"'You were still at school,' said De Mergy, 'learning Latin and Greek, when I first donned the cuirass, girded the Huguenot's white scarf, and took share in our civil wars. Your little Prince of Conde, who has led his party into so many errors, looked after your affairs when his intrigues left him time. A lady loved me; the prince asked me to resign her to him; I refused, and he became my mortal enemy. From that hour he lost no opportunity of mortifying me. Ce petit prince si joli Qui toujours baise sa mignonne, held me up to the fanatics of the party as a monster of libertinism and irreligion. I had only one mistress; and as to the irreligion,--I let others do as they like, why attack me?' "'I thought the prince incapable of such baseness,' said Bernard. "'He is dead,' replied his brother, 'and you have deified him. 'Tis the way of the world. He had great qualities; he died like a brave man, and I have forgiven him. But then he was powerful, and on the part of a poor gentleman like myself, it was guilt to resist him. All the preachers and hypocrites of the army set upon me, but I cared as little for their abuse as for their sermons. At last one of the prince's gentlemen, to curry favour with his master, called me libertine, before all our captains. I struck him: we fought--and he was killed. At that time there were a dozen duels a day in the army, and no notice taken. In my favour an exception was made; I was fixed upon by the prince to serve as an example. The entreaties of the other leaders, including the Admiral, procured my pardon. But the prince's rancour was not yet appeased. At the fight of Jazeneuil, I commanded a company: I had been foremost in the skirmish; my cuirass battered and broken by bullets, my left arm pierced by a lance, showed that I had not spared myself. I had only twenty men left, and a battalion of the king's Swiss guards advanced against us. The Prince of Conde ordered me to charge them; I asked for two companies of _reitres_, and--he called me coward.' "Mergy rose and approached his brother with an expression of strong interest. The Captain continued--his eyes flashing with anger at the recollection of the insult:-- "'He called me coward before all those popinjays in gilt armour who afterwards abandoned him on the battle-field of Jarnac. I resolved to die, and rushed upon the Swiss--vowing, if I escaped with life, never again to draw sword for that unjust prince. Grievously wounded, thrown from my horse, one of the Duke of Anjou's gentlemen, Beville--the mad fellow whom we dined with to-day--saved my life, and presented me to the duke. He treated me well. I was eager for vengeance. They urged me to take service under my benefactor, the Duke of Anjou; they quoted the line-- Omne solum forti patria est, ut piscibus aequor.