The conversation might again have become stormy but for the entrance of a patrol, for whom a vacant space at the table had been left.  Forty or fifty fine tall fellows now came rushing into the room, flinging down shakos, knapsacks, and sabres, and fully prepared to enjoy the good cheer provided for them.  I heard the names of the first families of France among those privates—­the Montmorencies, the Lamaignons, the Nivernois, the Rochefoucaults, the De Noailles, “familiar as household words.”  All was good-humour again.  They had a little adventure in scaring away a corps of the rustic national guards who, to expedite their escape, had flung away their arms, which were brought in as good prize.  The festivity and frolic of youth, engaged in a cause which conferred a certain dignity even on their tours de page, renewed the pleasantry of the night.  We again had the chansons; and I recollect one, sung with delicious taste by a handsome Italian-faced youth, a nephew of the writer, the Duc de Nivernois.

The duke had requested a ringlet from a beautiful woman.  She answered, that she had just found a grey hair among her locks, and could now give then away no more.  The gallant reply was—­

“Quoi! vous parlez de cheveux blancs!  Laissez, laissez courir le temps; Que vous importe son ravage?  Les tendres coeurs en sont exempts; Les Amours sont toujours enfants, Et les Graces sont de tout age. Pour moi, Themire, je le sens.  Je suis toujours dans mon printemps, Quand je vous offre mon hommage.  Si je n’avais que dixhuit ans, Je pourrais aimer plus longtemps, Mais, non pas aimer davantage."[10]

    [10]

      Lovely and loved! shall one slight hair
      Touch thy delicious lip with care? 
      A heart like thine may laugh at Time—­
      The Soul is ever in its prime. 
      All Loves, you know, have infant faces,
      A thousand years can’t chill the Graces! 
      While thou art in my soul enshrined,
      I give all sorrows to the wind. 
      Were I this hour but gay eighteen,
      Thou couldst be but my bosom’s queen;
      I might for longer years adore,
      But could not, could not love thee more.

On returning to look for my distinguished prisoner, I found a packet lying on the table of my apartment; it had arrived in my absence with the troops in advance; and I must acknowledge that I opened it with a trembling hand, when I saw that it came from London and Mordecai.

It was written in evident anxiety, and the chief subject was the illness of his daughter.  She had some secret on her mind, which utterly baffled even the Jew’s paternal sagacity.  No letters had reached either of them from France, and he almost implored me to return, or, if that were impossible, to write without delay.  Mariamne had grown more fantastic, and capricious, and wayward than ever.  Her eyes had lost their brightness, and her cheek its colour.  Yet she complained of nothing, beyond a general distaste to existence.  She had seen the Comtesse de Tourville, and they had many a long conference together, from which, however, Mariamne always returned more melancholy than ever.  She had refused the match which he had provided for her, and declared her determination to live, like the daughter of Jephthah, single to her grave.