“Did he see your ghost?”
“He saw something better. He saw twelve monks enter the church, who tried him for trying to find out their secrets, condemned him to death, and who, on my word of honor, stabbed him.”
“Didn’t he defend himself?”
“Like a lion. He killed two.”
“Is he dead?”
“Almost, but I hope he will recover. Just imagine, general; he was found by the road, and brought home with a dagger in his breast, like a prop in a vineyard.”
“Why, it’s like a scene of the Sainte-Vehme, neither more nor less.”
“And on the blade of the dagger, that there might be no doubt as to who did the deed, were graven the words: ‘Companions of Jehu.’”
“Why, it isn’t possible that such things can happen in France, in the last year of the eighteenth century. It might do for Germany in the Middle Ages, in the days of the Henrys and the Ottos.”
“Not possible, general? But here is the dagger. What do you say to that? Attractive, isn’t it?”