"Then you will require thirteen more officers." He looked at a list.
"There are eight belonging to the Ardennes, the rest I will draw
from other regiments. There is little fear of their objecting to the
exchange, for your corps won such a reputation that all will be
glad to join it; I will send you back to Nancy. There are barracks
there, and no other troops; and as we are not likely to be disturbed
until the spring, you will have plenty of time to bring the regiment
up to its former mark."

The winter, indeed, passed quietly. The officers were all greatly
pleased when they heard the arrangements Hector had made, by which
most of them obtained a step in rank instead of being, as they had
feared, passed over by officers belonging to the Ardennes regiment.
The battle of Freiburg had shown them the great advantage that had
been gained by the steadiness and discipline of their men. They
took up the work of drilling again with even more zeal than before,
and it was not long before the regiment was restored to its former
state of efficiency. The reason why he had sent the regiment back
from the Rhine was explained by Turenne to Hector before he started.

"The orders from court were," he said, "that I was to retain only
the Weimar regiments, and I should have been obliged to send you
back with those of Enghien had I not represented to him that it
might be of the greatest importance to me to have even one good
French regiment within call. We talked it over at some length,
and he finally agreed to take upon himself the responsibility
of ordering that your regiment should not go beyond Nancy, upon
the ground that there were very few troops in Lorraine; and that
peasant risings had taken place there, as in other departments,
owing to the terrible distress caused by heavy taxation. He has