"Then, as a preliminary," said the palatine, "I must suppose it is unnecessary to tell you that General Butzou was the brave soldier who, at the imminent risk of his own life, saved our sovereign." "Yes, I know that!" replied the young count, "and that you too had a share in the honor: for when I was yesterday presented to his majesty, amongst other things which he said, he told me that, under Heaven, he believed he owed his present existence to General Butzou and yourself." "So very little to me," resumed the palatine, "that I will, to the best of my recollection, repeat every circumstance of the affair. Should I err, I must beg of you, general" (turning to the veteran), "to put me right." Butzou, with a glow of honest exultation, nodded assent; and Thaddeus bowing in sign of attention, his smiling grandsire began. "It was on a Sunday night, the 3d of September, in the year 1771, that this event took place. At that time, instigated by the courts of Vienna and Constantinople, a band of traitorous lords, confederated together, were covertly laying waste the country, and perpetrating all kinds of unsuspected outrage on their fellow-subjects who adhered to the king. "Amongst their numerous crimes, a plan was laid for surprising and taking the royal person. Casimir Pulaski was the most daring of their leaders; and, assisted by Lukawski, Strawenski, and Kosinski, three Poles unworthy of their names, he resolved to accomplish his design or perish. Accordingly, these men, with forty other conspirators, in the presence of their commander swore with the most horrid oaths to deliver Stanislaus alive or dead into his hands. "About a month after this meeting, these three parricides of their country, at the head of their coadjutors, disguised as peasants, and concealing their arms in wagons of hay, which they drove before them, entered the suburbs of Warsaw undetected. "It was about ten o'clock P. M., on the 3d of September, as I have told you, they found an apt opportunity to execute their scheme. They placed themselves, under cover of the night, in those avenues, of the city through which they knew his majesty must pass in his way from Villanow, where he had been dining with me. His carriage was escorted by four of his own guards, besides myself and some of mine. We had scarcely lost sight of Villanow, when the conspirators rushed out and surrounded us, commanding the coachman to stop, and beating down the serving men with the butt ends of their muskets. Several shots were fired into the coach. One passed through my hat as I was getting out, sword in hand, the better to repel an attack the motive of which I could not then divine. A cut across my right leg with a sabre laid me under the wheels; and whilst in that situation, I heard the shot pouring into the coach like hail, and felt the villains stepping over my body to finish the murder of their sovereign.