This study, therefore, was a place of arms. On the walls hung all manner of musketoons, fusils, and the like, with drawings of mortars and field and siege artillery, with specimens of horses’ bits and saddles and stirrups, and everything relating to the equipment of a soldier. There were a plenty of maps besides. On the great table in the middle of the room was spread a huge map and many dozens of tin manikins, about as high as my thumb; for anybody who thinks that Count Saxe did not study the science of war, knows not the man.
He was at that moment sitting at the table, on which a dozen candles gleamed. He was dressed in black and silver, a dress that showed off his vivid beauty—for he was the most beautiful man who ever lived. Not Francezka Capello’s eyes were more brilliant, more soft than those of Maurice of Saxe. Was it to be expected that with his beauty, his figure, his voice, his charm, and above all, his genius, he should be an anchorite? The women would not let him alone—that is the whole truth. If I had been a woman I should have died of love for him.
“I thought you had gone back to Tatary, Babache,” he cried, throwing his leg over his chair, pushing away his map, and motioning me to a seat. “Tell me your adventures.”
I sat down and told him freely all that had happened from my strolling into Madame Riano’s garden until that moment.
“Peggy Kirkpatrick’s garden,” he said, absently tweaking my ear—a way he had. “That woman is the devil’s grandmother. When she is awake the devil sleeps, knowing all his business is well attended to by her. And Peggy Kirkpatrick’s niece—I know the chit, and knew her father before her. Scotch and Spanish—it is a fiery mixture. And I know that scoundrel, Jacques Haret. So the young man you came near finishing—Gaston Cheverny—laughed when he seemed a-dying. I wish we could have that young man—for Babache, my Tatar prince from the Marais, we ride for Courland within a fortnight.”
I said nothing, it being all one to me where Count Saxe rode so I rode with him. He continued, after a pause:
“It is true, as that devilish old woman Peggy Kirkpatrick says, I go on a marauding expedition, but never must we admit that.” He rose as he spoke, his black eyes flashing. “I go in response to a call from the greatest nobles in Courland, to lay my claims respectfully before the august Diet of Courland. But shoot me, if that Diet doesn’t elect me, it will live to be sorry for it—that I promise. And if Russia and Prussia want war, they can have it. War is the game of the gods. There is none better.” He rose and stood, the picture of a conqueror, smiling at the thought of the great adventures before him.
“It is a large enterprise,” I said. “Our necks will be in jeopardy every hour—but that is a small matter.”