Page 1049 - les-miserables

an officer of the Legion of Honor!’ Pontmercy replied: ‘Sire,
I thank you for my widow.’ An hour later, he fell in the ra-
vine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He
was this same ‘brigand of the Loire.’
We have already seen something of his history. After
Waterloo, Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hol-
low road of Ohain, as it will be remembered, had succeeded
in joining the army, and had dragged himself from ambu-
lance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the Loire.
The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had
sent him into residence, that is to say, under surveillance,
at Vernon. King Louis XVIII., regarding all that which had
taken place during the Hundred Days as not having oc-
curred at all, did not recognize his quality as an officer of
the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his title
of baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing
himself ‘Colonel Baron Pontmercy.’ He had only an old blue
coat, and he never went out without fastening to it his ro-
sette as an officer of the Legion of Honor. The Attorney for
the Crown had him warned that the authorities would pros-
ecute him for ‘illegal’ wearing of this decoration. When this
notice was conveyed to him through an officious intermedi-
ary, Pontmercy retorted with a bitter smile: ‘I do not know
whether I no longer understand French, or whether you
no longer speak it; but the fact is that I do not understand.’
Then he went out for eight successive days with his rosette.
They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times the
Minister of War and the general in command of the depart-
ment wrote to him with the following address: ‘A Monsieur

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