Copyright 1903 by G. Barrie & Sons

LÉODGARD RETURNS TO HIS FRIENDS

All the young men ran to meet Léodgard, for it was really he who was approaching. As they drew near him they were struck by his pallor and by the sinister gleam of his eyes, which avoided theirs.

NOVELS
BY
Paul de Kock
VOLUME VII
THE BATH KEEPERS;
OR,
PARIS IN THOSE DAYS
VOL. I

THE JEFFERSON PRESS
BOSTON NEW YORK

Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons.

THE BATH KEEPERS;
OR,
PARIS IN THOSE DAYS

CONTENTS

[I, ] [II, ] [III, ] [IV, ] [V, ] [VI, ] [VII, ] [VIII, ] [IX, ] [X, ] [XI, ] [XII, ] [XIII, ] [XIV, ] [XV, ] [XVI, ] [XVII, ] [XVIII, ] [XIX, ] [XX, ] [XXI, ] [XXII, ] [XXIII, ] [XXIV, ] [XXV, ] [XXVI, ] [XXVII, ] [XXVIII]

I
RUE COUTURE-SAINTE-CATHERINE

It was two o'clock on a cold, damp morning; the fine snow, which melted as soon as it touched the ground, made the streets slippery and dirty, and Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine,—then called Couture-Sainte-Catherine,—although it was one of the broadest streets in Paris, was as black and gloomy as any blind alley in the Cité to-day.

But these things took place in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-four; and I need not tell you that in those days no such devices for street lighting as lanterns, gas, or electric lights were known. The man who should have discovered the last-named invention, which, in truth, savors strongly of the magical, would surely have been subjected to the ordinary and extraordinary torture for a recompense.

Those were the good old times!

Everything new aroused suspicion; people believed much more readily in sorcerers, the devil, and magic, than in the results of study and learning and the reasoning of the human intellect.

Was it that men were too modest in those days? If so, they have reformed most effectually since then.

In those days, very few persons ventured to be out late in the streets of Paris, where the police was most inefficient and often worse.

The young noblemen sometimes indulged in the pastime of beating the watch; that diversion was permitted to the nobility. To-day, the prowlers about the barriers are the only class who undertake to beat the gendarmes from time to time; but the gendarmes are not so accommodating as the watch of the old days.

There were not then some thirty or more theatres open every evening for the entertainment of the people of the capital and of the strangers drawn thither by its renown. A single one had been founded and was patronized by Cardinal de Richelieu, who, unfortunately for his glory, had undertaken to add to his other titles thereto the title of author.

But all great men have had their weaknesses. Alexander drank too much, which was infinitely more reprehensible than to write wretched verses; Frederick the Great insisted that he was a talented performer on the flute; and Louis XIV danced in the comédies-ballets which Molière composed for him.

The farces which were then being performed by Turlupin, Gros-Guillaume, and Gauthier-Garguille ended with the daylight, their theatres being in the open air. People dined at noon and supped at six o'clock; and when a worthy bourgeois remained at a friend's house as late as nine o'clock, he looked upon it as a genuine revel, as a youthful escapade, and hurried home at the top of his speed, carrying a lantern, and shuddering with terror many a time as he passed through the lanes which were then called streets, and in which, if he should happen to meet any evil-minded person, he was certain of obtaining no assistance from any house or shop; for when the curfew had rung, everything must be closed, and you might not even have a light in your house, if you wished to read or work, or for any reason not to go to bed.

Why do we call that period "the good old time"?

That is a question I have often asked myself.

Is it because people were not entitled to go to bed, to work, to entertain their friends, to amuse themselves when they had the desire, the need, or the fancy so to do?

Is it because people broke their necks after dark in the streets? because thieves, then called Truands, Mauvais Garçons, Tireurs de Laine, or Coupeurs de Bourses, plied their trade in broad daylight on Pont Neuf and in other localities, laughing in your face if you ventured to remonstrate?

Was it because the shops were dark and filthy, devoid of taste and refinement?

Was it because duels were fought on street corners, or in the public squares, two or four or twelve a day, as unconcernedly as we go boating to-day; and the authorities took no steps to prevent this butchery?

Was it because edicts were promulgated every day whereby such a one was forbidden to wear silk, another to wear velvet, this woman to have a gilt girdle, another to dress in certain colors, which were too brilliant, too conspicuous for her walk in life?

O short-sighted politicians! O paltry critics! who anathematize luxury, who seek to restrict refinement, who censure coquetry, and who do not understand that by such theories you strike at our commerce, our manufacturers, our mechanics—in a word, all our workers!

In heaven's name, what harm is done if a plebeian who has money dresses fashionably, luxuriously even, if such be his taste, his caprice?

Are you afraid that he may eclipse you, who assume to belong to the beau monde? Try to make yourself distinguished by your manners, your bearing, your grace, your courtesy, your language; surely you must know that those are things that cannot be bought!

For my own part, I would be glad to see all the working girls in silk dresses, velvet bonnets, and lace-trimmed caps, and all the workingmen in patent-leather shoes and white gloves.

Where would be the harm?

Is not the picture of refinement more attractive than that of slovenliness, poverty, and want?

Does not the money that a man spends on his dress do him more honor than that which he throws away at the wine shop?

But let us return to Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and to the period when the events that we are about to describe took place.

A young man came out of Rue des Francs-Bourgeois and passed the Hôtel de Carnavalet, before which artists and admirers of sculpture always paused to gaze at the waving lines of the great portal, and the masks and bas-reliefs that adorned the arches of the windows—the work of the immortal Jean Goujon.

Fortunate structure, which the genius of an artist was to make famous forever, and to which, at a later time, a woman of intellect was to add renewed lustre by making it her residence!

But at the period of which we write, Madame de Sévigné had not taken up her abode at the Hôtel de Carnavalet.

The hour was not propitious for halting in front of the mansion, for it was very near Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, which at that time extended to Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine; moreover, the person who came from the first-named street did not seem to be in that frame of mind which fits us to pass judgment on the objects of beauty we may meet on our road.

He was, as we have said, a young man. Twenty-five years was his age; he was tall, slender, and well built; there was in his carriage and in every movement the ease of bearing which denotes the man of the world, and the manners which point to familiarity with cultivated society, and which one does not lose, even in low company, when one has inherited them from a long line of ancestors.

In addition to grace of form, this young man possessed a handsome face and clean-cut features; his brow was lofty and proud; his black eyes were large and bright, and surmounted by very dense eyebrows which almost met, thus imparting at times a somewhat sombre expression to the organs of vision below them, which flashed fire when animated by wrath, but could, on occasion, assume an expression of gentleness and tenderness which it was difficult to resist; a small mouth, well supplied with teeth, and shaded by a small moustache; an oval chin adorned by a royale; and a forest of black hair which fell in thick curls over his neck and shoulders—such, physically, was Léodgard de Marvejols.

As for his moral character, this story will instruct us sufficiently therein.

Clad in a handsome doublet of crimson silk, slashed with white satin; knee-breeches of the same material, held in place by a white belt with silver fringe, to which was attached a long sword, with a hilt of the finest steel, ornamented with fringe and bows of ribbon; the young cavalier's feet and legs were encased in funnel-shaped top-boots of yellow leather, with buckles at the instep; spurs affixed to those light boots indicated that they seldom contributed to wear out the pavements. A broad collarette, trimmed with lace, served as a cravat, and a small velvet cloak was thrown over the shoulders and clasped on one side. Lastly, a hat with a pointed crown and broad brim, turned up in front, and surmounted by a long white plume attached by a steel button, was the young man's headgear; and it must be said that it was infinitely more graceful and refined than the hideous hats that we wear to-day.

We must do justice to the "good old times" in this respect: the costumes worn by men were much more graceful, more dignified, more attractive, than they now are; for we must, before everything, be impartial, and award praise as well as blame.

Léodgard de Marvejols walked rather quickly, but sometimes he stopped, like a person who is very much preoccupied, and to whom it matters little that it is two o'clock in the morning, and that the streets are deserted.

At these times he usually thought aloud, or talked to himself—a practice which is more common than is generally supposed; and as the young nobleman had supped very copiously, his monologues were quite as energetic as if he were still accompanied by boisterous revellers.

At this time Léodgard was very near the new convent of the Annonciades Célestes, or Filles Bleues, which one of the mistresses of Henri IV, the Marquise de Verneuil, had founded in the year 1626.

The blue girdle and cloak worn by the Annonciades had already caused them to be styled Filles Bleues; which fact did not prevent those saintlike women from being held in great veneration in their quarter; so that, in broad daylight, people would have been terribly scandalized to hear our young man swear roundly so near that asylum of repentance, and exclaim, as he leaned against the wall of the convent:

"Par la mordieu! if that Jarnonville had not left the game, I should have won twice as much, thrice as much; I was in luck; I should have won until morning. And that D'Artigues, and Cournac—to refuse to take the dice—when I offered them their revenge at lansquenet—that swindlers' game! and when I was losing! God damn me! I would stake my patrimony, my moustaches, my mistress, if anyone would give me anything on them, and my soul, if the devil would take it.—Let me see: how much did I win from them? five or six hundred pistoles at most; and even so, I am not sure that their rose crowns aren't clipped or counterfeit. A noble night's work, on my word! as if that would make up what I have lost! I know that I may continue to win to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow; that I may win as often as I have lost.—Ah! I will win! I must! I must win enough to buy another petite maison, as I have lost mine to that infernal De Montrevers.—Where in the devil am I to take my pretty courtesan, Camilla, to-morrow?—This is strange; I feel dizzy; that Jurançon wine was good, but it is heady.—Where in the devil shall I take my new conquest to-morrow? Cournac refused to lend me his petite maison, on the pretext that he was to have company there. The coxcomb! he boasts of it, but it is a lie; I know from his esquire that when he goes there he is always alone! However, we shall find some place of shelter to take our belle; I am in funds now, and with a well-filled purse one is welcomed cordially everywhere.—Apropos of my purse, let us be sure that I haven't lost it. By hell! I am quite capable of it, I am so dizzy!"

At that thought, the young man hastily put his hand to his belt; but his eyes almost immediately resumed a serene expression, as he felt his purse, which was round and full. He could not resist the desire to take it in his hands and feel the weight of it, saying to himself:

"At last, I am not going home with an empty purse. Ten thousand devils! it is a long time since that has happened to me!"

And Léodgard was about to restore the purse to his belt, when a person who had drawn near to him, quietly and unperceived, caught his arm, saying:

"It is unnecessary; don't give yourself the trouble to put it back."

II
A ROBBER

The man who had halted in front of Léodgard was tall and strong, and seemed rather young than old; he was so strangely attired, that, after meeting him once, it would be difficult not to remember him.

A black doublet fitted close to his body, like a silk shirt; he wore laced half-boots; a leather belt, in which were thrust pistols and a poniard; and a broad baldric, from which hung a short sabre—a sort of dagger with a very broad blade. All this part of his costume was concealed by an ample caftan of olive-green cloth, which had a hood of the same material, and which we may compare to a modern caban.[A] His head was covered with a red cap, trimmed with long wild boar's hair. This cap was pulled down so far that one could hardly see his eyes; only a long, thin nose could be distinguished, the lower part of the face being completely hidden by moustaches and a heavy beard of the same color as the hair on his cap.

[A] A thick woollen cloak, with a hood.

All these details formed a most unprepossessing whole, and gave the man the aspect of a porcupine.

But one was taken by surprise when there came from that bearded face, instead of a harsh and threatening voice, a soft, almost melodious sound; there was in the bandit's speech something mellow and vibrating, which, with a rather pronounced Italian accent, gave it a decided charm.

Léodgard raised his head and was completely taken aback when he saw this individual standing in front of him; but, instead of complying with his suggestion and refraining from putting his purse away, he instantly withdrew his arm, replaced the gold in his belt, and, stepping back, scrutinized the robber; who stood quietly in his place and submitted to the examination, like one who was in no hurry at all and was content to await the convenience of the traveller he proposed to plunder.

"Pardieu! I cannot be mistaken," cried Léodgard, after a moment; "you are the famous Giovanni, the Italian robber, but lately arrived in France, who has already filled Paris with the fame of his exploits, his audacity, and, above all, his address!"

The man in the olive-green caftan bent his head slightly, replying in a flute-like voice, as if highly flattered by the compliment:

"Yes, signor, I am he."

"Ah! By my faith, I do not regret the meeting! Since the beginning of the winter, I have heard so much of you and your prowess, Master Giovanni, that I have more than once longed to make your acquaintance. For you are no ordinary robber—everybody does you that justice; you are ceremonious and well-mannered, and, it is said, very agreeable to the persons you rob. That is a decided change for us; our French thieves are so vulgar, such pitiful wretches! Come, since chance has served me so well to-night, let us talk a little. Have you a few moments to give me before we decide the fate of this purse?"

"I shall be very glad to talk with you, signor; I have time enough, for yours is the last business I shall do to-night."

"And it will not be the most profitable for you, I warn you, Giovanni; for I am not in the mood to give up my purse to you; it is too well filled for that!"

The robber's only reply was a satirical laugh.

Léodgard de Marvejols had found a stone, on which he seated himself; Giovanni remained standing with arms folded, and the conversation began.

"Why did you leave your beautiful Italy to come to France? Would you not be more at ease in the vast plains that surround Rome, or on the slopes of the Pausilippo, or lying lazily beside the blue sea that bathes the feet of Naples, than in this dark and filthy street, beneath this gray sky, in this cold mist which chills us to the bone as it clings to our garments?"

"The sky of Italy is beautiful, signor, but love of change lies deep in the heart of man."

"That is true; I grant you that. Moreover, since the days of Queen Catherine de' Medici, of sinister memory, it seems that all Italians have agreed to meet in Paris. We see your compatriots everywhere—at court, in the city, in exalted positions, in the finances. The Italians have brought us poisons,—with the way to make use of them,—the art of telling fortunes by cards, of reading the stars, of learning the future.—I try in vain to think what they have given us in exchange for all this——"

"Music, signor."

"Ah! to be sure: music! They do, in fact, sing better than we do; but, frankly, I do not think that that makes the balance even. I should have supposed that Concini's tragic end would have allayed to some extent the ardor of your compatriots for living in Paris. But I see that it is not so, and that we have not yet seen the last of the Italians."

"One finds much to entertain one in France, signor."

"That must needs be so, since everybody desires to come here!—But tell me,—for your manners and language seem to denote a man of some education, and that you are not such a devil as you seek to appear, with that shocking cap, in which you probably disguise yourself for a purpose,—what train of events has led you to adopt the hazardous profession in which you are now so famous? Do you feel disposed to tell me?—For my own part, I confess that I am very curious to know your adventures, assuming that you are not resolved to keep them secret."

"Mon Dieu! signor, I am ready to gratify you: the events of my life are very simple—like those that come to multitudes of young men in all lands. I am the son of a most respectable physician of Florence; indeed, my father had amassed some wealth; he desired to make me a dottore like himself, but I had not the slightest calling for the medical profession. By way of compensation, I had a decided calling for gambling, the joys of love, and of the table. I played, and contracted debts. At first, my father paid them; but in time he tired of paying money for me; he besought me to abandon the sort of life I was leading. Que diavolo!—it was too late, the twig was bent! I allowed myself to be led astray by fellows to whom all means of procuring money were justifiable. I left Florence, I changed my name, from regard for my family, and I followed the current. One travels rapidly on that road! As I was dexterous and fearless, I soon left behind all those whose imitator I had been. I became famous at Naples, at Rome, at Milan, throughout Italy. But my description was spread broadcast, and, in spite of the care with which I concealed my features, I was obliged to leave my native land. Then it was that I came to France, to Paris, where I have been plying my trade for six months, in the teeth of the watch, and despite the efforts of the police and of monsieur le cardinal's bloodhounds. However, I will confess to you in confidence that I have as yet found no one among all your lovely Frenchwomen comparable to the pretty girls of Florence and Milan. I have left some tender memories in those cities. Indeed, I would stake my head that I am not yet entirely forgotten there; and on my own part—but, pardon me! I am too loquacious, I abuse your patience.—That is my story, signor; as you see, there is nothing very extraordinary in it."

While listening to the robber, Léodgard had become gloomy and pensive; his head had fallen on his breast, and it was difficult to say whether he was still listening or was lost in thought.

Giovanni, having for some moments refrained from disturbing the silence of the young man to whom he had related his adventures, said at last:

"I beg pardon, signor; I have told you what you wished to know, but the night is hastening, and I must soon think of returning to my lair. So, give me your purse, and I will take leave of you."

"Have you any companions, any confederates?" asked Léodgard abruptly, without answering the robber.

"No, indeed; I am no such fool! I work alone, and I am the better for so doing. If I had had confederates, I should have been caught long ago! As you must know, in all ranks of society, a man is never betrayed, except by his own people. Come, my young gentleman, let us finish our business. I know that this street abounds in memories, and that it is well worth while to pause and consider it. A few steps from here, during the night of June 13, 1392, the Connétable Olivier de Clisson, coming from the Hôtel Saint-Pol, where he had supped with the king, was treacherously assaulted and murdered by Pierre de Craon, chamberlain and favorite of the Duc d'Orléans, brother of King Charles VI. By a most fortunate chance, Clisson wore a coat of mail under his clothes; he received more than sixty sword and knife thrusts which did not reach his body; but he was finally wounded in the head and thrown from his horse; he fell against the door of a baker's shop, which was ajar, and his assassins took flight."

"Malpeste! Giovanni, so you know our history too!" said Léodgard, apparently taking pleasure in listening to the brigand.

"And why not, signor? I have told you that I am the son of a dottore!—And that Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, which you have just left—I have been following you for some time, you see—that Rue des Francs-Bourgeois will always figure in your annals. There it was that two miserable wretches lived toward the close of the last century—two poor brothers, beggars, in short, who possessed the talent of imitating perfectly the baying of a pack of hounds and the notes of a number of hunting horns. Certain leaders of the League formed the plan of using those beggars to lead your King Henri IV into a trap, knowing his passion for the chase. One day when the king was enjoying that sport in the forest of Vincennes, the noise of a pack of hounds, of horns, and of hunters, very distant at first, suddenly drew near; a black man, forcing his way through the underbrush, appeared before Henri IV and said to him in an awe-inspiring voice: 'Did you hear me?'—But neither the king nor any one of his train ventured to follow that man, who, it is said, was to have hurled a lance at the king if he had tried to come up with him. And all this was the work of the Leaguers and of the two beggars from Rue des Francs-Bourgeois!"

"By my faith, Master Giovanni, you have told me something that I did not know!—Pray go on; I see that one cannot fail to profit by your conversation."

"I am extremely sorry, my young gentleman, but I can talk no longer. As I reminded you just now, the hastening night forces me to retire, for I know that my description is so well known that it is impossible for me to show myself by daylight in this costume."

"Aha! that means that you have another for the sunlight? Pardieu! you are wise, for this one is very well known. Those persons who have had dealings with you have not failed to draw your portrait. I have already heard of this olive-green robe de chambre, so to speak, and of this horrible hairy cap."

"In that case, signor, you will understand that it is time for me to disappear."

"Very well! go! what prevents you? You have been too courteous to me for me to seek to cause your arrest. No, no! that would be a downright felony on my part!"

"In that case, signor, add to your complaisance the favor of handing me your purse, and I will go at once."

"My purse!" rejoined Léodgard, with a slight contraction of his heavy eyebrows; "you shall not have it! I told you that I would keep it. But as I do not wish to have made you talk for nothing, I will give you two pretty rose crowns."

"No, my young gentleman; I cannot assent to that bargain; I have told you that I must have your purse just as it is, and have it I will!"

"Come, then, and take it!"

As he spoke, Léodgard sprang to his feet and quickly drew his sword; then he glanced at Giovanni as if to defy him. The Italian did not show the slightest excitement, but simply shook his head, murmuring:

"Oh! I knew that the young Comte Léodgard de Marvejols was a gallant youth!"

"Ah! you know me, do you?"

"Per Dio! Do I not always know those whom I address? Otherwise I should run the risk of wasting my time by attacking poor devils without a sou!"

"But you might often have found me in that condition."

"I know that too; but to-night you played lansquenet at the Sire de Jarnonville's, and luck smiled upon you; that is why I attacked you."

"Clearly, you add to your other talents that of being a sorcerer. All Italians smell of the stake!"

"I should regret extremely, signor, to resort to my weapons; surely you must have been told that that is not my habit! I must always be driven to it. But if you do not give up your purse with a good grace——"

"No, a thousand times no! Do you expect to frighten me, I wonder?"

Giovanni gave the young count hardly time to finish his sentence; he drew his broad sword, and, leaping upon his adversary with a rapidity and address which left him no time to attack, in a few seconds he had sent Léodgard's gleaming rapier flying through the air; and placing the point of his weapon against the young nobleman's breast, with his left hand he swiftly took the purse from his belt, saying, with a slight movement of the head:

"You see, my young gentleman, it was not worth while to go through so many forms!"

And in an instant the brigand had vanished.

As for Léodgard, thoroughly ashamed of his discomfiture, he stood as if stupefied, and could only mutter:

"Beaten! beaten by that Giovanni!—Ah! I will have my revenge!"

III
THE BATH KEEPERS

In the days of royal licenses, when the grocers and apothecaries formed but a single guild, it was the same with the barbers and surgeons.

In the year 1620, forty-eight patents had been granted to barbiers-baigneurs-étuvistes, who were perruquiers following the court. Later, their number was largely increased.

The right to keep hot or cold baths was specially attached to the guild of master perruquiers.

A fashionable bathing establishment, with both hot and cold baths, stood on Rue Saint-Jacques, near the corner of Rue des Mathurins. From a long distance one could see its basins, painted a light blue as the ordinance required; and over the door were these words in huge letters:

BEARDS PROPERLY SHAVED WITHIN; HOT AND COLD BATHS

At this time the price of a bath varied from six to twelve livres [francs]; and when we consider that a livre then was worth almost three times as much as to-day, we must agree that there is a vast difference between that price and the price in our modern bathing establishments, where one obtains five tickets for three francs. The result is a great improvement in respect to health and cleanliness, for everybody cannot go to the river to bathe.

