"I am Jehan de Bault, Seigneur of--I know not where, and Lord of seventeen lordships in the County of Perigord, of a most noble and puissant family, possessing the High Justice, the Middle, and the Low. In my veins runs the blood of Roland, and of my forefathers were three marshals of France. I stand here, the last of my race; in token whereof may God preserve my mother, the King, France, and this Province."
"Ha! In the County of Perigord!" the astrologer said, with a sudden lightening of his heavy brows. "You have remembered that?"
"Yes. I heard the word at Fécamp."
"And all that is true?"
"Yes."
"Who taught it you?"
"I do not know." The boy's face, in its straining, was painful to see.
"What is the first thing you can remember?"
"A house in a wood."
"Can you remember your father?"