ng, and, choosing politics, took the side of the Languedoc party
and the malcontents in so reckless a fashion that the innkeeper was
beside himself at my imprudence. The merchants, who belonged to the
class with whom the Cardinal was always most popular, looked first
astonished and then enraged. But I was not to be checked; hints and sour
looks were lost upon me. I grew more outspoken with every glass, I drank
to the Rochellois, I swore it would not be long before they raised their
heads again; and, at last, while the innkeeper and his wife were engaged
lighting the lamp, I passed round the bottle and called on all for a
toast.

'I'll give you one to begin,' I bragged noisily. 'A gentleman's toast!
A southern toast! Here is confusion to the Cardinal, and a health to all
who hate him!'

'MON DIEU!' one of the strangers cried, springing from his seat in
a rage. 'I am not going to stomach that! Is your house a common
treason-hole,' he continued, turning furiously on the landlord, 'that
you suffer this?'

'Hoity-toity!' I answered, coolly keeping my seat. 'What is all this?
Don't you relish my toast, little man?'

'No--nor you!' he retorted hotly; 'whoever you may be!'

'Then I will give you another,' I answered, with a hiccough. 'Perhaps it
will be more to your taste. Here is the Duke of Orleans, and may he soon
be King!'

CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD

Words so reckless fairly shook the three men out of their anger. For
a moment they glared at me as if they had seen a ghost. Then the wine
merchant clapped his hand on the table.

'That is enough,' he said, with a look at his companions. 'I think that
there can be no mistake about that. As damnable treason as ever I heard
whispered! I congratulate you, sir, on your boldness. As for you,' he
continued, turning with an ugly sneer to the landlord, 'I shall know now
the company you keep! I was not aware that my wine wet whistles to such
a tune!'

But if he was startled, the innkeeper was furious, seeing his character
thus taken away; and, being at no time a man of many words, he vented
his rage exactly in the way I wished, raising in a twinkling such an
uproar as can scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a bull's, he ran
headlong at the table, and overturned it on the top of me. Fortunately
the woman saved the lamp, and fled with it into a corner, whence she and
the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish in silence; but the pewter
cups and platters fle