permitted. Arrived at Valence, he found that the old society had vanished. Both the bishop and the Abbé Saint-Ruf were dead. Mme. du Colombier had withdrawn with her daughter to her country-seat. The brothers were able, therefore, to take up their lives just where they had made the break at Auxonne: Louis pursuing the studies necessary for entrance to the corps of officers, Napoleon teaching him, and frequenting the political club; both destitute and probably suffering, for the officer's pay was soon far in arrears. In such desperate straits it was a relief for the elder brother that the allurements of his former associations were dissipated; such companionship as he now had was among the middle and lower classes, whose estates were more proportionate to his own, and whose sentiments were virtually identical with those which he professed.