tish India. I concluded that the chagrin Regnard
had felt at losing Francezka was very deep and had much increased his
distaste for his native country, but on the whole, his conduct
appeared both unfeeling and ungenerous. Madame Riano oscillated
between Paris and Brabant. I think the attitude of her mind had
something to do with Francezka's obstinate clinging to the belief that
Gaston Cheverny was alive and would be found. Madame Riano's belief
was superstitious, pure and simple. She actually believed that nobody
married to a Kirkpatrick could be called out of this world without
ceremony. There must be all the ghostly accessories by which the exits
of the Kirkpatricks were made as imposing as the Deity could
contrive--so thought she; but to Francezka it always seemed the height
of wisdom to believe Gaston Cheverny to be alive.

Much of the year 1736 we spent at Paris, and Count Saxe again occupied
himself with his _amusettes_, and in the invention of a wheel by which
boats could be propelled through the water. The women, I admit, still
chased him vigorously; one brazen princess would not let him get the
length of a cow's tail away from her. But was this to be wondered at?
Maurice of Saxe seemed to be sent into this world to conquer all women
as well as all men.

We were always lodged magnificently in Paris, at the Luxembourg, and
at Versailles and Fontainebleau, and Marly-le-Roi, when we went to
court. The king could not do enough for Count Saxe, and had already
begun to consider giving him the Castle of Chambord, as he afterward
did. Count Saxe could, if he had wished, put the king's shirt on him
every morning, but Count Saxe was not a perfect courtier, after the
sort described by the Regent of Orleans, who defined a perfect
courtier as a man without pride or temper. Count Saxe had both, and
did not like the business of valeting, even for kings.

He spent much time on his book, _Mes Reves_, he dictating and I
writing it. He also studied the seven books on war by that Florentine
secretary, Niccolo Machiavelli, who knew more about war than any man
who ever wore a black cloak. He was the first who invented the
battalion formation. Count Saxe used to say, laughing, that according
to Machiavelli, I lacked an essential of a good soldier--gaiety of
heart. I always replied that the Tatars, my royal ancestors, like
other princes, had not much cause for gaiety, and that my somberness
was due to the exalted rank with which I h