From this musty garrulity and monastic gossip, of which--with a mind so preoccupied--I felt heartily weary, I was relieved on Father Colville being summoned by an old Benedictine; and just as he retired, my attention was attracted by a handsome and well-appointed cavalier, who, with two valets, like himself well mounted and armed, rode hastily up to a large tree which stood before _La Pomms d'Eve_, an auberge opposite the abbey. Imperiously summoning the landlord, he called for wine, but without dismounting. Something in the air of this young spark, and in the cock of his feather, seemed familiar to me; and, on approaching, I recognised the young Marquis de Toneins, camp-master of the Regiment de Normandie, and son and heir of the Marechal Duc de la Force. CHAPTER XLI. STARTLING TIDINGS. 'And let me the canakin clink, clink! A soldier's a man; A life's but a span; Why, then, let a soldier drink!' I hummed the song of the subtle Iago in the Moor of Venice, and, like him, adding-- 'Some wine, ho!' stepped towards the tree under which the Marquis and his two followers were regaling. The latter stared at me with the usual insolence of liveried valets, until their master raised his hat, exclaiming-- 'Pardieu! who do I see? M. Blane of the King's Guards--M. Blane here, and dressed as an abbé!' 'Yes, Marquis--but so dressed, for a time only.' 'A strange garb for the king's most faithful soldier--and his rival too, at times, if all tales be true.' 'Marquis, permit me to observe that your remarks are very unwise.' 'Letters from Paris could tell us nothing about you--you were keeping your whereabouts so very quiet, that it was rumoured in the Garde du Corps Ecossais, you were about to become ridiculous.' 'Marquis!' 'By marrying and becoming quite a respectable person.' 'A false rumour, on my honour!' said I, reddening as I remembered the conversation in the forest last night; 'but what have you to tell me of the Garde du Corps, Marquis? Who are dead and who alive now?' 'Faith I can scarcely tell you; but I do not think the cuirassiers muster above seventy-five now. They have been carrying themselves with glory, these lords of the creation, and playing the devil in Alsace and on the Rhine. You delivered my letters to Marion de l'Orme?' 'Yes.' 'And how was the little one looking?' 'Divine as usual.' 'Bon! did you see anything of Madame la Duchesse de Charost?' 'The beautiful divorced--no.' 'Yet you were all winter in Paris!' 'I was studying, my dear friend.' 'Studying--you?' 'Studying practically the interior economy of your French prisons.' 'Tête Dieu! I don't understand you--but your life in Paris seems to have been very circumscribed.' 'Because it was confined to an upper chamber of the Bastille.' 'The Bastille--diable!' 'I expected that exclamation; the prince of darkness being the potentate usually applied to by such wild gallants as you.'