“Then perhaps you are ennuyée,” said I, half pettishly, to provoke a disclaimer if possible. To this insidiously put quere I received, as I deserved, no answer, and again we sauntered on without speaking.
“To whom does that chateau belong, my old friend?” said I addressing a man on the road-side.
“A Monsieur le Marquis, sir,” replied he.
“But what’s his name, though?”
“Ah, that I can’t tell you,” replied the man again.
There you may perceive how, even yet, in provincial France, the old respect for the aristocracy still survives; it is sufficient that the possessor of that fine place is “Monsieur le Marquis;” but any other knowledge of who he is, and what, is superfluous. “How far are we from the next village, do you know?”
“About a league.”
“Indeed. Why I thought ‘La Scarpe’ was quite near us.”
“Ah, you are thinking of the Amiens road.”
“Yes, of course; and is not this the Amiens road?”