“He was one of those gallants who, when Richelieu passed an edict concerning the loose women of the city, placed one in the cardinal’s chamber and accused him of breaking his own edict.  Richelieu annulled the act, but he never forgave the marquis for telling the story to Madame de Montbazon, who in turn related it to the queen.  The marquis threw his hat in the face of the Duc de Longueville when the latter accused him of receiving billets from madame.  There was a duel.  The duke carried a bad arm to Normandy, and the marquis dined a week with the governor of the Bastille.  That was the marquis’s last affair.  It happened before the Fronde.  Since then he has remained in seclusion, fortifying himself against old age.  His hotel is in the Rue des Augustines, near the former residence of Henri II.

“The marquis’s son you have seen—­drunk most of the time.  Happy his mother, who died at his birth.  ’Tis a pity, too, for the boy has a good heart and wrongs no one but himself.  He has been sent home from court in disgrace, though what disgrace no one seems to know.  Some piece of gallantry, no doubt, which ended in a duel.  He and his father are at odds.  They seldom speak.  The Chevalier, having money, drinks and gambles.  The Vicomte d’Halluys won a thousand livres from him last night in the private assembly.”

“Wild blood,” said Bouchard, draining his tankard.  “France has too much of it.  Wine and dicing and women:  fine snares the devil sets with these.  How have you recruited?”

“Tolerably well.  Twenty gentlemen will sail with us; mostly improvident younger sons.  But what’s this turmoil between our comrade Nicot and Maitre le Borgne?” sliding his booted legs to the floor and sitting upright.

Bouchard glanced over his shoulder.  Nicot was waving his arms and pointing to his vis-a-vis at the table, while the innkeeper was shrugging and bowing and spreading his hands.

“He leaves the table,” cried Nicot, “or I leave the inn.”

“But, Monsieur, there is no other place,” protested the maitre; “and he has paid in advance.”

“I tell you he smells abominably of horse.”

“I, Monsieur?” mildly inquired the cause of the argument.  He was a young man of twenty-three or four, with a countenance more ingenuous than handsome, expressive of that mobility which is inseparable from a nature buoyant and humorous.

“Thousand thunders, yes!  Am I a gentleman, and a soldier, to sit with a reeking stable-boy?”

“If I smell of the horse,” said the young man, calmly helping himself to a quarter of rabbit pie, “Monsieur smells strongly of the ass.”

Whereupon a titter ran round the room.  This did not serve to mollify the anger of the irascible Nicot, whose hand went to his sword.

“Softly, softly!” warned the youth, taking up the carving knife and jestingly testing the edge with his thumb-nail.