him a rendezvous." But the
other party replied coolly that it "was his custom" to be called on if
people had business with him, and gave his address. Saint-Foix goes next
morning, and is received with the utmost politeness and asked to
breakfast. "That's not the question," says the indignant Breton. "Let us
go out." "I never go out without breakfasting; _it is my custom_," says
the provincial, and does as he says, politely repeating invitations from
time to time to his fretting adversary. At last they do go out, to
Saint-Foix's great relief; but they pass a _cafe_, and it is once more
the stranger's sacred custom to play a game of chess or draughts after
breakfast. The same thing happens with a "turn" in the Tuileries, at
which Saint-Foix does not fume quite so much, because it is on the way
to the Champs Elysees, where fighting is possible. The "turn" achieved,
he himself proposes to adjourn there. "What for?" says the stranger
innocently. "What _for_? A pretty question _pardieu_! To fight, of
course! Have you forgotten it?" "_Fight!_ Why, sir, what are you
thinking of? What would people say of me? A magistrate, a treasurer of
France, put sword in hand? They would take us for a couple of fools."
Which argument being unanswerable, according to the etiquette of the
time, Saint-Foix leaves the dignitary--who himself takes good care to
tell the story. It must be remembered--first that no actual _challenge_
had passed, merely an ambiguous demand for addresses; secondly, that the
treasurer, as the superior by far in rank, had a right to suppose
himself known to his inferiors; and thirdly, that to challenge a
"magistrate" was in France equivalent to being, in the words of a
lampoon quoted by Macaulay, "'Gainst ladies and bishops excessively
valiant" in England.

[246] Although there is a good deal of merit in some of these tales,
none of them approaches the charming _Diable Amoureux_ which Cazotte
produced in 1772, twenty years before his famous and tragical death
after once escaping the Revolutionary fangs. This little story, which is
at least as much of a fairy tale as many things "cabinetted," would be
nearly perfect if Cazotte had not unluckily botched it with a double
ending, neither of the actual closes being quite satisfactory. If, in
one of them, he had had the pluck to stop at the outcry of the succubus
Biondetta when she has at last attained her object,

"Je suis le diable! mon cher Alvare, je suis le diable!"