hose people, any
more than to me.'

EGO. "'Oh, Sire, your Majesty, since then, owes him some compensation
for the sabre-cuts he had on his head.'

KING. "'He gets but too much compensation. Pinto, did n't I send you
yesterday some of my good Preussen honey?'

PINTO. "'Oh, surely;--it was to make the thing known. If your Majesty
could bring that into vogue, and sell it all, you would be the greatest
King in the world. For your Kingdom produces only that; but of that
there is plenty.'

"'Do you know,' said the King, one day, to me,--'Do you know that the
first soldiering I did was for the House of Austria? MON DIEU, how the
time passes!'--He had a way of slowly bringing his hands together, in
ejaculating these MON-DIEUS, which gave him quite a good-natured and
extremely mild air.--(Do you know that I saw the glittering of the last
rays of Prince Eugen's genius?'

EGO. "'Perhaps it was at these rays that your Majesty's genius lit
itself.'

KING. "'EH, MON DIEU! who could equal the Prince Eugen?'

EGO. "'He who excels him;--for instance, he who could win Twelve
Battles!'--He put on his modest air. I have always said, it is easy
to be modest, if you are in funds. He seemed as though he had not
understood me, and said:--

KING. "'When the cabal which, during forty years, the Prince had always
had to struggle with in his Army, were plotting mischief on him, they
used to take advantage of the evening time, when his spirits, brisk
enough in the morning, were jaded by the fatigues of the day. It was
thus they persuaded him to undertake his bad March on Mainz' [March not
known to me].

EGO. "'Regarding yourself, Sire, and the Rhine Campaign, you teach me
nothing. I know everything your Majesty did, and even what you said.
I could relate to you your Journeys to Strasburg, to Holland, and what
passed in a certain Boat. Apropos of this Rhine Campaign, one of our old
Generals, whom I often set talking, as one reads an old Manuscript, has
told me how astonished he was to see a young Prussian Officer, whom he
did not know, answering a General of the late King, who had given out
the order, Not to go a-foraging: "And I, Sir, I order you to go; our
Army needs it; in short, I will have it so (JE LE VEUX)!--"'

KING. "'You look at me too much from the favorable side! Ask these
Gentlemen about my humors and my caprices; they will tell you fine
things of me.'

"We got talking of some Anecdotes which are consigned to, or conceale