Hector then went round and had a chat with Colonel Maclvor, and returned to the auberge, where the troopers and Paolo had the horses already saddled.  He mounted and rode with them to St. Denis, putting up at an hotel.  He found where the regiment of Poitou were stationed and at once proceeded there on foot.  Two or three officers were chatting together in the barrack square, while some sergeants were drilling the companies.

He at once went up to them.  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I must introduce myself to you.  I am Colonel Campbell; I have the honour to command the regiment.  I shall be glad if you will order the officer’s call to be sounded and send orderlies off at once to the lodgings of the officers and ask them to assemble.  To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?”

The senior officer introduced himself and the others.  Report had told them that their new colonel was still a young man, and that he had served with distinction under both Turenne and Enghien, but they were not prepared for so young a commander as this.  The French regiments had, as a rule, two colonels, the one a veteran soldier, who had won his way to the rank by long service and long fighting, the other a young nobleman who had gained the post solely by family influence, but possessed no knowledge whatever of military matters, and who was never with the regiment except when it went upon a campaign, and even then generally preferred the pleasures of Paris to the hardships of war.  Had Hector been appointed to what was called the second no surprise would have been felt at his youth, but that anyone should have gained the position of first colonel at his age by sheer merit was astonishing indeed to them.  In twenty minutes the officers were all assembled and introduced by the senior captain to Hector.

“We will not begin business now,” the latter said.  “My leave of absence does not terminate until tomorrow morning, and I think that it is much more pleasant to talk over matters comfortably round a table than it is to do so in a set manner.  Therefore, gentlemen, if you will all sup with me this evening at the Fleur de Lis, after we have finished our meal we will talk over our wine.  My opinion is that officers of a regiment should be good comrades.  The regiment benefits by it, and everything goes on more smoothly and comfortably.  This is specially so in a newly raised regiment, where the officers either are altogether new to military matters, or join from other regiments, and have no previous knowledge of each other.  In the same way the men are all new to each other, and to their officers.  Unless there is perfect harmony among the officers, there cannot be perfect harmony in the regiment.