So when anybody comes to pick a quarrel with Finot, he finds
old Giroudeau, Captain of the Dragoons of the Guard, that set out as a
private in a cavalry regiment in the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, and
was fencing-master for five years to the First Hussars, army of Italy!
One, two, and the man that had any complaints to make would be turned
off into the dark," he added, making a lunge. "Now writers, my boy,
are in different corps; there is the writer who writes and draws his
pay; there is the writer who writes and gets nothing (a volunteer we
call him); and, lastly, there is the writer who writes nothing, and he
is by no means the stupidest, for he makes no mistakes; he gives
himself out for a literary man, he is on the paper, he treats us to
dinners, he loafs about the theatres, he keeps an actress, he is very
well off. What do you mean to be?"
"The man that does good work and gets good pay."
"You are like the recruits. They all want to be marshals of France.
Take old Giroudeau's word for it, and turn right about, in
double-quick time, and go and pick up nails in the gutter like that
good fellow yonder; you can tell by the look of him that he has been
in the army.--Isn't it a shame that an old soldier who has walked into
the jaws of death hundreds of times should be picking up old iron in
the streets of Paris? Ah! God A'mighty! 'twas a shabby trick to desert
the Emperor.
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