“Indeed he was,” said Chapeau, “the very first.  You don’t think he’d have let any one go before him.”

“Here’s his health then, and God bless him!” said Momont.  “It was I first showed him how to fire a pistol; and very keen he was at taking to gunpowder.”

“Indeed, and indeed he was,” said the housekeeper.  “When he was no more than twelve years old, not nigh as big as the little Chevalier, he let off the big blunderbuss in my bed-room, and I on my knees at prayers the while.  God bless his sweet face, I always knew he’d make a great soldier.”

“And don’t you remember,” said the laundress, “how he blew up Mademoiselle Agatha, making her sit on a milk-pan turned over, with a whole heap of gunpowder stuffed underneath, and she only six or seven years old?”

“Did he though,” said the page, “blow up Mademoiselle Agatha?”

“Indeed he did, and blew every scrap of hair off her head and eyebrows.  It’s no wonder he’s such a great general.”

“And the Chevalier was second, wasn’t he?” said the cook.

“Dear little darling fellow!” said the confidential maid; “and to think of him going to the wars with guns and swords and pistols!  If anything had happened to him I should have cried my eyes out.”

“And was the Chevalier the first to follow M. Henri into the town?” asked the page, who was a year older than Arthur Mondyon, and consequently felt himself somewhat disgraced at not having been at Saumur.

“Why,” said Jacques, with a look which was intended to shew how unwilling he was to speak of himself, “I can’t exactly say the Chevalier was the first to follow M. Henri, but if he wasn’t the second, he was certainly the third who entered Saumur.”

“Who then was the second?” said one or two at the same time.

“Why, I shouldn’t have said anything about it, only you ask me so very particularly,” said Jacques, “but I believe I was second myself; but Jean Stein can tell you everything; you weren’t backward yourself Jean, there were not more than three or four of them before you and Peter.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jean, “but we all did the best we could, I believe.”

“And was Chapeau really second?” said Momont, who was becoming jealous of the distinction likely to be paid to his junior fellow-servant.  “You don’t mean to say he went in before all the other gentlemen?”

“Gentlemen, indeed!” said Chapeau.  “What an idea you have of taking a town by storm, if you think men are to stand back to make room for gentlemen, as though a party were going into dinner.”

“But tell us now, Jean Stein,” continued Momont, “was Chapeau really second?”

“Well then,” said Jean, “he was certainly second into the water, but he was so long under it, I doubt whether he was second out—­he certainly did get a regular good ducking did Chapeau.  Why, you came out feet uppermost, Chapeau.”

“Feet uppermost!” shouted Momont, “and is that your idea of storming a town, to go into it feet uppermost?”