"M. le Duc d'Artois, M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Polignac, M.----"
"Bah!" I said. "How have they deserted?"
"Pardieu, Monsieur! Have you not heard?"
"Have I not heard what?"
"That they have left France? That on the night of the 17th, three days after the capture of the Bastille, the princes of the blood left France by stealth, and----"
"Impossible!" I said. "Impossible! Why should they leave?"
"That is the very question, M. le Vicomte," he answered, with eager forwardness, "that is being asked. Some say that they thought to punish Paris by withdrawing from it. Some that they did it to show their disapproval of his most gracious Majesty's amnesty, which was announced on that day. Some that they stand in fear. Some even that they anticipated Foulon's fate----"
"Fool!" I cried, stopping him sternly--for I found this too much for my stomach--"you rave! Go back to your menus and your bouillis! What do you know about State affairs? Why, in my grandfather's time," I continued wrathfully, "if you had spoken of princes of the blood after that fashion, you would have tasted bread and water for six months, and been lucky had you got off unwhipped!"
He quailed before me, and forgetting his new part in old habits, muttered an apology. He had not meant to give offence, he said. He had not understood. Nevertheless, I was preparing to read him a lesson when, to my astonishment, Buton intervened.
"But, Monsieur, that is thirty years back," he said doggedly.