'I do not know anything about himself,' said Elizabeth, 'though, certainly, no one but a true knight could have written Sintram. I am afraid there was no leader good enough for you among the Spanish patriots in the Peninsular war.'
'I do not know,' said Anne; 'I admire Don Jose Palafox for his defence of Zaragoza, but I know nothing more of him, and there is no chance of my getting his portrait. I am in great want of Cameron of Lochiel, or Lord Nithsdale, or Derwentwater; for Claverhouse is the only Jacobite leader I can find a portrait of, and I am afraid the blood of the Covenanters is a blot on his escutcheon, a stain on his white wreath.'
'I am sorry you have nothing to say to bonnie Dundee,' said Elizabeth, 'for really, between the Whiggery and stupidity of England, and the wickedness of France, good people are scarce from Charles the Martyr to George the Third. How I hate that part of history! Oh! but there were Prince Eugene and the Vicomte de Turenne.'
'Prince Eugene behaved very well to Marlborough in his adversity,' said Anne: 'but I do not like people to take affront and abandon their native country.'
'Oh! but Savoy was more his country than France,' said Elizabeth, 'however, I do not know enough about him to make it worth while to fight for him.'
'And as to Turenne,' said Anne, 'I do not like the little I know of him; he was horribly cruel, was he not?'
'Oh! every soldier was cruel in those days,' said Elizabeth; 'it was the custom of their time, and they could not help it.'
Anne shook her head.
'Then you will be forced to give up my beloved Black Prince,' continued Elizabeth piteously; 'you know he massacred the people at Limoges.'
'I cannot do without him,' said Anne; 'he was ill and very much exasperated at the time, and I choose to believe that the massacre was commanded by John of Gaunt.'