The confusion was tremendous, for the picketed horses jumped about, and some, breaking loose, galloped here and there, while others set off with half-unpacked waggons, scattering their loading as they went. It was only when the blazing furze had dropped off, that the whole cause of the mischance would suffer himself to be captured and led quietly back to his mistress. Half crying with joy, and still wild with anger, she kissed the beast and abused her tormentors by turns. ‘Cannoniers that ye are,’ she cried, ‘_ma foi_! you’ll have little taste for fire when the day comes that ye should face it! _Pauvre_ Grégoire, they’ve left thee a tail like a tirailleur’s feather! Plagues light on the thieves that did it! Come here, boy,’ said she, addressing me, ‘hold, the bridle; what’s thy corps, lad?’ ‘I have none now; I only followed the soldiers from Paris.’ ‘Away with thee, street runner; away with thee, then,’ said she contemptuously; ‘there are no pockets to pick here; and if there were, thou ‘d lose thy ears for the doing it. Be off, then--back with thee to Paris and all its villainies. There are twenty thousand of thy trade there, but there’s work for ye all.’ ‘Nay, mère, don’t be harsh with the boy,’ said a soldier; ‘you can see by his coat that his heart is with us.’ ‘And he stole that, I’ll be sworn,’ said she, pulling me round, by the arm, full in front of her. ‘Answer me, _gamin_, where didst find that old tawdry jacket?’ ‘I got it in a place where, if they had hold of thee and thy bad tongue, it would fare worse with thee than thou thinkest,’ said I, maddened by the imputed theft and insolence together. ‘And where may that be, young slip of the galleys?’ cried she angrily. ‘In the “Prison du Temple.”’ ‘Is that their livery, then?’ said she, laughing and pointing at me with ridicule, ‘or is it a family dress made after thy father’s?’ ‘My father wore a soldier’s coat, and bravely, too,’ said I, with difficulty restraining the tears that rose to my eyes. ‘In what regiment, boy?’ asked the soldier who spoke before. ‘In one that exists no longer,’ said I sadly, and not wishing to allude to a service that would find but slight favour in republican ears. ‘That must be the 24th of the Line; they were cut to pieces at “Tongres.”’ ‘No--no, he ‘s thinking of the 9th, that got so roughly handled at Fontenoy,’ said another. ‘Of neither,’ said I; ‘I am speaking of those who have left nothing but a name behind them--the Garde du Corps of the king.’ ‘_Voilà!_ cried Madou, clapping her hands in astonishment at my impertinence; ‘there’s an aristocrat for you! Look at him, _mes braves!_ it’s not every day we have the grand seigneurs condescending to come amongst us! You can learn something of courtly manners from the polished descendant of our nobility. Say, boy, art a count, or a baron, or perhaps a duke?’