s, he would never enter the French court, and from that
time had steadfastly persisted in the rigorous costume which excited M.
de Berniers's criticism. There were, indeed, some who declared that he
claimed as a virtue of obstinacy that which was only a necessity of
poverty; but for such aspersions he cared little.

As a further mark of his disgust, he quitted France altogether, and, in
his twenty-first year, joined the expedition of the Pretender; but as
his fortunes were not materially improved by this enterprise, he next
year became loyal, and assisted M. de Belle-Isle in the extirpation of
the Austrians from Dauphiny. In 1748 he again followed his old leader,
M. de Saxe, to victory, after which, the war in France having ceased, he
turned his attention to foreign fields of glory and profit. He served
two years in India, with Dupleix, where he found that, although the
glory was free to any man's clutch, the profit was sacred to a few.
After Dupleix's fall, he joined the French troops in America, where,
with his comrades, he assisted in the defeat of Lieutenant-Colonel
Washington in the action which followed the massacre of M. de
Jumonville. Finally, after ten years of military hardship and heroism,
he returned to Paris, bringing with him as the result of his career a
high repute for skill and courage, a well-worn sword, and a dozen deep
scars.

It may be imagined that these ten years had not softened the asperity
with which M. de Montalvan regarded the court and society. His manners
were bizarre, his language was cynical, and his wilful deviations from
the strict etiquette of the day could never have been tolerated
excepting for the brilliant notoriety he had gained as a daring
adventurer. He permitted himself to mingle in fashionable circles, that
he might the better ridicule them, which he did audaciously. The edict
against military dress was no longer in force, so that he was enabled to
hover upon the outskirts of the court without sacrifice of dignity. But
nothing in that effeminate world seemed to satisfy his turbulent
instincts. _Homo erat_,--yet _everything_ human, in that sphere, was
foreign to him. At one of the court balls, however, an incident occurred
which momentarily turned him from the course of his ill-humor.

Mlle. Virginie de Terville, a noble Nantaise, whose life, though not one
of seclusion, had been judiciously kept apart from the corrupting
influences of the capital, was at Paris for the first