'Ah—there are always pretty girls there.'
'Well—about your fleuriste?'
'In that street, there was one named Jeanette Lavardin, very pretty and very much admired by all the gallants of Paris, who frequented her little shop and bought kisses and flowers; for in those days every cavalier carried a nosegay; but unfortunately poor Jeanette was a Huguenot; and on the day of the massacre, after the King's Guards, led by Monsieur d'O, their colonel, had so barbarously slain the Comte de la Rochefoucault, who was grand huntsman and hereditary master of the royal wardrobe, the Marquise de Renel, Francourt the Chancellor of Navarre, and more than two hundred other gentlemen, who had sought shelter in the Louvre, all smeared with blood, and panting for fresh slaughter, they issued into the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, and murdered Jeanette, though she sank on her knees, and implored them to save her life, saying that she was not in a fit state to die. One mousquetaire made her promise to be a good Catholic, which she accordingly promised, and was instantly stabbed by swords and poignards, to prevent her, as the destroyers said, relapsing into heresy; and then they departed to seek new victims.
'Next day, when the Catholics were throwing all the bodies into the Seine, they found that the murdered Jeanette in her death throes had given birth to an infant. Many persons were deeply moved by beholding a birth under circumstances so appalling; others were for throwing "the Huguenot's brat" into the river with its dead mother; and for that fell purpose the poor naked youngling was seized by one of Colonel d'O's soldiers, but was saved by a gentleman of the Scottish Guard of Charles IX., who threw his velvet mantle over it—so this child lived to be a man, and has now the honour of addressing you.'
'A strange and terrible story!' said I: 'and this gentleman of the Scottish Guard—'
'Was the bosom friend of the King of Navarre—the Chevalier Blane.'
'My father!' I exclaimed with joy.
'Yours, Monsieur l'Abbé!' exclaimed the maitre d'hôtel, almost embracing me: 'your father! tell me, then, is this brave chevalier alive?'
'Alas, no! he was slain last year in cold blood; but I shall yet avenge him, if ever I tread on Scottish ground again!'