The Marquis's eye fell upon me instantly, and, advancing without embarrassment, he embraced me, and gave me the compliments of the morning. Then turning, he introduced his friend, Monsieur de Simon. "The greatest fisherman in France," said he: "we were speaking just now about killing a carp," he continued, "which, you know is dreadfully tenacious of life. Are you a fisherman at all?" I answered, "Not in the least;" and the conversation went on for some time on various topics, till at length Monsieur de Simon took his leave. "I am sorry you cannot take your breakfast with us," said the Marquis; "but remember, when I am gone, you are most welcome to fish, whenever you think fit, upon my property." "I thank you, I thank you, most noble Marquis," said the other, with a curious sort of roguish twinkle of the eye; "I will take you at your word, and will rid your streams of all those gudgeons which you dislike so much, but which I dote upon. Oh, 'tis a dainty fish--a gudgeon!" At about one o'clock my horse was ready, and I took leave of the Marquis--I cannot say with feelings either of reverence or regard; and I have always found it an invariable fact, that when a man has amused us without gaining our esteem, and pleased without winning our confidence, there is something naturally bad at the bottom of his character, which we should do well to avoid. As I mounted my horse, I remarked that my worthy valet, Houssaye, had imbibed as much liquor as would permit him to stand upright, and that it was not without great difficulty and scrupulous attention to the equipoise that he at all maintained his vertical position. "Your servant is tipsy," said the Marquis; "you had better leave him here till he recovers his intellects." "I am as sober as a priest," hickupped Houssaye, who overheard the accusation the Marquis brought against him, and repelled it with the most drunken certainty of his own sobriety. "Monseigneur, you do me wrong. I am sober, upon my conscience and my trumpet!" So saying, he swung himself up to his horse's back, and forgetting to wait for me, galloped on before, sounding a charge through his fist, as if he was leading on a regiment of horse. The Marquis laughed; and once more bidding him adieu, I followed the pot-valiant trumpeter, who, without any mercy on his poor horse, urged him on upon the road to Lourdes as fast as he could go. Very soon, I doubt not, he quite forgot that I was behind, for, following much more slowly, as I did not choose to fatigue my jennet at the outset, I soon lost sight of him, and for half an hour perceived no traces of him whatever.