“If one officer looks after the comfort of his company, and treats them as he should do, while another company is neglected and left solely to the care of the sergeants, there will necessarily be envy and ill feeling.  The regiment will cease to be a unit.  I may say, gentlemen, that this is the dictum not of myself, but of Marshal Turenne, who was my instructor in the art of war, and who followed out the better system from the time that he was a boy of fourteen until now.  The result is that his regiment is the finest in the service.  It will be my aim and ambition to raise the Poitou regiment as nearly as possible to the same condition, and I shall rely upon your assistance and cooperation to bring this about.

“Supper will be served at six.  I have only just returned from the country, and have heard no news.  I suppose that no intimation has been received as to what is our destination and whither we shall march?”

“None whatever, colonel,” de Thiou, the senior captain, said.

“All the better.  I hope that they will give us a couple of months to get into shape.  There is but little time for drill and discipline when we are once in the field.”

So saying he saluted the officers and returned to the hotel.

“Who would have thought of seeing a mere lad placed at the head of the regiment as colonel,” one of the captains said.  “I cannot imagine how such a thing can have come about, for certainly he can have no family influence.  A newly raised regiment like ours wants a bright man, one that all can look up to and respect.”

“I fancy that you will find that this young gentleman will be respected,” de Thiou said.  “He is young and pleasant looking, and whatever he is I should say that he is levelheaded, and that he has an infinite fund of firmness and resolution.  I should certainly advise nobody to take advantage of his youth.  I have seen more service than any of you, and had my family possessed any influence at court, I should have been a colonel by this time.  Unless I am greatly mistaken we shall find that we have a man, a good man, and a strong one.  Do you think that he could have won his way to a regiment at the age of twenty unless there had been something quite unusual?  I was talking the other day with one of Gassion’s staff, who has come back until the wound that he got at Rocroi is healed.  He told me that Gassion —­ and France has no better soldier —­ said publicly after the battle that the victory was largely due to this young friend of ours, and that had it not been for him things might have gone altogether differently; and he said that Enghien, proud and ambitious as he is, frankly admitted the same thing.  Of course I can only go upon what I have seen of him, but from what he said, and the manner in which he said it, I am convinced that we could not get a better chief than this young colonel.  I believe that he will make it a comfortable regiment to be in, but I also believe that those who oppose him will find that they make a grievous mistake.”