He was free and richer than he had ever been.

As soon as _les convenances_ permitted, he confided his son to the care
of a relative of his wife, and began his roving life again.

Rumor had told the truth. He had fought, and that furiously, against
France in the Austrian, and then in the Russian ranks.

And he took no pains to conceal the fact; convinced that he had only
performed his duty. He considered that he had honestly and loyally
gained the rank of general which the Emperor of all the Russias had
bestowed upon him.

He had not returned to France during the first Restoration; but his
absence had been involuntary. His father-in-law, Lord Holland, had just
died, and the duke was detained in London by business connected with his
son's immense inheritance.

Then followed the "Hundred Days." They exasperated him.

But "the good cause," as he styled it, having triumphed anew, he
hastened to France.

Alas! Lacheneur judged the character of his former master correctly,
when he resisted the entreaties of his daughter.

This man, who had been compelled to conceal himself during the first
Restoration, knew only too well, that the returned _emigres_ had learned
nothing and forgotten nothing.