What did the poor people do in those days; for six livres was an enormous sum to them?

If, in the good old times, a bath was such an expensive luxury, on the other hand, the houses where they were supplied bore a very bad reputation; they were, it is said, places of assignation for lewd women, who, because of their rank or condition, were obliged to try to cloak their evil conduct.

Many preachers thundered from the pulpit against these places, which had been adorned with an honest name.

Maillard, in sermons noteworthy for their power and their crudity of expression, said, as he declaimed against the scandal caused by these establishments:

"Mesdames, do not go to the baths, and do not do there what I need not name!"

Sauval tells us that the baths continued their existence for a long time; people did not cease to frequent them until the end of the seventeenth century. They had become so common then that a person could hardly take a step without passing one.

Let us return to our shop on Rue Saint-Jacques. It was kept by a stout old fellow of some fifty years, as strong and bright and active as a young man, whose name was Hugonnet. He was a red-faced compère, hasty of speech and of gesture; his round, full, rubicund face exhaled health and good humor; his little round gray eyes had a slightly mischievous expression; his chin was beginning to become double, and his hair to turn gray; but Master Hugonnet worried little about that; so long as his place was well patronized, whether it was resorted to by cavaliers, bachelors, esquires, courtiers, people from the city, or even from the country, mattered little to him, if the customers paid promptly; for after a profitable day, the bath keeper rarely failed to go to the nearest wine shop, to regale and enjoy himself, whence he commonly returned home tipsy; he called it having "a little point."

The peculiar feature of Master Hugonnet's intoxication was that it totally changed his disposition; and instead of intensifying his passions and his vices, as wine so generally does, it endowed him with qualities of which no one would ever have suspected him when he was sober, and deprived him entirely of those which distinguished him in his normal condition.—For instance, the bath keeper was far from patient; he lost his temper easily, was quick to quarrel, would never give way, and was always ready to fight. To be sure, when blows had once been exchanged, Hugonnet bore his adversary no malice, and would soon be laughing and drinking with him. But in his cups the old fellow became as gentle and timid as a child; disposed to do what anyone desired, he was easily moved to compassion for the misfortunes of his neighbor; and if anyone told him some pitiful tale, it was no uncommon thing to see him weep, and disturb the neighborhood by his groans as he stumbled home. That always indicated that the libations had been copious, the bumpers frequent, and that the bath keeper was completely drunk.

Hugonnet was a widower and had but one child, a daughter, who, when our tale opens, had just reached her eighteenth year. Ambroisine was a fine girl, tall and strong, well set up and shapely. Her foot was not very small, but her calf was symmetrical and of good size; her hand might have been smaller, more tapering, but it was pink and white, and plump.

Her bearing and her gestures were somewhat brusque at times, and gave her rather too disdainful an air; but her smile was so frank and pleasant that it excused any possible rudeness in her manner to persons who did not know her well.

Ambroisine was very good-looking; her hair was as black as jet; her dark brown eyes were neither too large nor too small, and were amply fringed by long lashes of the color of her hair; she fastened them with perfect self-possession upon the person with whom she was speaking; but although they did not express the ordinary shyness of a girl of her years, they were so compassionate to the wretched, so amiable in joy, so fiery in wrath, that they were always fine eyes.

A mouth somewhat large, but well supplied with teeth, lips a little heavy, but ruddy and smiling, a round chin, a high, white forehead, and eyebrows clearly marked without being too thick—such was the daughter of Master Hugonnet, who was usually spoken of in the Quartier Saint-Jacques as La Belle Baigneuse.

Ambroisine's charms undoubtedly had much to do with the popularity of her father's establishment.

Master Hugonnet's house was never empty; it was the rendezvous of young noblemen, of the king's arquebusiers and halberdiers, of lordlings, of country squires and students, of men of the sword and men of the pen, of law clerks of the Basoche, and sometimes of a royal princess's pages.

The ladies who came to the baths—and we have already said that there were many of them—liked to be waited upon, cared for, and dressed by Ambroisine, who was quick, active, skilful, and acquitted herself of her task with a charming good humor which made it a pleasure to employ her.

It is probable that among all the young sparks and popinjays who came to Master Hugonnet's, more than one would have been equally glad to obtain the services of the daughter of the house; but they were obliged to do without them, for La Belle Baigneuse naturally was at the orders of the ladies only. Still, when there was a crowd in the barber's shop clamoring for the good offices of his razor and his comb, Ambroisine, who could shave a beard as surely and rapidly as her father, sometimes consented to lend him a hand, and to attend to the needs of one of the cavaliers who were waiting to be put in trim. The man for whom she offered to perform that service always accepted it as a favor, and strove to impart to his face a most seductive expression; and he never failed thereafter to proclaim all over the city that he had been shaved by Master Hugonnet's daughter, while everyone gazed enviously at the chin which La Belle Baigneuse had lathered.

But such opportunities were rare. Ambroisine was too much occupied with the baths to be often in her father's shop. And he loved his daughter too well ever to require her to do anything against her will. In vain did the young coxcombs, nay, even the great nobles, say to the barber:

"Shall we not see your daughter to-day, Master Hugonnet?" or: "Messire barbier, I have been awaiting my turn a long while, pray send for the fair Ambroisine to shave me"; or "By my sword! I would gladly pay double to be shaved by her!"

To all these and many other like remarks, the good-natured gossip would reply simply:

"My lords, I am in despair that I am unable to gratify you; but my daughter is engaged with some ladies who are pleased to patronize my baths. I have two young men there; but to wait on the fair sex I have only my daughter, who is sufficient for the task, because she is fortunately endowed; and because she does in a few moments the work that would take others an hour. Oh! she is a girl in a thousand, is my Ambroisine! And as for shaving you, I know that she would do that perfectly, too; she is my pupil! Such a sure, light, quick hand! Never has she cut the skin of any man's chin, and yet even I have sometimes done that! it may happen to the most skilful. But, I tell you again, Ambroisine is at the orders of none but the ladies of all ranks who choose to come to my establishment to take baths; and, frankly, that is more suitable. When I see her shaving a gentleman with the dexterity and self-possession which distinguish her, I am proud of my pupil! But, on the other hand, I am humiliated to see her do that work, and I say to myself: 'By Notre-Dame de Paris! this is no place for my daughter!'—Moreover, you have little hesitation in making gallant speeches to her, in saying obscene things.—However, I am not disturbed! If Ambroisine cares to laugh sometimes,—and in our profession one would be very foolish to be too surly,—she is well able none the less to keep in their place those who presume to take too many liberties. My daughter is a determined wench, I tell you; she has a hand as quick and a fist as solid as her father's! And woe to those who take the risk of having it proved to them!"

By such harangues did Master Hugonnet reply to the young men who displayed a too ardent desire to see his daughter. As a general rule, the students, the country gentlemen, and the simple esquires listened to reason; but it was not always so with the young nobles, who considered themselves at liberty to do anything, because they were received at court, and because the lieutenant of police closed his eyes too often to their escapades. When one of them had taken it into his head that he would see Ambroisine, all that the barber could say to convince him that that might not be was of no avail, and sometimes was received in bad part.

But although he was very glad to have noble customers, Master Hugonnet was not of a humor to endure the impertinences of any man whatsoever; the marquis, no less than the humble bachelor, felt the effects of his wrath. And when a young gentleman seemed disposed to take up his abode in his shop, saying:

"I will not go away until I have seen the fair Ambroisine!"

The barber would shout in stentorian tones:

"Well! you shall not see her, triple savonnette! there's no law to compel her to be at your beck and call!"

But the sonorous voice of Master Hugonnet would reach the ears of Ambroisine, who, divining from her father's tone that he was in a passion, would at once leave her work and run to the shop, to put an end to the dispute.

At sight of the girl, the person who had caused all the uproar would begin to laugh and would exclaim, with a bantering glance at the barber:

"I told you that I would not go away without a sight of the charming Ambroisine! I have succeeded, you see!"

Whereupon Master Hugonnet would look sheepish; but a word or two from his daughter would speedily allay his anger, and more than one among the witnesses of the scene would resolve to employ the same method when he wished to see La Belle Baigneuse.

Now that we are acquainted with Master Hugonnet's house and household, we must pay a visit to the establishment of another bath keeper, on Rue Dauphine. That street, which had been laid out twenty years earlier, on the site of the garden of the Augustinians and of the buildings of the Collège Saint-Denis, was already lined by fine houses, and had an air of refinement and a class of inhabitants in striking contrast to Quartier Saint-Jacques.

IV
BATHILDE

The baths on Rue Dauphine were kept by one Landry. He was a man of sixty, but still vigorous and robust, despite his gray moustache, which he wore very long. By his soldierly bearing and the way he carried his head, one could divine that he had seen military service. And Landry was, in fact, an ex-soldier. He had fought under Henri IV, whose name he never mentioned without carrying the back of his right hand to his forehead, or without manifesting his emotion by the change in his voice.

At the great king's death, Landry, then thirty-six years of age, had left the service. Later, although his face was scarred, his martial set-up and his military gait had fascinated Dame Ragonde, a widow with a small hoard. She had married Landry, and they had obtained, by purchase, a license to keep hot and cold baths.

Landry was a tall, thin, stiff individual. He had an uncommunicative air, and his long gray moustache tended to make his expression even less inviting. However, Master Landry was not a bad-tempered man. He had never been known to seek a quarrel with anyone; and when quarrels arose among his neighbors, it was usually he who intervened to restore peace. It is true that his voice was strong and that his moustache produced an imposing effect on the vulgar.

He performed his duties as bath keeper and barber with the scrupulous exactness which old soldiers retain in civil life with respect to everything that they consider a duty. But it was not wise to speak ill of Henri IV or of his minister Sully in the old soldier's presence. When such a thing occurred, a sudden change would take place in the whole aspect of the man; usually calm and cold, he would become as quick to explode as powder; his blood would boil anew with all the fervor of his younger days; and the unhappy wight who had presumed to utter a word derogatory to his idols would be chastised before he had time to apologize.

But such episodes were likely to be very infrequent, for the memory of good King Henri was held in too great veneration by Frenchmen for anyone to venture to impugn it.

Dame Ragonde, the bath keeper's wife, was fifteen years younger than her husband, but she seemed almost as old as he.

She was a tall, thin, yellow-skinned woman. Had she ever been pretty? That she had been seemed more than doubtful. Her small, pale-green eyes were very bright, but they had an arrogant—yes, evil expression; they were eyes of the sort that seem never to look in any direction with any other purpose than that of finding something to blame, to reprove, or to forbid. Her long nose, hooked at the end like a parrot's, made her resemble in some degree a bird of prey. And her thin, bloodless, tightly closed lips seemed destined to open only to emit harsh or bitter words.

Since the day of her marriage to Landry, her second husband, nobody remembered having seen Dame Ragonde smile; indeed, it was not certain that she smiled on that day.

Her voice was shrill and piercing, her words always short and sharp; this fact, by the way, was creditable to the lady; she was no gossip and never said a word more than she had to say.

Who would have guessed that of that union between a man who was not handsome and a woman who was downright ugly a daughter would be born who would prove to be a veritable model of beauty, grace, and charm?

Such, nevertheless, was Bathilde, the only child of Landry and Ragonde.

At eighteen, her beauty had reached its perfect development: she was one of those types which painters delight to find, when they wish to paint a virgin, an angel, or a demon of temptation.

Bathilde was blond, but the tint was not one of those dull blonds in which there is a reflection of white; her long, thick, silky hair verged rather on the chestnut. Her skin had that whiteness in which there is life, and not that dull tone which imparts an aspect of inanition to a living person. On the contrary, the lovely girl's cheeks had a rosy tinge; and at the slightest word of reproof that was addressed to her, they at once became a most brilliant carmine. Large, deep-blue eyes, almond shaped, and shaded by long chestnut lashes; a small, fresh, red-lipped mouth; irreproachable teeth of dazzling whiteness; a chin slightly oval in shape; fine, but clearly marked eyebrows; a noble, beautiful brow, over which thick curls seemed proud to be placed.

Such was Bathilde, who possessed, in addition, a slender, lithe, dainty figure, a remarkably small foot, and a hand worthy to serve as a model.

But a mere enumeration of her advantages affords but a faint idea of the fascination of that young girl, of the charm with which her whole person was instinct, of the sweet melody of her voice, and of the pleasure that one felt in hearing it.

Sometimes one remains unmoved before the most unexceptionable beauty; for that which attracts and captivates us is not so much the perfection of the features, the regularity of the outlines of a face, as its amiable and gracious expression—a second element of beauty which many times exerts more power than the first; but when the two are combined, when nature has endowed a single woman with both, then it is that it is very difficult to avoid losing one's heart and one's reason.

And that lovely, graceful, fascinating girl was the daughter of Landry and Dame Ragonde!

Nature sometimes indulges in such strange whims. Do we not see flowers whose perfume intoxicates us and whose gorgeous colors dazzle our eyes, blooming upon stunted, thorny stalks?

As Bathilde's beauty would have attracted too many gallants, too many seducers, to Master Landry's shop, the girl never appeared there, nor did she wait upon the ladies who patronized her father's baths.

Bathilde had been brought up very strictly; almost always confined to her bedroom, which did not look on the street, the girl never went out except with her mother; and then a long veil, attached to her hood, covered almost the whole of her face, leaving nothing in sight save the end of her nose. If the sweet girl ventured to disarrange the veil and to expose one of her pink and white cheeks to the air for a moment, Dame Ragonde would instantly exclaim in her shrill, harsh voice:

"Your veil! your veil! Take care!"

Bathilde knew what that meant, and would hasten to swathe her lovely face anew.

Certainly, if Master Landry had desired that his establishment should be besieged by crowds of customers, he could easily have gratified his wish: nothing more would have been necessary than to allow his daughter to come to the shop now and then. Bathilde's beauty would have made a sensation, the court and the city would have been stirred to their depths, everyone would have desired to know that plebeian chef-d'œuvre, and, with the inevitable vogue of his place of business, the bath keeper's fortune would have been assured.

But in this respect Bathilde's parents proved that their own honor and their child's virtue were to them treasures more precious than gold.

Some neighbors, knowing how strictly Bathilde had been brought up, said, and with some show of reason, that a mother should be able to watch over her daughter without converting her house into a prison. That to keep a child from knowledge of the world was not the way to protect her from the dangers that are encountered there at every step; and that it was downright barbarity to deprive a girl of all the pleasures suited to her years because it had pleased the Creator to endow her with all those physical qualities which charm and fascinate.

If these or other similar remarks reached Dame Ragonde's ears, it is probable that she paid little heed to them and that they made little impression on her. Immovable in her determination, impassible in her nature, rigorous in her conduct, she made no change whatever in her methods with her daughter.

And as for Master Landry, although he loved Bathilde dearly and was very proud of her, he looked upon his wife as the general whose duty it was to manage the internal economy of his household. As such general, he obeyed her promptly, reserving to himself only the command of the two apprentices employed in his baths.

However, Landry's establishment was prosperous, as were almost all the baths of those days, because they were very few in number.

The neighborhood of Rue Dauphine, which was less thickly populated than Rue Saint-Jacques, already contained some noble mansions and fine houses, occupied by magistrates, members of the Parliament, men of the robe, and rich annuitants. Moreover, the proximity of the Pré-aux-Clercs, which was still a favorite promenade, although some buildings were beginning to be erected there, contributed to attract to Master Landry's baths a more distinguished and more fashionable clientèle, better society, in a word, than the ordinary patrons of his confrère, Master Hugonnet.

Furthermore, although the fascinating Bathilde was concealed from prying eyes, beauty spreads about it a perfume which causes its presence to be divined, and which attracts connoisseurs, even though they are destined to have nothing to show for their pains.

Despite all the precautions taken by Dame Ragonde, she could not prevent her neighbors from talking; they repeated, to whoever chose to listen, that Master Landry had a daughter more beautiful than the marvellous princesses of the Thousand and One Nights; that her surpassing beauty was the reason that her father and mother concealed her from all eyes, because they feared that somebody would take her away from them; and that they destined her for some wealthy foreign prince.

Others declared, on the contrary, that Master Landry's daughter was a monster of ugliness and deformity, and that it was to shelter the poor girl from the ridicule which was certain to be poured out upon her that they were careful to keep her out of sight.

This last version, however, obtained little credence. As a general rule, people do not take so many precautions with an ugly girl, or keep such close watch over one who has no reason to fear the enterprises of gallants.

Mystery always arouses curiosity, and the veil in which Dame Ragonde swathed Bathilde's face intensified the general desire to see it. Extremes are dangerous in everything: the man who puts too many bolts on his door arouses a suspicion that he possesses a treasure.

Chance had brought Landry and his confrère Hugonnet together. One evening, when the latter was returning home, as usual, after a merry evening over the bottle at a wine shop recently opened in the Cité, at some distance from his house, he lost his way. Alone, late at night, the barber wandered for a long while through the dark and muddy lanes which were then called streets, feeling his way along the walls, seeking his own door, and cursing because he did not find it.

Two men, emerging suddenly from a blind alley, walked toward the drunken man, who at once asked them to direct him. But he had applied to a pair of vagabonds, whose only reply was to set about robbing Master Hugonnet of his purse, his cloak, his great fur cap—in fact, of a large part of his clothes. At the outset, as a result of his intoxication, which entirely changed his disposition, Hugonnet placidly allowed himself to be stripped, thinking that he had to do with unfortunate creatures who needed all those things for their families. But one of the marauders having been so imprudent as to strike him on the head, the blow, by sobering the barber, instantly changed the face of affairs. Restored to his senses, and realizing with what manner of men he had to do, he defended himself stoutly; he dealt the two robbers some lusty blows, and they, irritated at meeting with such stubborn resistance from an intoxicated man, were already brandishing the daggers which they proposed to use, when Master Landry appeared upon the stage of this nocturnal attack.

To draw the rapier which he always carried under his cloak, to rush to the assistance of the man who was beset, to attack the two robbers with cut and thrust, to put them to flight, and to restore to Master Hugonnet his cloak, which had fallen to the ground—all this was the affair of a moment for the old trooper of Henri IV.

Hugonnet, completely sobered by the combat, offered Landry his hand and exclaimed:

"Vertudieu! I am inclined to think, comrade, that but for you those scoundrels would have made me pass a bad quarter of an hour!"

"I thank heaven that I arrived in time to offer you my assistance!"

"Sapristi! you went about it in the right way. You seemed to be at home! How you handle your sword! I think that my knaves went off with the marks you made on them."

"It would be a great pity if I did not know how to fight. When one has had the honor of serving under the great Henri IV; when one has fought under him at Arques and Ivry——"

"Do you say that you served with the good king who wanted all his subjects to have a fowl to put in the pot? Shake hands! I am doubly happy to have met you; and, with your permission, I consider myself from this moment one of your friends."

"With all my heart, for you too are a brave man; I saw that by the way you defended yourself against those cutthroats. And yet, you had no weapons."

"Well! I did my best. Besides—I can afford to confess it, now that it's all over—those thieves surprised me rather easily, because I was a little—er—tipsy. I was on my way home from a new wine shop just opened in the Cité. The wine was good—it always is good in a new place—and we did not spare it. When I set out to go home, I missed my way—for the devil take me if I know where I am now!"

"At the Carrefour de Bussy; see, this is the street leading from the Porte de Bussy to the Pré-aux-Clercs."

"In God's name, what road did I take?—I, who live on Rue Saint-Jacques, corner of Rue des Mathurins, where I have baths, hot and cold—Master Hugonnet, at your service; for it is right that you should know whose life you have saved."

"You are a bath keeper?—Pardieu! this is a strange meeting! I, too, am one—Master Landry, Rue Dauphine, near Quai Conti."

"Is it possible!—you are the bath keeper on Rue Dauphine? I have heard of you.—You have a wife, I am a widower. You have a daughter, and so have I. How old is yours?"

"Twelve years."

"So is mine. Parbleu! confrère, our daughters must be friends, as their fathers will be; are you willing?"

"Shake hands, ventre-saint-gris! as our good king used to say."

The two bath keepers shook hands once more. Landry started Hugonnet on the right road, and they returned to their respective homes.

This meeting took place about five years before the time at which our tale opens. Bathilde and Ambroisine were still children; people took little notice of them, for we do not pause to consider whether little girls of twelve are likely to be very beautiful some day. We prefer, and wisely, to wait until they have become so, before ogling them.

Dame Ragonde's surveillance was naturally less active then; being still a mere child, Bathilde enjoyed some liberty. So she was allowed to see her new friend, for Master Hugonnet did not fail to pay a visit to his confrère.

Landry was not expansive; he was not a frequenter of wine shops, and never drank too much; but when he had pressed anyone's hand in token of friendship, that person might be sure that he could rely upon the old soldier's assistance, upon his arm, under all circumstances.

Dame Ragonde had not looked with great pleasure upon this new intimacy contracted by her husband; but she knew that it would be useless for her to try to break it up. Landry was not one of those weathercocks who change their sentiments and affections according to the advice that is given them. The husband and wife each had a will of iron. A concession once made, neither of them attempted to encroach on the other's rights; it was doubtless to this mutual respect for each other's rights and each other's will that they were indebted for the peace which reigned in their household.

The two little girls very soon learned to love each other; there was between them just that difference in humor, in spirit, in temperament, which attracts and binds together, and leads to those strong and lasting attachments which defy time and the blows of fortune.—Observe that we are speaking of friendship, not of love. As to the last-named sentiment, we have never known an instance of it which resisted the slightest test of its strength, when that test was applied with skill!

That which people are pleased to call sympathy cannot be the similitude between two natures. For, put together two gossips, two testy or obstinate or irascible, quarrelsome and satirical characters, and see whether they will love each other, whether they will be able to live together. There would be a constant state of war.

