Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/64

36 luckily, was hidden by a large felt hat with a white cockade. But the stranger, taken somewhat aback by this bold onset, suddenly raised his hat. Hulot seized the opportunity to make a rapid survey of his opponent.

The young chief, who seemed to Hulot to be about twenty-five years of age, wore a short green cloth shooting coat. The white sash at his waist held pistols, the heavy shoes he wore were bound with iron like those of the Chouans; gaiters reaching to the knee, and breeches of some coarse material, completed the costume. He was of middle height, but well and gracefully made. In his anger at seeing the Blues so near to him, he thrust on his hat again and turned towards them, but Marche-à-Terre and others of his party surrounded him at once, in alarm. Still through gaps in the crowd of faces that pressed about the young man and came between them, Hulot felt sure he saw a broad red ribbon on the officer's unfastened coat, that showed the wearer to be a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Louis. The commandant's eyes, at first attracted by the long-forgotten royal decoration, were turned next upon a face, which he lost sight of again in a moment, for the risks of battle compelled him to watch closely over the safety and the movements of his own little band. He had scarcely time to see the color of the sparkling eyes, but the fair hair and delicately cut features tanned by the sun did not escape him, nor the gleam of a bare neck that seemed all the whiter by contrast with a loosely knotted black scarf. There was the enthusiasm and excitement of a soldier in the bearing of the young leader, and of a type of soldier for whom a certain dramatic element seems desirable in a fight. The hand that swung the sword-blade aloft in the sunlight was well-gloved, vigor was expressed in the face, and a certain refinement also in a like degree. In his high-wrought exaltation, set off by all the charms of youth and graciousness of manner, he seemed to be a fair ideal type of the French noblesse; while Hulot, not four paces from him, migbt have been the embodiment of the energetic Republic