ning the esteem of such men as Turenne. His civil dignity,
however, oppressed rather than gratified him. He would have heavy
responsibilities. When not on active service he would be expected to
show himself at court, and would have a difficulty in holding himself
aloof from its intrigues and conspiracies. His thoughts turned to
Scotland. He had relations there, it was true, both on his father's and
mother's side, but they were strangers to him. Moreover, Scotland at
present was torn by a civil and religious war. In England a civil war
was raging, and the extreme party in Scotland, having got the upper
hand, had allied themselves with the English parliamentarians, and the
cause of the king was well nigh lost.

The Scottish officers and men in the French service had for the most
part left their homes owing to the bitter religious differences of the
times, and, under the easier conditions of the life in France, had come
to look with disgust at the narrow bigotry of the Scottish sects, a
feeling heightened perhaps by the deep resentment that still prevailed
in France at the insolence with which Knox and the Scottish reformers
had treated their princess, Queen Mary. Among the French officers the
feeling was wholly in favour of the royal cause in England. The queen
was French, and had France herself not been engaged in warfare numbers
of the young nobles would have gone over and drawn their swords in her
cause, and Hector would gladly have done the same.

For the time, at any rate, he had no idea whatever of returning to
Scotland. If better times came he had often thought that, if successful
in winning a competency, he would return to his native land, for his
close connection with the Scottish regiment kept alive in him his
feeling of nationality, and he always regarded himself as a stranger in
France. The estates and title now bestowed upon him seemed to put this
hope further away than ever, and to fix him permanently in France, a
contingency more disagreeable to him the more he saw how completely
France was dominated by faction, and how unstable were the conditions of
life there. His musings, therefore, as he walked up and down for hours,
were very different from those which most young men would have felt at
so great and sudden a change in their fortunes.

CHAPTER XI: THE CASTLE OF LA VILLAR

The next morning he called at eleven o'clock, at which hour the
cardinal's secretary had informed him that Mazarin would expec