On the contrary, nature created the strong to support the weak, patience to allay irascibility, gentleness to appease wrath, gayety to charm away melancholy.

Bathilde was shy and timid; she trembled at the slightest sharp word, and her gentle and affectionate nature was more inclined to melancholy than to gayety.

Ambroisine was of a very different temperament: active, merry, thoughtless, often angry; she said fearlessly whatever came into her head; frankness lay at the foundation of her character; her heart was susceptible, but it did not like to be sad for long. With her the tears came quickly and disappeared no less quickly.

When Bathilde seemed to be unhappy, when her lovely eyes seemed to express some hidden grief, her little friend would say to her:

"Somebody has been cross to you, I am sure. I can see that you have been crying. Tell me who made you cry, and I will go to him and make him come here and beg your pardon."

But Bathilde would simply look down and murmur:

"It was my mother."

"Did you do anything naughty?" Ambroisine would inquire.

"I asked her if I might go to see you soon."

Ambroisine would not dare to say anything more, but she would turn her head aside and furtively wipe away the tears that stood in her eyes; then she would again look at her friend, seize both her hands, and make her dance around the room, crying:

"You mustn't think about that any more!"

When the girls had reached their fourteenth year, Dame Ragonde began to think that Ambroisine was too lively, too mischievous, too self-willed, and that her companionship might be dangerous for her daughter; she would no longer allow her daughter to go to see her friend under the escort of a servant; she alleged as an excuse the necessity that Bathilde should study; and when Ambroisine came to see her, Dame Ragonde never left them together; she was always by to prevent those affectionate confidences which she believed to be dangerous. Her presence, her stern manner, her curt speech, froze Bathilde's heart, and she forced back those impulsive outbursts of affection which she would have liked to lavish on Ambroisine. But the latter, although disappointed at being unable to chat at her ease with little Bathilde, retained in Dame Ragonde's presence her playful humor, her vivacity, her frankness, and she often found a way to bring a smile to her young friend's lips.

And so, as soon as Master Hugonnet's daughter had left the house, Bathilde's mother never failed to exclaim:

"What an ill-bred child that is! What a bold-faced creature she will be some day! But, patience: I will put this matter to rights."

And as the girls grew older, they were allowed to see each other less and less. On Bathilde's side, the surveillance to which she was subjected became more minute; she seldom went out, and she paid no more visits. At Master Hugonnet's, on the other hand, Ambroisine, when she grew tall and strong, was placed by her father at the head of the establishment; and as a great many people came to the baths, she had little time left to give to friendship.

But as soon as Ambroisine had a moment to herself, she hastened to Rue Dauphine, to exchange a clasp of the hand with her friend.

Sometimes Dame Ragonde, who also had to overlook her apprentices and her servants, was busy at the baths, and Bathilde was alone in her bedroom. Then, what joy for the two friends! with what ardor they took advantage of that moment of liberty! for the older they grew, the more interesting their conversations became. At seventeen, two girls have other things to say to each other than at twelve or thirteen. It is useless to keep them sequestered all the time—they will always have something interesting to tell each other.

Ambroisine especially, who was entirely her own mistress, was certain to have very many things to tell. And so, when a lucky accident enabled the two girls to exchange their thoughts, they would hardly take the time to embrace; questions and answers succeeded one another with astounding rapidity.

"Your mother isn't here? What luck!"

"What a long time it is since I saw you!"

"We are always so busy at home!"

"I am so bored!"

"I haven't a moment to myself during the day; such a lot of fine ladies come to bathe!"

"It's the same way here; but I am not allowed to wait on them."

"I wait on them; I dress them when they don't bring their servants, and that very often happens—they prefer to come alone; I don't know why—or rather, yes, I think that I can guess why."

"Oh! tell me, Ambroisine!"

"No, no, it isn't worth while! Besides, I am not sure; it is just an idea of mine."

"Tell me your idea, please, Ambroisine! Mon Dieu! if you don't tell me anything, if you don't teach me a little, how do you expect me to know anything, when I am always shut up in this room and only go downstairs to dinner; when I see nobody but my father and mother, who hardly ever speak to me? Why do the fine ladies prefer to come to the baths alone?"

"Why, you see, I do not quite know how to tell you.—But, no matter! what difference does it make, after all? Many cavaliers, young men, come to the baths also."

"So they do here, but I never see them. Do you see them?"

"Sometimes—when I go down to the shop, and when I help father; for I know how to shave, I do; I can shave very well when I set about it."

"What! you shave—men?"

"Well! I surely don't shave women, as they have no beards."

"Oh! what a lucky girl you are! what fun that must be!—Do you really dare to take a man by the chin?"

"Well, why not? I assure you that it doesn't frighten me; indeed, I must not be frightened, for if my hand shook I should shave badly and cut the customer.—Don't tell your mother this; for she thinks now that I am too bold."

"Oh! there is no danger of that!"

"To be sure, it may be that my father tells yours."

"Yes; but my father will never say a word to my mother about it—they talk so little!—But these cavaliers whom you shave—they speak to you, I suppose?"

"To be sure—and those whom I don't shave speak to me, too; indeed, I never know whom to answer, for as soon as I go down to the shop they are all after me."

"And you are not afraid?"

"Not a bit; what do you suppose I am afraid of?"

"Indeed, I don't know! but my mother tells me that a young girl runs so much risk when she listens to a man; and you, who listen to more than one, must run a much greater risk!"

"But nothing happens to me, you see! for when the young gentlemen presume to do things that are not nice, or make too—too gallant remarks to me, why, it doesn't take me long to send them about their business!"

"What are the too gallant remarks, and the things that are not nice?"

"Mon Dieu! must I tell you everything? It is strange that you know nothing!"

"Where, then, do you suppose that I can learn anything?"

"The too gallant remarks—those are when men tell us that we are pretty or attractive—that they love us, that they adore us."

"Oh! but it must be nice to have that said to you! Is it necessary to be angry? what a pity!"

"One must be very angry when they add: 'Love me, I implore you; reciprocate my love, give me your heart; I will be faithful to you!'—and a lot of oaths, of which they don't mean a word!"

"Ah! do you think that they don't mean a word of them? In that case, why do they say them?"

"Because it amuses them. But if we listened to them, they would say much more."

"And the things that are not nice?"

"That is when these fine fellows presume to suit the action to the word. The ones who do that are the boldest; they take your hand, and, while pretending to admire it, they don't hesitate to kiss it; or they put an arm about your waist, and, if they can catch you napping, they try to kiss you."

"What! are there men so presumptuous as that?"

"Indeed there are! the presumptuous ones are much more numerous than the respectful ones; that is a great pity, for if it were not so——"

"Well?"

"Why, one might talk with them a little."

"Have they ever tried to kiss you?"

"Yes, indeed, and more than once; but I know how to defend myself. I box their ears, and I don't do it with any gentle hand, either."

"What! you box your customers' ears?"

"When the customers make too free with me; but no matter how well you defend yourself, sometimes you cannot escape the kiss."

"Have you ever been kissed, Ambroisine?"

"Mon Dieu! yes! some of those little pages are so quick, and some of the young nobles so audacious! There is one in particular, Comte Léodgard de Marvejols—you must have heard of him?"

"I! why, you forget that I hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing!—What about Comte Léodgard?"

"Oh! he's a terrible scapegrace, I tell you! a rake, a roisterer, a seducer! There is only one opinion about him, and not a week passes that he does not set people talking about him. He abducts girls, yes, married women even; he beats their fathers or husbands; he fights duels, cudgels the watch, passes whole days and nights in gambling hells, gambling and drinking; in short, he is worse than the devil!"

"O mon Dieu! how frightened I should be of him! He must be very ugly, isn't he?"

"Why, no, and that is just what deceives you; unfortunately, he is not ugly at all; for if he were hideous to look at, he would be much less dangerous. He is a handsome young man, with a forest of long black hair, and eyes of the same color, that shine like carbuncles; and when he looks at you, he has a way of giving them such a benignant expression! You would think sometimes that he is a little saint; but you very soon find out your mistake."

"What a pity! A scapegrace is a reprobate, and that ought to appear on his face. Has that young nobleman ever tried to kiss you?"

"I should say so! there was a time when he came to our place every day; he laid traps for me, tried to make appointments with me, and brought me presents."

"Presents?"

"Which I never received.—It did no good for me to lose my temper, to fly into a passion, to threaten to scratch him—that only made him laugh; he declared that I was even prettier when I was angry.—As you can imagine, it is when my father is not at home that they torment me so; for he would not stand it. But one day I lost my patience: Comte Léodgard had seized my hands, in spite of my struggles, and he was just about to kiss me, when I called father. If you had seen how quickly he took the young nobleman up in his arms and set him down in the street! The count was frantic; he drew his sword and rushed at father. But you know Master Hugonnet—it isn't wise to irritate him. In an instant, he had seized Comte Léodgard's sword and had broken it across his knee. The count strode away, uttering the most horrible threats, swearing that he would teach father what it costs to lack respect for a great nobleman. Father began to laugh, and in a moment he had forgotten all about it. But, for my part, I confess that the count's threats frightened me, and for a long time after I trembled whenever father left me, when he came home later at night than usual; but that was three months ago, and nothing has happened."

"And the young man has not been to your shop again?"

"Oh, no! not since that time."

"In all this, you have not told me why the fine ladies who come to the baths prefer not to bring their servants with them?"

"Ah! what a memory you have!—Well, I have noticed very often that there is a young gentleman below who knows one of the ladies; when she leaves the bath, the young man is there, waiting for her; they talk together, they go away together; so, you see, when a lady knows that she will have a cavalier to escort her home, she does not need to bring a servant."

"If you knew, Ambroisine, how I love to listen to you—you tell me things that are so entirely new to me! Oh! please tell me some more of your adventures!"

But when Ambroisine was about to gratify her friend, perhaps they would hear Dame Ragonde's slow, regular steps approaching. Thereupon, the subject of conversation would instantly be changed, and they would talk exclusively of serious or religious matters until Bathilde's mother said:

"You have talked enough; bid your friend adieu, it is time to separate."

Thereupon Ambroisine would leave her young friend; but all that she had heard furnished Bathilde with food for thought for many days.

V
AN OLD MANSION.—AN OLD NOBLE

Alone in a large and handsome room, richly furnished, the hangings of which, however, were very old and seemed to denote, on the part of the proprietors, a profound respect for whatever had belonged to their ancestors, an old man sat in an enormous easy-chair, whose carved and gilded frame seemed as ancient as the hangings, before a desk on which lay several boxes, books, and papers, which he was apparently engaged in examining with care.

Sometimes he paused in his labors; his brow was clouded, his expression stern, and a deep sigh escaped from his breast.

The Marquis de Marvejols was at this time nearly seventy years of age. He was a tall, spare man, who still carried his head erect, whose gait was firm and his grasp strong, while his proud and assured bearing would have held in respect anyone who should attempt to impose upon him.

The old man's face was handsome, although severe. His white hair left bare a large part of his forehead, on which could be seen a scar caused by a blow from a lance; his moustaches and his beard, also snow-white, harmonized well with that martial countenance, which seemed to defy all dangers; and if the old marquis's keen gray eyes ordinarily wore a haughty expression that inspired fear rather than confidence, on the other hand, the extreme urbanity of his manners soon made one forget the stern and imposing effect of his general appearance.

Knee-breeches and doublet of violet velvet, a leather belt, a very high ruff, funnel-shaped top-boots, with spurs attached—such was the old man's costume, which had something military about it. Over all this he wore a long cloak, trimmed with ermine, which descended almost to his spurs.

Pushing aside with an angry gesture the papers he had been examining, Monsieur de Marvejols threw himself back in his chair, and turned his eyes upon several large portraits which hung on the walls. Two represented cavaliers with helmets on their heads, and their hands on their swords; a third was that of a young man wearing the little cap in vogue in the time of Henri III; and the fourth was the portrait of a young and lovely woman with a little boy on her knees.

In the immense apartments of olden time, space was not spared; people were not shut up, as we are to-day, in the foul atmosphere of rooms six and a half feet in height; the lungs had an opportunity to do their work freely and the chest must have been in much better case.

In those days, it was easy to find room in a salon for those huge full-length portraits, which are ordinarily larger than life. Indeed, one sometimes saw them hung in two rows, and the furniture never reached to the frames.

To-day, in the apartments which our architects measure out for us so sparingly, we must renounce all thought of having large canvases, fine paintings of vast historical subjects, and in many cases even the full-length portrait of one of our ancestors, unless we choose to take the risk, when we sit down, of striking our heads against the painting at the first unpremeditated movement we chance to make.

The Marquis de Marvejol's mansion was on Rue Royale, where one may still see, in our day, some relics of the magnificent apartments of an earlier time. But what a difference! Although, on the outside, it still presents a reasonably well preserved image of what it was under Louis XIII; although it is still red and white, with its bricks surrounded by courses of stone, with its slated roof, its light balconies, its tall windows set in stone frames; although it has retained its low, dark, heavy galleries, which seem to have been built to defy the ages and the elements—on the other hand, the interior of its various wings is no longer the same, and, except in some few instances, the grandeur and magnificence of the olden time have entirely disappeared.

But at the time of our narrative there were, in the neighborhood of the Hôtel de Marvejols, the Hôtels de Lesdiguières, de Guémenée, de Sully, d'Effiat, d'Aumont, de Chevreuse, de Chaulnes, de Saint-Paul, de Liancourt, etc., etc.

At that time, too, the Place Royale was the scene of all the fêtes and carrousels, which attracted the nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the people of Paris, who were called in those days the good people. When the marriage of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria was announced, fêtes lasting three days were given on that square, although it was not entirely finished.

In later times, on that same spot where noble knights broke lances to entertain the ladies of their thoughts, who, seated on the balconies of the neighboring houses, enjoyed the jousting, and encouraged the champions of their charms by tender glances and by showing them in advance the knot of ribbon which was to be the guerdon of victory—on that same spot, we have seen and may still see the peaceable inhabitant of the Marais, who has nothing in common with the paladins of old, exercising his faithful dog and selecting a bench whereon to rest a moment in the sunshine, whose beneficent warmth allays his rheumatic pains. And the young nursemaid, too, with the children in her care, whom she often leaves to bump against trees, or to fall as they run hither and thither, while she is gossiping with other maids on the subject of their employers, which is much more amusing than to watch children. And the modest seamstress, on her way to carry home the work intrusted to her, who crosses the Place Royale, although it is not directly on her road, because she ordinarily meets there a young man who makes flattering remarks to her; there is no law against seeking pleasant meetings.

All this is far removed from the tourneys, the fanfares of trumpets, the sound of clarion and drum; from the great ladies at the windows, from the knights in the arena, from the esquires and pages and servants carrying their masters' weapons and bucklers, and from the charming troubadours, or trouvères, who had seats of honor beside the high and mighty nobles, because they were destined, later, to sing in laudation of it all.

Other times, other manners!

The old Marquis de Marvejols gazed gloomily enough at the portraits which adorned his study—for the enormous room in which he sat was nothing more than that. Soon he leaned over his desk once more, and seizing a bell rang it violently.

A valet, almost as old as his master, instantly showed his bald head beneath a velvet portière which he raised. His face, in respect to the general effect of the features and their mild expression, might have served as a model for a painting of Obedience, as personified in a servant, except that when he raised the corners of his mouth in a smile there were some slight indications of a tendency to be cunning; but if that tendency actually existed in the old servant, it never went beyond the corners of his mouth.

"Did monsieur le marquis ring?" inquired a shrill, cracked voice.

"Has my son gone out this morning, Hector?"

Old Hector pressed his lips together, and the corners of his mouth assumed their sly expression, as he replied in a drawling tone:

"Monsieur le Comte Léodgard de Marvejols certainly has not left the house this morning; I am certain of that."

"In that case, go to my son and tell him that I wish to speak with him—at once, before he goes out."

The old servant looked down at his feet, but did not budge.

"Well! did you not hear me, Hector?" continued the marquis, testily; "have your ears grown dull, that I have to give you the same order twice?"

"No, monsieur le marquis, no, thank heaven! my ears are still good. I have not the least occasion to reproach them. And if I have not obeyed the command you have done me the honor to give me, it is because——"

"Well! because what? finish, I say!"

"I cannot tell Monsieur le Comte Léodgard to come to speak with you, because he is not in the house."

"Not in the house? Why, you told me only a moment ago that my son had not gone out this morning!"

"That is true, monseigneur; he has not gone out this morning, because he did not come in last night."

The marquis put his hand to his forehead.

"Ah!" he cried; "of course, I understand! You did not wish to tell me that, my poor Hector; you would like to conceal my son's disorderly conduct from me! But it is useless for you to try to deceive me. I know everything; and it is much better that I should know everything; for one must know where the trouble lies, in order to put a stop to it. All this has been going on a very long while, and it must come to an end!"

"Monsieur le Comte Léodgard is still very young," murmured Hector, still draped by the portière.

"Very young—when he has nearly reached his twenty-sixth year! A man is a man at that age, and he no longer has the first effervescence of youth for an excuse! Ah! when I was at that age, you were already in my service—do you remember, Hector?"

"As if it was yesterday, monseigneur; my memory is as sound as my ears."

"Very well! I served in the army, I fought, I lived in camp. But, although I was a bachelor,—for I married quite late,—did I ever lead this life of licentiousness, of debauchery, which makes me blush for my son?"

"All young men are not as irreproachable as monseigneur has always been—as bachelor, husband, and widower."

"I do not expect that he shall be faultless! I do not demand the impossible! But I do not propose that weaknesses shall become vices; faults, crimes!"

"Oh! monsieur le marquis! be indulgent to monsieur your son!"

"I have been indulgent enough, too much so, perhaps. I must see Léodgard; he must be made acquainted with my irrevocable determination!—And that rascally Latournelle, his valet—is he still in the house?"

"No, monseigneur; I have not seen him for several days."

"I told my son to discharge that knave; a scoundrel, a blackleg, a gambler, who ought to be hanged."

At that moment, the conversation was interrupted by the sound of a horse galloping into the courtyard.

Hector let the portière fall, went into a reception room, looked out of the window, and returned with a radiant face, saying to his master:

"Here is Monsieur le Comte Léodgard, just coming in."

"Go to him, then; tell him that I await him. Go—do not lose an instant, for he may have gone away again."

Old Hector disappeared to execute his master's command.

In a few moments, Léodgard entered his father's apartment. The young count was pale, his face was drawn and haggard, his eyes sunken from loss of sleep; and the disorder of his clothes, the dust with which they were covered, seemed to indicate that he had recently ridden a long distance on horseback.

He walked forward with a respectful air, but was evidently out of temper. He bowed to his father and remained standing in the middle of the room.

The old marquis pointed to a chair, saying in a stern tone:

"Be seated, monsieur; what I have to say to you will take some moments, and deserves to be listened to with attention."

"I beg pardon, monsieur, but you see the disordered state of my dress; I am ashamed to appear before you in such disarray; allow me simply the necessary time to change, and I will at once return."

"No, monsieur! your dress is a matter of great consequence, in very truth! By Saint Jacques! what matters it to me whether your doublet is more or less fresh? It is not the dust with which your clothes are covered that will mar your escutcheon, but your disgraceful conduct! That it is which sullies the honor of your name much more than the storm has injured your cloak! Be seated—I insist!"

Léodgard restrained with difficulty an impatient outburst; but he threw himself on a chair, and his father continued:

"I have remonstrated with you several times, monsieur, concerning your dissolute conduct; you have not listened to me, you have despised your father's judicious counsel. To-day, when your misconduct has gone beyond all bounds, when your evil deeds—for they are no longer the escapades of a young man, but evil deeds, of which you are guilty——"

"Father——"

"Do not interrupt me!—To-day, when your evil deeds recognize no restraint, I no longer advise, I command you; and you will respect my commands, or this lettre de cachet will deal with you for me.—Look, monsieur; you know that I do not indulge in empty threats; here is your passport to the Bastille, sent me by Monsieur le Cardinal de Richelieu, who also is aware of all your misconduct and has given me permission to make use of this whenever I may think best, leaving in my hands the punishment of him who bears my name."

Léodgard could not help shuddering inwardly when he saw the lettre de cachet which his father took from his desk, and he faltered in a tremulous voice:

"What have I done—what more than many young gentlemen of my age, to deserve to be treated so harshly?"

"Ah! you ask what you have done? That, I presume, is because you hope that I know only a part of it. Unhappily, monsieur, your conduct is too notorious, your vices make too much noise in the world; you are cited too often by all the wellborn debauchees, for the echo not to reach your father's ears. Stealing wives from their husbands, young girls from their parents, passing the night in wine shops and gambling hells, fighting with the king's archers, with the watch, with citizens, incurring debts and not paying them, breaking shop windows and offering no other compensation than a sword thrust, binding yourself to Jews and usurers, thrashing your creditors when they presume to demand what you owe them, what they have been waiting for so long—such are your noble exploits, monsieur! a descendant of the Marvejols does not blush to conduct himself thus!—And yet, cast your eyes about you, look at these portraits which surround you, your ancestors who have left you a glorious name—are not you of their blood, you, who debase it? Ah! if they could come forth from their tombs,—and your excellent mother, who was so proud to have brought forth a descendant of our line,—it would be to crush you with their wrath!"

"Monsieur le marquis, allow me to say a word in my own defence.—My faults have been exaggerated. I have committed some faults, I admit; but they are not so serious as you seem to think."

"And your debts—will you say that they are a mere trifle? You owe five thousand pistoles at this moment, monsieur."

"I do not know, monsieur le marquis, whether you have also been told that I have been stripped clean by that miserable Giovanni, that Italian brigand, who terrorizes all Paris?"

"Yes, I have heard of that. But how did you allow yourself to be robbed by that man?"

