He was also accused of hauteur and of an unsoldierly reserve with his brother officers.
Some loose-tongued ones even called him a milk-sop, because he was constantly seen conversing with the priest--he who had nothing to say to an honest soldier.
Others said, "No, hang it, he is not a milk-sop: he is a tried soldier: he is a sulky beggar all the same." Those under his immediate command were divided in opinion about him.

There was something about him they could not understand.

Why was his sallow face so stern, so sad?
and why with all that was his voice so gentle?
somehow the few words that did fall from his mouth were prized.

One old soldier used to say, "I would rather have a word from our brigadier than from the commander-in-chief." Others thought he must at some part of his career have pillaged a church, taken the altar-piece, and sold it to a picture-dealer in Paris, or whipped the earrings out of the Madonna's ears, or admitted the female enemy to quarter upon ungenerous conditions: this, or some such crime to which we poor soldiers are liable: and now was committing the mistake of remording himself about it.

"Always alongside the chaplain, you see!" This cold and silent man had won the heart of the most talkative sergeant in the French army.