So great was the French spirit for duelling in that age, that many of the clergy wore swords. Thus, in 1617, we find the Cardinal de Guise _drawing his rapier_ upon the Duke of Nevers Gonzaga, and it is notorious that Cardinal de Retz fought a great many duels when, as an abbé, he was soliciting the Archbishopric of Paris. Some notes of interest, regarding the Scots and Scottish Guard in France will be found at the end of this Romance, in which I have endeavoured to portray something of the free and reckless character of the French court and army during the reign of Louis XIII.,--a state of morals gradually introduced by his more dissolute predecessors, and which, under the Grand Monarque, increased, together with tyranny and misgovernment, until the foundations of the throne were sapped, the old dynasty of France expatriated, and her nobility destroyed. _Edinburgh, April_ 1858. ARTHUR BLANE; OR, THE HUNDRED CUIRASSIERS. CHAPTER I. THE PRETTY MASK. It was about the end of April, 1634--twelve had tolled from the huge dark towers of Notre Dame, and the night was dark and gusty. I found myself bewildered among the intricate and gloomy streets of old Paris; having lost the way to my hotel, the _Golden Fleur de Lys_, in the ancient Rue d'Ecosse. In my ignorance of the thoroughfares and of their names, having been repeatedly misled by wicked gamins and practical jokers, midnight found me completely entangled among the narrow alleys that bordered on the terrible locality of the Place de la Grève, the lofty, quaint and peculiar mansions of which towered on three sides, while on the fourth, lay the Seine, whose muddy waters have hidden the gashed corpse of many a murdered man--have swept away the red débris of many a massacre, and been the last refuge of many a desperate and despairing heart. Against the dark sky, I could distinguish the darker outlines of the steep sharp gables that overhung the Place, with their fronts covered by grotesque sculptures in wood and stone. A few lights twinkled feebly amid the masses of that great pillared edifice of the days of Charles V., named from him. the Maison au Dauphin; and the flickering oil lamps that swung mournfully to and fro, at the ends of the dark alley, cast a sickly light upon the fantastic projections of the houses, and on the whitewashed turret of the ancient pillory and stone gibbet, whereon so many thousands of human beings, during ages past, have died in agony and disgrace.