repeat it here, though it was then new to the inhabitants
of the Chateau d'Anzy. And it was told with the same finish of gesture
and tone which had won such praise for Bianchon when at Mademoiselle
des Touches' supper-party he had told it for the first time. The final
picture of the Spanish grandee, starved to death where he stood in the
cupboard walled up by Madame de Merret's husband, and that husband's
last word as he replied to his wife's entreaty, "You swore on that
crucifix that there was no one in that closet!" produced their full
effect. There was a silent minute, highly flattering to Bianchon.

"Do you know, gentlemen," said Madame de la Baudraye, "love must be
a mighty thing that it can tempt a woman to put herself in such a
position?"

"I, who have certainly seen some strange things in the course of my
life," said Gravier, "was cognizant in Spain of an adventure of the same
kind."

"You come forward after two great performers," said Madame de la
Baudraye, with coquettish flattery, as she glanced at the two Parisians.
"But never mind--proceed."

"Some little time after his entry into Madrid," said the
Receiver-General, "the Grand Duke of Berg invited the magnates of the
capital to an entertainment given to the newly conquered city by the
French army. In spite of the splendor of the affair, the Spaniards were
not very cheerful; their ladies hardly danced at all, and most of the
company sat down to cards. The gardens of the Duke's palace were so
brilliantly illuminated, that the ladies could walk about in as perfect
safety as in broad daylight. The fete was of imperial magnificence.
Nothing was grudged to give the Spaniards a high idea of the Emperor, if
they were to measure him by the standard of his officers.

"In an arbor near the house, between one and two in the morning, a party
of French officers were discussing the chances of war, and the not too
hopeful outlook prognosticated by the conduct of the Spaniards present
at that grand ball.

"'I can only tell you,' said the surgeon-major of the company of which I
was paymaster, 'I applied formally to Prince Murat only yesterday to
be recalled. Without being afraid exactly of leaving my bones in the
Peninsula, I would rather dress the wounds made by our worthy neighbors
the Germans. Their weapons do not run quite so deep into the body as
these Castilian daggers. Besides, a certain dread of Spain is, with
me, a sort of superstition. From my earliest youth