"I venture to believe that my father has no doubt that if I was overcome it was not without a vigorous resistance on my part."

"Oh! I do justice to your courage; you would not be my son if you were a coward!"

"It was late at night, about a fortnight ago. I was returning home alone and was passing through Rue Couture-Sainte-Catherine. Suddenly this Giovanni appeared before me, and demanded my purse as courteously as if he were inquiring for my health. The robber seemed to me such an original character that I talked with him a few minutes. But when he repeated his demand, I drew my sword. He had some sort of a short, broad weapon. Practised as I am in fighting, that devil of a man dealt me a thrust,—I do not know how to describe it,—and I was beaten. I felt the point of his sword against my breast; but he was content to take my purse, and disappeared as he had come, without giving me time to see which way he went."

"If I were lieutenant of police of this realm, that adroit thief would have been hanged before this.—However, monsieur, this Giovanni did not rob you of five thousand pistoles, I imagine?"

"No; but I had a considerable sum upon me——"

"Which you had won in some hell, I doubt not.—But let us have done, for the subject of this interview is a painful one to both of us. Here, Léodgard, are papers containing a statement of the amount of your debts; here are your obligations to the Jews who are ruining you; here are your receipts for various sums lent you at exorbitant rates, with a view, doubtless, to my death, which does not come quickly enough to supply you with another fortune to squander."

"Ah! monsieur le marquis——"

"All these papers cost me fifty thousand livres; but I paid it, to save once more your honor, so seriously compromised."

A ray of joy lighted up Léodgard's face; he stepped toward the old man, crying:

"What, father! you have deigned——"

The marquis made a gesture as if to forbid his son to approach, and continued with unabated austerity:

"Yes, monsieur, I have paid the money; but mark well what I say: long ago you squandered the last of the property which your mother left you. I do not choose that you should have debts, but neither do I propose that the fortune of my ancestors, which enables me to maintain my rank becomingly, shall be the prey of harlots, gamblers, and rakes; so attend closely to what I say: if I learn that you have contracted any new debt, I shall instantly make use of this lettre de cachet, and send you to the Bastille; and when you are once there, it may well be that you will remain there for some time! This, monsieur, I will do—I swear it before the portraits of my ancestors! You know now whether I will keep my oath.—Mend your ways, Léodgard; make yourself worthy once more of the name you bear. You know that it is my dearest wish to marry you to Mademoiselle Valentine de Mongarcin. I was her father's comrade in arms; the idea that our children would be united some day made the baron's heart beat fast with joy. Mademoiselle de Mongarcin is worthy of you, her family is on a par with ours; she has a large fortune and is one of the most beautiful women in France. Six months ago, she left the convent where she had completed her education, and took up her abode with her aunt; and she will soon be nineteen years old. What objection have you to urge against this alliance, Léodgard?"

"None, father. I agree that Mademoiselle de Mongarcin is very lovely, although I have seen her but rarely."

"What prevents you from paying court to her? Madame de Ravenelle, Valentine's aunt, is aware of the baron's wishes.—Cease to be a libertine, a rake, and she will give you the hand of this wealthy and noble heiress.—Well, monsieur! what have you to say?"

"Pardon me, monsieur le marquis—but—to marry—to put myself in chains already——"

"Already! A man cannot be happy too soon, monsieur; and you will be happy with a woman who is worthy of you. You will realize the difference between family joys and the orgies of debauchery. Furthermore, numerous suitors for Mademoiselle de Mongarcin's hand have already entered the lists; if you do not come forward, do you suppose that she will send to beg for your homage? Hasten to present yourself, to disperse your rivals! This marriage must take place ere long.—I have often repented, myself, that I married so late in life! I was forty-three when I married your excellent mother. What was the result? that I was already old when you became a man; and that, instead of finding in me a friend, a companion, my son has seen in me only an old man, to whom he has never confided his secrets."

"Father——"

"You have heard me, Léodgard. It rests with you now to be happy and to regain your father's affection. You know how you must conduct yourself for that.—Go; I will keep you no longer."

Léodgard bent his head respectfully before the old man, who responded with a slight nod which indicated no great amount of confidence as yet.

When he was out of range of his father's eyes, Léodgard tore his hair, saying to himself:

"Not incur debts! why, I have no money!—But I must have some! For I promised Camilla that beautiful pearl necklace that she wants so much! Now that I no longer owe anything, I can easily borrow.—But that lettre de cachet!—Ah! I know my father; he did not threaten me heedlessly; he would have me put in the Bastille, and I have no desire to go to that horrible prison!"

VI
CHAUDOREILLE'S GODSON

Among the numerous habitués of the various bathing establishments might be noticed a tall, lean man, with a yellow complexion, like the description of the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. This personage had one of those elongated faces, with prominent cheek bones which call attention to the hollowness of the cheeks; also a long, pointed nose, a chin of the same type, an enormous mouth with a full complement of long teeth, each one of which resembled a tusk, and which terrified beyond words all the little children in whose presence this gentleman was pleased to smile; for he then appeared exactly as if he proposed to swallow the innocent creatures. A low forehead, yellow hair, and moustaches of the same color, the latter twisted at the ends so that they nearly joined the corners of the eyes—such was the Chevalier Passedix, who claimed to be Chaudoreille's godson.

We like to believe, dear reader, whichever your sex, that you have known a certain Barber of Paris, whose adventures made some noise long ago; in that case, you may not have forgotten entirely his friend the Chevalier Chaudoreille, that vain, cowardly Gascon, gambler and shameless liar, who boasted so loudly of his long sword, which he called Roland, and who came to such a tragic end, falling from a roof, and running himself through in his fall with his faithful Roland, which he held in his hand to feel his way along the slippery roof on which he was walking.

The Chevalier Passedix, then, claimed to be the godson of Chaudoreille, albeit the latter, in his negotiations with Touquet the barber, had never mentioned his godson. But there are many people who forget that they ever held a child over the baptismal font, or who do not choose to remember that they have been godparents, in order to evade the duties which that relation imposes on them.

However, Passedix, himself a Gascon, resembled his godfather in many respects; like him, he was a glutton, a gambler, and a liar; like him, he sighed for every woman who looked at him, believing himself to be a very attractive gallant, whereas he might fittingly have served as a scarecrow in a community of women.

But there was one respect in which the resemblance between him and his godfather had no existence. Chaudoreille was always a coward, his battles were mere bluster, and his very death was tragic only because he was fleeing over the roofs from an imaginary danger.

Passedix, on the contrary, was really brave; he would draw his sword on the most trivial pretext, would often take up the cudgels for a perfect stranger, and like Don Quixote, whom he resembled in his great height and his leanness, he would readily have fought against a windmill. But his courage was rarely fortunate, and whether because he handled Roland unskilfully,—for he possessed his godfather's famous rapier,—or because his excessive ardor made him imprudent, or because he was too sure of victory, the chevalier was almost always beaten; indeed, he was very lucky when he came off with a few scratches and was not nailed to his bed to await the healing of his wounds.

On a certain beautiful warm spring morning, several young nobles were chatting and laughing in Master Hugonnet's shop. Some were waiting for their inamoratas to come from the baths, others had come thither in the hope of seeing Ambroisine, La Belle Baigneuse, and perhaps of being shaved by her. The majority were there because it was a favorite rendezvous of idlers, lady killers, and all the young dandies and rakes who were eager to learn the news, the spicy anecdotes of the court and city, to inquire concerning the scandalous intrigue of the moment, in order that they might make merry at the expense of the poor betrayed husband; for we must not forget that husbands were betrayed in the good old times no less than they are to-day.

As there were no cafés in those days for the idlers and gossips, the bathing establishments filled their place. As there were no newspapers to read, people were accustomed to collect to listen to the man who came there to tell some anecdote or some new occurrence. The gossips were welcome and held the floor. Many falsehoods were told, as will always be the case in such assemblages; the man who lied with the most assurance was almost always the one who was most eagerly listened to, and most loudly applauded by those at whom he laughed in his sleeve. To-day, we find blagueurs who delight to hoodwink their auditors. The words have changed, but the characters are the same.

Some of the idlers who were assembled at Master Hugonnet's stood in the doorway of the shop, both wings of the door being thrown open, and amused themselves by watching the passers-by. Rue Saint-Jacques was frequented by students, clerks of the Basoche, and a great number of the lower classes; moreover, the proximity of the Hôtel de Cluny brought to the quarter many ecclesiastics and doctors of the Sorbonne.

Our young gentlemen did not always confine themselves to ogling the passers-by. When a woman who was at all attractive, or a clown with a particularly idiotic face, passed the barber's shop, they addressed a compliment or an obscene jest to the one, to the other some unflattering epithet or some insulting question. And woe to the unlucky wight who should take the jest in bad part! for if he lost his temper and presumed to reply, all the idlers and all the customers assembled at the baths instantly ran out to listen to the complainant; and then, instead of one jest, he had to undergo a perfect hailstorm of witticisms from all sides.

"Pardieu! messeigneurs," said one young blade, all covered with ribbons and lace, as he left the door and threw himself carelessly on one of the hard chairs in the shop, "I have just seen two women of rather attractive aspect go in at the door leading to the baths."

"How were they dressed, Sénange?" inquired the young man who was at that moment in the barber's hands.

"Oh! how curious this little Monclair is! He wants to make us believe that he is waiting here for a fair; that someone is to come here to fetch him!"

"Yes, sambleu! I am expecting someone; what is there so surprising in that? Haven't you at least one mistress yourself, Sénange?"

"One mistress! Vertudieu! if I had but one, it seems to me that it would be almost the same as if I had none."

"Very pretty! but I shouldn't expect it from anyone but Léodgard.—Come, Sénange, be decent; how were the damsels dressed who have just gone into the baths?"

"One—and she must have been the dowager—wore a brown pelisse and hood; her head was all wrapped up in the hood, and there was a thick veil over all; guess at the face, if you can!"

"And the other?"

"The other was dressed in pink; there was a border of black lace to her hood, and it fell over her eyes; but her feet were small, her slippers embroidered with silver thread, and her leg well turned, as one could easily see, for she raised her skirts very generously!"

"Oh! it is she, I am sure!"

"By Notre-Dame de Paris!" cried Master Hugonnet, holding his razor in the air; "if you move about like this, my lord, something will happen to your face; that leap of yours nearly cost you your nose, and I assure you that it would not have been my fault. Keep quiet, or I will not answer for the consequences!"

"'Tis well, barber; go on, do your duty; I will try to be calm.—By the way, messieurs, it seems to me that it is a long while since we last saw Passedix in this quarter!"

"True; the valiant Passedix no longer shows himself; where can he be?—Have you seen him lately, Hugonnet?"

"No, messeigneurs; it is several weeks since the Chevalier Passedix has been here."

"That is the more surprising, because, if I remember aright, he was deeply in love with your daughter Ambroisine."

"In love with my daughter—he! He is in love with all women; but it amounts to nothing."

"Did you treat him a little—harshly? You are quite capable of it."

"No, I was not put to that trouble; the chevalier has always been too respectful for me to be angry with him."

"Then it must be that poor Passedix has had some new affair of honor; he has probably fought a duel and come out second best, as usual; and doubtless he is stretched out on his bed of pain at this moment."

"Perhaps he has been attacked by Giovanni, the fashionable robber!"

"Giovanni would not have wounded him; he contents himself with robbing and never does any harm."

"But if a man doesn't choose to be robbed, and defends himself——"

"Look at Léodgard, messieurs; he defended himself gallantly, and yet Giovanni robbed him and did not hurt a hair of his head."

At that moment, loud exclamations were heard at the shop door.

VII
A YOUNG WOMAN EN CROUPE

"Oh! what a fine head, my friends!" cried a cavalier who was standing in the doorway.

"What is it, La Valteline?"

"A great clodhopper—some peasant from the South, doubtless, for he wears the Béarnais costume, I believe. He is coming along on an enormous horse. Come, look! it's worth the trouble!"

"Do you expect us to put ourselves out for a country lout?"

"But he has something very seductive en croupe; a fresh, red-cheeked little wench, who, in her rustic costume, would carry off the palm from all the fair who come to visit the baths!"

"Oho! we must see that! we must see that!"

A horse was coming along at a footpace, with two persons on his back. First, a countryman with straight hair brushed flat, which fell to his shoulders, and was partly hidden by a sort of woollen cap ending in a point and surmounted by a small black plume; beneath that original headgear appeared a broad, round, chubby, red face, a most perfect specimen of careless health, with big eyes on a level with the face, which expressed amazement at everything they saw, and at the same time seemed happy to be amazed. The rest of his costume was that of a Béarnais peasant. In his right hand he held a long branch of dogwood, which he used as a crop to accelerate his horse's gait.

Behind this rustic, on his horse's crupper, and clinging tightly to her cavalier, was a young girl of eighteen years at most, as pretty as the Italian madonnas to whom the painters make you long to pray, and as fresh as a rosebud just opening.

Her embarrassment and alarm made her even more beautiful, for she seemed a little alarmed by her position; and while trying to seat herself more firmly, she displayed every moment the upper part of a shapely calf, and sometimes even the red garter that held her coarse woollen stocking in place.

"Jarnidié! that's a dainty morsel!" exclaimed the young men in chorus.

"See the lovely black hair!"

"And eyes quite as black, on my word!—fine lashes, heavy eyebrows!"

"A straight nose, neither too large nor too small!"

"A perfect chin and a tiny mouth!"

"Oh! did you see, messieurs? She uttered a little cry of fright, and I saw the prettiest teeth!"

"Then she lacks nothing, for she is as fresh as she is pretty!"

"Where in the devil is that clown taking this seductive morsel?"

"Pardieu! messieurs, we will find out."

"It shall not be said that a charming creature shall pass us like this, without our taking measures to find her again."

"But this girl, with her square cap and her veil on top of her head, with her striped waist and skirt of such brilliant colors, certainly is not a Frenchwoman; she wears an Italian costume."

"Do you think so, La Valteline?"

"I am sure; it's the costume of the peasants in the suburbs of Milan. Pardieu! I ought to know; I was at Milan last year!"

"You are right; the girl has something Italian or Israelitish in her face, and her slightly bronzed complexion also tends to confirm your conjectures."

The horse and his riders had by this time reached the bath keeper's house, and were about to pass it on their way down Rue Saint-Jacques, when the young Marquis de Sénange ran out and placed himself in front of the peaceful beast, which instantly halted.

Thereupon the young noble, doffing his hat, saluted the girl and her escort with respect, and all the other bystanders made haste to do the like.

The Béarnais peasant, astounded by all these courtesies, deemed it advisable none the less to remove his cap and return the salutations of all those young men who treated him so politely.

As for the girl, she raised her great black eyes and, with an expression in which there was more surprise than timidity, looked about at the persons who were gazing at her.

"Par la sambleu! my dear monsieur, how fortunate we are to fall in with you, and to be the first to present you our respectful homage. But we have been waiting for you a long while.—Pray put on your hat—we entreat you! You must surely see by the joy which your arrival causes us how impatiently you and your charming travelling companion were awaited in Paris!"

"Eh! damme! what's that? we were expected in Paris?" cried the big countryman, who had listened with a dazed expression to young Sénange's harangue.

"Can you doubt it?" said the Chevalier de La Valteline, in his turn, walking nearer to the horse's hind quarters in order to examine the girl more closely. "Do you not know that we are notified in advance at Paris when such interesting travellers as you are to arrive here? Deputations were sent to all the barriers to welcome you. It is very strange that you did not meet them—eh, messeigneurs?"

Shouts arose on all sides, accompanied by roars of laughter, which the clerks of the Basoche and the students could not restrain, and in which the valets and all the blackguards of the quarter did not hesitate to join.

"Pray dismount, my master, and come with us to take some refreshment, you and this lovely child; we will give you a taste of a certain choice wine which we have put aside for the express purpose of celebrating your arrival. I will help your companion to dismount first."

As he spoke, the jovial Sénange offered his knee to the girl for use as a stepping stone, while the peasant, bewildered by what he heard and, it may be, a little tempted by the offer of wine, seemed to hesitate as to what he ought to do, and to be inclined to accept the invitation. But his pretty companion, instead of dismounting as she was invited to do, seized her escort's arm with little ceremony, and said to him, under her breath, but in a firm tone:

"Don't get down, Cédrille; don't you see that all these fine gentlemen are making sport of you and me, for all their courtesies and fine manners? They say that they expected us, but I will wager that they do not even know who we are. Just ask that most dandified one, who has such a smooth tongue, to tell you your name and why we have come to Paris; and you'll see that he won't be able to answer you."

These words changed the peasant's plans. He sat more firmly in his saddle, and, addressing the man who had spoken first, said in a tone wherein it was easy to detect distrust:

"One moment, my fine gentleman; we don't make acquaintances so fast, we peasants don't, especially as we were told that we must be on the lookout in Paris; and that there was a lot of fellows, law students and ne'er-do-wells, yes, and some great nobles, who like to poke fun at poor folks, especially peasants and people who work in the fields. That's an entertainment that we don't care about giving, d'ye see!—You say we were expected in Paris—so you know me and the little one, I suppose? Well, if you know us—who are we?—tell us who we are? Answer, if you please, messeigneurs."

The young men looked at one another and winked.

"This clod is not so stupid as he looks," said one.

"That didn't come from him," said a page; "the little one prompted him to say it."

"He was all ready to dismount, but the girl held him back."

"You ask me who you are," rejoined young Sénange, twirling his moustache; "why, you know who you are! So what need is there for me to tell you what you already know?—Nonsense! come with us, my master, and drink and touch glasses; the wine we will give you is much better than that you drink in your village."

"Oh, no! oh, no! not till you have answered my questions; but you can't do that!"

"Your questions! By what right, pray, do you put questions to us, when we are offering you a civil attention? Do you know, my handsome traveller, that it is not decent to refuse to drink a glass, to empty a goblet, to our health?—Are you afraid to drink? In that case, you would make a dismal companion!—I say, messieurs, what do you think of this lout who fears to compromise himself by drinking with us?"

"Probably the knave has never tasted wine; he thinks that we intend to purge him."

"He is sadly in need of having the rust rubbed off—the clown!"

"Ah! but he must drink! We will pour a pint or two down his throat from the Souris Blanche, which is just across the way."

"We will teach the fool what courtesy is!"

"Ah! so silly talk is taking the place of your civilities now!" said the peasant, with a frown.

His companion touched him on the shoulder and murmured:

"Go on, Cédrille! whip your horse. Don't stay in the midst of all these young gentlemen. They look to me like bad fellows; their shouts and the way they look at me—I am beginning to be frightened."

"Whip Bourriquet! why, they have got hold of his bridle; and how can we go on in the middle of all this crowd? I wouldn't like to ride over anyone, for then they would make trouble for me.—Jarny! Miretta, I am sorry already that you insisted on coming to this Paris!"

"Pray dismount, my pretty Milanese," said the Chevalier de La Valteline, offering his hand to the girl, whose name, as we now know, was Miretta.

"Milanese!" she retorted, refusing the young nobleman's hand. "Ah! you guess that from my costume; it is true that I have lived in the neighborhood of Milan from infancy, but I was not born in Italy; I am from the same province as Cédrille."

"And Cédrille is a Béarnais?"

"Yes, messieurs; from Pau, by your leave," said the peasant.

"Vive Cédrille!"

"Vive Cédrille of Pau!"

And the young nobles, as they shouted the name, waved their hats and handkerchiefs, while the bachelors and squires joined hands and began to dance and caper around the horse and his riders.

The girl's face flushed, her impatience got the better of her; she struck the horse's flank with her hand, while the peasant did his best to urge his steed forward, crying:

"Let go of Bourriquet's rein, seigneurs! let go of my horse, ten thousand devils!"

"Ah! Bourriquet! the horse's name is Bourriquet!"

"His rider should bear that name!"

"Poor bourrique,[B] who has to carry another of his kind!"

[B] Bourrique, an ass; bourriquet, an ass's colt.

"No, no! your horse shall not take a step!"

"Don't worry him with your rein."

"Dismount, Cédrille of Pau; if not, we will forcibly remove you and your companion from Bourriquet's back!"

Some of Master Hugonnet's customers were already preparing to carry out this threat; but at that crisis, the Béarnais peasant, whose face had turned purple and had assumed a menacing expression, quickly raised his right arm, and brandishing in the air the dogwood staff with which his right hand was armed, twirled it about in the faces of those who approached, with such fearless and uncompromising dexterity that in a moment there was a large space cleared in front of the travellers; and yet, some of the jokers did not move back quickly enough to avoid a blow from the redoubtable dogwood staff.

Meanwhile, the pretty girl threw both arms about her companion, and, raising her head, seemed to defy with her glance those who surrounded her, and to say to them:

"Come forward now, if you dare!"

All this had taken place in an instant; but the panic was soon over, and all the young men, who were in the habit of beating the watch, fighting with citizens, and brawling every night in the streets of Paris, were in no humor to fly from a peasant's club. Having retired to a safe distance, they turned about once more and drew their swords; the bachelors, students, pages, and esquires did the same; for at that blessed epoch almost every man wore a sword or a rapier of some sort, in order to be always in a position to fight on the most trivial pretext: a consequence of the gentle manners and pacific customs of the good old times.

At sight of the bare swords, Miretta said to her companion:

"Come, push on, Cédrille! beat your horse! Let us get away from here, or some disaster will happen to us."

The peasant shook Bourriquet's rein with no gentle force; but although the beast no longer felt a hand on his bit, he stood like a statue in his tracks, and, in spite of the urging of his rider, refused to advance a step, terrified doubtless by the noise that he heard and by the crowd that stood in a circle about him.

Meanwhile, the young men again approached, half threateningly, half laughingly; they brandished their swords, and some of the points were already in contact with the dogwood staff which Cédrille continued to handle with much address, while they shouted in his ears:

"Down! down, rustic!"

"Dismount at once, and ask our pardon on your knees!"

"Yes, let him apologize! or else we will carry off the girl!"

