These last stood in a little group by themselves, although there was no attempt on the part of the officers to emphasize any difference in rank on such an occasion.
There were, perhaps, a hundred men in the company when all had been assembled.

They had been chosen with the utmost care.

The list included all the officers, except certain new officers who had been assigned to the regiment from other regiments of whom Major Lestoype and the veteran captains were not sure.

Certain other young officers, sons or connections of influential royalists now in high favor with King Louis XVIII, who had also been assigned to the regiment were of course excluded.
Those who were there were known men, all tried and true.

Major Lestoype himself had been a private when the Fifth-of-the-Line had followed the Emperor, then but General Bonaparte, into Italy on that first and most marvelous of the campaigns of the great Captain.