“No, I don’t understand it.”

“Well, nor I neither; but certain citizens told it to me.”

Here a general laugh interrupted him.

“Ha, ha, ha! is he a fool?” said one.  “He listens to what the townsfolk tell him.”

“Ah, well! if you listen to their gabble, you have time to lose,” said another.

“You do not know, then, what my mother said, greenhorn?” said the eldest, gravely dropping his eyes with a solemn air, to compel attention.

“Eh! how can you think that I know it, La Pipe?  Your mother must have died of old age before my grandfather came into the world.”

“Well, greenhorn, I will tell you!  You shall know, first of all, that my mother was a respectable Bohemian, as much attached to the regiment of carabineers of La Roque as my dog Canon there.  She carried brandy round her neck in a barrel, and drank better than the best of us.  She had fourteen husbands, all soldiers, who died upon the field of battle.”

“Ha! that was a woman!” interrupted the soldiers, full of respect.

“And never once in her life did she speak to a townsman, unless it was to say to him on coming to her lodging, ‘Light my candle and warm my soup.’”

“Well, and what was it that your mother said to you?”

“If you are in such a hurry, you shall not know, greenhorn.  She said habitually in her talk, ’A soldier is better than a dog; but a dog is better than a bourgeois.’”

“Bravo! bravo! that was well said!” cried the soldier, filled with enthusiasm at these fine words.

“That,” said Grand-Ferre, “does not prove that the citizens who made the remark to me that it burned the tongue were in the right; besides, they were not altogether citizens, for they had swords, and they were grieved at a cure being burned, and so was I.”

“Eh! what was it to you that they burned your cure, great simpleton?” said a sergeant, leaning upon the fork of his arquebus; “after him another would come.  You might have taken one of our generals in his stead, who are all cures at present; for me, I am a Royalist, and I say it frankly.”

“Hold your tongue!” cried La Pipe; “let the girl speak.  It is these dogs of Royalists who always disturb us in our amusements.”

“What say you?” answered Grand-Ferre.  “Do you even know what it is to be a Royalist?”

“Yes,” said La Pipe; “I know you all very well.  Go, you are for the old self-called princes of the peace, together with the wranglers against the Cardinal and the gabelle.  Am I right or not?”

“No, old red-stocking.  A Royalist is one who is for the King; that’s what it is.  And as my father was the King’s valet, I am for the King, you see; and I have no liking for the red-stockings, I can tell you.”

“Ah, you call me red-stocking, eh?” answered the old soldier.  “You shall give me satisfaction to-morrow morning.  If you had made war in the Valteline, you would not talk like that; and if you had seen his Eminence marching upon the dike at Rochelle, with the old Marquis de Spinola, while volleys of cannonshot were sent after him, you would have nothing to say about red-stockings.”