icers of the Catholic armies to count the twenty
submerged years of Louis XVIII.'s reign as years of service. Some days
later he further received, without any solicitation, ex officio, the
crosses of the Legion of Honor and of Saint-Louis.

Shaken in his determination by these successive favors, due, as he
supposed, to the monarch's remembrance, he was no longer satisfied with
taking his family, as he had piously done every Sunday, to cry "Vive le
Roi" in the hall of the Tuileries when the royal family passed through
on their way to chapel; he craved the favor of a private audience.
The audience, at once granted, was in no sense private. The royal
drawing-room was full of old adherents, whose powdered heads, seen from
above, suggested a carpet of snow. There the Count met some old friends,
who received him somewhat coldly; but the princes he thought ADORABLE,
an enthusiastic expression which escaped him when the most gracious of
his masters, to whom the Count had supposed himself to be known only
by name, came to shake hands with him, and spoke of him as the most
thorough Vendeen of them all. Notwithstanding this ovation, none of
these august persons thought of inquiring as to the sum of his losses,
or of the money he had poured so generously into the chests of the
Catholic regiments. He discovered, a little late, that he had made war
at his own cost. Towards the end of the evening he thought he might
venture on a witty allusion to the state of his affairs, similar, as
it was, to that of many other gentlemen. His Majesty laughed heartily
enough; any speech that bore the hall-mark of wit was certain to please
him; but he nevertheless replied with one of those royal pleasantries
whose sweetness is more formidable than the anger of a rebuke. One of
the King's most intimate advisers took an opportunity of going up to the
fortune-seeking Vendeen, and made him understand by a keen and polite
hint that the time had not yet come for settling accounts with the
sovereign; that there were bills of much longer standing than his on the
books, and there, no doubt, they would remain, as part of the history of
the Revolution. The Count prudently withdrew from the venerable group,
which formed a respectful semi-circle before the august family; then,
having extricated his sword, not without some difficulty, from among the
lean legs which had got mixed up with it, he crossed the courtyard of
the Tuileries and got into the hackney cab he ha