I obeyed. When I had finished, General Foy took my petition, read it and traced a few lines in the margin. His handwriting compared unfavourably with mine and humiliated me most cruelly. Then he folded up the petition, put it in his pocket and, holding out his hand to bid me good-bye, he invited me to return and lunch with him next day. I returned to my hotel in the rue des Vieux-Augustins, and there I found a letter franked by the Minister of War. Good and evil fortune had, up to this time, treated me pretty impartially. The letter that I was about to break open should turn the scale definitely. The minister replied that, as he had no time for a personal interview, he invited me to lay before him anything I had to say in writing. Decidedly, the balance of the scale was towards ill-fortune. I replied that the audience I asked of him was but to hand him the original of a letter of thanks he had once written to my father, his general-in-chief; but that, as I might not have the honour of seeing him, I would content myself with sending him a copy of it. Poor marshal! I have seen him since: he was then as affectionate to me as he had been indifferent under the circumstances I have just related; and, nowadays, his son and his grandson are my good friends.
I went early, next morning, as I had been advised, to General Foy's, who was now my only hope. The general was at his work, as on the previous day. He received me with a smiling face, which looked very promising.
"Well," he said, "our business is settled."
I looked at him, astounded.
"How is that?" I asked.
"Yes, you are to enter the secretarial staff of the Duc d'Orléans as supernumerary, at twelve hundred francs. It is nothing very great; but mow is your chance to work."
"It is a fortune!... And when am I to begin?"
"Next Monday, if you like."
"Next Monday?"
"Yes, it is arranged with the chief clerk in the office."