e Duc de Montmorency. Thus was it that
when I came to take my leave of Amaral, he, knowing that Languedoc was
my destination, sought ardently to keep me with him until we should
learn that peace and order were restored in the province. But I held the
trouble lightly, and insisted upon going.

Resolutely, then, if by slow stages, we pursued our journey, and came
at last to Montauban. There we lay a night at the Auberge de Navarre,
intending to push on to Lavedan upon the morrow. My father had been on
more than friendly terms with the Vicomte de Lavedan, and upon this I
built my hopes of a cordial welcome and an invitation to delay for a few
days the journey to Toulouse, upon which I should represent myself as
bound.

Thus, then, stood my plans. And they remained unaltered for all that
upon the morrow there were wild rumours in the air of Montauban. There
were tellings of a battle fought the day before at Castelnaudary, of
the defeat of Monsieur's partisans, of the utter rout of Gonzalo de
Cordova's Spanish tatterdemalions, and of the capture of Montmorency,
who was sorely wounded--some said with twenty and some with thirty
wounds--and little like to live. Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in
Languedoc that day, for they believed that it was against the Cardinal,
who sought to strip them of so many privileges, that Gaston d'Orleans
had set up his standard.

That those rumours of battle and defeat were true we had ample proof
some few hours later, when a company of dragoons in buff and steel rode
into the courtyard of the Auberge de Navarre, headed by a young spark of
an officer, who confirmed the rumour and set the number of
Montmorency's wounds at seventeen. He was lying, the officer told us, at
Castelnaudary, and his duchess was hastening to him from Beziers. Poor
woman! She was destined to nurse him back to life and vigour only that
he might take his trial at Toulouse and pay with his head the price of
his rebellion.

Ganymede who, through the luxurious habits of his more recent years
had--for all his fine swagger--developed a marked distaste for warfare
and excitement, besought me to take thought for my safety and to lie
quietly at Montauban until the province should be more settled.

"The place is a hotbed of rebellion," he urged. "If these Chouans but
learn that we are from Paris and of the King's party, we shall have our
throats slit, as I live. There is not a peasant in all this countryside
indeed, scarce