almost every military man in Europe, he had only seen the world
through cannon smoke, or in the brief intervals of peace that occurred
so seldom during the Emperor's continual wars with the rest of Europe.
Had he or had he not thought of marriage? The question remained
unsettled. Although no one doubted that Commandant Genestas had made
conquests during his sojourn in town after town and country after
country where he had taken part in the festivities given and received
by the officers, yet no one knew this for a certainty. There was no
prudery about him; he would not decline to join a pleasure party; he
in no way offended against military standards; but when questioned as
to his affairs of the heart, he either kept silence or answered with a
jest. To the words, "How are you, commandant?" addressed to him by an
officer over the wine, his reply was, "Pass the bottle, gentlemen."

M. Pierre Joseph Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There
was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him--he was too thoroughly
commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man.
Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that
he had to look to in the future, the major always kept two years' pay
untouched, and never spent his allowances, like some shrewd old men of
business with whom cautious prudence has almost become a mania. He was
so little of a gambler that if, when in company, some one was wanted
to cut in or to take a bet at ecarte, he usually fixed his eyes on his
boots; but though he did not allow himself any extravagances, he
conformed in every way to custom.

His uniforms lasted longer than those of any other officer in his
regiment, as a consequence of the sedulously careful habits that
somewhat straitened means had so instilled into him, that they had
come to be like a second nature. Perhaps he might have been suspected