'At that moment a chevalier of the Scottish Guard appeared, having discovered the inn quite by accident, and the profound salute he accorded to her visitor surprised and terrified the landlady.
'"Sieur Blane," said the King—'
'Blane!' I reiterated; 'oh, heavens! this Scottish guardsman was my father!' But, heedless of me, the garrulous Frenchman, full of his story, continued:
'"Sieur Blane," said the Bearnais, "I am likely to be starved in this devil of an inn, for there are up stairs eight solicitors of our city of Paris, who have seized all the provisions, and will not permit me to eat with them!"
'The Sieur Blane drew his sword, and, curling up his long mustachios, swore he would put every man of them to death; but at that moment in came the Sieur de Vitry, with ten more gentlemen of the Scottish Guard: so to teach messieurs the solicitors politeness for the future, they were all seized and sent to Grosbois, where they were well whipped with a bridle-rein, their threats, entreaties, and remonstrances only exciting laughter in the Sieur Blane and his comrades. Hence, monsieur, my inn bears the head of the brave Bearnais—king Henry IV.'
I thanked the landlord, slipped a coin into his hand, and after gazing with more than ordinary attention at this quaint old auberge, where, more than thirty years ago, my brave father had this remarkable adventure with 'the arbiter of Christendom,' I left Charenton, and turned the head of Dagobert towards Paris; but I was so much delighted with the paces, speed, and beauty of the fine animal, that I caracoled round the boulevardes, and noon was long passed before I entered by the ancient gate of St. Marcel.
My heart was full of exultation and gratitude.
'Fortune, what have I done, that thou shouldest favour me thus?' I exclaimed, while prancing along, thinking of the beauty of Clara d'Amboise, the too evident favour with which she viewed me, and the brilliant prospect she had opened before me, by an honourable career in the Scottish Guard—the oldest and most noble body of men-at-arms the world ever saw; but on the cornice of the gate of St. Marcel I perceived a skull, bare, white, and bleached. This gave my thoughts an unpleasant turn, and the warnings of the Marquis recurred to my memory.
On inquiry, I was informed that this poor remnant of humanity was the head of Guy de Beaumanoir, Baron de Fontenelle, who had been accused many years ago of a design to deliver up the fortress of Dournenes to the Spaniards, for which he was dragged to the Place de la Grève, and barbarously broken alive on the wheel.
I rode through the heart of the city, crossed the Place Maubert and the Pont de Notre Dame, and proceeded along the crowded quays, where every variety of signboard, indicative of trade and traffic, with barbers' glittering basins, were swinging in the wind, and where many a veiled figure of Mary Queen of Scots—la Heine Blanche—the invariable sign of a French milliner, was displayed; and thence along the quaint Rue St. Germain l'Auxerrois, at the end of which I perceived the pointed turrets, the narrow windows, and guarded drawbridge of the palace of Francis I.—the Louvre—which I, who had never seen a statelier building than the barred and moated towers of our Scottish barons, conceived to be the grandest edifice in the world.