"Knows you? Of course she does! I have spoken to her of you a score of times.... But be quick and finish telling me how it is that, having been called to the Bar, and after enlisting in the Musketeers, I find you a naval officer." "It is very simple, and I can explain it all to you in a word. In 1753 I became assistant-major in the provincial battalion of Picardie; the following year I was appointed aide-de-camp to Chevert, whom I left to become Secretary to the Embassy in London, and to be made a member of the Royal Society; in 1756 I went as captain of dragoons with the Marquis of Montcalm, charged with the defence of Canada.. "Capital! capital!" interrupted the Abbé Rémy. "I can see you doing it! Go on, my friend, I am listening." The abbé, completely fascinated by Bougainville's narrative, had not noticed that the horses had quietly passed from a slow to a quick trot. Bougainville continued his story. "When in Canada, I was pretty much master of my future; I had but to conduct myself well to attain to anything. I was put in charge of several expeditions by the Marquis de Montcalm, which I brought to a successful issue. Thus, for instance, after a march of sixty leagues through forests which were believed to be impenetrable, sometimes over tracks of country covered with snow, sometimes on the ice of the river Richelieu, I advanced as far as the end of the lake of Saint-Sacrement, where I burned an English flotilla under the very fort which protected it." "What!" said the abbé, "was it you who did that? Why, I read the account of that event; but I did not know you were the hero...." "Did you not recognise my name?" "I knew the name but not the man.... How could you expect I should recognise in a member of the Basoche, whom I left studying law, and aspiring to become a barrister, a dashing fellow who burns fleets in the far-away depths of Canada? ... You can surely see that it was impossible!" At this moment the carriage stopped before a posting-house. "Oh!" said the Abbé Rémy, "where are we, Antoine?" "We are at Sèvres, my friend." "At Sèvres! What time is it?" Bougainville looked at his watch. "It is ten minutes to twelve." "Oh! Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the abbé, "but I shall never be at Boulogne by noon." "That is more than probable." "A league to go!" "A league and a half." "If only I could find a posting-carriage...." He rose to his feet in the carriage and cast a look round him as far as his sight could reach, but there was no sign of even the smallest sort of vehicle. "Never mind," he said, "I will walk." "You shall not walk!" said Bougainville. "What! you will not let me walk?" "No, it shall not be said that you caught pleurisy because you took a drive with a friend." "I will go quietly."