Tonin only jousted with witticisms, biting remarks and wholesome truths, brought home to his hearers with a laugh; on all these points he could make sure of the victory, for he varied them like his motto. Among all these banners, resplendent with colour and embroidery, there hung a black one without a squire to guard it. We asked M. de Rozen to whom this mournful standard belonged. ‘Do you not know?’ he replied. ‘Have you not read in the papers that a knight who wishes to remain unknown has challenged to single combat the champion sufficiently bold to dispute with him the prize of the tournament? The prize, as you are aware, is a scarf embroidered by the queen. At the time fixed for calling the roll of the knights they found his glove lying in the middle of the ring, and his black banner planted where it is now; attached to it was his buckler, with the following words on a star-spangled blue ground: ‘Tra tanti una.’ (Only one among all.) ‘To add to the strangeness of the challenge is his choice of the battle-axe, which went out of use long ago. The most curious stories are going the round in connection with the challenge of that mysterious Amadis. Among the different versions the most implicitly believed in is the following: ‘A young noble, sprung from one of the most illustrious families of Great Britain, saw the Queen at Baden when she was only Princess Dorothée-Wilhelmine. He fell deeply in love with her. Considering his rank and his immense fortune, he might possibly have aspired to her hand with success. But the two sisters of our queen having married respectively the Emperor of Russia and Maximilien de Bavière, reasons of state and the fitness of things carried her to the throne of Sweden. The young lord, unable to conquer a feeling which from that moment was shorn of all hope, was mad enough to gain admission surreptitiously to our Court, and always under a fresh disguise. He was recognised by the ladies-in-waiting of our queen, and narrowly escaped the punishment due to his foolhardiness. The rumour went that he had gone to America. Informed, no doubt, with the rest of Europe of the preparations for this tournament, he wished to make an attempt to conquer or to die under the very eyes of the woman he loves. It is even said that, knowing the chivalric spirit of Gustavus-Adolphus, he conceived the flattering hope of having a royal adversary to contend with, with the possible chance of succeeding him who, as he probably thought, robbed him at first. ‘The Comte de Torstenson, son of the field-marshal, has offered to take up the challenge. He has practised for some time with the battle-axe, and acquired marvellous skill with it.’ At that moment the harmonious strains of a hundred instruments announced the arrival of the queen, and every eye was turned towards her.