As the door of his heraldry-covered coach closed on him with a bang, quoth Auguste, who had dressed him, to Etienne, who had handed the clothes and shared impartially in his master’s maledictions— “Come, that’s not so bad, Etienne! Hein? What would you have at sixty-three? And without _me_, Bones of St. Martin! what is he? A monkey, a skeleton, a heap of rugs and refuse! Ah! What it is! the toilet!—when a man is really master of his work.” The Prince-Marshal, you see, like other heroes, was none to his _valet de chambre_; but Auguste, a true artist, having neglected none of the _minutiæ_, on which success depended, looked to general results, and exulted in the masterpiece that he felt was a creation of his own genius. Now it fell out that the Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, hereditary Grand Chasseur to the King, Master of the Horse to the Dauphin, State Exon to the sons and daughters of France, Marshal of its armies, and chevalier of half-a-dozen orders in his own and other countries, with no decoration on earth left to wish for but the Golden Fleece of Spain, which he coveted greedily in consequence, and prized above them all, arrived at the Hôtel Montmirail almost in the moment when Abbé Malletort quitted it at the front entrance, and Captain George of the Grey Musketeers left it by the garden door. Though the Prince’s chance of victory must have been doubtful at any time, I do not think he could have chosen a more unfavourable moment to deploy into line, as it were, and offer battle in the open field. His fair enemy had already been skirmishing with one foe, and caught sight of another, whom she would willingly have engaged. Her trumpets had sounded the _Alerte_, her colours were displayed, her artillery was in advance, guns unlimbered, matches lighted, front cleared, all her forces ready and quivering for action—woe to the veteran when he should leave his entrenchments, and sally forth to hazard all his past successes on the rash issue of one stand-up fight! His instincts told him he was wrong, even while he followed the obsequious lackey, in the Montmirail livery, through the glittering suite of rooms that led him to his fate. Followed, with cold hands and shaking knees, he who had led stormers and commanded armies! Even to himself there was a something of ridicule in the position; and he smiled, as a man smiles who is going to the dentist, while he whispered—“Courage, my child! It is but a quarter of an hour, after all! and yet—I wish I had put that other glass of brandy into my _Lait de Poule_!”