François laughed. "Le bon Dieu grant it. I can tell fortunes, but not my own." And should he tell the citizen soldier's fortune? With much laughter it was told, and the gifts of fateful time were showered on the soldier's future in opulent abundance. He would be with the army on the frontier soon. He would marry—dame!—a woman rich in looks and lands. He would be a general one day. And this, oddly enough, came true; for he became a general of division, and was killed the morning after at Eylau. Seeing that this young man had agreeable fashions, the thief ventured to express his thanks.
"Monsieur—" he began.
"Take care! Mon Dieu! thou must not say that; 'citizen,' please. The messieurs are as dead as the saints, and the devil, and the bon Dieu, and the rest."
As he did not seem displeased, François said:
"Oh, thou art no Jacobin. Hast a De to thy name?"
This recruit's manners appeared to François a good deal like those of the young nobles whom he had taught to fence.
"What I was is of no moment," replied the young fellow. "The De's are as dead as the saints. I am a soldier. But, pardon me, the citizen may be as frank as suits his appetite for peril. I have had my bellyful."
"Frank? Dame! why not? Up-stairs I was a Jacobin; down here I am a Royalist. I was an aide in Gamel's fencing-school, and, pardie! I came away. Thou canst do me a little service."
"Can I help thee, and not hurt myself? We—my people—are grown scarce of late. I am the last; I take no risks."
"There will be none. Bring me a little steel fork and a good long bit of twine."