is knife and fork in amazement, and Guida coloured,
for the words sounded almost profane upon the chevalier's lips.

Du Champsavoys held up his eye-glass, and, turning from one to the
other, looked at each of them imperatively yet abstractedly too. Then,
pursing up his lower lip, and with a growing amazement which carried him
to distant heights of reckless language, he said again:

"By the head of John the Baptist on a charger!" He looked at Detricand
with a fierceness which was merely the tension of his thought. If he had
looked at a wall it would have been the same. But Detricand, who had an
almost whimsical sense of humour, felt his neck in affected concern as
though to be quite sure of it. "Chevalier," said he, "you shock us--you
shock us, dear chevalier."

"The most painful things, and the most wonderful too," said the
chevalier, tapping the letter with his eye-glass; "the most terrible and
yet the most romantic things are here. A drop of cider, if you please,
mademoiselle, before I begin to read it to you, if I may--if I may--eh?"

They all nodded eagerly. Guida handed him a mogue of cider. The little
grey thrush of a man sipped it, and in a voice no bigger than a bird's
began:

"From Lucillien du Champsavoys, Comte de Chanier, by the hand of a
faithful friend, who goeth hence from among divers dangers, unto my
cousin, the Chevalier du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir, late Gentleman
of the Bedchamber to the best of monarchs, Louis XV, this writing:

"MY DEAR AND HONOURED Cousin"--The chevalier paused, frowned a
trifle, and tapped his lips with his finger in a little lyrical
emotion--"My dear and honoured cousin, all is lost. The France we
loved is no more. The twentieth of June saw the last vestige of
Louis's power pass for ever. That day ten thousand of the
sans-culottes forced their way into the palace to kill him. A faithful
few surrounded him. In the mad turmoil, we were fearful, he was
serene. 'Feel,' said Louis, placing his hand on his bosom, 'feel
whether this is the beating of a heart shaken by fear.' Ah, my
friend, your heart would have clamped in misery to hear the Queen
cry: 'What have I to fear? Death? it is as well to-day as
to-morrow; they can do no more!' Their lives were saved, the day
passed, but worse came after.

"The tenth of August came. With it too, the end-the dark and bloody
end-of the Swiss Guard. The Jacobins had their way at last.