Part 4 (1/2)
”Chevalier de Blair, I have the honour of presenting you to _Monsieur de Repentigny_.”
”Monsieur, I have the honour of saluting you,” said de Blair.
Before Germain could collect his ideas he had bowed to each of the other Guards under the name ”de Repentigny.”
It cannot be said that, once he had recovered his self-possession after his narrow escape from being announced as a plebeian, any great qualms for the present overtook him. He reasoned that the t.i.tle just attributed to him was not the result of his own seeking. Though destined to bring on all the serious consequences which form the matter of this story and to change a lighthearted young man into a desperate adventurer, it came in the aspect of a petty accident, which but facilitated his reception at the hands of the companions who crowded around him.
”Have I not seen you at Court? Were you not presented six months ago in the Oeil de Boeuf?” inquired de Blair.
”I am only a provincial,” he answered. ”I know nothing of the Court.”
”When I first came from Dauphiny up to Versailles,” laughed the Count de Bellecour, ”I spoke such a _patois_ they thought I was a horse.”
”You come from Canada? Tell us about the Revolution in the English colonies. It is not a new affair, but we army men are always talking about it.”
Germain ventured on an epigram.
”That was simple; it was the coming of age of a continent.”
”A war of liberty against oppression?”
”Rather, gentlemen, a war of human nature against human nature. We had experience of the armies of both sides in our Province.”
”Would I had been there with Lafayette!” another Guardsman cried.
”You, d'Estaing!” exclaimed Grancey. ”You would cry if an Englishman spoiled your ruffles!”
”Sir, my second shall visit you this evening!”
”Pray, you twin imitations of Modesty-in-Person, let us have a real tragediette in steel and blood,” put in d'Amoreau, the fifth Life Guard.
D'Estaing and Grancey, drawing swords, lunged at each other. D'Amoreau and the Count de Bellecour each ran behind one of them and acted as a second, the Chevalier de Blair standing umpire, when the Abbe, the Princess's reader, entered. The blades were thrust, mock respectfully, back into their scabbards, and they all bowed low to the ecclesiastic.
A short, spare man of thirty with a cadaverous face, whose sharp, l.u.s.treless black eyes, thin projecting nose, and mouth like a sardonic mere line, combined with a jesuitical downwardness of look, made one feel uneasy--such was the Abbe Jude as he appeared to Germain's brief first glance.
”Never mind, gentlemen; one less of you would not be missed,” he retorted to their obeisance.
”You would like a death-ma.s.s fee, Abbe?”
The Canadian, brought up to other customs, wondered how a priest could be addressed with such contempt by good Catholics.
”Is he a monk or a cure?” he inquired, when the reader had pa.s.sed on.
”He is nothing,” answered d'Estaing, with clear eye and scornful lip.
”Paris is devastated by fellows calling themselves abbes. They have no connection with the Church, except a hole in the top of their wigs. This fellow is Jude, the Princess's parasite.”
To Germain the Guardsmen made themselves very agreeable. The manners of the Canadian attracted men who held that the highest human quality after rank was to be amiable. The Baron took him violently into his heart. He was a large, well-made fellow of a certain grand kindliness of bearing, and wore his natural hair, which was golden. The rich-laced blue silk tunic of the Bodyguard shone on his shoulders in ample s.p.a.ces, and he well set off the deep red facings, the gold stripes, big sleeves, and elegant sword, the coveted uniform, loved of the loveliest and proudest of Versailles.