"And Bourriquet too!"

"And we will break the staff over Cédrille's back!"

"Break my staff!—Oh! jarnidieu! there's more than one of you who will have a few ribs broken first!"

But when she saw all those gleaming blades directed against her companion, and often, by inadvertence, threatening her own person, pretty Miretta uttered piercing shrieks; she called imploringly for help. To her cries, uttered as they were in a plaintive, grief-stricken tone, the young men replied by a storm of jests and lamentations; they tried to reassure the girl, to make her understand that they would do her no harm; but she, too terrified to hear what they said, continued her outcries.

Thereupon Master Hugonnet, who thus far had continued to shave Monsieur de Monclair, abandoned his customer and ran into the street to find out what was happening. At the same time, Ambroisine left the baths to ascertain the cause of the uproar and the shrieks that she heard.

As the father and the daughter reached the street, two other persons arrived on the scene, one by Rue des Mathurins, the other from Saint-Benoît cemetery; and, having quickened their pace in order to arrive sooner, they made their appearance at almost the same moment—forcing their way through the crowd without ceremony, and distributing blows to right and left among those who did not move aside quickly enough to make way for them.

VIII
A BATTLE

"Ah! here's our friend Passedix, whom we were so anxious about!" cried several of the reckless youths, when they spied the long, lank, yellow-faced chevalier, who always wore a helmet, which heightened his resemblance to Don Quixote, although his helmet was not of the shape of that worn by the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.

"Ah! here is the Sire de Jarnonville!" exclaimed others of the young men, at sight of the second of the two new-comers, who, by rough handling of the crowd, had arrived in front of the barber's shop.

He was a tall, handsome man, dressed in a rich but very sombre costume; his black doublet, slashed with white satin, had the appearance of a mourning garment; a black velvet cloak, faced with white, covered his shoulders; his full, funnel-shaped top-boots also were black, although most gentlemen wore yellow ones except when they went to war. His broad-brimmed hat, turned up in front, had no other ornament than a long plume of the same color as the cloak. So that the Sire de Jarnonville was sometimes given the sobriquet of the Black Chevalier.

He was thirty-eight years of age, but seemed much older, because his brown hair was beginning to turn gray; because his noble and regular features were almost always clouded, as if under the burden of painful thoughts; because his eyes also had ordinarily an expression of profound sadness; and lastly, because his brow was furrowed with premature wrinkles, and the clouds which darkened it were rarely dissipated.

And yet this gentleman, whose aspect was so gloomy, and whom one would have taken to be the enemy of all pleasure, had for several years past participated in all the amusements and festivities, and especially in all the brutal tricks which were played on bourgeois, tradesmen, and even attachés of the court. Whenever one of the most dissolute frequenters of the bathing establishments proposed some new escapade—to abduct a woman, to hoodwink a guardian, or to thrash the watch and throw a whole quarter into dismay, he could be certain beforehand that the Sire de Jarnonville would join him; he was one of the first volunteers in all perilous undertakings; he always rushed to the spot where the danger was greatest, fought like four men, and was the last to leave the field.

If anyone had a duel on hand and lacked a second, the Black Chevalier was always ready to render him that service, without even inquiring as to the subject of the dispute or the name of the adversary; but always on condition that he should fight with the opposing seconds.—Did anyone propose to gamble and drink, Jarnonville gambled and drank, and sometimes drank too much. Amid the companions of his revels, at the banquet table, in a midnight affray, in a duel, he almost always retained that melancholy expression which had aged his features before their time; to one who watched him fight and gamble and drink, it seemed that he did all those things without inclination or pleasure, but solely in the hope of diverting his thoughts; and that he could not succeed in doing it. Such was the personage who had forced his way through the crowd and taken his stand beside the Marquis de Sénange, while the Chevalier de Passedix approached Bourriquet's hind quarters and contemplated with admiration the pretty girl who was seated thereon.

"Ah! here is Jarnonville! Vivat! the victory is ours!"

"Come on our side, O Black Chevalier! you arrive in the nick of time; there's a girl to be kidnapped, and a clown to be beaten!"

"Vrai Dieu! it seems to me that there are a good many of you for such a small matter!" rejoined the Sire de Jarnonville, casting his eye over the crowd assembled before the barber's house.

"Yes; but the task is not so simple as you might think, my master; for we must obtain possession of this pretty wench without doing her the slightest harm; and yonder idiot, with his club, is capable of wounding the little one in trying to defend her."

"Ah! he knows how to handle the staff, does he? So much the better! we will judge of his talent."

"Sandioux! messeigneurs," cried Passedix, "why do you attack this child? and this stout youth whom she presses to her heart, rolling her lovely eyes to beseech our compassion?—I wish, first of all, to know the subject of the quarrel; and I object beforehand to any sort of force being put upon such a charming wench!"

"Come, come, valiant Passedix, just move away from that nag's hind quarters and come over to our side! Do you mean to desert our camp? are you going over to the Greeks?"

"Beware, second Don Quixote; we shall have no mercy for traitors!"

"Cadédis! if you think to frighten me, my boy, you waste your time and your words! With my good Roland, this trusty blade which came to me from my godfather Chaudoreille, I will spit you all like smelts, provided that this lovely child accepts me for her knight. One word from her sweet mouth, and I make mincemeat of you all!"

Bursts of laughter greeted the Gascon chevalier's braggadocio; but he, drawing his long sword, put the point to the ground before Miretta, and bent his knee as he said to her:

"Answer, O marvellous queen of Paphos and Cythera! Will you accept me for your champion in the combat which I beg the privilege of undertaking for you? Give me a pledge—the merest trifle—your glove; you have none? then your pretty hand, that I may kiss it; and I am victor!"

Miretta stared in utter amazement at that tall man, thin as an asparagus stalk, who was almost kneeling at her horse's tail; she seemed not at all inclined to accept him for her knight, for ugliness inspires women with little confidence, and the Chevalier Passedix was perfectly ugly.

But the Béarnais peasant, still twirling his staff, said to the Gascon:

"Thanks for your offer, seigneur cavalier; it isn't to be refused.—Here are I don't know how many of them setting on me, and I am all alone to defend my travelling companion! My opinion is that it's a cowardly trick! But come and take my side, and I'll warrant that with my club and your spit we'll prevent these gentry from carrying off Miretta."

Although he considered the term spit in very bad taste as applied to Roland, the valorous Passedix, whom Miretta's eyes had already taken captive, instantly took his stand in front of the horse, threatening the assailants with his sword.

While these things were taking place about the travellers, Master Hugonnet and his daughter, having learned the subject of the quarrel, were striving to make the reckless youths drawn up in battle array in front of the shop listen to reason. But that which at first was a simple jest had become, in the eyes of those young dandies, a matter of self-esteem, almost of honor. No one of them was willing to give ground before Cédrille's staff. In order that the dispute should come to an end without violence, it would have been necessary for the peasant to agree to apologize to those who had jeered at him and insulted him, and he was in no mood to humble himself before them.

"By Notre-Dame! messeigneurs," said Hugonnet, going from one to another of his customers, with his basin of soapsuds in one hand and his shaving brush in the other, "what have this peasant and his companion done to you that you should pick a quarrel with them? What an idea—to throw a whole quarter into commotion and bring the whole neighborhood to the windows, for two travellers who have only one horse between them!"

"Leave us in peace, Hugonnet; attend to your own affairs; this doesn't concern you!"

"Pardieu! yes, it does concern me; for you are blocking the whole street, you are in battle order in front of my house, so that it would be impossible for anyone to come near who might happen to want a bath or a shave! So you see that you injure me with your quarrelling, and that it does concern me."

"For heaven's sake, messieurs," said Ambroisine, in her turn, "do not torment this poor traveller like this! What pleasure can you find in frightening a woman? Let these people go their way. They are not Parisians—anyone can see that! They do not know that you are only threatening them in joke."

"In joke!" repeated young La Valteline, with a frown. "But you are not aware, belle baigneuse, that that peasant's staff has soiled my cloak!—Oh! I must chastise him for that! These knaves must be taught the respect that they owe us."

"And why do you jeer at them and attack them, if you wish them to respect you?"

"Enough, fair Ambroisine! sermons are all right for preachers, but they amount to nothing in a pretty girl's mouth!"

"Come, Jarnonville! forward! have at him! have at him! let us trounce the peasant!"

"Not without my helping to defend him!" ejaculated Master Hugonnet, running to take his stand beside the travellers, still carrying his basin and shaving brush.

"And I will not allow that girl to be insulted, without doing what I can to help her!" cried Ambroisine, following her father and placing herself in front of Miretta.

"That is right! good! good for la baigneuse!" cried all the women, who had been drawn to the scene by the noise of the quarrel. "You are on the girl's side, and we too will defend her!"

"All these ne'er-do-wells are fit for nothing but to insult women!"

"Let us pick up stones and throw them at the villains!"

"No, no! by Notre-Dame!" cried Hugonnet. "No stones, I entreat you! You will break my windows and my sign, and I shall have to pay for all the damage! We shall be able to settle this business without you!"

The young gentlemen were embarrassed, for, although eager to fight and having little fear of their adversaries, they were afraid that in the scrimmage they might injure the pretty traveller and Ambroisine.

The latter, divining what held them back, took delight in defying all those fine cavaliers, who were in the habit of making love to her, and several of whom called out to her:

"Come away from there, belle baigneuse; that is no place for you!"

"You are in our way. Besides, you ought not to take sides against your customers!"

"I don't care a fig for customers! Let these travellers go their way, and I will agree to shave all of you."

This proposition seemed to make an impression on several of the young men; but the Sire de Jarnonville, irritated by all this discussion, drew his sword and strode toward the horse's head. With a few passes he soon sent the famous Roland flying through the air. Passedix, disarmed, called loudly for another weapon.

The Black Chevalier thereupon turned his attention to the dogwood staff, but he had not so simple a task as with the Gascon's sword.

At that moment, a young page, who had stolen forward to unseat Miretta, was confronted by Master Hugonnet; and he, having no other weapons than his basin and shaving brush, instantly covered the page with a thick coating of lather, filling his nose and mouth and even his eyes with it; whereupon the assailant began to shriek at the top of his voice. All eyes were turned in that direction. At sight of that face completely covered with lather, a roar of laughter burst from all who were present, friends and foes, combatants and lookers-on; it was as if they were trying to see who could laugh the loudest.

This incident suspended the combat for a moment. But the Sire de Jarnonville, who alone had taken no part in the general merriment, immediately renewed his attack on the peasant's staff. Whether because Cédrille's arm was tired, or because the sight of that gleaming weapon, whirling through the air and sometimes striking sparks, dazzled his eyes, he began to defend himself less vigorously. At last, a blow dealt with more force than usual broke the staff.

The peasant was beaten; the Black Chevalier's weapon was already on the point of forcing him to dismount, when Ambroisine, who had left her post a moment before, suddenly reappeared, carrying in her arms a little boy of three or four years; and darting in front of Jarnonville, she held the child out to him, crying:

"Take care, seigneur, you will wound this child!"

Those words and the sight of the little boy produced a magical effect on the Black Chevalier. He paused and dropped his arm, which was raised to strike; the warlike ardor which enlivened his face gave way to an expression of sadness, almost of tenderness. He gazed for some seconds at the little fellow, who, not realizing that he was in the midst of a battle, was not in the least frightened, but smiled up at the chevalier, crying:

"I'd like to fight, too!"

Jarnonville stooped to kiss the child's forehead, and replaced his sword in its sheath. Then, turning to the young noblemen, who were utterly amazed at the change that had taken place in him, he said to them:

"It's all over, messieurs; the treaty of peace is signed!"

"What! all over? How so, if we are not satisfied?"

"I tell you that it is all over! This peasant has been conquered, disarmed; what more do you want?"

"We want him to apologize."

"We want most of all to kiss the pretty girl whom he has en croupe."

Jarnonville's only reply was to push aside with his arm all those who stood in front of the horse, thus clearing a passage for him. Then he made a sign to the peasant, who understood him and dug his heels into Bourriquet's ribs. This time the poor beast seemed to share his master's desire, and asked nothing better than to leave the field of battle. He trotted off at full speed down Rue Saint-Jacques, and Cédrille and his pretty companion soon disappeared from the eyes of the crowd.

All this had happened so quickly that Miretta hardly had time to grasp Ambroisine's hand and say:

"Thanks! thanks! you have saved us! I shall come to see you, and to tell you how grateful I am!"

"Come; you will ask for Ambroisine, the daughter of Master Hugonnet the bath keeper, on Rue Saint-Jacques."

IX
CAUSES AND EFFECTS

Ambroisine's first care was to take the child back to its mother, a woman of the people, who was there by the merest chance, having come to find out why such a crowd had collected in front of the bath keeper's establishment, little dreaming that her child would be the means of adjusting that great quarrel.

Hugonnet's daughter kissed the little fellow, put a coin in his hand with which to buy a cake, and returned to her home, curious to learn how the gentlemen had taken the conclusion of the affair.

Sénange, La Valteline, Monclair, and their friends, were dazed for a moment by the sudden departure of Cédrille and his companion. Some of them were inclined to run after the peasant, others wanted to fight Jarnonville, whom they accused of betraying them; they were all displeased, and another battle was imminent perhaps, when general attention was attracted by shouts and oaths proceeding from the place recently occupied by Bourriquet.

A battle with fists was in progress between Master Hugonnet and one of his neighbors, named Lambourdin, a dealer in ribbons, tags, fringes, and other toilet articles, whose shop was not more than fifty yards from the baths.

The two neighbors were ordinarily very good friends; they met sometimes at the wine shop, which both were fond of frequenting; they laughed and talked and drank together, and no one would ever have supposed that they would one day entertain the inhabitants of the quarter with a genuine pugilistic bout.

But who can foretell the future?

The most trivial cause is sometimes sufficient to embroil ambassadors and to bring about war between two nations that could get along very well without it; and we too often see old friends suddenly become declared enemies.

In our day, politics sometimes produces such revolutions by its gentle and benignant influence. In the good old times, there were sometimes conspiracies of great personages, nobles, and persons in high station, but the people paid little heed to their plots. They went to see them hanged at Montfaucon, but they were not tempted to meddle with matters that led to such results. In those days, the workman thought of nothing but working to support his family, to save a marriage portion for his daughter, and to make sure of a home in his old age. That was the sum total of his politics; it made him neither ill, nor infuriate, nor insane, nor sophistical, nor evil-minded! It made him happy!

In that respect we may well regret the good old times.

Let us return to the two neighbors.

Lambourdin, the dealer in small wares, was by inclination, and, above all, by virtue of his trade, of the faction of the young nobles and the courtiers. When a noble personage entered his shop and made a purchase, Lambourdin puffed himself out like the frog in the fable, and never failed to proclaim from the housetops that he supplied monsieur le comte, or monsieur le marquis, or messieurs the pages attached to the court.

And so, when he learned the cause of the gathering, which he could see from his shop, the dealer in small wares hastened to the scene of the combat, fully disposed to take up the cudgels for the young nobles, to whom he was intensely anxious to display his entire devotion.

But the young men did not require the assistance of Master Lambourdin, and he had had no other opportunity to show his interest in their victory than by addressing an insulting remark or a threat to Cédrille from time to time.

But when Master Hugonnet besmeared a page so successfully with his lather, Lambourdin, far from finding that amusing, flew into a transport of rage, especially as the page who was so thoroughly lathered had bought two beautiful bows of ribbon at his shop that morning.

And so, as soon as the Black Chevalier's sword play had ceased, as soon as Bourriquet had trotted away with his travellers on his back, Lambourdin elbowed his way through the crowd to Master Hugonnet, and said, eying him with a furious expression:

"Do you know, Neighbor Hugonnet, that you have behaved very badly throughout this affair?"

"Ah! do you think so, Neighbor Lambourdin?" rejoined the barber, in a bantering tone; for the wrathful expression blazing in the other's eyes gave him a comical appearance, which inspired merriment rather than alarm.

"Yes, I do think so!—What! you, to whose place the young nobles come by preference, whether to bathe, or to have their hair and beards arranged, and bring customers to your establishment and make it fashionable!—you take sides against them in this quarrel, instead of going to their assistance, as every self-respecting man should do! You take part with strangers—a rustic and a strumpet from no one knows where!"

"I do what I please, what suits me, neighbor! I consult my heart before my pocket. I look to see on which side the right and not the profit is.—But why do you interfere? Is it any of your business?"

"Yes, monsieur le baigneur; yes, it is my business—And that young page whom you smeared with soapsuds so shamefully! He even had it in his eyes! You spoiled a superb bow of ribbon that I sold him this morning!"

"So much the better for you; he'll buy another one of you!"

"No, he will not—I mean, yes, he will buy another one.—But your conduct is none the less indecent!"

"By Notre-Dame de Paris! you are beginning to make my ears burn, Neighbor Lambourdin! Not another word, or I strike you!"

"Do you think to frighten me, you low-lived bath keeper, unworthy to shave noble chins! I am no boy of fifteen; and if you should touch me with your shaving brush, I'd trample you under foot like an old blanket!"

"Ah! so! Well, take that! I won't touch you with my shaving brush!"

As he spoke, Hugonnet buried his fist in Lambourdin's side; the latter had gone too far to retreat; and then, too, there were so many witnesses! So he answered the blow with a kick, but he measured the distance so inaccurately that he kicked into space.

Lambourdin was a little fellow, strong enough, but not of the build to contend with Master Hugonnet. After a struggle that was not of long duration, the two neighbors fell, still clinging to each other. Unluckily, poor Lambourdin was underneath, and had to endure simultaneously the weight of his adversary's body and the numerous blows which he continued to administer. Then it was that the little man's cries attracted the attention of the young gentlemen who had remained in front of the bath keeper's house.

They ran to the scene of conflict; Hugonnet was excited and would not release his neighbor; but when he heard the voice of his daughter, who came up to see who the combatants were, the barber grew calmer, rose, and entered his shop, saying:

"No matter! he got what he deserved! What need had he to meddle in the affair?"

As for Lambourdin, who was completely done up and could hardly walk, he required the assistance of two arms to return to his home, but they were neither pages nor nobles who supplied them, although it was in their behalf that he had fought!—So much for the gratitude of those whose quarrels one embraces!

This incident diverted the young dandies, and made them forget Cédrille and Miretta for a moment; and with a Frenchman, when the first ardor has passed away, it very rarely returns.

Furthermore, a number of fair dames, who had had time to leave the bath and to dress, came from the house, with a wink to one, a slight nod to another; so that in a few moments the whole crowd dispersed, the idlers sauntered away, the neighbors returned to their homes, and there was no one left in the barber's shop save the Chevalier Passedix, who was wiping Roland, which he had picked out of the gutter, and the Sire de Jarnonville, who had thrown himself into a chair and was apparently lost in thought and entirely oblivious to what was going on about him.

"Par la sandioux! my belle baigneuse," said the Gascon knight to Ambroisine, who had remained in the shop, and who, as if by accident, glanced very frequently in Jarnonville's direction, "I am very glad to tell you that in this affair you comported yourself like a man of heart! First, it was well done of you to take that stranger's part; what a lovely face! sandis! what a fascinating profile! and the full face—it is enough to bring one to one's knees! So that I knelt with ardor!—You will pardon me, I trust, belle baigneuse, for praising another woman in your presence. You too are superb, after a different type."

"Oh! say on, monsieur le chevalier, do not hesitate. Why should I take it ill of you that you praise that girl? In the first place, she deserves it, for she is very pretty. And then, have you not the right to fall in love with her, if you please? does it concern me?"

"True, true! it could not affect you, since you have refused the homage of my heart—for I think that I offered it to you——"

"But you are not quite sure, eh?"

"Why, you see, I have disposed of it so often! But let us return to the stranger, to pretty Miretta—for her name is Miretta, is it not?"

"Yes, that is the name by which her companion, the stout peasant, called her."

"And she is an Italian?"

"No; she told us that she was from Béarn; but it seems that she has lived in Italy a long while."

"O mia cara!—I know a few words of Italian—they may be very useful to me. As I was saying, superb Ambroisine, your conduct was glorious! You showed a courage—a valor—if you had been of my family, you could have done no better. That damned Jarnonville—— He does not hear me; I think that he's asleep."

"Oh, no! he is not asleep; he is thinking, but not of us. Indeed, I would wager that he doesn't even see that we are here!"

"He may hear me or not, I snap my fingers at him! That damned Jarnonville, by a bungler's thrust—for it is never used, everybody scorns to use it—however, he knocked my sword from my hand; and I said to myself just now: 'How in the deuce could I have let Roland go? There must have been some deviltry about it, for it is the first time I was ever disarmed!'—Well, sandioux! I have found the cause, while wiping the hilt of my weapon.—What do you suppose I found on it, just at the spot where one grasps it? I will give you ten thousand guesses."

"I prefer that you should tell me at once."

"Well, my beauty, I found a strip of pork twisted around the hilt of Roland. So you will see that it is not surprising that my sword slipped from my hand. Ah! cadédis! if I knew who played me that vile trick of larding my sword like a partridge!—You laugh, I believe——"

"Bless me! monsieur le chevalier, it seems to me so amusing that your rapier should have been treated like a fowl; it is laughable enough!"

"Do you doubt what I say? Never has a lie soiled my lips!—Look, lovely girl! yonder is that accursed pork which I found on Roland; I threw it into that corner; you can see for yourself."

"I do not doubt what you say, monsieur le chevalier; but as the quarrel attracted many people to this spot, and as there were several housewives among them, returning from market with well-filled baskets on their arms, it is probable that one of them dropped that fine strip of pork on your sword as it lay on the ground; and she is probably looking everywhere for it now."

This explanation did not seem to the liking of Passedix, for he compressed his lips angrily and muttered:

"There are some people who distort the simplest things.—But enough of that. Tell me now, young Hugonnetté, by what miracle you so suddenly appeased the wrath of that miscreant Jarnonville? How did it happen that at sight of a little brat of three or four years that madman, who knows neither God nor the devil, became absolutely calm. I confess that I was so surprised that I feel it yet."

