not well to joke. He was stiff and consequential with his men, and was
detested accordingly; a _pete sec_, to use Rochas's expression. He had
seemed to regard the early reverses of the campaign as personal
affronts, and the disaster that all had prognosticated was to him an
unpardonable crime. He was a strong Bonapartist by conviction; his
prospects for promotion were of the brightest; he had several
important salons looking after his interests; naturally, he did not
take kindly to the changed condition of affairs that promised to make
his cake dough. He was said to have a remarkably fine tenor voice,
which had helped him no little in his advancement. He was not devoid
of intelligence, though perfectly ignorant as regarded everything
connected with his profession; eager to please, and very brave, when
there was occasion for being so, without superfluous rashness.

"What a nasty fog!" was all he said, pleased to have found his company
at last, for which he had been searching for more than half an hour.

At the same time their orders came, and the battalion moved forward.
They had to proceed with caution, feeling their way, for the
exhalations continued to rise from the stream and were now so dense
that they were precipitated in a fine, drizzling rain. A vision rose
before Maurice's eyes that impressed him deeply; it was Colonel de
Vineuil, who loomed suddenly from out the mist, sitting his horse,
erect and motionless, at the intersection of two roads--the man
appearing of preternatural size, and so pale and rigid that he might
have served a sculptor as a study for a statue of despair; the steed
shivering in the raw, chill air of morning, his dilated nostrils
turned in the direction of the distant firing. Some ten paces to their
rear were the regimental colors, which the sous-lieutenant whose duty
it was to bear them had thus early taken from their case and proudly