THE only light in the second lieutenants' barrack room came
from the candle on the table, and the broken shadows of the
card players were cast on the ceiling and the walls. The dirty
windowpanes were just beginning to pale.

The second lieutenants' barrack room . . . Actually neither the
second lieutenants nor the full lieutenants had their beds here in the
Panthémont Barracks, which only two months before had been
occupied by Lifeguards, who had since been sent off to the
provinces. Even the Musketeers--at least all the Parisians, like
Théodore, for example--who had the rank of lieutenants in the
army, had slept at home, while a good many provincials had taken
hotel rooms. But since the proclamation of a state of emergency the
men had crowded in as best they could, without paying too much
attention to rank. In the second lieutenants' barrack room, where some
of the men were second lieutenants who had been given the rating of
lieutenant colonel, personal relations were such that lieutenants who
were only Musketeers hobnobbed with second lieutenants who were
actually lieutenant colonels. It was more like a school, where the
seniors take the juniors under their wing, than cavalry quarters. The
officers had a soft spot for Théodore because he was an exceptionally
fine horseman, the kind you see at Franconi's circus. Ten days on the
alert . . . Ten days of living virtually on top of one another, the old-
timers and the raw recruits, without ceremony. Naturally, someone

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