"Who is this young gentleman?"

"Sire," answered the minister, stepping forward to present him to the
king, "this is Colonel Jean Cavalier."

"Ah yes," said the king contemptuously, "the former baker of Anduze!"

And shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, he passed on.

Cavalier on his side had, like Chamillard, taken a step forward, when
the scornful answer of the great king changed him into a statue. For
an instant he stood motionless and pale as death, then instinctively he
laid his hand on his sword, but becoming conscious that he was lost if
he remained an instant longer among these people, whom not one of his
motions escaped, although they pretended to despise him too much to
be aware of his presence, he dashed down the staircase and through the
hall, upsetting two or three footmen who were in his way, hurried into
the garden, ran across it at full speed, and regaining his room at
the hotel, threw himself on the floor, where he rolled like a maniac,
uttering cries of rage, and cursing the hour when, trusting to the
promises of M. de Villars, he had abandoned the mountains where he was
as much a king as Louis XIV at Versailles. The same evening he received
orders to leave Paris and rejoin his regiment at Macon. He therefore set
out the next morning, without seeing M. de Chamillard again.

Cavalier on arriving at Macon found that his comrades had had a visit
from M. d'Aygaliers, who had come again to Paris, in the hope of
obtaining more from the king than M. de Villars could or would grant.

Cavalier, without telling his comrades of the strange manner in which
the king had received him, gave them to understand that he was beginning
to fear that not only would the promises they had received be broken,
but that some strange trick would be played upon them.

Thereupon these men, whose chief and oracle he had been for so long,
asked him what they ought to do; Cavalier replied that if they would
follow him, their best course and his would be to take the first
opportunity of gaining the frontier and leaving the country. They all
declared themselves ready to follow him anywhere. This caused Cavalier a
new pang of regret, for he could not help recollecting that he had once
had under his command fifteen hundred men like these.

The next day Cavalier and his comrades set out on their march without
knowing whither they were being taken, not having been able to obtain
any information as to their destination from their esc