I assured her I had no such intention, and was really ignorant of the name of the village.
"It is not a village, sir," she resumed, "it is a town. You are at the Puy d'Arnac, in the Canton of Beaulieu."
A native of Marseilles would hardly have named the Canebiere with greater satisfaction. I knew that the Puy d'Arnac gave its name to a celebrated growth of the Correze, and I thought I understood the lofty tone of the reply. All on a sudden, one of my companions, whom we nicknamed the "Broker," because he groped into all sorts of places, and, with amusing perseverance, hunted out objects of art and curiosity even in hovels, touched my elbow, and asked me if I had noticed the picture which was half-hidden under the serge curtains of one of the beds. I had not yet observed it, and got up to look at it. It was the portrait of a general officer of the time of Louis XV. The frame, sculptured and gilt, struck me still more, being really beautiful. "This is a discovery indeed," said my friend to me, while I inquired of the young woman where such a portrait could have come from.
"Where could it have come from, Monsieur?" she haughtily replied; "it is the portrait of my grandfather."
"Aha!" we exclaimed, all four of us, turning ourselves round with surprise. With one hand our hostess stirred the fire, with an indifference evidently affected, while with the other she rocked the little box in which her infant was asleep.
"Might I presume to inquire the name of Monsieur your grandfather?" said I, drawing near to her.
"He was the Count of Anteroches," was her reply.
"What, the Count of Anteroches, who commanded the French guards at the battle of Fontenoy?"[5]
"You have heard him spoken of, then?" resumed the peasant girl, with a smile.
My friend the Broker stood as if stupefied before the picture. All of a sudden he wheeled round, and, gravely removing his cap, repeated with a theatrical air the celebrated saying of M. d'Anteroches,—"Fire first, Messieurs les Anglais; we are Frenchmen, and must do you the honors!"