I was silent. He hazarded an uncompleted question:
"Monsieur is going——?"
"Where they are fighting," I broke in.
We rose from table.
This fatuous Emigrant society was hateful to me; I was eager to see my peers, Emigrants like myself with six hundred francs a year. We were very stupid, no doubt, but at least we aired our sword-blades, and, if we had obtained any successes, we should have been the last to profit by victory.
My brother remained at Brussels with the Baron de Montboissier[71], who appointed him his aide-de-camp; I set out alone for Coblentz.
There is no more historic road than that which I followed; it recalled in every part some memory or greatness of France. I passed through Liège, one of those municipal republics which so often rose against their bishops or against the Counts of Flanders. Louis XI.[72], the ally of the Liégeois, was obliged to assist at the sack of their town in order to escape from his ridiculous prison of Péronne. I was about to join and to become one of the soldiers who glory in such things. In 1792, the relations between Liège and France were more peaceful: the Abbot of Saint-Hubert was obliged every year to send two hounds to King Dagobert's successors.
At Aix-la-Chapelle there was another offering, but on the part of France: the pall that had served at the funeral of a Most Christian King was sent to the tomb of Charlemagne as a vassal banner to the lord's fief. Our kings thus did fealty and homage on taking possession of the inheritance of Eternity: laying their hands between the knees of their liege-lady, Death, they swore to be faithful to her, after pressing the feudal kiss on her mouth. This, however, was the only suzerain of whom France acknowledged herself the vassal.