"He was my father's friend——"
"Nineteen years ago!" he interrupted cynically. "In an age of short memories have you no claim more modern?"
"He is a far-off cousin."
"A relationship Monsieur de Commines has apparently never remembered or recognised; anything more plausible than a German cousinship?"
I shook my head.
"Yes," and he laid a hand on my shoulder, pressing it warmly, "I know better. You have five claims, one dead, and four with three days' life in them. I am Philip de Commines."
"Monsieur de Commines? The Prince de Talmont?"
"The same, and in all sincerity let me add, at your service. But we can talk of that later. Do you know your whereabouts? No, how could you! This is the Louvre, and our lodging for to-night."
Monsieur de Commines! The Louvre! I could only stare. As we talked we had walked on, to the right by the Rue du Petit Bourbon, to the left down the Rue d'Hosterische, bordered on the one side by a wide fosse beyond which rose a palace of disenchantment. The Louvre! When one spoke of the Louvre I had imagined I know not what, but a vague glory fired the fancy. The Louvre! These frowning walls of dirty grey were a prison house, these little pierced windows the shot-holes of a threatened fortress, that rounded donjon in the centre the King's clenched fist menacing Paris, those pointed towers at the corners—But Monseigneur cut the catalogue short; we were already at the moat.
Late though it was, the drawbridge was lowered, a guard of three standing at the hither end. To these Monsieur de Commines gave the password, and we crossed to a small postern that pierced the walls to the right of the sunk gateway. Through this he led us.