Ambroisine motioned to Passedix to follow her to the rear of the shop, where the Sire de Jarnonville could neither see nor hear them.

The Gascon, who was very curious to know what the girl had to tell him, lost no time in seating himself by her side on a bench; whereupon Ambroisine resumed the conversation, taking care, however, to speak in undertones.

"Have you known the Sire de Jarnonville long?"

"No—about a year; and even so, I know him only from having been with him in several affrays. He fights well, I am bound to admit, but he's a good-for-nothing fellow. He doesn't believe in anything, and I don't like atheists. I am a bad man with the fair, a libertine, a rake, a seducer!—anything you please, I will not say nay. But all that does not prevent my being religious, for without religion there is no true chivalry; and all those stainless knights who fought in Palestine would then be mere braggarts.—But why do you ask me that question?"

"Because, if you had known the Sire de Jarnonville long, you would probably know as much about him as I do, and you would have a very different opinion of him.—I will tell you what I have heard here. About five or six months ago, the Black Chevalier, for he is sometimes so called, had just left our house, where he had been telling the story of one of his exploits—he had broken everything in a tavern, I believe. When he had gone, a gentleman quite advanced in years, but with a face that inspired respect, said to another gentleman who was with him: 'Poor Jarnonville! how he has changed! who would believe, to look at him now, that he was once the mildest, most obliging, most virtuous of men! the man who was held up as a model to young gentlemen who were just entering the world!'—'What can have changed him so?' the other inquired.—'Jarnonville was married, and he lost his wife, whom he loved very dearly; but she had left him a child, a little girl, who was, they say, an angel of beauty, sweetness, and docility. Jarnonville adored little Blanche—that was his daughter's name; she had become his only love, his sole joy, his whole hope for the future; constantly intent upon providing some pleasure, some delight for his darling child, his grief for his wife's death gradually faded away. Happy and proud to be all in all to his daughter, who became every day more charming in body and mind, Jarnonville hardly ever left little Blanche. At four years of age—and that is very, very young!—at four years of age, the child understood all that she owed to her father, all the sacrifices to which he submitted for her sake; but she repaid them all by her love. Never did a child of that age manifest such affection for its father! If he left her for an instant, her eyes filled with tears; but as soon as she saw him, an enchanting smile lighted up her lovely face.—Poor child! You will understand how he must have loved her!—Well! that child, already so far beyond her years in her feelings and her intelligence, that pretty Blanche—he lost her after an illness of a few days only! One of those cruel diseases which feed upon childhood, and which the doctors are as yet unable to cure, carried off the poor little darling!—I will not try to describe her father's grief; it would be impossible. But the frightful calamity that had befallen him changed his character absolutely. Jarnonville accused heaven, Providence. Having never been guilty in his whole life of any evil deed, he rebelled against the fate that dealt him such a cruel blow, which snatched away that little creature to whom life seemed to offer such a beautiful and peaceful prospect—in short, that man, who had always been so religious, ceased utterly to be so, and blasphemed God. Deaf to all consolation, he lived a long while in retirement. When, by dint of constant solicitation, his friends succeeded in luring him back into society, he was no longer the Jarnonville of other days. To divert his thoughts from his grief, he joins all the parties conceived by the worst scapegraces in the city; not a duel, not a nocturnal affray, in which he does not take part. He drinks, drinks to excess, gambles, passes whole nights in debauchery, serves as second to all the young scatterbrains who sow discord in families. He has become the bugbear of the petits bourgeois, the terror of cabaretiers, tavern keepers, of all decent folk; in a word, he is just the opposite of all that he used to be.—But, for my part, I cannot help pitying him; it is his head which is at fault, not his heart; it is despair that has changed his nature. Nor do I believe that he is altogether lost! He still wears mourning for his daughter. In the midst of his debauchery, he has not chosen to lay aside his sombre garments; and when he seems most excited by gambling, wine, or passion, show him a child of about the age of his little Blanche when she died, and you will see a magical change take place in him instantly; his eyes will fill with tears, and that man, whose glance made you tremble a moment before, will become silent and as gentle as a child.'

"That is what the gentleman told his friend. I listened, at first from curiosity, then with deep interest; and since then, whenever I see the Sire de Jarnonville, despite his harsh or brusque manner, he does not seem to me such a bad man as he used.—To-day, when I saw him interfere in that battle and take sides against us with his long sword, which he uses so skilfully, I said to myself: 'Those poor travellers are lost!' And, in fact, your Roland was already on the ground and the peasant's staff was beginning to give way, when I remembered what I had heard. A little boy was close by, in his mother's arms; I ran and seized him—and you saw how successful my idea was; for the Black Chevalier instantly ceased to fight, and himself looked to the safe departure of the travellers."

Passedix had listened to Ambroisine, making from time to time one of those little grimaces which indicate that one places little credence in what one hears. When she had finished her narrative, he said, shaking his head:

"Between ourselves, belle baigneuse, what you have told me seems most extraordinary, and in my opinion this story of the Sire de Jarnonville is a trifle chimerical!"

"Why so, seigneur?" replied Ambroisine, leaving the bench. "It seems to me no more extraordinary than your story of the pork twisted round your sword hilt; and I should say that the event has proved that the gentleman's story was true."

Passedix did not think it best to reply. He walked toward Jarnonville, who had risen and was standing in the doorway.

"Sire de Jarnonville," said the Gascon, offering him his hand, "we both fought like brave men; you were victorious, but I bear you no ill will! especially as I am able to explain why Roland slipped from my hand. We were not on the same side, but, since peace has been concluded, shake hands, and let bygones be bygones!"

Instead of putting his hand in the hand that was offered him, Jarnonville, who had seemed not to listen to the Gascon, suddenly hurried away, without a word in reply.

"Sandioux! what does that mean?" cried Passedix, still standing with outstretched hand, while Ambroisine turned her face away to laugh. "Damme! is this the way that discourteous sombrinos responds to my civility! Evidently, this Jarnonville is nothing more than a felon, a boor, whom I will chastise handsomely at our first meeting. And let no one presume to thrust a child in between us, sandis! or I will give him a good kick somewhere!"

At that moment, a young bachelor, who had been in front of Master Hugonnet's house when Cédrille and his companion were blockaded there, and who had disappeared simultaneously with Bourriquet, returned to the shop, shouting:

"Ah! I know where the pretty girl has gone! I know what that charming Milanese came to Paris for!"

"You know that, boy!" cried the Chevalier Passedix, running up to the young man. "Oh! tell me quickly what you know, and I swear to you, by Roland and my godfather Chaudoreille, that I will treat you to a jar of wine at the next fête carillonnée."

"I had just as lief tell you for nothing!"

"Well, tell me for nothing; I agree, I will consent to whatever you wish; but speak, I am dying with impatience!"

"While everybody else stood here in open-mouthed amazement at the sudden departure of the travellers, I followed the horse at a distance. He went at a fast trot, but I have good legs, and I am not broken-winded."

"Arrive at the point, accursed chatterbox!"

"It was the travellers who arrived; that is to say, they stopped first to inquire the way of a dealer in pottery; then they trotted off again to Rue Saint-Honoré and stopped in front of a fine house."

"On Rue Saint-Honoré! Are you sure of that? Why, sandis! that is my quarter; it could not happen better! But to whom does the house belong?"

"It was the Hôtel de Mongarcin, where Mademoiselle Valentine de Mongarcin is now living with her aunt, Madame de Ravenelle."

"Very good! this boy is no fool; go on."

"All three of the travellers entered the courtyard—I say all three, counting the horse."

"Go on, I say, sandioux!"

"As I was curious to know what they were going to do there, I strolled back and forth in front of the house."

"That was very ingenious."

"And, sure enough, before long came out an old servant who knows my father. I ran up to him and questioned him, and he said: 'That young girl has come here to enter the service of Mademoiselle Valentine de Mongarcin. She has been recommended to her, it seems; so it's all settled. As for the peasant who brought her here, he is going to rest a day or two and then go back to his province, unless he also prefers to find a place in Paris; but it seems that that is not to his taste.'—That is what I have learned."

"Thanks! a thousand thanks, my boy! Hôtel de Mongarcin, Rue Saint-Honoré. I shall be seen frequently in that vicinity.—Sandis! I am sorry that she is only a lady's-maid. But, after all, Dulcinea del Toboso was not a princess; and whatever anyone may say, Don Quixote was a hearty blade, and as good a man as another.—Au revoir, my boy! I will treat you whenever you choose, you know."

And Chevalier Passedix walked away by Rue des Mathurins, and the young bachelor by Place Cambray.

After a day so well employed, it was natural enough that Master Hugonnet should visit his usual wine shop in the evening; and he did not fail to do so. Doubtless there was a large assemblage of patrons, and the events of the morning, as they gave rise to much talk, naturally resulted in a proportionate amount of drinking.

The consequence was that Master Hugonnet returned home very late, completely drunk, and exceedingly susceptible to emotion, as he always was when in that condition.

Ambroisine, who was sitting up for her father, was not at all surprised by his state, and she urged him to go up to bed.

But Hugonnet had tears in his eyes, and he groaned mournfully as he stammered:

"Poor Lambourdin—it breaks my heart! Just imagine, daughter—he was shamefully beaten this morning!"

"I know it, father, and so do you, as it was you who beat him."

"I! do you think so?—Oh! what a calamity!—my dear friend Lambourdin! Just imagine—he was beaten so—it's an outrage! Poor Lambourdin! my heart is heavy!—How could anyone beat such an honorable man?"

"Why, it was you who beat him."

"I! impossible!—When I heard of it, I wept with grief.—Poor Lambourdin! I will avenge him!"

And Master Hugonnet would not consent to go to bed until he had wept freely over the fate of his friend Lambourdin, and had sworn again to avenge him.

X
THE PLACE AUX CHATS

The Chevalier Passedix lived on Place aux Chats.

You will not be sorry, reader, to know where that square was situated, for you would seek in vain for the slightest trace of it to-day. We will proceed to enlighten you upon that subject.

In the year 1634, Place aux Chats was near Rue de la Ferronnerie, close by the Impasse des Bourdonnais, where Rue de la Limace had recently been cut through.

The Cemetery of the Innocents was on one side, and had one entrance on the square, another on Rue de la Ferronnerie, and a third on Rue aux Fers. Before it was christened Place aux Chats, it was called Place aux Pourceaux; and in 1575 Rue de la Limace bore the name of Vieille Place aux Pourceaux.

Do not imagine one of those spacious, airy squares, such as you are familiar with in our day. What was called a square [place] in those days was often nothing more than the junction of two streets.

The houses which surrounded Place aux Chats bore no resemblance to one another. One had four stories, its next neighbor only two; but in all alike the heavy framework, the enormous beams, were visible, as it was not then thought worth while to cover them with plaster.

The roof of each of the houses hung over far beyond the gable end, thus diminishing the air and light; the windows were small, irregular, and loosely set, the panes of glass were tiny and dirty; the doors were low and narrow; the halls dark and begrimed with dirt; the staircases, which were gloomy, dirty, and slippery, had huge posts of stone or wood for rails; and there were absolutely no lights.

Let us not regret the disappearance of Place aux Chats.

Over the door of one of the tallest houses on this square, which stood opposite the Cemetery of the Innocents, there was a long, wide board, painted yellow, bearing these words written in red on the yellow background:

HÔTEL DU SANGLIER. FURNISHED LODGINGS FOR MAN, BUT NOT FOR BEAST

The Hôtel du Sanglier had three windows on the square; that was almost luxurious; and it boasted five stories, counting the attics nestled in the roof.

It was one of the largest houses on Place aux Chats; and although the sign stated that horses would not be entertained, it was no infrequent occurrence for a mounted man to stop and take up his quarters there; in such cases, his nag was taken to an ass keeper's, on the same square, who did not entertain horsemen, but was glad to take care of their beasts, and he almost always had tenants.

The Hôtel du Sanglier was kept by a widow, already past middle age, named Dame Cadichard. She was a short, fat woman, who had been rather piquant and alluring in her springtime and even during her summer; her great fault was that she was determined to be piquant and alluring still, and to forget that her hair was no longer black, her waist no longer slender, and her complexion no longer fresh. She still had the flashing glance, the merry laugh, and the sly jest; and from time to time she talked of remarrying, of giving the late Cadichard a successor. But at such times the neighbors of the Hôtel du Sanglier asked one another where the future spouse could be, for, among the guests of the house or the strangers who frequented it, no one ever had been observed to pay court to the Widow Cadichard.

Chaudoreille's godson had lived at the Hôtel du Sanglier for more than a year; he occupied a very modest little chamber under the eaves, above the fourth floor. His room was lighted only by a little round window looking on the square, which, however, he could not see on account of the overhanging roof; the window, moreover, was so small that only one person could possibly have looked out at one time.

The furniture of the apartment was extremely modest; it consisted of a white wooden bedstead, of the simplest construction, the headboard and footboard being so insecure that when, in a moment of forgetfulness, the long, lank chevalier tried to stretch his legs, he instantly started all the screws from their holes, the bed fell apart and vanished, and the man who was lying upon it found himself stretched on the floor.

Two straw beds, a mattress as flat as a pancake, and a bolster of hay composed the bed furnishings. Beside that far from luxurious couch were a small oak table, two stools, and an enormous chest without a cover, in which the tenant was entitled to keep his effects; it was probably intended to serve as a commode.

A few boards nailed to the wall served the purpose of a wardrobe, and were embellished by those articles which the tenant found indispensable. This was called a furnished lodging.

It is probable, however, that all the rooms in the Hôtel du Sanglier were not furnished so shabbily; and the Chevalier Passedix knew something about it; for when he first became a tenant of Dame Cadichard, he occupied a room on the first floor; at the next quarter day, the Gascon had gone up to the second floor; three months later, he had been consigned to the third; the following term, he had occupied the fourth; and the fifth term, which was now running, he had been relegated to the eaves. In case the chevalier should prolong his residence at Madame Cadichard's, he could be sure, at all events, that they would send him no higher.

Why these peregrinations of the gallant Passedix on each succeeding quarter day? That we shall probably learn in the sequel.

On leaving Master Hugonnet's house, the Gascon returned with long strides to Place aux Chats, his mind engrossed by the pretty foreigner with whom he had fallen in love so suddenly. He was already meditating the means to which he might resort in order to see her; and from time to time he put his hand to his belt, in which he usually carried his purse; but the little leather bag in which he kept his money contained at that moment only a few copper coins.

"Sandioux! my family is very dilatory about sending me money!" muttered Passedix, shaking his head angrily. "And without money it is very difficult to corrupt servants, to procure the delivery of a billet-doux. I know that my genius will supply the lack, but it would go more quickly with the help of funds.—But, no matter! first of all, I must put on an entirely clean ruff. I must also have those two buttons sewn on my doublet; then I will take my stand as a sentinel in front of the Hôtel de Mongarcin, and I will observe what goes on there, and what persons come from and go to the citadel."

Passedix, arrived at his hotel, entered by the low door, then, turning to the right, passed into a room where the mistress of the house was usually to be found, and where each tenant's keys hung on the wall, with the numbers attached.

Widow Cadichard was seated in a capacious armchair, before a table; she was in the act of eating a vegetable soup so thick that one could eat it with a fork; beside the soup tureen, which exhaled a vapor by no means disagreeable to a keen appetite, four very fine eggs lay on a napkin in a plate. An egg glass and a bountiful supply of small squares of toast, which were beside the plate, indicated in what manner the eggs were to be eaten.

When her tenant entered the room, the short, stout dame flashed a glance at him in which there was vexation and anger; but in an instant she resumed her sprightly manner and went on eating her soup.

The chevalier bowed to the widow and walked toward the place where the keys were hanging.

"Well, well!" he cried; "what does this mean, cadédis! my key is not on its nail! Have you it in your possession, Madame Cadichard?"

"I! On my word! Why should I have the key to your room, I should like to know? Do I go to your room? Do I have any occasion to go there?"

"Then it must be Popelinette, the servant, who has it?"

"Apparently!"

"So she is doing my housework, is she? That happens very conveniently, for I will ask her to sew two buttons on my doublet. I suppose that she is supplied with needles and thread, as every good servant should be."

"I don't know whether Popelinette has needles and thread with her; but what I can tell you is this—that she isn't in your room now."

"Then she must be here; do me the favor to call her, Dame Cadichard; I am in haste to go up and make a bit of a toilet."

"I am distressed to be unable to gratify you, monsieur le chevalier, but Popelinette is not in the house; she has gone out; she has gone to do an errand for the new tenant who came a week ago, and who occupies my fine apartment on the first floor."

"Ah! your first floor is let, is it? I am very glad for you, my respected hostess, although I might be justified in complaining of the rather harsh manner in which you have behaved toward me! Capédébious! every quarter day, you make me move—go up one flight—on the pretext that my last lodging is let; whereas only the mice take my place. Do you know, Widow Cadichard, that I should be fully justified in complaining of such treatment?"

"You would be justified also in paying me your rent each quarter, and that is what you haven't done, monsieur le chevalier; for I don't know the color of your money, and you have been living in my house more than a year!"

"It is true, my family is very dilatory; I haven't received my allowance for a long time; but they will send it all to me in a lump!—After all, how have I injured you? You never have a cat in your Hôtel du Sanglier! You ought to thank me for brightening up this old house a bit!"

"Thank you! yes, if you had been agreeable, gallant, attentive to me, I might not have made you go up so high, perhaps; but you never passed an evening here chatting with me! Monsieur always has to go running about the city! Monsieur has so many intrigues!"

Passedix turned his face away, biting his lips, and hastened to change the subject.

"Sandioux! how good that soup smells!" he cried. "I don't know what it's made of, but, judging from the odor, it must be a most delicious compound!"

The stout hostess refused to be melted by this exclamation; she continued to eat and talk:

"But luckily all my tenants do not resemble Monsieur de Passedix! There are some who pay, and who are very amiable with me besides. For instance, this new-comer, this foreigner who has been here a week—he paid a fortnight in advance, he didn't haggle at all over the price, and yet he pays me forty crowns a month for my first floor!"

"Bigre! that's rather good!"

"But I am sure that that man is a grand seigneur—but that doesn't prevent him from often talking with me; he isn't a bit proud!—Yesterday I dined alone—well! he sat down here and kept me company. He's a very good-looking fellow, and quite young still—thirty at most!"

"What do you call this fascinating cavalier?"

"The Comte de Carvajal; he's a Spaniard."

"The deuce! the Comte de Carvajal!—Yes, I believe that is a great Spanish family.—Sandis! but I must confess, lovely hostess, that it seems to me rather strange that this grand seigneur, instead of occupying a handsome mansion in the neighborhood of the Palais-Cardinal or the Arsenal, comes to Place aux Chats to nest—with the Cemetery of the Innocents opposite! It is not absolutely cheerful—and a hotel where his horses and carriages cannot be accommodated!"

"What does this mean, Monsieur Passedix? you are crying down my hotel now! You call this a bad quarter—then why did you come here to lodge? And why have you lodged more than a year on this Place aux Chats, which you despise?"

"I, despise Place aux Chats! God forbid, dear Madame Cadichard! On the contrary, I consider it most romantic; and then I, being afraid of nothing, not even of ghosts and phantoms, am not at all sorry to live just opposite a cemetery; for if it should happen to occur to some dead man to come to say a word to me at night, I swear to you that I should be overjoyed to have news from the other world."

"Hush—impious man!—He makes me shudder over my soup!—You know perfectly well that the dead don't return!"

"I know that there are a great many things that don't return, unhappily; and you know it, too, plump Cadichard!"

"What do you mean by that, monsieur le chevalier?"

"Mon Dieu! how time flies with us all!—But let us return to your Spanish grandee, who has chosen the Hôtel du Sanglier for his abode; he must have a numerous suite of servants and horses and carriages?"

"Not at all; he has none of those things. He is alone; it seems that he is at Paris incognito!"

"What! not an esquire, not a valet, not even a single little mule to prance along the Fossés Jaunes?"

"Nothing, I tell you; for he doesn't go to court, so that the grands seigneurs of his acquaintance need not know that he is in Paris."

Passedix shook his head and muttered:

"Hum! a Spanish grandee who hasn't one poor lackey in his service—that seems suspicious to me! Where does this noble cavalier pass his time, pray, if he doesn't frequent good society, the agreeable rakes of the court, and dandies like myself."

"Monsieur de Carvajal doesn't often go out during the day. In the first place, he rises very late; but, to tell the truth, he comes home very late, too. As he doesn't want to disturb anyone, he has told Popelinette not to sit up for him; he asked me to give him a duplicate key to the street door, so that he can come in at whatever hour of the night he pleases; and he takes pains not to make any noise, for we never hear him coming and going; it seems that in Spain people are in the habit of walking about at night."

"In Spain, perhaps, because it's warm there and the nights are fine; but here, where it still freezes in the morning—for our spring is devilishly behindhand! I believe that your gallant stranger is a blade who does his work under the rose. There must be some love intrigue on the carpet—some husband to be deceived.—Sandioux! I don't blame your Spaniard for that. Love is such a delicious thing—and when it attacks us—ah!"

Here Passedix heaved a sigh which lasted so long that his hostess dropped her spoon and stared at him, as if trying to make out whether she had anything to do with that prolonged groan. But the Gascon, instead of responding to the Widow Cadichard's alluring glance, turned away abruptly and began to pace the floor, crying:

"Cadédis! Popelinette does not return! it is insufferable! I want to dress!"

"Dress? I didn't know that you had any other doublet than that."

"Possibly not; but there are different ways of wearing it; besides, I want to put on a clean ruff, and I need to have two buttons sewn on."

"Mon Dieu! have you an assignation for this afternoon?"

"If that were so, it seems to me, Widow Cadichard, that it is my business!—Will you sew on my buttons?"

