"With your mother, perhaps?"
"I was quite alone, madam; an orphan on both sides."
"What was your mother's family-name?"
Here was a puzzle; but at a hazard I resolved to claim her who should sound best to the ears of La Marquise. "La Lasterie, madam," said I.
"La Lasterie de La Vignoble—a most distinguished house, sir. Provençal, and of the purest blood. Auguste de La Lasterie married the daughter of the Duke de Miriancourt, a cousin of my husband's, and there was another of them who went as embassador to Madrid."
I knew none of them, and I supposed I looked as much.
"Your mother was, probably, of the elder branch, sir;" asked she.
I had to stammer out a most lamentable confession of my ignorance.
"Not know your own kinsfolks, sir; not your nearest of blood!" cried she, in amazement. "General, have you heard this strange avowal? or is it possible that my ears have deceived me?"
"Please to remember, madam," said I, submissively, "the circumstances in which I passed my infancy. My father fell by the guillotine."