"
"That is my arm," said Philippe. "Was he in the Guard?"
"Yes," replied Monsieur Hochon. "Carpentier was, in 1810,
sergeant-major in the dragoons; then he rose to be sub-lieutenant in
the line, and subsequently captain of cavalry."
"Giroudeau may know him," thought Philippe.
"This Monsieur Carpentier took the place in the mayor's office which
Gilet threw up; he is a friend of Monsieur Mignonnet."
"How can I earn my living here?"
"They are going, I think, to establish a mutual insurance agency in
Issoudun, for the department of the Cher; you might get a place in it,
but the pay won't be more than fifty francs a month at the outside."
"That will be enough."
At the end of a week Philippe had a new suit of clothes,--coat,
waistcoat, and trousers,--of good blue Elbeuf cloth, bought on credit,
to be paid for at so much a month; also new boots, buckskin gloves,
and a hat. Giroudeau sent him some linen, with his weapons and a
letter for Carpentier, who had formerly served under Giroudeau. The
letter secured him Carpentier's good-will, and the latter presented
him to his friend Mignonnet as a man of great merit and the highest
character. Philippe won the admiration of these worthy officers by
confiding to them a few facts about the late conspiracy, which was, as
everybody knows, the last attempt of the old army against the
Bourbons; for the affair of the sergeants at La Rochelle belongs to
another order of ideas.
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