When I looked on the old Duc de Broglie, dispensing the honours of his table with an air so courtly in his powdered hair, with his star and ribbon of St. Louis, and when I thought of the passionate love I had borne his daughter, and how she had responded to it--how I had sorrowed for her supposed death, and so terribly avenged it--of all that had been and never could be again,--I asked of myself, were not all those days we had spent together at that quaint château in Brittany, amid its arbours trained by old Urbain, its rose-gardens and leafy labyrinth, a dream, or was I dreaming now? That she should be the wife of this Count de Bourgneuf--a Frenchman all the more jealous because his mother was a Spanish lady of Alava--who knew more than I wished him to know about those love passages in Brittany, and thus hated me accordingly, seemed strange and difficult to realize; but of that hate I had good proof ere long. Dinner was nearly over when the Chevalier de Boisguiller, of the Hussars _de la Reine_, was announced, and this gay fellow, all travel-stained and with his face looking very red, after a long ride against a keen, frosty wind, entered with his sabre under his left arm, and carrying his fur cap with plume and scarlet kalpeck, in his right hand. "Welcome, kinsman Guillaume," said the host, rising and presenting his hand; "what news bring you from the head-quarters of M. de Contades?" "This despatch, monseigneur," replied the hussar, delivering an oblong letter sealed with yellow wax, and making a profound salute. "When did you leave?" "This morning, monseigneur." "Ma foi! you must have come at a good pace to reach Ysembourg by this time." "I dined early at Helingenstadt, and when I have dined well and drunk good wine, somehow my horse always goes well. The wine communicates itself through the spur-rowels, I think. 'Tis sixty miles and more from Helingenstadt to this, so as the sight of these viands makes me hungry again, I shall join you gentlemen. Thus hunger, a long ride over a snow-covered country--snow--_ouf!_ it is six feet deep at Hesse Cassel--with a young appetite, are capital sauce to a meal, and if your cook equals your maitre d'hôtel, my dear maréchal--_Grands Dieux!_ what have we here?--a ragout--delightful!--gigot de mouton, with force-meat balls, like grape and canister shot. Monjoy, I shall trouble you for a slice. _Parbleu!_ my friends, where did you pick up all these dainties? I thought those active devils, the Black Hussars of His Prussian Majesty, had swept everything but snow and icicles out of Hesse and Westphalia. Monjoy, _mon cher_, what does that silver jug contain?" "Champagne-punch, chevalier." "Made how?" "One bottle of claret to three of champagne, with some sugar, a little hot water, a squeeze or so of a lemon, and after a few glasses----"