I made no reply, and the Baron de Magnac and another gentleman rode on to see if they could discover the body of the unfortunate Prince de Condé. While they were gone, the deepest stillness pervaded the whole scene. There was a sort of awful expectation about those who knew not whether I had spoken truth or not, which kept all silent; and it was evident that the Duke of Anjou himself, though he strove to appear perfectly calm and unmoved, concealed various emotions under the stern and harsh aspect which he assumed He spoke not either, but remained gazing forward in the direction which his messengers had taken, though the number of persons scattered about in different directions, and the bodies of horse and foot moving to and fro, prevented his distinguishing them after they had gone a hundred yards. At length, however, we saw a number of people coming forward in an irregular mass, with something carried apparently in the midst of them, and, as they approached the Duke of Anjou, one of the most painful and horrible sights that I ever beheld was exposed to view. Stripped of his armour, and even of the buff coat which he had worn underneath, with his shirt and person dabbled with blood and dirt, was the body of the unfortunate Prince de Condé cast across an ass, with the head hanging down on one side and the feet on the other. His hair, which was long and very beautiful, fell in glossy curls towards the ground; but, from the point of the locks near the face, the blood, still streaming from his death-wound, dropped slowly as they bore him along upon the dusty ground, and made a small pool when the body stopped before the feet of the Duke of Anjou's horse. However much he might be changed since I had seen him, I knew the body at once, by the lace and the violet-coloured ribands which tied the sleeves of his shirt, which I had remarked particularly while he was putting on his casque at the moment that the horse had kicked him. "Are you sure that is he?" said the Duke of Anjou. "Lift up his head, Magnac; one cannot see his face." The Baron de Magnac twined his fingers in his hair and lifted up his face, exposing the ghastly wound from which he died, and which had so terribly disfigured him, that, what with blood and dirt, and the black smoke of the pistol, his features could hardly be recognised by any one. When I thought of that same countenance, as I had seen it but a few weeks before, smiling with gay and kindly feelings as he laid the blade of knighthood on my shoulder, and compared it with the dark, mutilated object before me, I myself could scarcely have told that it was the same, had it not been for the other marks I have mentioned. "Some one bring water from the stream," cried the Duke of Anjou. "We must wash his face and see." The water was soon brought in a morion; and, when the blood and dirt were washed away, there was no difficulty in recognising the features of the unfortunate prince.