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Having entered the Polytechnic School, at the end of 1803, I was placed in the excessively boisterous brigade of the Gascons and Britons. I should have much liked to study thoroughly physics and chemistry, of which I did not even know the first rudiments; but the behaviour of my companions rarely left me any time for it.
They were Gascons, and were ready to die, but they held their breath as they listened to the steady tramping on the stone steps below. In the torchlight they saw Gilbert's face, and the faces of Queen's men, and that there were no swords out; nevertheless, they kept theirs drawn and stood in the doorway, and on the landing Gilbert stood still, for they did not make way for him.
Molard also fell with many other officers of the Gascons and Picards, which nation lost all their glory that day among the French. But their loss was exceeded by the death of Foix, with whom perished the very sinews and spirits of that army.
Of late, in the light of recent events, he had tried to annul his disloyalty, and put another face upon his proceedings; but only his obscurity, and the remoteness of his possessions in the far south, would protect him from Edward's wrath when the affairs of the rebel Gascons came to be inquired into in detail.
Croustillac had that overweening belief in himself which one finds only among the Gascons. He so exaggerated his merits and natural graces to himself that he believed no woman was able to resist him; the list of his conquests of every kind had been interminable.
He was born under the Pyrenees; he was a Gascon of the Gascons, one of a people strongly distinguished by intellectual and moral character, by manners, by modes of speech, by accent, and by physiognomy from the French of the Seine and of the Loire; and he had many of the peculiarities of the race to which he belonged.
Lord Kew said, No, indeed, he thought nothing of de Castillonnes' rudeness. "I am so glad! These heroes of the salle-d'armes have not the commonest manners. These Gascons are always flamberge au vent. What would the charming Miss Ethel say, if she heard of the dispute?"
The Gascons, says an old chronicler, were a people who used smooth words when expedient, but force when they had power, and were ready to lay their hands on every thing they met. Though poor, they were proud; for there was not one who did not pride himself on being a hijo-dalgo, or the son of somebody.
I have been at Bordeaux, but no farther south. "I don't know whether you think that three would be too many. Your men are all Gascons, and one or other of them might know the part of the country you wish to travel." "I had not thought of it," Philip said; "but the idea is a good one. It would depend greatly upon our disguises."
"Two fingers on the mouth, is it not?" "Yes; success attend you." "Well, monsieur page," said the man on the black horse, "are you ready?" "Here I am," replied he, jumping lightly on the horse, behind the cavalier, who immediately joined his friends who were occupied in exhibiting their cards and proving their right to enter. "Ventre de Biche!" said Robert Briquet; "what an arrival of Gascons!"
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