Marquis, you will retire at once to your
estates." The two gentlemen bowed and left the royal presence.
"Not worse than I expected," the marquis said, after the door had closed
behind them. "Now he will send for St. Aignan and De Lisle, and will hear
their account, and as it cannot but tally with ours the king must see
that the duke brought his fate upon himself. Louis is not unjust when his
temper cools down, and in a few weeks we shall meet again here."
"I expect to be on the frontier with my regiment before that," Colonel
Hume replied; "but as I would rather be there than in Paris that will be
no hardship."
Colonel Hume at once mounted and rode back to Paris and proceeded
straight to the hotel of Marshal Saxe, to whom he communicated what had
occurred.
"If Leslie gets safely away it will, perhaps, all turn out for the best,"
the marshal said. "As soon as the king's anger dies out I will begin to
plead the cause of the boy's parents; and now that the influence of
Chateaurouge the other way is withdrawn, I may hope for a more favourable
hearing. As to the lad himself, we will make his peace in a few months.
The king is brave himself, as he showed when under fire at Fontenoy, and
he admires bravery in others, and when he has once got over the loss of
Chateaurouge he will appreciate the skill and courage which the lad
showed in an encounter with one of the most noted duellists in France.
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