I thanked the landlord, slipped a coin into his hand, and after gazing with more than ordinary attention at this quaint old auberge, where, more than thirty years ago, my brave father had this remarkable adventure with 'the arbiter of Christendom,' I left Charenton, and turned the head of Dagobert towards Paris; but I was so much delighted with the paces, speed, and beauty of the fine animal, that I caracoled round the boulevardes, and noon was long passed before I entered by the ancient gate of St. Marcel. My heart was full of exultation and gratitude. 'Fortune, what have I done, that thou shouldest favour me thus?' I exclaimed, while prancing along, thinking of the beauty of Clara d'Amboise, the too evident favour with which she viewed me, and the brilliant prospect she had opened before me, by an honourable career in the Scottish Guard--the oldest and most noble body of men-at-arms the world ever saw; but on the cornice of the gate of St. Marcel I perceived a skull, bare, white, and bleached. This gave my thoughts an unpleasant turn, and the warnings of the Marquis recurred to my memory. On inquiry, I was informed that this poor remnant of humanity was the head of Guy de Beaumanoir, Baron de Fontenelle, who had been accused many years ago of a design to deliver up the fortress of Dournenes to the Spaniards, for which he was dragged to the Place de la Grève, and barbarously broken alive on the wheel. I rode through the heart of the city, crossed the Place Maubert and the Pont de Notre Dame, and proceeded along the crowded quays, where every variety of signboard, indicative of trade and traffic, with barbers' glittering basins, were swinging in the wind, and where many a veiled figure of Mary Queen of Scots--la Heine Blanche--the invariable sign of a French milliner, was displayed; and thence along the quaint Rue St. Germain l'Auxerrois, at the end of which I perceived the pointed turrets, the narrow windows, and guarded drawbridge of the palace of Francis I.--the Louvre--which I, who had never seen a statelier building than the barred and moated towers of our Scottish barons, conceived to be the grandest edifice in the world. CHAPTER VIII. THE MARECHAL DE LOGIS. A soldier of the Grey Musketeers, who was on duty at one of the gates, politely directed me to the quarters of Patrick Gordon, the Marechal de Logis of the Garde du Corps Ecossais.