Chapter 19

THE COMMISSION

Lecour returned to the Hôtel de Noailles overwhelmed with forebodings--one of those revulsions which come during long-continued excitement.

"End the farce, fool," he exclaimed to himself despondently, hurrying to the quarters of the Princess. She received him "in her bath,"--a circumstance not unusual and which meant a covered foot-bath and a handsome _déshabillé_ gown.

"Madame," he said. An emotion he could not quite hide caused him to hesitate--"my days at Versailles are ended. I am come to present my gratitude at your feet for the great kindness your Excellencies have shown me. Believe, Madame----"

"Monsieur de Répentigny, you speak of leaving us?"

"It is too true."

"Truth is the only thing I find ill-mannered. Why should you leave us?"

"Because, Madame, it is my duty."

"No gentleman should have duties. Are you discontented with Versailles?"

"On the contrary it is the place where I should be most happy."

"This is a riddle, then. Plainly, you are indispensable to us. Can I tempt you by some pension, some honour, some office? I have a benefice vacant, but should dislike to see those locks of yours tonsured. What do you say to the army?"

"It is impossible, for me."

"The army, I say, it shall be."

"Madame----"

"To-morrow I will hear your choice concerning this commission--horse, foot, or artillery?"

One did not argue with Princesses--partly because Princesses did not argue with one. He humbly retired, revolving an undefined notion of flight.

By chance Grancey entered during the afternoon.

"Homesick, just at the nick of fortune? Do you know that a sub-lieutenancy is vacant in my company? Sub-lieutenant, with rank of a Colonel of Dragoons?"

"I did not."

"You must ask for it."

"That is out of the question, my lord." The gravity and humility of his demeanour astonished Grancey, who surveyed him quizzically. "Is this a new _rôle_, Répentigny, a part from _The Unconscious Philosopher_? Are you ill?"

"I am leaving Versailles."

"Nonsense."

"And France."

"Never!"

"It is the case."

"But I have named you for the sub-lieutenancy."

Lecour looked up; but it was not enough to revive him from so deep a slough.

"I must go, Baron."

"_Galimatias!_ You shall not throw away a commission in the Bodyguard of the greatest Court in Europe. My brother-officers demand you, and you must not desert me, your friend--your _friend_, Germain."

Germain went over to a window and looked out, to hide the tears with which his eyes were filling. In the courtyard below a coach had stopped at one of the doors. Cyrène was entering it. Why was she brought before him just at that moment. This inopportune glimpse of her cancelled all reasoning. With fevered sight he watched her till the coach disappeared, and turning, said eagerly to de Grancey--

"Is not the Prince's consent required?"

"You agree!" Grancey cried, embracing him joyfully. "As to the Prince, comrade," said he, "the sole difficulty is that he will grant anything to anybody. We must get his signature--for which I admit it is delicate to ask him--before any other applicant."

Lecour's pulses sprang back to life.

"Could the _Princess_ assist us?" he inquired.

"Perfect!" cried the Baron.

Germain returned to her apartment. The Abbé was handing her a paper and saying--

"An entirely worthy gentleman, your Excellency, and wounded in several of the King's victories, as well as of irreproachable descent."

Germain did not guess until it was too late that this was the petition of the Chevalier de la Violette.

She was stretching out her hand to take the pen which Jude passed to her.

"Madame," Lecour exclaimed breathlessly, "I have a prayer to make to you immediately."

"Yes, Monsieur de Répentigny?"

"For a commission."

"Delightful."

"A vacant commission of sub-lieutenant in the company of the Prince."

She dropped the pen in wonder and looked at the Abbé Jude, whose face turned sickly.

And so Germain obtained a great position.

"As a matter of form," said Major Collinot, the Adjutant of the Bodyguard, at headquarters, "Monsieur de Répentigny of course proves the necessary generations of _noblesse_?"

"Here is the herald's attestation, sir," replied Germain, producing that which Grancey's intercession had obtained for him at Fontainebleau.

Doubly past the strictest tests of ancestry and reassured in boldness he was now ready even to play cards with the dread Maréchale de Noailles--her who it was reported once said, "That although our Lord was born in a stable yet it must be remembered St. Joseph was of royal line and not any common carpenter."

The pomp and glitter of the new life appealed immensely to the youthful instincts of the Canadian. The Baron detailed to his fascinated listener the composition, privileges, and duties of the Gardes--

"We are thirteen hundred, Répentigny, in four companies--the Scotch, the Villeroy, the Noailles, and the Luxembourg, each over three hundred persons; we relieve each other every three months. Just now it is the turn of our company of Noailles. Of the three months, each man spends one on guard at the Palace, one at the hunting-lodge, and one at liberty; after that we withdraw to towns some distance apart, those of the Noailles company to Troyes in Champagne." He told with pride of what good stature and descent it was necessary to be to be received, how keenly sought after even the commissions as privates were, hence the fine picked appearance of the body. He dilated on the various instruments and startling costumes of his company's band; on the style of their horses and the magnificence of their reviews and parades; on the superiority of the pale blue cross-belts which distinguished them, over the silver and white ones of the Scotch company, the green of the Villeroys, the yellow of the Luxembourgs. These differences, he asserted, were the greatest distinctions under the sun.

Let us in our colder blood add to his description that each of these companies consisted of one captain, one adjutant, two lieutenant-commandants of squadron, three lieutenants, ten sub-lieutenants, two standard-bearers, ten quartermasters, two sub-quartermasters, twenty brigadiers or sergeants, two hundred and eighty guards, one timbalier, and five trumpeters. Germain studied the roll with great interest.