Now he understood the
allusion. General Baron D'Hubert would be able now to enjoy his fat
king's favour in peace.
"Much good may it do to him," mumbled the elder. "They were both brave
men. I never saw this D'Hubert--a sort of intriguing dandy, I am told.
But I can well believe what I've heard Feraud say of him--that he never
loved the Emperor."
They rose and went away.
General D'Hubert experienced the horror of a somnambulist who wakes
up from a complacent dream of activity to find himself walking on a
quagmire. A profound disgust of the ground on which he was making his
way overcame him. Even the image of the charming girl was swept from
his view in the flood of moral distress. Everything he had ever been
or hoped to be would taste of bitter ignominy unless he could manage to
save General Feraud from the fate which threatened so many braves. Under
the impulse of this almost morbid need to attend to the safety of his
adversary, General D'Hubert worked so well with hands and feet (as the
French saying is), that in less than twenty-four hours he found means of
obtaining an extraordinary private audience from the Minister of Police.
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