s ready to sell their blood for a good price, and who,
in time of peace, when their swords are useless to the State, place them
at the service of individuals.

On becoming a conspirator one always becomes superstitious, and
D'Harmental fancied that it was an intervention of Providence which had
introduced him to Roquefinette. The chevalier, without being a regular
customer, went occasionally to the tavern of La Fillon. It was quite
fashionable at that time to go and drink at her house. D'Harmental was
to her neither her son, a name which she gave to all her "habitues," nor
her gossip, a word which she reserved for the Abbe Dubois, but simply
Monsieur le Chevalier; a mark of respect which would have been
considered rather a humiliation by most of the young men of fashion. La
Fillon was much astonished when D'Harmental asked to see one of her
servants, called La Normande.

"Oh, mon Dieu! Monsieur le Chevalier!" said she, "I am really
distressed; but La Normande is waiting at a dinner which will last till
to-morrow evening."

"Plague! what a dinner!"

"What is to be done?" replied La Fillon. "It is a caprice of an old
friend of the house. He will not be waited on by any one but her, and I
cannot refuse him that satisfaction."

"When he has money, I suppose?"

"You are mistaken. I give him credit up to a certain sum. It is a
weakness, but one cannot help being grateful. He started me in the
world, such as you see me, monsieur--I, who have had in my house the
best people in Paris, including the regent. I was only the daughter of a
poor chair-bearer. Oh! I am not like the greater part of your beautiful
duchesses, who deny their origin; nor like two-thirds of your dukes and
peers, who fabricate genealogies for themselves. No! what I am, I owe to
my own merit, and I am proud of it."

"Then," said the chevalier, who was not particularly interested by La
Fillon's history, "you say that La Normande will not have finished with
this dinner till to-morrow evening?"

"The jolly old captain never stays less time than that at table, when
once he is there."

"But, my dear presidente" (this was a name sometimes given to La Fillon,
as a certain quid pro quo for the presidente who had the same name as
herself), "do you think, by chance, your captain may be my captain?"

"What is yours called?"

"Captain Roquefinette."

"It is the same."

"He is here?"

"In person."

"Well, he is just the man I want; and I only asked for