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His spur caught in the yielding carpet, and his saber clashed slightly against it; as the rentree au caserne had done an hour before, the sound recalled the actual present to him. He was but a French soldier, who went on sufferance into the presence of a great lady. All the rest was dead and buried. Some half dozen apartments, large and small, were crossed; then into that presence he was ushered.
There was En-ta-maboull, so nicknamed from his love for that unceremonious slang phrase a Zouave who had the history of a Gil Blas and the talent of a Crichton; the morals of an Abruzzi brigand and the wit of a Falstaff; aquiline-nosed, eagle-eyed, black-skinned as an African, with adventures enough in his life to outvie Munchausen; with a purse always penniless, as the camp sentence runs; who thrust his men through the body as coolly as others kill wasps; who roasted a shepherd over a camp-fire for contumacy in concealing Bedouin where-abouts; yet who would pawn his last shirt at the bazaar to help a comrade in debt, and had once substituted himself for, and received fifty blows on the loins in the stead of his sworn friend, whom he loved with that love of David for Jonathan which, in Caserne life, is readier found than in Club life.
Younge and Monsieur de Corseult, I visited the Caserne and the National School. The Caserne was formerly a Riding School of general reputation, and is one of the most superb buildings of the kind in the world. Peter the Great of Russia was here instructed in the equestrian art, and many other illustrious men are on its list of scholars. The National School has nothing worthy of peculiar remark.
Be this as it may, I have no intention of describing it, and shall content myself with observing that we took up our abode in that immense building, or caserne, of modern erection, which occupies the entire eastern side of the bold rock on which the Castle stands.
Your son is honest, candid a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nerague pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too strong of the barracks: ca flaire la caserne, mon ami."
It contains, perhaps, thirty houses, of which one is a parsonage, for there is a church, one a school-house, one a caserne, in which a party of jagers are quartered, and one which fulfils the two-fold duty of mill and gasthof. To this latter we bent our steps, and found in its tap-room rather better than the customary fare, that is to say, good white bread, as well as eggs and butter.
At the same barracks were a number of priests, including an archipretre, who was about to become a bishop. Even the most ferocious anti- clericals in the caserne had to acknowledge that these men were excellent soldiers and good comrades.
Following the walk on the ramparts, past the caserne or infantry barracks, one came upon the place of the ancient château of the counts, a vast construction under the name of "de Zaalhof." Here was an antique building called the "Lombard," dated 1616, covered with old iron "ancres" and crosses between the high small-paned windows.
In the early afternoon, and after every precaution possible had been taken to insure the success of the undertaking, Calvert, Brémond, and Favernay left the city, by different routes, for Courbevoie, agreeing to meet there at the caserne of the Swiss Guard to await the issue of the King's appeal to the Assembly and be ready to escort his Majesty by force, if necessary, to Compiègne, while Mr.
"He must go home with us to our caserne," said Cunningham; "there is no safety for him out of our bounds, whilst these man hunters are prowling." "May I not then abide for this night at the hostelry where I breakfasted, fair uncle?" said the youth thinking, perhaps, like many a new recruit, that even a single night of freedom was something gained.
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