The colonel, slightly wounded, retired to the Loire, and left Tours before the disbandment of the army.
In the spring of 1816 Charles sold his wife's property out of the funds to the amount of nearly four hundred thousand francs, intending to seek his fortune in America, and abandon his own country where persecution was beginning to lay a heavy hand on the soldiers of Napoleon.

He went to Havre accompanied by Dumay, whose life he had saved at Waterloo by taking him on the crupper of his saddle in the hurly-burly of the retreat.

Dumay shared the opinions and the anxieties of his colonel; the poor fellow idolized the two little girls and followed Charles like a spaniel.

The latter, confidence that the habit of obedience, the discipline of subordination, and the honesty and affection of the lieutenant would make him a useful as well as a faithful retainer, proposed to take him with him in a civil capacity.

Dumay was only too happy to be adopted into the family, to which he resolved to cling like the mistletoe to an oak.
While waiting for an opportunity to embark, at the same time making choice of a ship and reflecting on the chances offered by the various ports for which they sailed, the colonel heard much talk about the brilliant future which the peace seemed to promise to Havre.