Canolles was no make-believe officer. He entered the service when he was little more than a child, and had made a real study of his profession. So it was that he made his inspection not simply as commandant, but as engineer. The officers, when they saw that he came in the guise of a favorite, supposed that he was a mere ornamental governor. But when they were questioned by him, one after another, as to the provisions for attack and defence, they were compelled to recognize in this apparently frivolous young man an experienced captain, and even the oldest among them addressed him with respect. The only things with which they could find fault were the mildness of his voice when giving orders, and the extreme courtesy with which he questioned them; they feared that this last might be the mask of weakness. However, as every one realized the imminence of the danger, the governor's orders were executed with such celerity and accuracy that the chief conceived as favorable an opinion of his soldiers as they had formed of him. A company of pioneers had arrived during the day. Canolles ordered the construction of works, which were instantly begun. Vainly did Nanon try to take him back to the fort, in order to spare him the fatigue of a night passed in this way; Canolles continued his round, and gently dismissed her, insisting that she should return within the walls. Then, having sent out three or four scouts, whom the lieutenant recommended as the most intelligent of all those at his disposal, he stretched himself out upon a block of stone, whence he could watch the progress of the work. But while his eyes mechanically followed the movement of mattocks and pickaxes, Canolles's mind wandered away from the material things which surrounded him, to pass in review, not only the events of the day, but all the extraordinary adventures of which he had been the hero since the day he first saw Madame de Cambes. But, strangely enough, his mind went back no farther than that day; it seemed to him as if his real life had begun at that time; that until then he had lived in another world,--a world of inferior instincts, of incomplete sensations. But from that hour there had been a light in his life which gave a different aspect to everything, and in the brightness of that new light, Nanon, poor Nanon, was pitilessly sacrificed to another passion, violent from its very birth, like every passion which takes possession of the whole life into which it enters. After much painful meditation, mingled with thrills of heavenly rapture at the thought that he was beloved by Madame de Cambes, Canolles confessed to himself that it was duty alone which impelled him to act the part of a man of honor, and that his friendship for Nanon counted for nothing in his determination. Poor Nanon! Canolles called his feeling for her friendship, and in love friendship is very near indifference.