"Certainly."
"About what?"
"To tell her that we are beaten—ruined, and that she must look out for herself; for that Spain, disembarrassed of me in the north, will fall on her in the south."
"Ah! true."
"You have not written?"
"No, monseigneur."
"You slept?"
"Yes, I confess it; but even if I had thought of it, with what could I have written? I have here neither pen, paper, nor ink."
"Well, seek. 'Quare et invenies,' as it is written."
"How in the devil's name am I to find it in the hut of a peasant, who probably did not know how to write?"