It was no jest of Valmond's that he would, or could, have five hundred followers in two weeks.

Lagroin and Parpon were busy, each in his own way--Lagroin, open, bluff, imperative; Parpon, silent, acute, shrewd.
Two days before the feast of St.John the Baptist, the two made a special tour through the parish for certain recruits.

If these could be enlisted, a great many men of this and other parishes would follow.

They were, by name, Muroc the charcoalman, Duclosse the mealman, Lajeunesse the blacksmith, and Garotte the limeburner, all men of note, after their kind, with influence and individuality.
Lagroin chafed that he must play recruiting-sergeant and general also.
But it gave him comfort to remember that the Great Emperor had not at times disdained to be his own recruiting-sergeant; that, after Friedland, he himself had been taken into the Old Guard by the Emperor; that Davoust had called him brother; that Ney had shared his supper and slept with him under the same blanket.

Parpon would gladly have done this work alone, but he knew that Lagroin in his regimentals would be useful.
The sought-for comrades were often to be found together about the noon hour in the shop of Jose Lajeunesse.