all a
festive business.

At ten o'clock the same morning I arrived at the rooms of M. Louis de
Franchi. The seconds of Chateau-Renard had already called, and I passed
them on the stairs.

Louis had written me a note; with another friend, Baron Giordano
Martelli, the affair was to be arranged with Baron de Chateaugrand, and
M. de Boissy, the gentleman I had met on the stairs.

I looked at the cards of these two men, and asked Louis if the matter
was of any great seriousness.

Louis replied by telling the story of the quarrel. A friend of his, a
sea captain, had married a beautiful woman, so beautiful and so young
that Louis could not help falling in love with her. As an honourable man
he had kept away from the house, and then on being reproached by his
friend, had frankly told him the reason.

In return, his friend, who was just setting off for Mexico, commended
his wife, Emilie, whom he adored and trusted absolutely, to his care,
and asked his wife to consider Louis de Franchi as her brother. For six
months the captain had been away, and Emilie had been living at her
mother's. To this house, among other visitors, had come M. de Chateau-
Renard, and from the first, this typical man of the world had been an
object of dislike to Louis. Emilie's flirtations with Chateau-Renard at
last provoked a remonstrance from Louis, and in return the lady told him
that he was in love with her himself, and that he was absurd in his
notions. After that Louis had left off calling on Emilie, but gossip was
soon busy with the lady's name.

An anonymous letter had made an appointment for Louis with the lady of
the violets at the masked ball, and from this person he was informed
again not only of Emilie's infidelity, but further, that M. de
Chateau-Renard had wagered he would bring her to supper at D----'s.

The rest I knew, and I could only assent mournfully that things must go
on, and that the proposals of Chateau-Renard's seconds could not be
declined.

But M. Louis de Franchi had never touched sword or pistol in his life!
However, there was nothing for it but to return M. de Chateaugrand's
call.

Martelli and I found that Chateau-Renard's two supporters were both
polite men of the world. They were as indifferent as Louis was to the
choice of weapons, and by a spin of a coin it was decided that pistols
were to be used.

The place agreed upon for the duel was the Bois de Vincennes, and the
time nine o'clock the following morni