Sometimes he stands before it at parade rest.

As to each individual's movements, he suits his fancy.
These are old soldiers, indeed, highly privileged, veterans of twenty campaigns, fifty pitched battles, and smaller affairs without number.
Their weatherbeaten faces are lined and wrinkled, their mustaches are as white as snow.
The guard is always relieved at the appointed intervals with military formality and precision.

One soldier, older, taller than the rest, is in command of the other four.

From his buttonhole dangles from a white ribbon a little cross of white enamel.

Though he shows no insignia of rank higher than that of a Sergeant of the Guard, he has won the proud distinction of the Legion of Honor.
At one stated hour in the day, a tall, handsome, distinguished, middle-aged man, wearing for the occasion the uniform of a colonel in the Imperial Guard, a blood-stained, tarnished, battered, battle-worn uniform, be it observed, comes into the room.