And he went. Then she immediately got up and inventoried his property, and put the order for his money in her bosom, which all French women do, though I can't say that that is a very safe place--in France. And she was pleased to find that his jewelry, though not extensive, was all genuine, and she said her prayers and went to bed, with the calmness of one who had done her whole duty. The next day the assault was made and things worked about as Therese had calculated. Adolph had but one objective point and that was the man with a cockade, and Henri carried a carbine for the fellow with the red bow. They saw each other at precisely the same moment, both fired the same moment, and both fell mortally wounded. Having each noticed a peculiar mark upon the other's hat they used what life was left in them to crawl to each other. [Sidenote: THE END OF THE ROMANCE.] "Who put that ribbon in your cap?" gasped Henri. "Therese! And who that cockade in yours?" "Therese! And she took my effects?" "And mine. _Perfide!_ But we die for France all the same?" "Precisely." And they both went into the hereafter. Therese waited quietly and with great resignation till the troubles were over, and then realized upon her trust funds. Shortly after she purchased a café in a good drinking quarter and grew wealthy. She married a rich, banker, whose place of business was just over her's, and they waxed very rich. "What kind of a banker was he?" I inquired of a gentleman who indistinctly mastered some of the English language. [Illustration: "WHO PUT THAT RIBBON IN YOUR CAP?"] "He eez some thing vat you in L'Amerique would call--vat eez eet?--_oui_, a faro banker." I do not vouch for the truth of this legend, though I have every reason to believe it to be true. I was personally in a café presided over by a woman whom I firmly believe could manage just such a scheme. True or not, it shows what the women of France will do for their beloved country. CHAPTER XXIII. FRENCH DRINKING. The French are the most temperate people on the globe. Why this is so is not easily explained, for it would be naturally supposed that so excitable a people ought, in the very nature of things, to be intemperate. They have no fixed code of morals, as the Saxon people have, and they make no pretense of anything of the kind. They are intemperate enough, heaven knows, in their politics, and apparently so, to a stranger who does not understand French, in their conversation; but in the matter of drinking they don't do enough of it to injure an English baby, and an American is lost in amazement at the little stimulant they get on with.