When he was in a rage his brow
was knit and the muscles of the middle of his forehead set in a delta,
or, to be more explicit, in Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark was,
perhaps, even more terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his blue
eyes. His whole frame quivered, and his strength, great as it was in
his normal state, became almost unbounded.
"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was
sounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when
commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless
you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at
Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were
angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression.
On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with
him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by
our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before
the invasion of Russia.
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