CHAPTER XIX
THE COMMISSION
Lecour returned to the Hotel de Noailles overwhelmed withforebodings--one of those revulsions which come during long-continuedexcitement.
"End the farce, fool," he exclaimed to himself despondently, hurrying tothe quarters of the Princess. She received him "in her bath,"--acircumstance not unusual and which meant a covered foot-bath and ahandsome _deshabille_ gown.
"Madame," he said. An emotion he could not quite hide caused him tohesitate--"my days at Versailles are ended. I am come to present mygratitude at your feet for the great kindness your Excellencies haveshown me. Believe, Madame----"
"Monsieur de Repentigny, you speak of leaving us?"
"It is too true."
"Truth is the only thing I find ill-mannered. Why should you leave us?"
"Because, Madame, it is my duty."
"No gentleman should have duties. Are you discontented with Versailles?"
"On the contrary it is the place where I should be most happy."
"This is a riddle, then. Plainly, you are indispensable to us. Can Itempt you by some pension, some honour, some office? I have a beneficevacant, but should dislike to see those locks of yours tonsured. What doyou say to the army?"
"It is impossible, for me."
"The army, I say, it shall be."
"Madame----"
"To-morrow I will hear your choice concerning this commission--horse,foot, or artillery?"
One did not argue with Princesses--partly because Princesses did notargue with one. He humbly retired, revolving an undefined notion offlight.
By chance Grancey entered during the afternoon.
"Homesick, just at the nick of fortune? Do you know that asub-lieutenancy is vacant in my company? Sub-lieutenant, with rank of aColonel of Dragoons?"
"I did not."
"You must ask for it."
"That is out of the question, my lord." The gravity and humility of hisdemeanour astonished Grancey, who surveyed him quizzically. "Is this anew _role_, Repentigny, a part from _The Unconscious Philosopher_? Areyou ill?"
"I am leaving Versailles."
"Nonsense."
"And France."
"Never!"
"It is the case."
"But I have named you for the sub-lieutenancy."
Lecour looked up; but it was not enough to revive him from so deep aslough.
"I must go, Baron."
"_Galimatias!_ You shall not throw away a commission in the Bodyguard ofthe greatest Court in Europe. My brother-officers demand you, and youmust not desert me, your friend--your _friend_, Germain."
Germain went over to a window and looked out, to hide the tears withwhich his eyes were filling. In the courtyard below a coach had stoppedat one of the doors. Cyrene was entering it. Why was she brought beforehim just at that moment. This inopportune glimpse of her cancelled allreasoning. With fevered sight he watched her till the coach disappeared,and turning, said eagerly to de Grancey--
"Is not the Prince's consent required?"
"You agree!" Grancey cried, embracing him joyfully. "As to the Prince,comrade," said he, "the sole difficulty is that he will grant anythingto anybody. We must get his signature--for which I admit it is delicateto ask him--before any other applicant."
Lecour's pulses sprang back to life.
"Could the _Princess_ assist us?" he inquired.
"Perfect!" cried the Baron.
Germain returned to her apartment. The Abbe was handing her a paper andsaying--
"An entirely worthy gentleman, your Excellency, and wounded in severalof the King's victories, as well as of irreproachable descent."
Germain did not guess until it was too late that this was the petitionof the Chevalier de la Violette.
She was stretching out her hand to take the pen which Jude passed toher.
"Madame," Lecour exclaimed breathlessly, "I have a prayer to make to youimmediately."
"Yes, Monsieur de Repentigny?"
"For a commission."
"Delightful."
"A vacant commission of sub-lieutenant in the company of the Prince."
She dropped the pen in wonder and looked at the Abbe Jude, whose faceturned sickly.
And so Germain obtained a great position.
"As a matter of form," said Major Collinot, the Adjutant of theBodyguard, at headquarters, "Monsieur de Repentigny of course proves thenecessary generations of _noblesse_?"
"Here is the herald's attestation, sir," replied Germain, producing thatwhich Grancey's intercession had obtained for him at Fontainebleau.
Doubly past the strictest tests of ancestry and reassured in boldness hewas now ready even to play cards with the dread Marechale deNoailles--her who it was reported once said, "That although our Lord wasborn in a stable yet it must be remembered St. Joseph was of royal lineand not any common carpenter."
The pomp and glitter of the new life appealed immensely to the youthfulinstincts of the Canadian. The Baron detailed to his fascinated listenerthe composition, privileges, and duties of the Gardes--
"We are thirteen hundred, Repentigny, in four companies--the Scotch, theVilleroy, the Noailles, and the Luxembourg, each over three hundredpersons; we relieve each other every three months. Just now it is theturn of our company of Noailles. Of the three months, each man spendsone on guard at the Palace, one at the hunting-lodge, and one atliberty; after that we withdraw to towns some distance apart, those ofthe Noailles company to Troyes in Champagne." He told with pride of whatgood stature and descent it was necessary to be to be received, howkeenly sought after even the commissions as privates were, hence thefine picked appearance of the body. He dilated on the variousinstruments and startling costumes of his company's band; on the styleof their horses and the magnificence of their reviews and parades; onthe superiority of the pale blue cross-belts which distinguished them,over the silver and white ones of the Scotch company, the green of theVilleroys, the yellow of the Luxembourgs. These differences, heasserted, were the greatest distinctions under the sun.
Let us in our colder blood add to his description that each ofthese companies consisted of one captain, one adjutant, twolieutenant-commandants of squadron, three lieutenants, tensub-lieutenants, two standard-bearers, ten quartermasters, twosub-quartermasters, twenty brigadiers or sergeants, two hundred andeighty guards, one timbalier, and five trumpeters. Germain studied theroll with great interest.