was heightened by his clothes.  His forlorn blue great-coat was buttoned in military fashion to the throat, for painful reasons; and yet it showed much that it pretended to conceal.  The bottom edges of the trousers, ragged like those of an almshouse beggar, were the sign of abject poverty.  The boots left wet splashes on the floor, as the mud oozed from fissures in the soles.  The gray hat, which the colonel held in his hand, was horribly greasy round the rim.  The malacca cane, from which the polish had long disappeared, must have stood in all the corners of all the cafes in Paris, and poked its worn-out end into many a corruption.  Above the velvet collar, rubbed and worn till the frame showed through it, rose a head like that which Frederick Lemaitre makes up for the last act in “The Life of a Gambler,”—­where the exhaustion of a man still in the prime of life is betrayed by the metallic, brassy skin, discolored as if with verdigris.  Such tints are seen on the faces of debauched gamblers who spend their nights in play:  the eyes are sunken in a dusky circle, the lids are reddened rather than red, the brow is menacing from the wreck and ruin it reveals.  Philippe’s cheeks, which were sunken and wrinkled, showed signs of the illness from which he had scarcely recovered.  His head was bald, except for a fringe of hair at the back which ended at the ears.  The pure blue of his brilliant eyes had acquired the cold tones of polished steel.

“Good-morning, uncle,” he said, in a hoarse voice.  “I am your nephew, Philippe Bridau,—­a specimen of how the Bourbons treat a lieutenant-colonel, an old soldier of the old army, one who carried the Emperor’s orders at the battle of Montereau.  If my coat were to open, I should be put to shame in presence of Mademoiselle.  Well, it is the rule of the game!  We hoped to begin it again; we tried it, and we have failed!  I am to reside in your city by the order of the police, with a full pay of sixty francs a month.  So the inhabitants needn’t fear that I shall raise the price of provisions!  I see you are in good and lovely company.”

“Ah! you are my nephew,” said Jean-Jacques.

“Invite monsieur le colonel to breakfast with us,” said Flore.

“No, I thank you, madame,” answered Philippe, “I have breakfasted.  Besides, I would cut off my hand sooner than ask a bit of bread or a farthing from my uncle, after the treatment my mother and brother received in this town.  It did not seem proper, however, that I should settle here, in Issoudun, without paying my respects to him from time to time.  You can do what you like,” he added, offering the old man his hand, into which Rouget put his own, which Philippe shook, “—­whatever you like.  I shall have nothing to say against it; provided the honor of the Bridaus is untouched.”

Gilet could look at the lieutenant-colonel as much as he pleased, for Philippe pointedly avoided casting his eyes in his direction.  Max, though the blood boiled in his veins, was too well aware of the importance of behaving with political prudence—­which occasionally resembles cowardice—­to take fire like a young man; he remained, therefore, perfectly calm and cold.