"I! I should think not! Go to your mistress!"

Passedix stamped the floor in vexation. At that moment the door of the room was suddenly thrown open, and the Gascon uttered an exclamation of satisfaction, for he expected to see the maid-servant of the hotel; but he was speedily undeceived. Instead of Popelinette, it was the foreigner who appeared in the doorway.

XI
THE FOREIGNER

The new tenant of the Hôtel du Sanglier paused on the threshold when he saw that there was someone with his hostess; he even took a step backward, as if he did not intend to enter. But in a moment, changing his mind, he walked into the room with a certain gravity of demeanor which was not without distinction.

The Gascon chevalier scrutinized the new arrival with interest, for he suspected that it was the foreigner whom Dame Cadichard was so proud to have under her roof, and he was curious to see whether he deserved the high-flown praise which his hostess had lavished on him.

A single glance was sufficient to satisfy Passedix that the sprightly widow had not exaggerated at all. The gentleman who had just entered the room was still young, tall and well built; his features were handsome and refined, his eyes slightly veiled, but full of fire and expression; he wore no beard on his chin, but only small moustaches curled a little upward at the ends.

He wore with easy grace a rich velvet cloak, over an elegant pale-blue doublet; a beautiful white plume lay along the broad brim of his hat, and the sword at his side was suspended from a belt trimmed with rich lace.

The stranger bowed most courteously as he walked into the room. Passedix made haste to return his salutation, saying to himself:

"He is a good-looking fellow, sandioux! I am too just to deny it. Almost as handsome a man as myself, and that is no small thing to say!"

Widow Cadichard had risen hastily on the entrance of her tenant, to whom she made a low reverence.

"Monsieur de Carvajal, your servant," she exclaimed; "I have the honor to salute you! Pray be kind enough to take a seat, monsieur le comte; do you wish for anything? Perhaps you are looking for Popelinette? She hasn't returned yet, and that annoys you. She is not very quick when she has an errand to do. Would you like me to go to meet her, monseigneur?"

The stranger waited till this torrent of words had ceased, then replied, with a smile:

"What I wish first of all, my dear hostess, is that you will not put yourself out and that you will continue your repast."

"Oh! indeed I will do nothing of the sort, monsieur le comte; I know too well what I owe to you."

"In that case, madame, you will compel me to withdraw, for I do not like ceremony."

"Oh! monsieur le comte, since you insist, since you command me, I will do it to obey you. But allow me first to offer you a chair."

While Madame Cadichard bustled about the room, looking for her best easy-chair and the best place in the room to put it, Passedix approached the new-comer and addressed him, trying all the while to hide with his cloak that part of his doublet from which the buttons were missing.

"I presume that I have the honor to salute one of my neighbors? I say neighbors, because we both live in the same hotel; only I am at the top and monsieur le comte is at the bottom. But men of honor are always on the same level."

"Ah! does monsieur live in this hotel?" rejoined the stranger, bowing to the Gascon.

"With your kind permission."

"What, monsieur! why, I can only be flattered to have monsieur for my neighbor."

"Castor Pyrrhus de Passedix, godson of the most honorable Chaudoreille, who left me only this sword, his trusty Roland, a finely tempered blade, which I dare to say that I use in an honorable way! My reputation in that regard is made!—And monsieur is the Comte de Carvajal, the noble Spaniard whom Dame Cadichard is so fortunate as to have as her tenant in the Hôtel du Sanglier?"

"Madame Cadichard would do well, then, to be a little more discreet, and to respect the incognito which her guests desire to maintain."

The stout landlady blushed when she heard that; she realized that she deserved the rebuke, and in her despair dropped the spoon which she was about to raise to her mouth, and which remained standing upright in the soup.

But the stranger, as he lay back in the easy-chair she had offered him, continued, with something very like a smile:

"However, I do not feel that I have the courage to bear any ill will to our excellent hostess, since I owe to her the acquaintance of so illustrious a knight as Monsieur de Passedix, who, I am convinced, will not betray the incognito which important considerations compel me to adopt at this moment, in Paris."

The Gascon bowed again, taking care not to relax his hold of the corners of his cloak, and replied:

"You may rely on my discretion, monsieur le comte; the secrets that are intrusted to me will go down with me into the darkness of the grave, unless I am released from my oath."

Thereupon the chevalier seized a chair and placed it at the table, opposite Madame Cadichard, who had taken one of the eggs from the plate and was trying to devise some refined method of breaking the shell and dipping her pieces of toast into the egg, in her illustrious tenant's presence.

"I will not presume to ask monsieur le comte how he passes his time in Paris; that is his business, and I never meddle in other people's affairs! But I venture to say that I should be an invaluable guide for a stranger who wished to become acquainted with the pleasures, the merry gatherings, of the capital. I go about a great deal in the best society. I am a jovial companion, a sturdy toper; all the dandies, all the young noblemen who love to fight and drink and make love to the fair, are my friends. Does anyone need a second for a duel, a fourth for a party of four, Passedix is always there! I do not like to boast, but I could mention exploits of my own which the Amadises and Renauds would not have disavowed!"

"One needs only to see you, chevalier, to entertain no manner of doubt that you would be successful in whatever you might undertake!"

"Monsieur le comte is too kind! But it is quite true that I count only victories, sandioux!"

"If I remember aright," murmured the little widow, carefully placing a bit of toast in her egg, "you were on your back a fortnight as a result of the blows you received the last time that you tried to rob several bourgeois on Rue Mauconseil of their sleep!"

Passedix cast a savage glance at his landlady, as he cried:

"No, no! you are wrong, Dame Cadichard. I covered myself with glory in that affair; and if I did keep my bed for some time after, it was only because, in the heat of the affray, I gave myself a strain which kept me from going to my usual resorts for a few days. Your eggs are too hard, belle dame, you will never be able to dip your toast in them. I advise you to eat them as a salad."

"They are all right, monsieur le chevalier; I like them this way.—Mon Dieu! how sorry I am, monsieur le comte, that my servant keeps you waiting like this!"

"There is no harm done, madame, I am in no hurry."

"If only I had something to offer monsieur le comte; but this breakfast is not worthy of him."

"I should think it very nice, if I had not already eaten mine."

"In any case," observed Passedix, "you wouldn't offer your tenants boiled eggs, I trust; for these are as hard as rocks—like Easter eggs."

"Oh! what a tease you are, monsieur le chevalier! But I think that you know very little about cooking!"

"Sandioux! Dame Cadichard—on the contrary, I know a great deal about it. My godfather Chaudoreille used to give his friends banquets that lasted a whole week; I remember that he used to have delicacies from the four quarters of the globe, and he was not satisfied unless his guests had indigestion.—If Monsieur de Carvajal has no restaurant to which he is attached, I could take him to a cabaret where they serve the most delicious calves' heads, and stewed rabbits en crapaudine—you would swear they were hares."

"I thank you, chevalier; but I do not take my meals at wine shops."

"I understand—I understand. You prefer darkness and mystery, with some fair lady who awaits you in her petite maison; for we have ladies who have them, as well as men; I know something about it, for I have supped in more than one of those enchanting retreats—near Porte Saint-Antoine, on the other side of the Fossés Jaunes. I am not inquisitive, I do not mean to ask you indiscreet questions; but, between us, monsieur le comte, I will take the liberty to give you a piece of advice; it is this: it is not very safe in certain quarters of Paris at night; people are attacked, robbed, and sometimes murdered, without anyone interfering to prevent it. I warn you of this, because our landlady told me that you went out very late, and returned at very advanced hours of the night. That is imprudent! extremely imprudent!"

"Ah! madame told you that, did she?" rejoined the stranger, with a glance at Widow Cadichard that arrested one of the pieces of toast on its way to her mouth.

"I," murmured the little woman—"I said—that is—no, I said nothing. I don't know why monsieur le chevalier brings me into all the fables he invents. He would do better to pay the rent he owes me!"

"What is that, Widow Cadichard? I believe that you dared to say that I invent!—Cadédis! that is too much! I, invent anything!—I suppose that you didn't tell me also just now that monsieur had asked you for a duplicate key to the street door, so that he could go in and out at night without disturbing anyone; and that he had forbidden Popelinette to sit up for him; and that it was the fashion in Spain to walk the streets at night? To which I replied that it was not so warm in France as in the beautiful land of the Andalusians.—Ah! I invented all that—sandioux! If all that I have just said was not told me by you, I hope that this egg will choke me while I speak!—Look! didn't I tell you that they were all hard? But I am an ignoramus, I don't know anything about cooking. And this one is just the same; as they all are!"

As he spoke, the Gascon took up an egg and dexterously stripped it of its shell; after which, he made but one mouthful of it, and was about to do as much with a second one, when the landlady angrily pounced on the plate in which the others were and put it in her lap, saying:

"Well, monsieur, have you nearly finished swallowing my eggs as if they were little tarts? Really, you don't stand on ceremony! If it wasn't for my respect for monsieur le comte, I would tell you what I think of your conduct."

"What would you tell me, alluring Cadichard?—that I am a libertine, a scatterbrain, and that I owe you for four quarters? Cadédis! that is no crime; every day, gentlemen of good family find themselves short of money; and a few days later they roll in gold and doubloons.—Isn't that so, Monsieur de Carvajal?"

"It is, in truth, a common occurrence, monsieur le chevalier."

"At this moment, I know several noble lords who are in my plight. Among others, the young Comte Léodgard de Marvejols, of whom you have heard, doubtless?"

"Yes, the name is not unknown to me."

"It is one of the oldest families of Languedoc. The old Marquis de Marvejols is very rich, but he is a little strict with his son, although he has no other child. To be sure, Léodgard did run through the fortune he got from his mother rather rapidly. He's a young buck who travels fast—a gallant of my stamp; he loves cards and wine and the ladies.—Yes, sweet Cadichard, we love the ladies; but they must not fly into a passion when we condescend to taste a little egg in their honor.—To return to Léodgard, he has had hard luck of late! He had won a very neat little sum at cards, contrary to his custom, and was returning to his house at night, when he was attacked by Giovanni, that famous brigand, you know, who is at this moment the terror of the capital. You must have heard of him, monsieur le comte?"

"No; this is the first time that I have heard that name."

"You surprise me! Sandioux! Giovanni already has a tremendous reputation in this country. He must be very skilful with the sword to have beaten young Marvejols, who fights—almost as well as I do.—The result is that everybody is afraid of the man. But so far as I am concerned, the contrary is true; indeed, I would like very much to meet this famous robber!"

"Oh! that's because you are not afraid of being robbed!" said the little landlady, pressing her lips together spitefully.

"Always some piquant little remark, sweet Cadichard!—I overlook them, I overlook anything in the fair sex!"

"And why would you like to meet this—this Giovanni, monsieur le chevalier?" asked the stranger, playing with his sword hilt.

"Why, monsieur le comte, because I flatter myself that I should be more fortunate than poor Léodgard! And that infernal knave would receive at my hand the reward of his brigandage! I would give myself the pleasure of burying six inches of Roland in his throat. Ah! sandioux! I can see from here the wry face he would make!—Does that make you laugh, Monsieur de Carvajal?"

"Why, yes, because it occurs to me, too, that in such a battle as you suggest one of the two would, in fact, be likely to cause the other to make a strange grimace."

"One of the two! Do you doubt that I should triumph?"

"I in no wise doubt your valor, monsieur le chevalier; but as for your triumph, permit me to think that it is better not to make any assertions beforehand—the most valiant are conquered sometimes; fortune is capricious to fighting men as well as to lovers."

Passedix bit his lips and drew his eyebrows together. The hostess, who had decided to remove the shells from her eggs, said to the tenant of her first floor:

"In any case, monsieur le comte, it is always prudent not to go out at night unless you are well armed; for my part, I don't dare to go to the theatre at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, because it ends too late! It's half-past eight sometimes when they finish the beautiful tragedy of Sophonisbé, by Monsieur Mairet, which I would have liked to see, all the same!"

"Sophonisbé! Faith! I prefer his last tragedy, the Duc d'Ossone—the verses are more sonorous, the subject more warlike.—What say you, monsieur le comte?"

"I do not go to the play."

"Where in the devil does the Spaniard go?" thought Passedix, draping himself in his cloak; "never to the court, never to a wine shop, never to the play! He wants to make us think that he's always shut up with some petticoat!"

And the Gascon swayed to and fro on his chair and caressed his chin, as he continued:

"For my part, I am a great frequenter of the theatre."

"You go to Brioché's theatre on Pont Neuf!" laughed Madame Cadichard; "there's a show outside; that doesn't cost anything!"

"I go where I choose, madame! It seems to me that I am entitled to. Brioché's marionettes are not to be despised, and the proof is that great crowds go there—leaders of society and idlers, belles dames and bourgeoises. But that does not interfere with my being one of the most assiduous spectators at the Hôtel de Bourgogne; I know all Alexandre Hardy's plays, and I believe he has written over six hundred; he is my favorite author, and I prefer him to this Jean Mairet, who is laden with favors by the Cardinal de Richelieu, the Duc de Longueville, and the Comte de Soissons, because he has written a dozen or so of tragedies! A fine showing, forsooth, beside Hardy's six hundred plays!—Ah! cadédis! if I had ever undertaken to write, it would have been a different story!—But I prefer the sword to the pen; one must not derogate from his rank!"

At that moment, an old servant of more than sixty years, whose skin had such a dark-yellow tinge that she might at need have been passed off as a Moor, entered the room and approached the stranger. It was Popelinette, just returned from performing her commission.

"Here are all the things you told me to get, monsieur le comte—gloves, perfumery—the nicest and daintiest I could find; and mouches and paint; and here is the money that is left."

"Very good; keep that for your trouble."

"Oh! you are very kind, monseigneur! I thank you very humbly!"

"Does the fellow mean to disguise himself as a woman?" Passedix thought, glancing furtively at Popelinette's purchases, which she had placed on a table. "Paint! mouches! perfumery! Fie, fie! all those things do very well for shepherds in Arcady. I begin to conceive a very singular opinion of this Spaniard!"

"It took you a very long time to do the errand monsieur le comte gave you to do!" said the plump Cadichard to her servant. "You must try to make your legs work a little livelier when you go out."

"But, madame, I went to the best perfumer on Rue Saint-Honoré, near the Couvent des Capucines; that's a long way."

"Monsieur le Chevalier Passedix has been waiting impatiently for you; he needs your help—some buttons to sew on his doublet."

"Again!" muttered Popelinette, with a most disrespectful gesture.

"What do you mean by that?" cried the Gascon, raising his head; "I should like to know if you are not here to wait upon the tenants? I consider your reply a little impertinent, my girl!"

"Mon Dieu! don't be angry, monsieur le chevalier; I don't refuse to do what you want; but I meant that your doublet has been patched and mended so often that the buttons I sew on are likely not to hold, for lack of material to sew them to."

"It is easy to see, old Popelinette, that you no longer have your eyes of twenty years! otherwise, you would not abuse thus a garment which is almost new, and which owes the numerous patches that cover it solely to the sword thrusts I have received in single combats and others. But they are titles to renown, and that is why I am fond of this doublet; if I should buy a new one, within a week it would be riddled by sword thrusts as this one is; one doesn't go to the water without getting wet.—Well! my girl, take a needle and thread and let us have done with it, for the day is advancing, and I should already be somewhere else!"

The old servant grumblingly took what she needed to repair the Gascon's doublet. For some moments, the stranger had been examining what Popelinette had brought him; at last he carefully replaced all the articles in paper and put them in his pocket one after another, as if he were preparing to take his leave.

"Yes, sandioux!" cried Passedix, partly unbuttoning his doublet so that the servant could work more conveniently; "yes, I long to pursue a certain adventure, the heroine of which surpasses the Venus of Medici!"

"Oh! monsieur le chevalier makes Venuses out of every retroussé nose he meets!" said Dame Cadichard, shrugging her shoulders.

"Do you think so, charming hostess? I should say that I have never given you reason to think that my taste was bad!"

The landlady turned her little eyes on the Gascon, like a person who does not know whether she ought to take in good or ill part what is said to her. Passedix continued:

"By the way, I made her acquaintance in such singular fashion!—Ah! be careful, Popelinette, you are pricking me as if I were a pincushion!"

"Goodness! it isn't my fault, monsieur; you keep moving all the time!"

"That is my nature; I could not keep still for a moment; that is due to the heat of my blood—to the smoking lava that flows in my veins! I am a volcano! and then, the image of that Italian was well adapted to make my legs twitch!"

"Ah! your conquest is an Italian, is she, monsieur le chevalier?" said the stranger, who had taken a step or two toward the door, but who turned at that and looked at Passedix.

"Yes, monsieur le comte; that is to say, she isn't exactly an Italian, although she wears the costume of a Milanese; she was born in Béarn, but it seems that she has lived in Milan many years. I give you my word that she is a dainty morsel, that little Miretta!"

When he heard the name Miretta, the foreigner could not restrain a gesture of surprise; but he recovered himself instantly, walked back to the easy-chair he had just left, and resumed his seat, saying:

"Really, monsieur le chevalier, you make me very curious; and if I were not afraid of being indiscreet in asking you how you made the acquaintance of this girl, who, you say, is so pretty, I should take great pleasure in hearing of it."

"There is no indiscretion in your request, count; indeed, the affair took place in the presence of numerous witnesses and made quite a sensation this morning. I will stake my head that it will be the talk of the court and the whole city this evening. I will tell you all about it.—Go on, Popelinette; it needn't prevent you from sewing on my buttons."

Thereupon the Gascon chevalier described what had taken place that morning in front of Master Hugonnet's house; and in his narrative, carried away doubtless by his interest in the pretty Milanese, Passedix embellished the truth with a number of episodes which he deemed likely to heighten the effect. For instance, he did not fail to say that on several occasions he had saved Cédrille from certain death by throwing himself in front of the swords that threatened him; in a word, it was due to his courage that the two travellers succeeded in escaping from the fury of those who surrounded them.

The foreigner listened to the Gascon with the closest attention. When the latter had finished, the other looked fixedly at him and said:

"Now, what do you expect to do, chevalier?"

"What! By Venus! follow up the adventure, watch for the little one to come out, join her, declare my passion, soften her heart—a mere trifle! The rest will go of itself."

"No doubt!" muttered Dame Cadichard; "if the girl is a good-for-nothing who listens to the first comer!"

"Whom do you call a first comer, madame? do you dare to apply those words to Castor Pyrrhus de Passedix?—Sandioux! you are pricking me, Popelinette! do be careful!"

"I mean to say, monsieur, that this girl does not know you; and if she is virtuous——"

"Cadédis! all women are virtuous before they have sinned; and since the days of Eve, who allowed herself to be tempted by a serpent, how many women have stumbled—— Oh! this old woman is determined to spit me like a roasted hare!"

"But in order to watch for this Italian," observed the Spaniard, "it is necessary first of all that you should know where she lives in Paris."

"Oh! I know that; I know where Miretta is at this moment; I even know why she has come to Paris. I am perfectly informed—but upon this matter you will allow me to keep silent. The little one is too dainty a morsel for me to show her nest to other men, and I am sure that you will consider that I am right to act thus."

The foreigner rose and bowed to the Gascon.

"Good luck in your love affairs, Chevalier Passedix!"

"Infinitely obliged! Much pleasure in your nocturnal walks, monsieur le comte!"

The foreigner took his leave. The landlady renewed her humble reverences, and Passedix muttered:

"A singular man, this Monsieur de Carvajal!"

"You are all sewed up, monsieur," said Popelinette; "but, bless me! I won't swear it will hold long, the stuff is so rotten!"

"Very good! all right! I didn't ask you about that!—He buys paint, mouches, perfumes!—he's an effeminate creature!"

"I don't think," said the little hostess, "that it is so unpleasant to perfume one's self, and to leave an agreeable odor behind one as one passes!"

"I have never needed that to please the fair! And when I eat wild duck, I don't like to have it smell of musk!"

The Gascon hurried from the room and went up to his fifth floor, while Dame Cadichard exclaimed:

"Ah! if I only had a loft over his room!"

Popelinette put away her needle and thread, muttering:

"Oh, no! he doesn't smell of musk, that fellow! he doesn't need to deny it!"

XII
VALENTINE DE MONGARCIN

Let us transport ourselves to Rue Saint-Honoré, to the interior of a magnificent mansion, where everything is eloquent of wealth, splendor, and refinement, where the furniture and hangings represent all that is most beautiful and dainty in the products of that age. There we shall find Madame de Ravenelle and her niece, Valentine de Mongarcin.

Madame de Ravenelle was seventy-two years of age; she had once been pretty, she was still fresh and plump; for the anxieties, the cares, the griefs, which often make one old much more rapidly than time, had never darkened her life, which had flowed on as placidly and gently as the waters of a stream hidden by tall grasses and never disturbed by the traveller's oar.

The old lady, blessed with a cheerful, heedless, and, above all, selfish disposition, had known how to submit philosophically to those petty disagreements from which no one is wholly exempt throughout the course of a long life. Having an excellent stomach, and very little susceptibility, she always sat down at the table with a good appetite, and never had recourse to the doctors. Incapable of doing anything unkind or spiteful, which would have disturbed the harmony of her temperament, she listened without emotion to the tale of another person's woes; and yet, she was quite ready to be humane, and often did a kind deed, when it was not likely to cause her either fatigue or trouble.

Valentine de Mongarcin had been brought up at a convent; but there, no less than in society, she had been fully aware that she was the sole inheritress of a great name and a great fortune; flattery, which insinuates itself everywhere, makes its way into convents; pretty, clever, but proud of her name and her rank, Valentine had discovered too early in life that people were eager to gratify all her desires; she had grown up with the idea that her will was never to be thwarted; and, although possessed of a sensitive heart, and of a noble soul capable of noble deeds, she had contracted a haughty, disdainful manner, which had made her but few friends.

