"She took the black veil, and is now nun of the convent of St. Nicole, seven miles from Nancy. With that day's discovery began and ended the wedded life of Coeurdefer; and since then he has led a wild and reckless career, committing innumerable acts of daring, which by some strange fatality have passed as yet unpunished; but the assassination of D'Herblay--for that he _did_ assassinate him, I have not the slightest doubt--is the blackest of his acts; unless, indeed, that other episode at Minden be a deeper and a darker one. "The marriage prevented the Vicomte Henri alike from prosecuting him at common law as a felon, and from challenging him to a solemn duel, and so time passed on; but he hated my colonel--the handsome young Mousquetaire--with the hate of a tiger; hence I doubt not that by his hand, or the hands of some of his lawless troop at his behest, my leader perished on the field of Minden! "France has not in all her army a more splendid soldier than that Mousquetaire Gris! "After the junction of the French army under M. de Contades and M. de Broglio, as I have related, on their approach Prince Ferdinand retreated, first to Lippstadt, and afterwards to Ham, where he mustered all the forces in the Bishopric of Munster, and was joined by the soldiers of Imhoff, while we advanced and took possession of Cassel, Minden, and Beverungen. "While we lay at Cassel, engaged in repairing and strengthening the fortifications, the vicomte, our leader, was engaged in two pieces of service, which savoured of the romance of the Middle Ages in Germany. "There came to the colonel of the Mousquetaires, from the Lower Saxon side of the Weser, a certain old knight named Otto of Burgsteinfort, who though an adherent of the enemy, implored him as a soldier and a gentleman to attempt the rescue of his daughter, an only child, who had been carried off by a party of savage Uzkokes or Hungarian infantry, who had been subsidized by the King of Prussia, and formed a portion of the column commanded by Prince Ferdinand, but were more immediately under the orders of Count Hatzfeld in Munden, twelve miles distant on the Weser; and these wretches, he added, had borne her into a forest in the Bishopric of Paderborn, where he dared not follow them, alone at least. Pitying the distress of the old man, Chateaunoir left Cassel on this errand of mercy with forty gentlemen of the Mousquetaires Gris. Of these forty I had the honour to be one. "'Will not Count Hatzfeld do this service for you, baron?' I asked. "'No--though on my knees I prayed him; I who never have bent my knee before to aught but a minister of God.' "'Why? "'Because our families are and have been long at feud.' "'Good--I can understand that, for in my country we are not without hereditary hatreds. Yet in this instance his conduct has been alike ungenerous and wicked.' "'True; thus I, a German, appeal to French chivalry.'