the precious _Moniteur_.

For it is the _Moniteur de l'Armée_! and he unfolds it with the respect
which we owe to holy things, and he reads it all religiously from the first
article to the everlasting advertisement of _Rob Boyreau Laffecteur_. He
reads it all, not because he is studying tactics or has need of Rob, but
because he has set himself the task of reading it all. His servant brings
him his morning coffee and brandy, and he believes himself still at father
Etienne's or mother Gaspard's, at the garrison café; this makes him quite
sprightly.

"Come, mother Gaspard,
It is not late,
Another glass!
Come, mother Gaspard,
It is not late,
To midnight it wants a quarter!"

But it is not the long, tedious military articles which first attract his
eye, nor the ministerial decrees, nor the studies on the sabretache, nor
the biographies of celebrated skin breeches, nor the improvement of gaiter
buttons, nor the changes of police caps; PROMOTIONS AND CHANGES, that is
what he wants.

PROMOTIONS AND CHANGES! divine rubrics which have caused so many hearts to
beat.

You all recollect it, my old brothers in arms, who have waited long, like
me. Years and years have passed. At length the hour is come and the
newspaper which is going to transform your life. That folded paper gleams