Such men are walking coffins, each containing a Frenchman of the past;
now and again the Frenchman wakes up and kicks against his
English-made casing; but ambition stifles him, and he submits to be
smothered. The coffin is always covered with black cloth.
"Ah, here is my brother!" said Baron Hulot, going to meet the Count at
the drawing-room door.
Having greeted the probable successor of the late Marshal Montcornet,
he led him forward by the arm with every show of affection and
respect.
The older man, a member of the Chamber of Peers, but excused from
attendance on account of his deafness, had a handsome head, chilled by
age, but with enough gray hair still to be marked in a circle by the
pressure of his hat. He was short, square, and shrunken, but carried
his hale old age with a free-and-easy air; and as he was full of
excessive activity, which had now no purpose, he divided his time
between reading and taking exercise. In a drawing-room he devoted his
attention to waiting on the wishes of the ladies.
"You are very merry here," said he, seeing that the Baron shed a
spirit of animation on the little family gathering. "And yet Hortense
is not married," he added, noticing a trace of melancholy on his
sister-in-law's countenance.
"That will come all in good time," Lisbeth shouted in his ear in a
formidable voice.
"So there you are, you wretched seedling that could never blossom,"
said he, laughing.
The hero of Forzheim rather liked Cousin Betty, for there were certain
points of resemblance between them.
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