en answered
by the Marquise de Pompadour! She replies to my despatches to my
sovereign!"

"La Pompadour!" exclaimed Philibert in a burst of indignation. "She,
the King's mistress, reply to your despatches! Has France come to be
governed by courtesans, like imperial Rome?"

"Yes! and you know the meaning of that insult, Philibert! They desire to
force me to resign, and I shall resign as soon as I see my friends safe.
I will serve the King in his fleet, but never more in a colony. This
poor land is doomed to fall into the hands of its enemies unless we get
a speedy peace. France will help us no more!"

"Don't say that, your Excellency! France will surely never be untrue
to her children in the New World! But our resources are not yet all
exhausted: we are not driven to the wall yet, your Excellency!"

"Almost, I assure you, Philibert! But we shall understand that better
after the Council."

"What say the despatches touching the negotiations going on for peace?"
asked Philibert, who knew how true were the Governor's vaticinations.

"They speak favorably of peace, and I think, correctly, Philibert;
and you know the King's armies and the King's mistresses cannot all be
maintained at the same time--women or war, one or other must give way,
and one need not doubt which it will be, when the women rule Court and
camp in France at the same time!"

"To think that a woman picked out of the gutters of Paris should rule
France and answer your despatches!" said Philibert, angrily; "it is
enough to drive honorable Frenchmen mad. But what says the Marquise de
Pompadour?"

"She is especially severe upon my opposing the fiscal measures and
commercial policy, as she calls it, of her friend the Intendant! She
approves of his grant of a monopoly of trade to the Grand Company, and
disputes my right, as Governor, to interfere with the Intendant in the
finances of the Colony."

Philibert felt deeply this wound to the honor and dignity of his chief.
He pressed his hand in warmest sympathy.

The Governor understood his feelings. "You are a true friend,
Philibert," said he; "ten men like you might still save this Colony!
But it is past the hour for the Council, and still Bigot delays! He must
have forgotten my summons."

"I think not; but he might have to wait until Cadet, Varin, Deschenaux,
and the rest of them were in a condition fit to travel," answered
Philibert with an air of disgust.

"O Philibert! the shame of it! the shame o