Bouillon luckily lent a hand. Having once had the rank of corporal, he still retained a certain hold over his comrades. He laid himself out and was here, there, and everywhere, lavishing rebukes and fisticuffs. When Captain Ribet reappeared at the time arranged everything went well. The inspection was even more minute than it had been in the morning, but this time he found only a few infinitesimal details to criticise. When he left he said to me: "Aren't you more satisfied?" I did not answer, but met his remark with the regulation coldness. CHAPTER XVII SUSPICIONS OF EMOTION The presentation of the Colours was announced for three o'clock. We would willingly have dispensed with climbing up to the parade-ground! Goodness knows I was not looking forward to the ceremony. Our company was the last to arrive. A major wearing an eye-glass, urged his horse past us. He was an insolent, bloated-looking creature, with a sallow complexion, and greeted our company officer with a bitter-sweet remark which the latter, to my delight, acknowledged in the same tone. The colonel appeared. He was quite white, although still young, a cavalier of imperious bearing. With his manly face and his moustache he reminded one strongly of "Dumény" in _La Flambée_. He rode slowly up and down among our ranks. Chests were thrown out at his approach. He made a few remarks in a firm but kindly tone. Then the order was given to the two battalions to close up into a semi-circle. Controlling his mount, the colonel looked round on us proudly, and began to harangue us. I listened. I had come in a sarcastic frame of mind. What could he say that would not be stale or commonplace? Indeed I had foreseen this issue of ready-made phrases on the decisive importance of the struggle upon which we were embarking; it was a question of safeguarding our country and our lives against a nation which was becoming a menace to the human race.... But the inflections of a manly voice conferred a certain grandeur on the hackneyed theme. "A fine actor," I repeated to myself. "More and more like Dumény!" I tried, like this, to avoid being carried away, then I began to give in. I admitted that a certain beauty resulted from the perfect harmony between his words and their object. I read in the men's face the revelation of a virtue, until now unknown even to them. For the first time I had the intuition that these peasants and working-men and _bourgeois_, for the most part doltish, narrow-minded beings, would, if certain chords in them were touched, be capable of great things.... And what about me? Oh! I should be an on-looker as usual! That would be quite enough for me. The colonel concluded: "Now, my friends, you are about to march past your Colours. They are new, they have not been under fire, they do not bear the names of glorious victories in their folds like their seniors of the 1st.... Well, it is for us to dower them."