Eugene knew Tétrell through having seen him in the streets of Strasbourg; he had heard that he was one of his father's denunciators, and he naturally regarded him with aversion.
As for Augereau, he saw him for the first time, and, caricaturist that he was, like all the children of the faubourgs, he immediately noticed the man's enormous nostrils, which seemed to extend over his cheeks in an exaggerated fashion, and which resembled those extinguishers on the end of poles which sacristans carry to put out the flame of the tall candles which they cannot reach with their breath.
Little Charles was seated just below Tétrell; Augereau, who sat on the other side of Eugene, proposed that he change places with Charles.
"Why?" asked Charles.
"Because you are just within range of citizen Tétrell's breath," replied Augereau. "And I am afraid that when he draws it in he will draw you in with it."
Tétrell was more feared than loved, and the remark, despite its poor taste, caused a laugh.
"Silence!" roared Tétrell.
"What did you say?" asked Augereau, in the mocking tone peculiar to Parisians. And as he stood up to look in his interlocutor's face, the audience recognized the uniform of the regiment that had made the sortie in the morning. They burst into applause, mingled with shouts of "Bravo, sergeant-major! Long live the sergeant-major!"
Augereau gave the military salute and sat down; and as the curtain rose just then, attracting the attention of the audience, nothing more was thought of Tétrell's nose, nor of the sergeant-major's interruption.
The curtain rises, it will be remembered, upon a session of the Roman senate, in which Junius Brutus, first consul of Borne with Publicola, announces that Tarquin, who is besieging Rome, has sent an ambassador.