At the age of eighteen, her figure had developed, her bearing had become noble and dignified, her features were regular, and the outlines of her face exquisitely pure; her hair was as black as ebony, and her great gray eyes, with their long black lashes, had a most seductive expression when they did not choose to express arrogance or scorn.

On leaving the convent to occupy her father's mansion, Valentine had not presented herself to her aunt in the guise of a timid girl who claims the support and protection of her only remaining relation; she had appeared like a conqueror making his triumphal entry into a city which he has compelled to capitulate; but she had to deal with a person who worried her head very little over the airs and tone which other people adopted toward her.

Madame de Ravenelle received her niece with the smile which had become stereotyped on her face; she considered her beautiful and well made, and was gratified that that was the case; but if Valentine had been ugly or deformed, the old lady would speedily have consoled herself. Between two persons of such temperaments, there was no danger that there would ever be any lack of harmony; for to every question that Valentine asked on her arrival, Madame de Ravenelle replied:

"Do whatever you please in the house; command and you will be obeyed, provided that you disturb nothing in my apartment and my personal service. I have my women, you will have yours; I shall not thwart you in anything, for my brother's daughter would be incapable of doing anything unworthy of her rank. And if the company I receive should bore you, you will be at liberty not to appear in the salon."

Mademoiselle de Mongarcin could not ask for more liberty or greater power; the confidence that her aunt manifested in her pleased her; she would have rebelled against a stern affection that would have tried to guide her, but she was amiable and affectionate with one who was simply indifferent to her.

Young Valentine considered the old hangings of the Hôtel de Mongarcin gloomy and repellent; she had them all changed or renewed, and the furniture as well. But nothing was disturbed in the apartment occupied by Madame de Ravenelle. Some of the servants having failed to carry out the girl's orders quickly enough, she dismissed them and engaged others; but her aunt's maid and her old male attendant were outside of her authority.

The Hôtel de Mongarcin became more fashionable; it assumed a more youthful, a gayer aspect; frequent entertainments were given there by musicians, jugglers, and gypsies; it amused Valentine, and it was all a matter of indifference to Madame de Ravenelle.

One day, however, the old lady said to her niece:

"By the way, Valentine, have you ever heard of the young Comte Léodgard de Marvejols?"

"The name is familiar to me, and I have an idea that my father often mentioned it.—Why do you ask me that question, aunt?"

"Because my brother was very desirous that young Léodgard should some day become your husband."

"Ah! my father desired it?"

"Yes; he told me so again just before he died. He was very closely attached to young Léodgard's father, who had the same wish."

"Well, aunt?"

"Well, niece, you shall marry the young count, if that meets your views!"

"Oh! there's time for that! for my father surely would not desire to force my inclination, if he were alive."

"I cannot say what your father would have done if he had lived; but I know very well that I have no desire to torment you."

"You are so good, aunt!"

"Why, yes, I am tolerably good!"

"And do you know this young Comte de Marvejols?"

"I have seen him two or three times in company."

"What is he like, aunt?"

"A very good-looking young man; very well built, and with a decidedly rakish air. But young men sometimes assume those airs in society, in order to give themselves an appearance of aplomb and self-assurance; very often they mean nothing at all!"

"Well, if this Monsieur Léodgard desires to become my husband, I suppose that he will come to pay court to me first."

"Why, that is to be presumed. However, you will see his father, Monsieur le Marquis de Marvejols, at my receptions before long; he is a man very highly considered, in very good odor at court, but of a rather severe humor."

"What does that matter to me? it is not the father who wishes to marry me!"

"That is true."

"And if this Monsieur Léodgard shared his father's wishes, it seems to me, aunt, that he would manifest more eagerness to see me; for it is nearly two months since I left the convent, and he has not called here as yet."

"That is true, niece; but perhaps the young man is travelling."

Madame de Ravenelle's invariably placid and equable temperament sometimes irritated Valentine, whose blood was ardent and boiling; but she dissembled her impatience, for she could not be angry with her aunt, who always agreed with her.

About a month after this conversation, Valentine had attended a large party given by the Duchesse de Longueville, and had met Léodgard there. The young count had presented his respects to Madame de Ravenelle and her niece, but with the cold and formal manner of a man who had the greatest disinclination to marriage and did not desire to gratify his parents' wishes.

On her side, Valentine de Mongarcin, piqued by the young man's lack of zeal in cultivating her acquaintance, had received his compliments with an air of indifference, almost of disdain, which deprived her face of all the fascination it sometimes had.

We have seen that the result of the meeting had been to confirm Léodgard in his repugnance to that alliance.

As for Valentine, she had not said a single word on the subject of Léodgard, and Madame de Ravenelle had thought it advisable to imitate her silence.

One evening, after receiving a visit from one of her friends, or rather acquaintances, at the convent, Valentine said to her aunt:

"Mademoiselle de Vertmonteil spoke to me this morning of a girl whom her sister has seen at Milan. This girl wishes to find a place in Paris. She is said to be clever at millinery work and dressmaking; in fact, Mademoiselle de Vertmonteil recommended her to me. My maid is a fool, who does not know how to dress my hair, and I am tempted to discharge her and take this Italian in her place. What do you think about it, aunt?"

Madame de Ravenelle, who had listened as to something that was utterly indifferent to her, replied:

"You will do well to do whatever is most agreeable to you, my dear."

It was a fortnight after this conversation that Miretta appeared at the Hôtel de Mongarcin, escorted by Cédrille, and still greatly excited by the risks she had run in front of Master Hugonnet's house.

Valentine was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the girl of whom she had heard such marvellous things. She was in an immense salon, where her aunt persisted in having a fire, although the weather was no longer cold, when the young traveller was announced. Valentine uttered a joyful exclamation and said:

"Bring her to speak to me; I wish to see her at once!—Will you allow her to come to this salon, aunt?"

"It is entirely indifferent to me, niece. However, if any visitor should come, I presume that this girl will know that it is her duty to withdraw."

Miretta soon made her appearance before the two ladies; she walked into the salon with an assured step; there was embarrassment, but neither awkwardness nor stupidity in her bearing. The reverence that she made was not without a certain charm. Add to this the beauty of her face, her fresh complexion, her youth, and her piquant costume, and you will understand Valentine's exclamation:

"Ah! why, the child is very pretty!—Come nearer, come nearer! Your name is Miretta?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, Miretta Dartaize. Here is the letter of recommendation with which I have been favored, for mademoiselle."

"Very well; but it is unnecessary—I have seen the sister of the person who gave you the letter.—You are a Milanese?"

"No, mademoiselle; I was born at Pau, in Béarn; but I have lived at Milan, or in the suburbs, ever since I was a child."

"And your relations?"

"I lost them when I was very young, all except an old female cousin, who still lives at Pau, and whose son, who is very fond of me, was kind enough to undertake to bring me to Paris."

"Where is this youth?"

"In the courtyard, mademoiselle."

"How did you make the journey?"

"On Bourriquet's back, both of us. Bourriquet is Cédrille's horse; he's a good beast and carried us finely; but we made short days, so as not to tire him."

"And your travelling companion—does he too hope to find a place in Paris?"

"Oh! no, mademoiselle; Cédrille came with me only as a favor to me; and he is going right back to his province, after he has rested a little in Paris."

"This Cédrille, who is your cousin, is your betrothed too, perhaps?" said Madame de Ravenelle, carelessly turning her head toward the girl. But she replied:

"Oh, no! Cédrille is not my betrothed, madame; he loves me very dearly though, and he has asked me if I would be his wife; but I refused him, refused him flatly, telling him that I should never have anything but a sisterly affection for him. Cédrille made the best of it and is content with that."

"Why did you refuse to marry your cousin? Was it because he has nothing, and can't do anything?"

"I beg pardon, madame, Cédrille has quite enough to live comfortably; he's a worthy, honest man—a hard worker, who knows more about agriculture and plowing than anybody in our neighborhood."

"And in spite of all that, you would not consent to be his wife?" continued the old lady, fixing her eyes on Miretta, who looked down and blushed as she faltered:

"No, madame."

"You had some reason for refusing him, doubtless?"

"Mon Dieu! a single one, madame; but it seems to me that it should be sufficient in such a matter: I have no love for him, and I do not care to marry without love."

"Ah! very well answered!" cried Valentine, smiling at the girl; "certainly that reason is quite sufficient! As if a woman ought to marry a man she does not love! that would be equivalent to deliberately choosing to be unhappy all her life!"

"Such things have been seen, however, niece! And a woman is not always unhappy on that account; it often turns out just the other way."

"Well, aunt, I consider that Miretta has done well not to marry her cousin, as she has no love for him."

"Perhaps you will not always talk so, my dear!"

"Miretta," continued Valentine, turning to the girl, "I take you into my service, that is settled; and I will give you—— How much should I give her, aunt?"

"Whatever you please, niece."

"Very well! two hundred livres a year.—Is that enough, Miretta? does that satisfy you?"

"Oh! that is a great deal, mademoiselle! I probably am not worth so much as that, and I shall always be satisfied with whatever you give me; I do not care for money!"

"You don't care for money, you don't care to marry," murmured Madame de Ravenelle, shaking her head; "nor do you care for your province, since you leave it—Pray, little one, to what do you aspire?"

Miretta was silent a moment, then replied:

"I aspire to be in the service of honorable persons, and to show myself deserving of their kindness."

"Well said!" exclaimed Valentine; "that is an answer that does you honor.—Oh! you will be happy with me, I trust. In the first place, all the dresses I have ceased to wear will belong to you, and I am very fond of changing often. But you must serve me promptly, you must always be at hand when I ring for you, and never step foot outside of the house unless I send you to do some errand."

The girl raised her head quickly and cried:

"What, mademoiselle! never go out of this house? Why, in that case, I shall be a prisoner! I shall not be able to take a free step! Oh, no! no! I did not come to Paris to be deprived of my liberty; I will serve you faithfully, mademoiselle, I will be submissive to your lightest word, I will work day and night if you desire; but I wish to be able, when I feel the need of it, to fly away as freely as the birds of our fields! I shall return to my cage far happier, when I know that the door is not closed upon me!"

"Well, well, hothead!" said Valentine, with a smile; "never fear; you will not be a prisoner! I will not prevent your flying away sometimes.—Ah! how her eyes sparkle when she hears me say that! She has a little will of her own, I see. So much the better! I do not like people who are incapable of having a will!"

"But," interposed Madame de Ravenelle, "as you have just arrived in Paris, where you know no one; and as your cousin is going away—whom will you go to see when you go out? or will it be simply to take a walk?"

"Pardon me, madame, but there is already one person whom I wish to see, to thank her for the service she rendered my cousin and myself just now. Ah! madame does not know that we barely escaped a very great danger this morning—before we reached this house."

"A danger! Pray tell us about it, little one."

"Come here," said Valentine, "and sit on this stool, for your journey on horseback must have tired you. There! that is right; and now tell us what happened to you this morning."

Miretta gave them an exact account of what had taken place on Rue Saint-Jacques; she omitted no detail, nor did she add anything. The truth was sufficiently interesting to engross the attention of those who listened to her. Madame de Ravenelle could not help taking an interest in it, and Valentine was much excited—so much so that she exclaimed:

"Why, it was shameful behavior on the part of those gentlemen! To try to compel people who are passing to stop and act as their playthings! Did you hear the names of those who insulted you?"

"I heard several, mademoiselle, but I remember only two: the gentleman who took up our defence and fought for us, after offering to be my knight—in jest, doubtless—his name was Passedix."

"Passedix!—Do you know any gentleman of that name, aunt?"

"No, no one! He must be some chevalier d'industrie!"

"Then the man who was so fierce against us, and whose terrible sword beat down all obstacles—him they called the Sire de Jarnonville. Oh! that man had a terrifying look!"

"The Sire de Jarnonville!" repeated Madame de Ravenelle. "That is a very old name—a noble family; but it is a long while since the descendant of the Jarnonvilles ceased to appear in society—that is to say, in the society frequented by self-respecting persons."

"And you did not hear any one of those young nobles called Léodgard de Marvejols?"

"No, mademoiselle, I am quite sure that I did not hear that name."

"What are you worrying about now, niece?"

"I am not worrying at all, aunt; but as it was a gathering of scapegraces, it seemed to me quite natural that Monsieur Léodgard should be there.—Miretta, I understand your gratitude for the brave girl who—I do not quite know how—rescued you from your dangerous position. You will do well to go to thank her, for ingratitude is the vice of base minds, and it always indicates the presence of other vices. Go to the reception room and ask for Béatrix; she will take you to the room that has been prepared for you; it is not far from mine, and you can hear my bell there.—But, by the way, this Cédrille, your cousin—what have you done with him?"

"Mon Dieu! mademoiselle, he stayed below, in the courtyard, with his horse; I will go and bid him adieu, and he will go away."

"But surely the boy does not mean to start for Béarn at once? He is probably curious to see a little of Paris, is he not?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, but he will find an inn for himself and Bourriquet. Oh! Cédrille is not hard to please; he is capable of sleeping in a stable, with his horse."

"I do not see why your cousin should go elsewhere in search of lodgings; we have enough unoccupied rooms upstairs, and stables sufficiently extensive to make it unnecessary for him and his horse to go to an inn.—This youth may remain here a few days, aunt, may he not? There is room in the servants' quarters; he may eat with our people, when it suits his pleasure to stay in the house."

"I have no objection, niece; arrange everything as you choose."

"Oh! madame and mademoiselle are too kind; and Cédrille will come himself to thank them."

"It is not worth while!" said the old lady; "I excuse him from all thanks."

"Go, Miretta," said Valentine, "go tell your cousin that we will accommodate him with my servants; then find Béatrix, who will install you."

Miretta made several reverences and left the salon.

"That girl pleases me," said Valentine, after watching her leave the room. "Do not you agree with me, madame, that there is something original about her—a sort of firmness, and an indefinable naïveté, which is charming?"

"Yes, yes!" replied Madame de Ravenelle, slowly shaking her head; "but I believe that there is something in the girl's heart that she has not told us."

"What can it be, aunt?"

"I have no desire to fatigue my brain trying to guess!"

"Well, I will try, aunt; it will amuse me instead of fatiguing me."

"As you please, niece."

Miretta ran quickly down into the courtyard, and found Cédrille there, doing sentry duty beside his horse. The poor fellow stood close to Bourriquet's side, having given him the last wisps of hay from the bundle attached to his crupper.

The young Béarnais peasant was gazing with respectful admiration at the sculptures and decorations which embellished the mansion; nothing so magnificent had met his eye since he had left his fields; for, on entering Paris, he had been too much occupied in breaking out a path and guiding his horse through the crowd to have any leisure to look about him.

Cédrille smiled sadly when he saw the girl coming toward him.

"Ah! I was waiting to see you before going away, Miretta," he said; "and I am going to say adieu at once, for I wouldn't dare to come to this splendid palace and ask for you; I feel all dazed here; I don't dare to walk, for fear of making a noise!"

"And yet, my dear Cédrille, here is where you are to live, as long as you stay in Paris. They are going to give you a room in this house; my new mistress will have it so. She has a noble and generous manner, and this that she is doing for you to-day, cousin, makes me love her already."

"Ah, ah! is it possible? What do you say, cousin—I am to be lodged here—I?—Why, it's a palace!"

"No; it's a private mansion."

"Ah! but wait a minute! What about my horse—this poor Bourriquet? I don't want to leave him, you know."

"You will not have to leave him; Bourriquet will be put in the stable, and you may be sure that the horses are well taken care of there."

"Do you mean it? Bourriquet will be fed? and what about me?"

"You will be, too, when you happen to be here at the hour when the household of these ladies dines."

"If this is the way one is treated in Paris, I begin to believe that you may be happy here, cousin; but, in that case, I must go and thank the masters of the house for offering to take me in."

"No, no; that is not necessary; there are no masters here, only mistresses: Mademoiselle Valentine de Mongarcin, in whose service I am now, and her aunt—an old lady, who does whatever her niece wishes; I saw that at once."

"Oh! you are shrewd, you are, Miretta! So I needn't go and thank those ladies?"

"They excuse you. In Paris, you see, everyone is expected to keep in his own place.—But that reminds me that there is someone whom I must thank; but she is not a great lady, and I am sure that she will be very glad to see me."

"Who is it?"

"That fine girl who stationed herself in front of us and defended us, when we were being insulted. What! have you forgotten already?"

"Oh, no! no! I know whom you mean; and I remember that those young gentlemen called out to her: 'Stand away from there, Ambroisine; that's no place for you!'"

"Yes, you are right: her name is Ambroisine. But I must go now to find a lady who is to show me my room and tell me what I have to do. You are free, Cédrille; you can go out and see Paris—walk about, amuse yourself, do whatever you choose."

"But it isn't the same with you, cousin; you're at other people's orders now; but you would have it, you preferred to come to Paris and go into service, rather than be your cousin's wife. And yet, you know that you would always have been the mistress of the house, and that I would have been your servant!"

"Enough, Cédrille, enough! I thought that it was agreed that you would not go back to that subject. I told you once for all that I could not be your wife."

"Yes, that's true; but you didn't tell me why you couldn't be."

"Because it doesn't suit me, apparently; it seems to me that my wish should be sufficient."

"Oh! of course, if it is because you don't love me. It's true enough that we can't compel a woman to love us!"

"I love you like a friend, like a brother, Cédrille."

"Well, I'd have been content to be your husband on those terms; and then, nobody knows, love might have come afterward!—But here you are looking cross at me, and drawing your eyebrows together.—It's all over, cousin; I will keep my word and never speak of the subject again."

"Good! otherwise, I would save you the trouble of saying adieu to me.—By the way, Cédrille, if you would, you might take me to Rue Saint-Jacques this evening. I will come out, if I can, at nightfall."

"I should like to, cousin; I will wait for you in the street."

At that moment a middle-aged woman came to Miretta and told her to follow her.

While the girl, with an au revoir to her companion, returned to the house, a servant wearing a handsome livery with heavy gold lace approached the Béarnais peasant and courteously invited him to come to the servants' quarters and refresh himself.

Cédrille returned with interest all the servant's salutations, and followed him, crying:

"Jarni! that isn't to be refused, monsieur! I shall be glad to take something, and I would even eat a bit, with your permission."

"You shall have whatever you may wish," replied the valet, with a smile.

"Well, well!" said Cédrille to himself; "this reconciles me to Paris and makes me forget this morning's battle."

XIII
THE LOUP DE MER WINE SHOP

Cédrille found a large company in the offices: footmen, coachmen, lackeys, scullions, and household servants vied with one another in being kind to the new-comer, who had been commended to them by their young mistress and was not there as a competitor for her favor; for they knew that the peasant was to return to his province as soon as he should have recovered from the fatigues of his journey. That was an additional reason why they should give him a cordial welcome.

They made the Béarnais relate his adventures; the battle in the street amused the servants immensely. They drank to Cédrille's courage and his cousin Miretta's; they drank to their mistresses, and to the peasant's safe return to his hearth and home.

By dint of drinking toasts in excellent wines, such as he had never tasted before, Cédrille felt considerably bewildered; and when he left the table and the house, to take a little walk about Paris, it was all the Béarnais could do to walk straight. He had not walked a hundred yards from the house, opening his eyes to their utmost extent and stopping constantly to straighten out his legs, when he felt an arm slip through his and heard a voice say to him:

"Sandioux! a happy meeting! I did not expect it, but I rejoice. I will say more: it causes me extreme pleasure, on my honor!—Why, my dear friend, you gaze at me with a surprised air, as if you did not recognize me! Can it be that you have forgotten a gallant knight who defended you sturdily this morning at a moment when your danger was most threatening?"

Cédrille, after straining his eyes and examining the long, lean, yellow man who had seized his arm, cried at last:

"Ah! why, yes, to be sure—your long face—that's so—I have seen it before; and this morning, when all those fine sparks tried to make me dismount, it was you who came and took our part—with your long sword, as long as a turnspit!"

"Ah! this is very fortunate; you recognize me at last, do you, my fine fellow?—If my sword is long, I trust that that didn't prevent my handling it rather prettily against your assailants this morning."

"Certainly not, monsieur le chevalier. Oh! you wasn't afraid!"

"Afraid! I! I never could understand how there could be such a thing as a coward!"

"Yes, yes! now I remember it all. What a pity that that tall black chevalier knocked your sword out of your hand at the first blow!"

"Sandis! my dear fellow, I will tell you why. Lean on me; you will walk more firmly."

"Faith! I'd be glad to.—I don't know what's the matter with me to-night; or, rather, yes—I do know; they made me drink so much at that house, and such good wine, that it made me a little dizzy; but it will pass off.—What were you saying?"

"I was saying that I would explain what made Roland slip out of my hand."

"Jarni! it was the blow the other man—the black one—hit it. He strikes hard, that fellow does!"

"No, no! cadédis! that wasn't it!—He might have struck ten times as hard, and I would never have let go Roland, that fiercer assaults than that have not lowered! But just fancy, my boy—— Lean on me, don't be afraid; I am firm on my legs.—Just fancy, my worthy Béarnais, that someone had played me the despicable trick of twisting a strip of pork around Roland's hilt! So you see, it was just when I brandished it most vigorously that it slipped from my hand!"

"Well, well! pardi! that was a curious idea; to twist pork round a sword! But didn't you notice it when you drew your sword from the sheath?"

"What do you expect?—in the heat of battle, when it is a question of saving a lovely girl and an excellent youth, one does not amuse one's self examining one's sword hilt.—However, it's all over, we were victors, and, thanks to my assistance, you were able to continue your journey. I trust that you reached the safe harbor for which you were bound?"

"Yes, seigneur chevalier. Mon Dieu! my cousin is already settled in the Hôtel de Mongarcin."

"Ah! that charming little brunette whom you had en croupe is your cousin?"

"To be sure! my mother and I, we are the only relations she has."

"Well! I congratulate you; you have a charming cousin; and, in fact, now that I look at you—yes, there is a resemblance, at the corners of the mouth."