"Sire, my family and I have suffered persecution at the hands of the French monarch, and I yearn for satisfaction. Your majesty sees how unfit I am to be a priest, for I cannot love my enemies, nor do good to those who despitefully use we."
"Let us hope that you will learn this lesson later. Meanwhile you seem more fitted for the career of a soldier than the vocation of a churchman. Your appearance here reminds me of my own youth. I, too, was destined for the priesthood, and wore the garb of an abbe. I was a younger son, and nothing but an appendage to royalty. But it pleased God of His servant to make a sovereign, and to send as His messenger, death. My brother Ferdinand, the hope of Austria, died, and I stepped forth from my insignificance to become the heir to a mighty empire. Your brother Louis has frequently mentioned you to me, and from him I learned that at the French court you were known as 'the little abbe!' If of me, who was once a novice, Almighty God has made an emperor—of you, little abbe, He may make a great warrior!"
"Sire, my fate is in His hands; but all that lies in my own, I will do to serve your majesty as your loyal subject, hoping to follow from afar in the footsteps of the distinguished models before me." At the same time, Eugene bowed low to the Duke of Lorraine.
"Will you take him as your pupil?" asked Leopold of his brother-in- law. "No one in Austria can teach him better how to win laurels."
"With your majesty's permission, I accept the task," replied the duke. "But he must expect to find me a hard master, and, as my pupil in war, to have little leisure for aught else."
"You see," said Leopold, gayly, "what a miserable lot you have chosen for yourself. You have fallen from Scylla into Charybdis, my poor youth."
"I have my Ulysses, your majesty, in his highness of Lorraine. I give myself up to his sage guidance."
"If Prince Eugene is as ready with his sword as with his tongue, my enemies will have to look out, methinks," cried Leopold. "So take him along, Duke of Lorraine, and of the little abbe of the King of France make a great captain for the Emperor of Austria."
"With your majesty's permission, I will confer upon him the rank of colonel, and the first vacancy that occurs. Until then, prince, you can accompany me as a volunteer."
"As a volunteer for life, your highness," replied Eugene; "and, although I have already to thank his majesty for much gracious encouragement, I feel more grateful to him for placing me under your highness's orders, than for any other of the favors he has so kindly bestowed upon me to-day."