"Stuart? I remember now. A thousand pardons,—and as many welcomes to Paris!" exclaimed the Frenchman, grasping his hand and breaking into a profusion of bows, every one of which threatened to jerk to the other side of the Boulevard the little red cap which surmounted his large curly head.
"You have been very little about Paris, surely, Monsieur Stuart, very little indeed since the—" he paused and smiled bitterly, "since the allies came to it."
"I have been for two months in country quarters at the Château de Marielle, near Melun."
"Delightful place: I know it well. Fine horse that of yours; very like my old cuirassier."
"And so you have changed sides, I see; like Soult and many others."
"No, by the name of the bomb!" cried the Frenchman, his cheek flushing while he spoke. "No, faith! compare me not with Soult! I was one of the last who quitted the great Emperor, and my honour is spotless. But what could I do, Monsieur Stuart? He has been hurried on by his destiny, his evil genius, or some such villainous agent, to wreck the fame and fortune of himself, his soldiers, and of France, by delivering himself up—sacre! to the British. What was I then to do? I had been a soldier from my youth upwards. I had interest to procure a commission as captain in the guards of Louis, who is pleased, sacre nom de—bah! to array us in scarlet; and I've been in Paris ever since Waterloo, where I received a severe wound. I have had hard work to get back from King Louis' ministers the poor remnant that dice, wine, and women have left of mine ancient patrimony, which has descended to my worshipful self through as long a line of respectable ancestors as ever wore bag-wigs, steel doublets, and long swords. I lost my château of Quinsay when I went with the Emperor to Elba—that dismal isle, which the devil confound! I gained it again on his happy return to France,—lost it at Waterloo; but regained it when I donned the scarlet in the guards of the most worshipful Louis, our dread lord and sovereign. Peste! After all, I am a lucky dog."
It may be imagined that Ronald, having once fallen in with this veteran scapegrace, would have found it by no means easy to escape from his society, even had he felt disposed to venture on attempting the feat. So well was the young Highlander acquainted with the probabilities in this particular, that he resolved to leave it unattempted; and having, by especial and all but unhoped-for good luck, managed, though in company with his unhesitating friend, to pass two days and nights without coming to any serious bodily harm, he began to feel it incumbent on him to return thanks for his preservation, and to prepare for his approaching departure from the "City of delights."
Before De Mesmai could be induced to allow himself to be persuaded of the necessity of even the last of these proceedings, he insisted on a visit to the Baron de Clappourknuis, who, he averred, had made his peace with the new ministry, kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., burned his commission from Napoleon, and resided quietly at the venerable Hôtel de Clugny.
"This cunning old grey-beard and I took different sides in the last uproar," said the captain, as they walked along. "He went with Louis to Ghent; while I, as in duty bound, joined— But I had better say nothing more. We are now in the streets of Paris, where every second man is either a jack-booted gendarme or a villainous government spy. Monsieur le Baron saved his dirty acres by this policy, while I narrowly lost mine and the old house of Quinsay, with its ruined hall, where a colony of rooks, bats, and owls have been comfortably quartered for more than twenty years. Clappourknuis is as little enamoured of campaigning, as I am of his crack-jaw name. No, by the bomb! had he loved the flash of bright steel and the clank of accoutrements, he would have joined the Emperor on his quitting Elba. And yet I once beheld him charge bravely at the head of a regiment of Polish lancers. They were attacking a solid square of the regiment of Segovia; and it was a splendid sight to behold them, as they swept past the flank of the cuirassiers in line. At the first blast of the trumpet their thousand lances sunk at once to the rest, their bright heads flashing like a shower of falling stars; and the next moment they were riding into the mass of terrified Spaniards, as one would ride through a river. But he has hung his sabre on the wall, and now reposes in the ancient hôtel, basking in the smiles of the fair Diane, and snugly ensconced under the shadow of his laurels, which, by-the-by, are very likely to grow into other ornaments less agreeable to his martial brow, if he does not look a little sharper after Madame."
"I told you of my adventure with her on the Pyrenees."