“Well, there’s a captain of the artillery of the Guard, Monsieur Mignonnet, a man about forty years of age, who was brought up at the Ecole Polytechnique, and lives in a quiet way. He is a very honorable man, and openly disapproves of Max, whose conduct he considers unworthy of a true soldier.” “Good!” remarked the lieutenant-colonel. “There are not many soldiers here of that stripe,” resumed Monsieur Hochon; “the only other that I know is an old cavalry captain.” “That is my arm,” said Philippe. “Was he in the Guard?” “Yes,” replied Monsieur Hochon. “Carpentier was, in 1810, sergeant-major in the dragoons; then he rose to be sub-lieutenant in the line, and subsequently captain of cavalry.” “Giroudeau may know him,” thought Philippe. “This Monsieur Carpentier took the place in the mayor’s office which Gilet threw up; he is a friend of Monsieur Mignonnet.” “How can I earn my living here?” “They are going, I think, to establish a mutual insurance agency in Issoudun, for the department of the Cher; you might get a place in it, but the pay won’t be more than fifty francs a month at the outside.” “That will be enough.” At the end of a week Philippe had a new suit of clothes,--coat, waistcoat, and trousers,--of good blue Elbeuf cloth, bought on credit, to be paid for at so much a month; also new boots, buckskin gloves, and a hat. Giroudeau sent him some linen, with his weapons and a letter for Carpentier, who had formerly served under Giroudeau. The letter secured him Carpentier’s good-will, and the latter presented him to his friend Mignonnet as a man of great merit and the highest character. Philippe won the admiration of these worthy officers by confiding to them a few facts about the late conspiracy, which was, as everybody knows, the last attempt of the old army against the Bourbons; for the affair of the sergeants at La Rochelle belongs to another order of ideas.