Their happiness reminds me
of the good times of my youth, when adventures were not lacking, any
more than duels. We were gay dogs then! Nowadays you think and worry
over everything, as though there had never been a fifteenth and a
sixteenth century."
"But, monsieur, are we not in the right? The sixteenth century only
gave religious liberty to Europe, and the nineteenth will give it
political lib----"
"Oh, we will not talk politics. I am a perfect old woman--ultra you
see. But I do not hinder young men from being revolutionary, so long
as they leave the King at liberty to disperse their assemblies."
When they had gone a little way, and the Count and his companion were
in the heart of the woods, the old sailor pointed out a slender young
birch sapling, pulled up his horse, took out one of his pistols, and
the bullet was lodged in the heart of the tree, fifteen paces away.
"You see, my dear fellow, that I am not afraid of a duel," he said
with comical gravity, as he looked at Monsieur Longueville.
"Nor am I," replied the young man, promptly cocking his pistol; he
aimed at the hole made by the Comte's bullet, and sent his own close
to it.
"That is what I call a well-educated man," cried the admiral with
enthusiasm.
During this ride with the youth, whom he already regarded as his
nephew, he found endless opportunities of catechizing him on all the
trifles of which a perfect knowledge constituted, according to his
private code, an accomplished gentleman.
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