"Aye, I came from the Abbey."
"Where you also did work?"
"A fatal and terrible necessity. I believed so then and think so still. Death to the aristocrats and priests! But how one does meet! Come, a glass of wine, my old friend."
"That is not to be refused, comrade. I am frozen numb," returned Duchemin; and added, in a tone of bitter recrimination, "That brigand of a Reddy!"
"Of what 'Reddy' do you speak, friend?"
"Oh, that is the name of one of the horses I gave to the country. We were enrolled, my two beasts and I, in '92, in the Second Battalion, Flying Artillery. But my other horse, my Double-grey, was missing from roll call after the battle of Watignies, because of a little impediment in the way of a four-pound cannon ball, which he received in the belly while one of the servants of my darling Carmagnole was riding him."
"What, you have a sweetheart whom you call Carmagnole? The idea is a droll one!"
"That is how I christened the four-pounder I had charge of in my battery. Ah, citizens," added Duchemin, in reply to the volunteers' mirth at his explanation, "if you only knew that beautiful little piece! Such an amorous little mouth—to spit fire and cannon balls at the nose of the Austro-Prussians and the other Ostrogoths."
"Come, come, old chap, do you take us for marines?" said Castillon, laughingly. "Do you want to give us the idea that pieces of artillery in general—and Carmagnole in particular—have characters!"
"Whether they have characters! Just ask your good cannoniers about that, you'll hear their answer. There are slatterns of pieces on whom you can never depend for a good shot. Whereas with Carmagnole—never a caprice. You train her so many lines' elevation—she'll fire just so high; so many lines' depression—she'll fire low. An angel of a spit-fire! A very love!"