"It is an ominous name, St. Bartholomew, you must acknowledge to the ears of a Huguenot," replied the Count. "But what is it I have to fear, if not that, Louis?" "What is it you have to fear!" rejoined the Chevalier. "Why, a pair of the brightest eyes in all France--I believe I might say in all Europe." The Count shook his head with a smile. "Well then," continued the Chevalier, "a pair of lips that look like twin roses; eyebrows that give a meaning to every lustrous look of the eyes; a hand small, white, and delicate, with fingers tapering and rounded like those with which the Venus of the Greeks gathers around her timid form the unwilling drapery; a foot such as no sandle-shod goddess of the golden age could match: and a form which would have left the sculptor nothing to seek in other beauties but herself." The Count laughed aloud. "I am quite safe," he said, "quite safe, Louis, quite safe. I have nothing on earth to fear." "Indeed!" exclaimed his companion, in the same gay tone. "Pray, what panoply of proof do you possess sufficient to resist such arms as these when brought against you?" "Mine is twofold," answered the Count. "In the first place, your own enthusiasm cannot be misunderstood, and, of course, I do not become the rival of my friend. Our great hero, Condé, has set all soldiers a better example." "What then, do you intend to follow his example in regard to the Chatillon?" demanded the Chevalier; "to yield me the lady, and as soon as I am comfortably killed off, make love to my widow? But no, no, Albert, I stand not in your way; there are other attractions for me, I tell you fairly! Even if it were not so, let every man in love, as in war, do the best for himself. But, at all events, I tell you take care of yourself if you go to Poitiers, unless, indeed, you have some better armour than the thought of rivalry with me." "I must go to Poitiers of course," replied the Count, "when the governor comes down; but yet I shall go without fear, as I think you might by this time know. Have you not seen me amongst the fairest, and the gayest, and the sweetest of this world's daughters, and yet I do not think in all the catalogue you could find one cabalistic name sufficiently powerful to conjure up a sigh from my lips." "Why, to say the truth," replied the Chevalier, "I have often thought you as cold as a cannon ball before it is fired; but then, my dear Count, all that time you have had something else to do, something to excite, to interest, and to engross you. But now the stir and bustle of the camp is over,--the march, the countermarch, the advance, the retreat is done,--the fierce excitement of the battle-field does not bring forth all the energies of a fiery heart,--the trumpet no longer calls you from the ear of the fair one, before the whispered tale of love be well begun. In this piping time of peace, why, man, you have nothing for it but to make love, or die of melancholy. If you have a charm, let us hear what it is!"