Marcel bowed with courage and good grace to his new existence.  He continued his father’s life, entering the groove at the very spot where he had left it.  He devoted himself without regret to the obscure career of a country doctor.  His father had left him a little land and a little money; he lived in the most simple manner possible, and one half of his life belonged to the poor, from whom he would never receive a penny.

This was his only luxury.

He found in his way a young girl, charming, penniless, and alone in the world.  He married her.  This was in 1855, and the following year brought to Dr. Reynaud a great sorrow and a great joy—­the death of his old mother and the birth of his son Jean.

At an interval of six weeks, the Abby Constantin recited the prayers for the dead over the grave of the grandmother, and was present in the position of godfather at the baptism of the grandson.

In consequence of constantly meeting at the bedside of the suffering and dying, the priest and the doctor had been strongly attracted to each other.  They instinctively felt that they belonged to the same family, the same race—­the race of the tender, the just, and the benevolent.

Year followed year—­calm, peaceful, fully occupied in labor and duty.  Jean was no longer an infant.  His father gave him his first lessons in reading and writing, the priest his first lessons in Latin.  Jean was intelligent and industrious.  He made so much progress that the two professors—­particularly the Cure—­found themselves at the end of a few years rather cast into the shade by their pupil.  It was at this moment that the Countess, after the death of her husband, came to settle at Lavardens.  She brought with her a tutor for her son Paul, a very nice, but very lazy little fellow.  The two children were of the same age; they had known each other from their earliest years.

Madame de Lavardens had a great regard for Dr. Reynaud, and one day she made him the following proposal: 

“Send Jean to me every morning,” said she, “I will send him home in the evening.  Paul’s tutor is a very accomplished man; he will make the children work together.  It will be rendering me a real service.  Jean will set Paul a good example.”

Things were thus arranged, and the little bourgeois set the little nobleman a most excellent example of industry and application, but this excellent example was not followed.

The war broke out.  On November 14th, at seven o’clock in the morning, the mobiles of Souvigny assembled in the great square of the town; their chaplain was the Abbe Constantin, their surgeon-major, Dr. Reynaud.  The same idea had come at the same moment to both; the priest was sixty-two, the doctor fifty.

When they started, the battalion followed the road which led through Longueval, and which passed before the doctor’s house.  Madame Reynaud and Jean were waiting by the roadside.  The child threw himself into his father’s arms.