he streets in the manner that best suits me."

"Pardon me again," responded De Montalvan; "you have fairly wounded me,
but I am sure you are too gallant a gentleman to deprive a bleeding
adversary of the most convenient means of reaching his home";--with
which he quietly stepped into the _brouette_ and was wheeled away, while
the stranger gazed after him in stupefaction.

De Berniers would have gnashed his teeth, but that he had not yet
recovered from the exertion of his previous cackle. For a week
thenceforth he was the sport of Paris, and, to complete his disgust, the
adventure was circulated by the celebrated _raconteur_, M. de Lugeac, in
the _salons_ of the Dauphine and elsewhere, with embellishments by no
means favorable to his reputation as a _bel esprit_.

* * * * *

Raoul de Montalvan was a young gentleman of moderate fortune, who, at
the age of twenty, sold his small estates in Avignon in order to equip a
company and join the Chevalier de Modene in the campaign of 1745, under
the Marechal Saxe. At Fontenoy he was acknowledged to have distinguished
himself; but his recollections of that battle were embittered by the
fact that the Comte de Lally had robbed him of the honor which he most
coveted,--that of having detected, by a bold reconnoissance, the weak
point in the enemy's front, by piercing which the field was ultimately
won.[102] Nevertheless, he had been praised; and praise, at that period,
was his best reward. With a light heart and high hopes he started for
Paris, in further pursuit of fortune. In company with his patron, M. de
Modene, he presented himself at court. The sentinel on duty curiously
eyed their uniforms, and refused to admit them. The King, fatigued with
war's alarms, and anxious to banish from court all memories of carnage
and confusion, had ordered that no military dresses should appear in his
_salons_. In vain the young soldiers represented that they had parted
with all their possessions to serve their monarch, and that they had
surrendered the last means of otherwise arraying themselves; in vain
they insisted that the noblest decorations in the eyes of his Majesty
should be the dust and blood of the field of Fontenoy. They were
repulsed. De Modene revenged himself by the famous epigram which caused
an order of arrest, and compelled his flight. De Montalvan, taking the
insult more to heart, swore furiously that, excepting as a soldier and
in soldier's dres