Following this plan I joined in the usual hymn of praise. What pride, what joy to be a Clamecyan! and I believe it, by Heavens! so I sat there furtively drawing Delavau’s nose, and the curate’s long arms which he flaps about when he speaks, and we talked about our good town;--a place where I was born must have merit,--besides, all human plants flourish here, they are not thorny and spiteful, even if their tongues are somewhat long and sharp at the end. No one is the worse for a little gossip, particularly if you get as good as you send; at bottom you love your neighbor as yourself, and would not hurt a hair of his head. We are all proud of our province, which remained calm in the midst of the excitement everywhere else; our Provost Ragon would not join the Guisards, the League, the heretics, the Catholics, or any of the extremists, persecutors, or rebels; and it was here that St. Bartholomew came to wash his bloody hands, where we all stood firm around our good Duke, like an island of safety against which the waves of trouble dashed themselves in vain.--I cannot speak without emotion of Duke Louis, and our late King,--how we loved them both!--for we really seemed made for one another, in spite of faults on both sides; no one is perfect in this world, of course, but these very faults in them were endearing, and brought us closer together; they were so human! We used to laugh and say, “Nevers is younger than ever,” or “Our good King is once more a father to his people!” Those were the good times, and we can truly say that we had the cream of it then--Delavau knew Duke Louis as well as I, but the honor of having seen King Henry is mine alone, and I love to tell for the hundredth time of how it happened. It always seems a new story to me and to my friends too, for they are Frenchmen of the right sort, and so I told them once more of the gray King mounted on a gray horse with his gray hat, his gray coat,--his elbows sticking through the sleeves,--his gray eyes, the outside all gray, but pure gold within! Just as I was in the middle of my story the notary’s clerk ran in to call him to a dying client, so I was interrupted, for he had to leave at once, which was all the more annoying as he had a story of his own on the tip of his tongue. I knew he had been hatching it for an hour, but I wanted first to get off my own little tale. I must admit in all fairness that his was funny when it did come; he has not his equal for a story with a dash of salt to it. * * * * *