He wrote
to her that no one but an inveterate enemy could say he had got his
promotion by favour. As to his career he assured her that he looked no
farther forward into the future than the next battlefield.
Beginning the campaign of France in that state of mind, General D'Hubert
was wounded on the second day of the battle under Laon. While being
carried off the field he heard that Colonel Feraud, promoted that moment
to general, had been sent to replace him in the command of his brigade.
He cursed his luck impulsively, not being able, at the first glance,
to discern all the advantages of a nasty wound. And yet it was by this
heroic method that Providence was shaping his future. Travelling slowly
south to his sister's country house, under the care of a trusty old
servant, General D'Hubert was spared the humiliating contacts and the
perplexities of conduct which assailed the men of the Napoleonic empire
at the moment of its downfall. Lying in his bed with the windows of his
room open wide to the sunshine of Provence, he perceived at last the
undisguised aspect of the blessing conveyed by that jagged fragment of
a Prussian shell which, killing his horse and ripping open his thigh,
saved him from an active conflict with his conscience. After fourteen
years spent sword in hand in the saddle and strong in the sense of his
duty done to the end, General D'Hubert found resignation an easy virtue.
His sister was delighted with his reasonableness.
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