“What a fool you were to risk your life for a couple of crowns,” he said.
“I risk it every day,” I replied, “for a couple of sous. But I am innocent.”
“Give him his life,” said Count Saxe.
The buglers changed their tune from a dirge to a lively marching air; the drummer beat a couple of ruffles on his drum, and we faced about—I think the honest soldiers who were going to shoot me felt almost as glad as I. Men have to be driven and threatened with punishment to keep them from shirking when it is necessary to shoot a comrade, and there would certainly be a mutiny every time, except that a certain number of muskets have no ball cartridges in them—and every fellow thinks that he has got an empty cartridge.
That same day I wrote a letter to Count Saxe, expressing, as well as I knew how, my thanks for my life. I took it myself to his quarters—and as good luck would have it, while I was begging a pert young aide to give the letter to Count Saxe, the count himself came out of his tent. He read the letter—asked me if I wrote it—and not believing me, told me to come into his tent, 5 sit down at his table, and write at his dictation. I did so, and I have written every line to which his name is signed since, except his love letters. Writing is, in itself, no great accomplishment. Monsieur Voltaire himself has said that a man may have a great deal of esprit and yet write like a cat. Still less important is spelling.
My master would not in his youth give attention to writing and spelling, having more important things to learn, and he had an early quarrel with grammar, which was never made up. Nevertheless, he has written the best book about war yet published—that is to say, he dictated it to me. And the French Academy elected him a member; but he made merry at the expense of the Academicians, saying as he knew not how to spell, much less to write, a seat in the Academy would become him about as well as a ring would become a cat. Also, that if the Academy elected him, it should also elect Marshal Villars, who could neither read nor write; but that I, Babache, was better fitted for an Academician than either.
It is certain, however, that no lady ever refused to accept a love letter from Count Saxe because it was ill spelled and ill written—for that part of his correspondence he attended to strictly himself. I know that certain things concerning the ladies have been urged against him. I know he has been described as “a glorious devil, loving beauty only”—but all I know concerning Count Saxe and the ladies is, the women mobbed him and sent him thousands of love letters. It may be said that I know more than I will admit. Not so. And it may also be said that I could have known all if I had wished. Well, 6 so might I have known astronomy, if I had possessed a taste for the science. But I never liked it. I ever felt small enough anyhow without considering those myriads of suns and worlds which make one feel considerably less than nothing.
One thing I do know about Count Saxe and one lady, in particular; if he had been willing to marry that ugly Duchess of Courland, Anna Iwanowna, now Czarina of Russia, he would have been Duke of Courland de facto as well as de jure; he would have become “cousin” to the Kings of France and Spain; he would have been “most Illustrious” to the Emperor, and “most Illustrious, most Mighty,” to the King of Poland, and what is more, he would have had the right of coining money.
But Count Saxe never put any compulsion on himself in affairs of the heart. And I say this; that with the only two ladies concerning whose relations with him I was familiar—for he was as secretive with me as I could wish about such things—I never knew a man more blameless. And these two ladies were both of them singularly beautiful and charming. One of them was an actress—Mademoiselle Adrienne Lecouvreur, and the other one was Mademoiselle Francezka Capello—that star-like creature whose beauty, whose riches, whose airy high spirit, whose strange, brilliant story, laid her open to peculiar dangers. Yet, toward Mademoiselle Capello, Count Saxe behaved with the most delicate chivalry during the whole of her eventful life. And he forwarded the love of Mademoiselle Capello and Gaston Cheverny with the noblest disinterestedness.