"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
Shakspeare.
My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to, were of course for those whom he had left in England.
"Ah, ha!" said he with a laugh, which showed the inextinguishable Frenchman, "are you constant still? Well, then, Madame la Comtesse is constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."
"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.
"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little stronger. But they certainly are not married yet, for Mademoiselle Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."
"But your Mariamne—how go on your interests there?" The question brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.
"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is, are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing, insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is intolerable."
"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come here? How long have you been in Paris?"
"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before. Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London without asking her permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a grave recommendation to discover you, in whatever height or depth of the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering, including herself; and commending me, as a truant and a trifler, to your especial, grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a letter, to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it had nearly failed in the delivery."