The two colonels who awaited Saint-Arnaud in the anteroom were two business-like men, both leaders of those decisive regiments which at critical times carry the other regiments with them, according to their instructions, into glory, as at Austerlitz, or into crime, as on the Eighteenth Brumaire.  These two officers belonged to what Morny called “the cream of indebted and free-living colonels.”  We will not mention their names here; one is dead, the other is still living; he will recognize himself.  Besides, we have caught a glimpse of them in the first pages of this book.

One, a man of thirty-eight, was cunning, dauntless, ungrateful, three qualifications for success.  The Duc d’Aumale had saved his life in the Aures.  He was then a young captain.  A ball had pierced his body; he fell into a thicket; the Kabyles rushed up to cut off and carry away his head, when the Duc d’Aumale arriving with two officers, a soldier, and a bugler, charged the Kabyles and saved this captain.  Having saved him, he loved him.  One was grateful, the other was not.  The one who was grateful was the deliverer.  The Duc d’Aumale was pleased with this young captain for having given him an opportunity for a deed of gallantry.  He made him a major; in 1849 this major became lieutenant-colonel, and commanded a storming column at the siege of Rome; he then came back to Africa, where Fleury bought him over at the same time as Saint-Arnaud.  Louis Bonaparte made him colonel in July, 1851, and reckoned upon him.  In November this colonel of Louis Bonaparte wrote to the Duc d’Aumale, “Nothing need be apprehended from this miserable adventurer.”  In December he commanded one of the massacring regiments.  Later on, in the Dobrudscha, an ill-used horse turned upon him and bit off his cheek, so that there was only room on his face for one slap.

The other man was growing gray, and was about forty-eight.  He also was a man of pleasure and of murder.  Despicable as a citizen; brave as a soldier.  He was one of the first who had sprung into the breach at Constantine.  Plenty of bravery and plenty of baseness.  No chivalry but that of the green cloth.  Louis Bonaparte had made him colonel in 1851.  His debts had been twice paid by two Princes; the first time by the Duc d’Orleans, the second time by the Duc de Nemours.

Such were these colonels.

Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low tone.

CHAPTER II.

THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE

As soon as it was daylight we had assembled in the house of our imprisoned colleague, M. Grevy.  We had been installed in his private room.  Michel de Bourges and myself were seated near the fireplace; Jules Favre and Carnot were writing, the one at a table near the window, the other at a high desk.  The Left had invested us with discretionary powers.  It became more and more impossible at every moment to meet together again in session.  We drew up in its name and remitted to Hingray, so that he might print it immediately, the following decree, compiled on the spur of the moment by Jules Favre:—­