"Que me fait une étoile?" continued de Baure with impassioned eloquence. "Que me fait une étoile whilst a chef who discovers a new dish which tempts me to begin again after I have satisfied my appetite confers upon me the greatest obligation which it lies in the power of one human being to confer upon another!" [2]
Urged by his grave and astounded colleagues to elaborate his reasons for his extraordinary statement, de Baure declined on the following ground: "A king of France," he said, "was passing through a provincial town when a pompous mayor, addressing his Majesty, regretted that he had twenty very urgent reasons for not having fired the guns in honour of the Royal visit, the first of which was that he had not any powder. 'Stop there!' said the King, 'I will excuse you the other nineteen.'"
Another Frenchman, of a very different type, who was a friend of John Stanhope at this date, was the young Comte de St. Morys, of whose tragic fate, so illustrative of the conditions then prevalent in France, Stanhope subsequently gave the following account:—
"The Comte de St. Morys had been an émigré at the period of the Revolution. His mother, however, had not accompanied her husband during that exile, and, in consequence, had succeeded eventually in preventing the confiscation of some of his property. When, later, Napoleon adopted the course of gathering round his throne as many of the old noblesse as he could, he conveyed the hint to Madame de St. Morys that, unless her son returned, the remainder of her property should be confiscated. In consequence of this notification the young Comte deemed it his duty to return to his native land, and he established himself in the basse-cour of his former home, which was all of the château which now remained.
"Unfortunately for him, the rest of the property had been sold to a man whose character may be best described by stating that he had been a branded fellow. A good understanding was not likely to exist between men of such opposite principles, and St. Morys, although he possessed the kindest and the warmest heart, was rather of a hasty disposition, and had a little more brusquerie of manner than is generally found among Frenchmen of his rank. What may have been the first, or the principal cause of the dispute, I know not, but, from what I heard, it appeared to me most probable that the object of Colonel Barbier de Fay was to compel Monsieur de St. Morys to give him a high price for his land in order to get rid of so disagreeable a neighbour.
"However that may be, Colonel Barbier's hatred to St. Morys at length carried him so far as to lead him to form a plan of vengeance which I can characterise by no other expression than diabolical.
"At the restoration of the Bourbons, Monsieur de St. Morys, like many others, was raised to the rank he would have held according to the army list. He therefore became a general in the army and a lieutenant in the Garde de Corps, which, as the regiment was entirely composed of nobles, was a very high situation. Colonel Barbier, with a double motive—first that of tormenting Monsieur de St. Morys and next that of throwing discredit on a corps which he detested—introduced into the Garde room, and circulated wherever he could find access, printed papers blackening the Count's character. That gentleman accordingly challenged him. Colonel Barbier replied that he would only accept the challenge on one condition— that two pistols should be put into a bag, one loaded and another not, and that they should draw for the chance.
"This St. Morys rejected, stating that he was prepared to fight, but not to commit murder. In order, however, that his character should be free from stain he referred the matter to the Marshals of France. They approved of his conduct, and there the matter ought to have ended. Unfortunately the Garde de Corps, aware of the jealousy with which the old army viewed their position, were very touchy on the point of honour. Wherefore the Duc de Luxembourg, his Colonel, considered that St. Morys was under a cloud, and refused to allow him to perform his military duties till his reputation was cleared. This was, in point of fact, the object which his adversary had in view. It placed St. Morys in a most awkward position, and threw an apple of discord among the Garde de Corps.
"My poor friend unluckily consulted everybody, and followed everybody's advice. That which our joint friend, the Comte G. de la Rochefoucauld, gave him appeared to me the best; he advised him to make up his mind at once to the sacrifice of his commission; that having challenged his opponent he had done all that was incumbent upon him as a man of honour, a fact which was unquestionable after the decision of the marshals, and that he should express himself ready to meet any person who should arraign his conduct. But this would probably have involved him with the Duc de Luxembourg, and consequently compelled him to resign his commission in the Guards, which would have been peculiarly unfortunate as he was daily in expectation of being raised to the rank of captain, upon which he intended to have retired upon half pay.
"Instead, therefore, of following this advice, he endeavoured by further irritation to compel his opponent to meet him; he went into a café and struck the Colonel on the face with his fist, believing that so public a disgrace would induce Barbier to meet him on his own terms; but the other was not to be diverted from his predetermined purpose; he continued to persist in his declaration that he would fight only on the terms he had originally proposed.