After George had related how he had been married off at twenty-two by
his aunt, the Baroness de Stilb, Paul said: "_I_ was married off by a
circus charger. I was very nearly forty years of age, and I felt so
peacefully settled in my little bachelor habits that, in the best faith
in the world, on all occasions, I swore by the gods never to run the
great risk of marriage; but I reckoned without the circus charger.

"It was in the last days of September, 1864. I had just arrived from
Baden-Baden, and my intention was to spend only twenty-four hours in
Paris. I had invited four or five of my friends--Callières, Bernheim,
Frondeville, and Valreas--to my place in Poitou for the shooting season.
They were to come in the first part of October, and it needed a week to
put all in order at Roche-Targé. A letter from my overseer awaited me in
Paris, and the letter brought disastrous news; the dogs were well, but
out of the dozen hunting horses that I had there, five, during my
sojourn at Baden, had fallen sick or lame, and I found myself
absolutely forced to get new horses.

"I made a tour of the Champs-Elysées sellers, who showed me as hunters a
fine collection of broken--down skeletons. Average price, three thousand
francs. Roulette had treated me badly of late, and I was neither in the
humor, nor had I the funds, to spend in that way seven or eight hundred
louis in a morning.

"It was a Wednesday, and Chéri was holding his first autumn sale. I went
to the Rue de Ponthieu during the day; and there out of the lot, on
chance, without inquiry, blindly, by good-luck, and from the mere
declarations of the catalogue--'_Excellent hunter, good jumper, has
hunted with lady rider_,' etc.--I bought eight horses, which only cost