All this was Hebrew to me. I asked who M. de Sillery and Madame de Genlis were.
“Ah! of course,” said he; “I forgot that you had only just arrived in Paris, from the depths of some impenetrable forest, and of course know not the names of those who are around us.”
“I fancy that I know the name of M. de Sillery. If I do not deceive myself, he has been sent by the nobility of Champagne.”
“Good, my boy, good!”
“But it is the man,” continued I, “that I do not know.”
“Well, I will tell you all about the man. We begin to know names, as well as men. Charles Alexis Brulart is a marquis, like Lafayette, but having, like him, renounced his title, on the night of the 4th of August, he calls himself Sillery, as I call myself Duplay. As to his courage, it cannot be doubted. At twenty years of age, he assisted in the campaign of the Indies, and gained his rank at the point of the sword.”
“What rank did he gain?” asked I.
“Captain in the navy.”
“But he wears the uniform of a colonel of grenadiers.”
“Yes. He has left the navy for the army; he is the accredited agent of the Duke of Orleans. In his youth, he was called Comte de Genlis; that, as I have told you, is the name of his wife. She has acquired a double, and doubtful, celebrity, as the friend of the Duke of Orleans, whose children she has educated, and as a writer, in which occupation she is at present engaged.”