Horse to the Dauphin, State Exon to the sons and daughters of France, Marshal of its armies, and chevalier of half-a-dozen orders in his own and other countries, with no decoration on earth left to wish for but the Golden Fleece of Spain, which he coveted greedily in consequence, and prized above them all, arrived at the Hôtel Montmirail almost in the moment when Abbé Malletort quitted it at the front entrance, and Captain George of the Grey Musketeers left it by the garden door.
Though the Prince's chance of victory must have been doubtful at any time, I do not think he could have chosen a more unfavourable moment to deploy into line, as it were, and offer battle in the open field. His fair enemy had already been skirmishing with one foe, and caught sight of another, whom she would willingly have engaged. Her trumpets had sounded the Alerte, her colours were displayed, her artillery was in advance, guns unlimbered, matches lighted, front cleared, all her forces ready and quivering for action—woe to the veteran when he should leave his entrenchments, and sally forth to hazard all his past successes on the rash issue of one stand-up fight!
His instincts told him he was wrong, even while he followed the obsequious lackey, in the Montmirail livery, through the glittering suite of rooms that led him to his fate. Followed, with cold hands and shaking knees, he who had led stormers and commanded armies! Even to himself there was a something of ridicule in the position; and he smiled, as a man smiles who is going to the dentist, while he whispered—"Courage, my child! It is but a quarter of an hour, after all! and yet—I wish I had put that other glass of brandy into my Lait de Poule!"
The Marquise received him more graciously than usual, and this, too, had he known it, was an omen of ill-success. But it is strange how little experience teaches in the campaigns of Cupid, how completely his guerilla style of warfare foils all regular strategy and established system of tactics. I believe any school-girl in her teens to be a match for the most insidious adversary of the opposite sex; and I think that the older the male serpent, and the oftener he has cast his skin, the more easily does his subtlety succumb to the voice of the innocent and unconscious charmer.
