p, flung the pieces on the floor, and spat upon
them, calling out,--

"Bring dominos!"

In ten minutes the news of the insult offered to the Constitution
Opposition and the Liberal party, in the supersacred person of its
revered journal, which attacked priests with courage and the wit we
all remember, spread throughout the town and into the houses like
light itself; it was told and repeated from place to place. One phrase
was on everybody's lips,--

"Let us tell Max!"

Max soon heard of it. The royalist officers were still at their game
of dominos when that hero entered the cafe, accompanied by Major Potel
and Captain Renard, and followed by at least thirty young men, curious
to see the end of the affair, most of whom remained outside in the
street. The room was soon full.

"Waiter, _my_ newspaper," said Max, in a quiet voice.

Then a little comedy was played. The fat hostess, with a timid and
conciliatory air, said, "Captain, I have lent it!"

"Send for it," cried one of Max's friends.

"Can't you do without it?" said the waiter; "we have not got it."

The young royalists were laughing and casting sidelong glances at the
new-comers.

"They have torn it up!" cried a youth of the town, looking at the feet
of the young royalist captain.

"Who has dared to destroy that paper?" demanded Max, in a thundering
voice, his eyes flashing as he rose with his arms crossed.

"And we spat upon it," replied the three young officers, also rising,
and looking at Max.

"You have insulted the whole town!" said Max, turning livid.

"Well, what of that?" asked the youngest officer.

With a dexterity, quickness, and audacity which the young men did not
foresee, Max slapped the face of the officer nearest to him, saying,--

"Do you understand French?"

They fought near by, in the allee de Frapesle, three against three;
for Potel and Renard would not allow Max to deal with the officers
alone. Max killed his man. Major Potel wounded his so severely, that
the unfortunate young man, the son of a good family, died in the
hospital the next day. As for the third, he got off with a sword cut,
after wounding his adversary, Captain Renard. The battalion left for
Bourges that night. This affair, which was noised throughout Berry,
set Max up definitely as a hero.

The Knights of Idleness, who were all young, the eldest not more than
twenty-five years old, admired Maxence. Some among them, far from
sharing the prudery and strict no