The story was told, others followed it; but presently Lord Robert turned to more serious matters, and said, over a glass of champagne: "But that's enough of London! Between friends, Charles, what's happening here?"
"It's pretty difficult to say. We get intelligence from Paris, of course, and what we don't hear Clarke does: but one's never too sure of one's sources. By what we can discover, the French aren't by any means unanimous over Boney's return. All this enthusiasm you hear of belongs to the Army. It wouldn't surprise me if Boney finds himself with internal troubles brewing. Angouleme failed, of course; but we've heard rumours of something afoot in La Vendee. One thing seems certain: Boney's in no case yet to march on us. We hear of him leaving Paris, and of his troops marching to this frontier - they are marching, but he's not with them."
"What about ourselves? How do we go on?"
"Well, we can put 70,000 men into the field now, which is something."
"Too many 2nd Battalions," said Lord Robert. "Under strength, aren't they?"
"Some of them. You know how it is. We're hoping to get some of the troops back from America. But God knows whether they'll arrive in time! We miss Murray badly - but we hear we're to have De Lancey in his place, which will answer pretty well. By the by, he's married now, isn't he?"
"Yes: charming girl, I believe. What are the Dutch and Belgian troops like? We don't hear very comfortable reports of them. Disaffected, are they?"
"They're thought to be. It wouldn't be surprising: half of them have fought under the Eagles. I suppose the Duke will try to mix them with our own people as much as possible, as he did with the Portuguese. Then there will be the Brunswick Oels Jagers: they ought to do well, though they aren't what they were when we first had them with us."
"Well, no more is the Legion," said Lord Robert.
"No: they began to recruit too many foreigners. But they're good troops, for all that, and they've good generals. I don't know what the other Hanoverians are like: there's a large contingent of them, but mostly Landwehr battalions."