e, and roused the entire country. The next
day, when Francezka and Gaston publicly gave thanks in the church,
half the province was present.

Gaston was, of course, besieged with inquiries concerning the
vicissitudes which had befallen him. They turned out to be quite as
strange as might have been expected. The wound on his head had been
severe, and had caused him great suffering, and, what was worse, had
brought upon him long periods of forgetfulness. He had no recollection
of anything that had happened to him after being struck by the
Austrian bullet, and could not recall even the incident of the little
village in the Taunus, where he had been seen three months after his
capture. His first connected impressions were, on finding himself in
Holland, and next, he knew not how, on a Dutch ship bound for Batavia.
After nearly a year he had reached Batavia, and then began the
struggle to return to Europe. He had written repeatedly to Francezka,
and to his friends; that is, scrawled as well as he could, with his
left hand, for his right hand, although it had no outward mark of
weakness, was quite unfit for writing. He could not explain the cause
of this; it was one of those blanks in his memory, in which some of
the most painful as well as some of the dearest of his recollections
were erased.

Being bred to the trade of a soldier, he knew no other means of
livelihood and he found it hard, in his wanderings, to keep body and
soul together. He was alone in a far country, unacquainted with the
languages, and further borne down by those physical and mental
ailments which only mended in the course of long years. Only two
things remained ever clear and unclouded with him: one was, the
remembrance of Francezka; the other was, a fixed determination to
return to Europe. By degrees, his mind recovered its poise and his
body its health; but seven years were consumed from the time he was
snatched away from his country, from his love, his health, his
understanding, until he was again restored to them.

Some of this we heard before we left Paris. Of course, the women would
not let Count Saxe depart in peace. The Countess Vielinski followed us
with post-horses as far as Mezieres, and Count Saxe only saved himself
by decamping in the night, galloping out of one gate of the town, as
Madame Vielinski's berlin rolled into the other. And yet this man is
called a gay Lothario!

Everywhere on the road people were talking of Gaston Cheverny's