"No; I have a free pass from the diligence proprietor."
And I related to him how old Cartier owed me a dozen fares. "Now," I asked of the general, "what message shall I take from you to M. Danré?"
"Well, tell him we had lunch together and that I am very well."
A small round table ready laid was carried in at this juncture.
"A second cover," ordered the general.
"Really, General, you make me ashamed...."
"Have you lunched?"
"No, but——"
"To table, to table!... I have to be at the Chamber by noon."
We lunched tête-à-tête. The general talked to me of my future plans; I confided all my literary plans to him. He looked at me; he listened to me with the benevolent smile of a large-hearted man; he seemed to say, "Golden dreams! foolish hopes! purple but fugitive clouds, which sail over the heaven of youth, may they not vanish into the azure firmament too quickly for my poor protégé!" Beloved and kindly general! loyal soul! noble heart! you are now, alas! dead, before those dreams were realised; you died without knowing they were to be realised one day,—you are dead, and gratitude and grief have inspired me, on the borders of that tomb into which you descended before your time, to write I will not say the first good lines I made,—that would perhaps be too ambitious,—but the first of my lines which are worth the trouble of being quoted. Here are those I recall; the rest I have completely forgotten:—