“There is no woman who does not know the Duke of Richelieu,” was the reply.
“This baboon flatters herself that she is a woman,” muttered the Victor at Mahon: but he saluted with the utmost grace, saying aloud: “May I venture to ask to whom I have the honor of speaking?”
“I am your servant, the Countess of Bearn,” replied the old lady, making a court reverence on the miry planks of the alley, three paces from a sort of open trapdoor in which the marshal expected to see her tumble when she got to the third courtsey.
“Enchanted to hear it, my lady,” he responded. “So your ladyship has some law business on hand?”
“Law business, indeed! it is only one suit, but you must have heard about it as it is so long in the courts—my defense against the claim of the Saluce Brothers.”
“Of course! there is a popular song about it—it is sung to the tune of ‘the Bourbon Lass;’ and runs some way thus——
“‘My lady countess, how I want
Your help, which I should ever vaunt,
For I am in a stew’
“You understand that is Lady Dubarry who sings. It is saucy to her, but these ballad-mongers respect nobody. Lord, how greasy this rope for a handrail is! Then you reply as follows:
“‘A lady old and obstinate,
Unsettled lawsuits are my fate,
To win I must rely on you.’”
“How shocking, my lord,” said the countess, who was a descendant of the house of Bearn and Navarre which gave Henry IV as King to France: “how dare they thus insult a woman of quality?”