tfall, but before
proceeding it was absolutely necessary that our horses should have rest.
Dismounting, therefore, I bade La Trape see the sorrel well baited.
Observing that the inn was a poor place, and no one coming to wait upon
me, I entered it of my own motion, and found myself at once in a large
room better furnished with company than accommodation. Three men, who
had the appearance of such reckless swaggering blades as are generally
to be found drinking in the inns on the outskirts of Paris, and who come
not unfrequently to their ends at Montfaucon, were tippling and playing
cards at a table near the door. They looked up sullenly at my entrance,
but refrained from saluting me, which, as I was plainly dressed and much
stained by travel, was in some degree pardonable. By the fire, partaking
of a coarse meal, was a fourth man of so singular an appearance that I
must needs describe him. He was of great height and extreme leanness.
His face matched his form, for it was long and thin, terminating in a
small peaked beard which, like his hair and mustachios, was as white as
snow. With all this, his eyes glowed with much of the fire of youth, and
his brown complexion and sinewy hands seemed still to indicate robust
health. He was dressed in garments which had once been fashionable, but
now bore marks of long and rough usage, and I remarked that the point of
his sword, which, as he sat, trailed on the stones behind him, had worn
its way through the scabbard. Notwithstanding these signs of poverty, he
saluted me with the ease and politeness of a gentleman, and bade me with
much courtesy to share his table and the fire. Accordingly I drew up,
and called for a bottle of the best wine, being minded to divert myself
with him.

I was little prepared, however, for the turn his conversation took, and
the furious tirade into which he presently broke, the object of which
proved to be no other than myself! I do not know that I have ever cut so
whimsical a figure as while hearing my name loaded with reproaches;
but, being certain that he did not know me, I waited patiently, and soon
learned both who he was, and the grievance which he was on his way to
lay before the king. His name was Boisrose, and he had been the leader
in that gallant capture of Fecamp, which took place while I was
in Normandy as the king's representative. His grievance was that,
notwithstanding promises in my letters, he had been deprived of the
government of the pl