LIEUTENANTS I: THE STALWART KIND

Some lieutenants in fiction are too old for their rank. Others are young and effeminate. And there is a third kind of stalwart thirty-somethings, like this one:

...a species of butcher,

built for strength, tall, virile in face, cold and harsh, brave in the

service of the throne, rude in his manners, with an iron will in

action, but supple in manoeuvres, withal an ambitious noble,

possessing the honor of a soldier and the wiles of a politician. He

had the hand his face demanded,--large and hairy like that of a

gorrrilla; his manners were brusque, his speech concise.

The Cursed Child, Honoré de Balzac.