"Shoot him down!"
"A bas les Anglais!"
"Tuez! Tuez! Cut him to pieces!" and so forth, I turned and fled towards the chateau, followed by the whole party, some twenty in number, on foot.
Several shots were fired, but I escaped them all. I passed the wain, dashed through the gateway within which Angelique and Jacquot were still tenderly cooing and billing, and crossed the gravelled courtyard, closely pursued by the hussars, who would no doubt have immolated me there, had not a young lady who was standing on the steps of the entrance-door in conversation with a brilliant-looking cavalry officer, rushed forward and courageously and humanely interposed between them and me, with her arms outspread.
"Pardieu! where did you come from, Coquin? Cut the fellow down!" exclaimed the officer, who was the Chevalier Guillaume do Boisguiller, and in whom I recognised my antagonist of the morning—he of the white scarf, crimson ribbon, and grand cross of St. Louis.
"Ah, je vous prie, monsieur le Chevalier—Messieurs les soldats, don't harm him, pray," cried the young lady; and then she added—"Nay, hold, I command you!"
"What! you intercede for him, do you?" said the officer, with haughty surprise.
"Yes—I do, monsieur."
"Although he is one of those pestilent English who have been playing the devil at Cancalle and St. Malo?"
"I care not—I am Jacqueline de Broglie."