Had the gallant old Duke been severe upon me as his prisoner--nay, had he even been less kind--I would have left nothing undone to carry off his daughter and wed her in the face of France and the Empire; but the demeanour of Charles IV. was too conciliatory to spur or foster such a thought of treachery in me. After a residence in Paris, during that age of dissipation and vice when virtue and religion were alike made a mockery, it charmed me to find that, with all her beauty, her natural wit and shrewdness, Marie Louise was so innocent and so amiable. In short, I knew not which dazzled me most--her vivacity of thought and grace of expression, the beauty of her person, or the purity and sincerity of her heart, which (unchanged as when first I met her) loved me still, with a regard which was strengthened by a sentiment of pity for the deception of which I had been the dupe, and for the wrong that had thus been done me. But Pappenheim had certainly overheard a considerable portion of our interview: he might thus know my route to the French camp, and put in practice some foul treachery; for I believed that he and his compatriot, De Bitche, were capable of any atrocity. I exchanged my cassock for a good buff coat, trimmed with broad bars of silver lace, a cuirass, and gorget, which, together with a basinette of tempered steel, were given to me by De Vaudemont. I charged carefully my pistols, the recent gift of his father, examined the locks, and then placed them in my girdle, with a good dagger and sword. My papers and despatches I had already secured in a secret pocket; and the Prince, as he placed in my hand a passport signed by the Duke, told me that the master of the horse had selected the best steed in the ducal stables to replace the fine Spanish barb so wickedly destroyed by De Bitche. My old travelling-cloak, with a Spanish beaver, I presented to Sergeant Asfeldt, and a dear gift they proved to him in the sequel. 'You go by Dieuze and Sarrebourg?' said the Prince. 'Yes; but would not a route by Rosiers and Luneville be safer?' 'It would be a longer detour; but as for the safety, I do not see much difference. De Bitche has property and adherents both at Luneville and Rosiers, and I suspect him of conspiring with Pappenheim, so keep well to the left of the main road to Elsace-Zaberne. They have just had a long conference in the court-yard; I watched them from a window, and the moment it was concluded, De Bitche departed towards the bridge of the Meurthe, with ten petardiers of his company on horseback. Thus, I fear me, the Luneville road may be beset, and pray you to be wary.' 'Beset by De Bitche?' 'Sacre, yes!' 'A curse on him and on all his generation.'