tone: "If any one asks for me, say I am not in!" Then
I cleared in three jumps the stairs leading to my cell, and I sank upon my
bed in a state of complete prostration.

In the meantime, Paul, the hunting-party were crowding tumultuously into
the court-yard of the abbey; I could hear the stamping of the horses'
feet, the voices of the riders, and even the sound of their boots on the
flagging, which proved that some of them had alighted and were threatening
me with a last assault. I started up with a gesture of rage, and I glanced
at my pistols. Fortunately, after a few minutes' conversation with the
miller, the hunters withdrew, not without giving me to understand that, if
they had formed a better opinion of my character, they went away with a
most amusing idea of the eccentricity of my disposition.

Such is, my dear friend, a faithful historical account of that unlucky
day, during which I covered myself frankly, and from head to foot, with a
species of humiliation to which any Frenchman would prefer that of crime.
I have, at this moment, the satisfaction of knowing that I am in a
neighboring chateau, in the midst of a gathering of brilliant men and
lovely young women, an inexhaustible subject for jokes. I feel, moreover,
since my flank movement (as it is customary in war to call precipitate
retreats), that I have lost something of my dignity in my own eyes, and I
cannot conceal to myself, besides, that I am far from enjoying the same
consideration on the part of my rustic hosts.

In presence of a situation so seriously compromised, it became necessary
to hold council; after a brief deliberation, I rejected far, far from me,
as puerile and pusillanimous, the project suggested to me by my vanity at
bay, that of giving up my lodgings, and even of leaving the district
entirely. I made up my mind to pursue philosophically the course of my
labors and my pleasures, to show a soul superior to circumstances, and in
short, to give to the Amazons, the centaurs, and the millers the fine
spectacle of the wise man in adversity.

[A] Charles VI., King of France, became demented in consequence
of his horse being stopped, during a hunt in the forest of Mans, by what
seemed to him a supernatural being.--(TRANS.)

CHAPTER III.

THE MARQUIS DE MALOUET.

MALOUET, _20th September_.

I have just received your letter. You belong to the true breed of
Monomotapa friends, Paul. But what puerility! And such is the case of your