s recently
embodied at Quebec. In general form and feature Le Gardeur was a manly
reflex of his beautiful sister Amelie, but his countenance was marred
with traces of debauchery. His face was inflamed, and his dark eyes, so
like his sister's, by nature tender and true, were now glittering with
the adder tongues of the cursed wine-serpent.

Taking the cue from Bigot, Le Gardeur responded madly to the challenges
to drink from all around him. Wine was now flooding every brain, and the
table was one scene of riotous debauch.

"Fill up again, Le Gardeur!" exclaimed the Intendant, with a loud and
still clear voice; "the lying clock says it is day--broad day, but
neither cock crows nor day dawns in the Chateau of Beaumanoir, save at
the will of its master and his merry guests! Fill up, companions all!
The lamplight in the wine-cup is brighter than the clearest sun that
ever shone!"

"Bravo Bigot! name your toast, and we will pledge it till the seven
stars count fourteen!" replied Le Gardeur, looking hazily at the great
clock in the hall. "I see four clocks in the room, and every one of them
lies if it says it is day!"

"You are mending, Le Gardeur de Repentigny! You are worthy to belong to
the Grand Company! But you shall have my toast. We have drank it twenty
times already, but it will stand drinking twenty times more. It is the
best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man--a woman--"

"And the best epilogue too, Bigot!" interjected Varin, visibly drunk;
"but let us have the toast, my cup is waiting."

"Well, fill up all, then; and we will drink the health, wealth, and
love by stealth, of the jolliest dame in sunny France--The Marquise de
Pompadour!"

"La Pompadour! La Pompadour!" Every tongue repeated the name, the
goblets were drained to the bottoms, and a thunder of applause and
clattering of glasses followed the toast of the mistress of Louis XV.,
who was the special protectress of the Grand Company,--a goodly share of
whose profits in the monopoly of trade in New France was thrown into the
lap of the powerful favorite.

"Come, Varin! your turn now!" cried Bigot, turning to the Commissary;
"a toast for Ville Marie! Merry Montreal! where they eat like rats of
Poitou, and drink till they ring the fire-bells, as the Bordelais did to
welcome the collectors of the gabelle. The Montrealers have not rung the
fire-bells yet against you, Varin, but they will by and by!"

Varin filled his cup with an unsteady hand un