The brusque air, the soldierly gaiety and jollity of these brave spirits proved very infectious and captivating. My heart expanded with pleasure at the conviction that I was one of them; and I longed--a poor ambition, perhaps--to emulate them in their career of hare-brained frolics, duels, flirtations, and intrigues. As yet I felt myself but a boy; while they were men, who treated me as an equal, and though not many years my senior, Cheyne and the Chevalier were veritable patriarchs in experience and knowledge of the world--the wicked world of Paris. The quarrels of our King and Kirk and all the Scottish news--the cloud that overhung our government and the threatened war with England--were soon discussed, for we were sure that these disputes would come to the musket at last. Then we spoke of everything on the tapis; the cruel burning of Madame la Marechale d'Ancre for witchcraft; the alleged beauty of Marie Louise of Lorraine, who was said to be secretly and politically intriguing in Paris; of the projected war against her father the Duke; of duels and of girls; of Cardinal Richelieu's state craft and profound cunning; of the last new poem by Corneille, and the latest work of Poussin, who, from being a poor disbanded soldier in the regiment of Tavannes in which he served during the wars of Charles IX. and Henry IV., had become the equal of Raphael; of the beauty of the Countess d'Amboise (my heart leaped at her name), the last mistress of the king, and she was declared to be superior in loveliness even to the younger and lovely Marion de l'Orme. Every liaison in and about the Court was freely discussed. The names of countesses and courtezans, grisettes and grandees were all jangled together pell mell by these reckless fellows. The intrigues of the Coadjutor; of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse; of the beautiful Duchesse de Montbazon and the Duc de Beaufort, were all canvassed as freely as if they had been the love-affairs of students or musketeers, with grisettes and flower-girls. All this seemed wonderfully easy, free, and, to me, not a little brilliant and captivating; for I was barely twenty years of age. Some of their anecdotes and adventures were very remarkable. Raynold Cheyne, of Dundargle, when quite a youth had served as a cuirassier, under the famous Raymond, Count de Montecuculi, in after years the rival of the great Turenne. Once, when on the march through Germany, the Count had given orders that, on pain of death, no soldier or cavalier under his command, should tread down ripened corn. A soldier who rode a wild and unmanageable horse, spurred it recklessly through a field of yellow grain near Leipzig; and then Montecuculi ordered the Provost-Marshal to hang him without ceremony at the first halting-place; but the soldier advanced to Count Raymond and resolutely pleaded his innocence, laying the whole blame upon his horse. 'Silence, sir!' said the Count, haughtily; 'the Provost-Marshal shall do his duty. Away with him!'