As he had completed his thirty years of obligatory service that year, on the first of January, he had had the cross of the _Legion of Honor_ bestowed upon him, which, in the semi-military public offices, is a recompense for the miserable slavery--the official phrase is, _loyal services_ of unfortunate convicts who are riveted to their desk. That unexpected dignity gave him a high and new idea of his own capacities, and altogether altered him. He immediately left off wearing light trousers and fancy waistcoats, and wore black trousers and long coats, on which his _ribbon_, which was very broad, showed off better. He got shaved every morning, trimmed his nails more carefully, changed his linen every two days, from a legitimate sense of what was proper, and of respect for the national _Order_, of which he formed a part, and from that day he was another Caravan, scrupulously clean, majestic and condescending. At home, he said, "my cross," at every moment, and he had become so proud of it, that he could not bear to see other men wearing any other ribbon in their button-holes. He got especially angry on seeing strange orders:--"Which nobody ought to be allowed to wear in France," and he bore Chenet a particular grudge, as he met him on a tramcar every evening, wearing a decoration of some sort or another, white, blue, orange, or green. The conversation of the two men, from the _Arc de Triomphe_ to Neuilly, was always the same, and on that day they discussed, first of all, various local abuses which disgusted them both, and the Mayor of Neuilly received his full share of their blame. Then, as invariably happens in the company of a medical man, Caravan began to enlarge on the chapter of illness, as, in that manner, he hoped to obtain a little gratuitous advice, if he was careful not to show his book. His mother had been causing him no little anxiety for some time; she had frequent and prolonged fainting fits, and, although she was ninety, she would not take care of herself. Caravan grew quite tender-hearted when he mentioned her great age, and more than once asked Doctor Chenet, emphasizing the word _doctor_--although he had no right to the title, being only an _Officier de Sante_, and, as such, not fully qualified--whether he had often met anyone as old as that. And he rubbed his hands with pleasure; not, perhaps, that he cared very much about seeing the good woman last for ever here on earth, but because the long duration of his mother's life was, as it were, an earnest of old age for himself, and he continued: "Oh! In my family, we last long, and I am sure that, unless I meet with an accident, I shall not die until I am very old."