that he was glad indeed when the queen again passed through the room on her way to her apartments and he was at liberty to retire.  He walked slowly back to Conde’s palace, went up to his room, changed his court suit for that which he had worn during the day, and then went out again, feeling that it would be hopeless to attempt to sleep.  He paced backwards and forwards for some hours on the quay, thinking of the changes that three days had brought about.

He could scarcely realize even now, that he who a week ago was but a captain with nought but his pay, was now not only a colonel but a noble of France, with an estate of whose value he was ignorant, but as it carried with it a patent of nobility it was evident that it must be one of dimensions sufficient to support the title.  The change excited no feeling of exultation.  His whole thoughts so far had been directed solely to his career as a soldier.  He had hoped that some day he might win a colonelcy; more than that he had never thought of.  High commands in France were matters of birth, interest, and connection.  Gassion, who had just earned his marshal’s baton, was the sole exception to the rule.  Hitherto generals, and still more marshals, had always been men belonging to the first families of France.  It had been a matter of course that when an army went to the field it was under the command of a prince of the blood, and the utmost an outsider could look for was the command of a regiment.  The promotion had delighted him, not for the sake of the pay or position, but because, if he obtained the command of one of the regiments that were rapidly being formed to meet the dangers that threatened France, he would have opportunities of doing good service and of earning the esteem of such men as Turenne.  His civil dignity, however, oppressed rather than gratified him.  He would have heavy responsibilities.  When not on active service he would be expected to show himself at court, and would have a difficulty in holding himself aloof from its intrigues and conspiracies.  His thoughts turned to Scotland.  He had relations there, it was true, both on his father’s and mother’s side, but they were strangers to him.  Moreover, Scotland at present was torn by a civil and religious war.  In England a civil war was raging, and the extreme party in Scotland, having got the upper hand, had allied themselves with the English parliamentarians, and the cause of the king was well nigh lost.

The Scottish officers and men in the French service had for the most part left their homes owing to the bitter religious differences of the times, and, under the easier conditions of the life in France, had come to look with disgust at the narrow bigotry of the Scottish sects, a feeling heightened perhaps by the deep resentment that still prevailed in France at the insolence with which Knox and the Scottish reformers had treated their princess, Queen Mary.  Among the French officers the feeling was wholly in favour of the royal cause in England.  The queen was French, and had France herself not been engaged in warfare numbers of the young nobles would have gone over and drawn their swords in her cause, and Hector would gladly have done the same.