"Good Rémy!... You can go at a slow trot, so that we lose as little time as possible." The postillion set the horses to the required pace, which, moderate though it was, none the less brought a cloud of distress on the curé's countenance. "Set your mind at rest," said Bougainville, "seeing we are going in the direction of Boulogne." "Friend," the Abbé Rémy said, laughing, "I have been curé of Boulogne for twenty years; Marianne has been fifteen years with me, and never, except when detained by the side of a dying parishioner, have I been five minutes later than twelve; punctually at twelve the soup is on the table, and ... you understand?" "Yes; don't be afraid, I do not want to upset Marianne.... You shall be home exactly by twelve." "Now my mind is easy.... But talk about yourself a little: are you not wearing the uniform of the Navy?" "Yes; I am captain of a ship." "How comes that about? I thought you were a barrister--Really?--when you left college did you not begin to study law?" "What is to be done, my dear Rémy? You, God's anointed, ought to know better than anyone the proverb: "'Man proposes and God disposes.' It is true I was entered as a barrister in 1752 at the High Judicial Court of Paris." "Ah! I knew it!" said the good priest, withdrawing the finger from his breviary, which marked the place where he had left off reading. "So you did become a barrister?" "Yes; but at the same time that I was called to the Bar," continued Bougainville, "I enlisted in the Musketeers." "Oh, indeed! You always had a taste for arms and a special talent for mathematics." "You remember that?" "Why, of course! Was I not your best friend at College?" "Ah, that is very true!" "Is it you or your brother Louis who belongs to the Academy?" Bougainville smiled. "It is my brother," he said; "or rather, it was, for you must know that I had the misfortune to lose him three years ago." "Ah! poor Louis.... But what can you expect. We are all mortal, and it is well to look upon this life as a voyage which leads us to port.... Pardon, friend, it seems to me we are passing Boulogne." Bougainville looked at his watch. "Bah!" said he, "what does it matter! It is only half-past eleven, and consequently you have still a good twenty minutes before you.--Faster, postillion!" "Why faster?" "Because you are in a hurry, my friend." "Bougainville!..." "What! does not the wish to know what I have been doing outweigh your fear of upsetting Marianne by being five minutes late?... That is a queer sort of friendship, to be sure!" "You are right, upon my word; five minutes more or less.... Tell me about yourself, my dear Antoine. Besides, when I tell Marianne that it was for you and through you I am late, she will stop scolding." "Marianne knows me, then?"