iliar scene after another! The village street of which I knew
every doorstep. Ah!--a new wayside across in front of Widow
Priedieu's--and the gay mast before the Captain Martinet's--the
blacksmith's dusty shop--the inn-keepers' poles holding out their oval
hotel-signs--the merry little cocked house where they had that famous
jollification immortalized in the song:

"Au grand bal chez Boule."

But my friends! my friends!--to see my old friends was the great
enjoyment. "Hola," deliberate Pierre; and you three Jeans--gros Jean,
grand Jean and petit Jean; "Monsieur le Notaire, bon jour!" the faces at
the panes and the heads at the door!

And lo, the gardens,--the broad fields so generous of harvest--the
Manoir trees in the distance!

And as of yore,--driving up the road those merrymen in the carts singing
that well remembered "En roulant":

"Le fils du roi s'en va chassant
En roulant, ma boule."[E]

And with sympathetic exhilaration, I swing into the old life again on
the current of the jovial chorus:

"En roulant, ma boule roulant:
En roulant, ma boule!"

[Footnote E: "The Dauphin forth a hunting goes.
Roll, roll on, my rolling ball."
--OLD CHANSON.]

CHAPTER XV.

THE LIFE OF LEADERSHIP.

.... "Pourvu qu'ils vivent noblement et ne fassent aucun acte derogeant a
noblesse."

PATENTS OF NOBLESSE.

"Light the lamps," my father ordered.

Tardif, the butler, did so with alacrity.

"Tardif, thou canst withdraw," added my father.

"Oui, monseigneur," replied Tardif, bowing respectfully, and went.

The room and its antiquated splendors looked ancestral to me. Its size
struck me. It was larger than any in our town house. The family
portraits and furniture revived lifelong memories. We had a fine
collection of forefathers.

"Chamilly"--began my father, walking up before the picture of one who
was to me childhood's holy dream. He stopped for some moments, gazing up
to her face with intense affection, and then turning to me, said in a
broken voice--"Never forget your mother."

"No, sir," I replied, bending my head.

In a moment he went on to the other portraits, and his manner altered to
more of pride.

"Your grandfather, the Honorable Chateauguay, this. This is his Lady,
your grandmother. Here is her father, a LeGardeur de Repentigny. There
is the old Marshal in armor. Here is Louise d'Argentenaye, of the time
of Henry IV., who married a Montcalm. H