"That you must either fight the Vicomte de Marn to-night, or clear out
of Paris to-morrow. Your position in our set would become untenable,"
retorted the Colonel, not unkindly, for in spite of Deroulede's
extraordinary attitude, there was nothing in his bearing or his
appearance that suggested cowardice or fear.

"I bow to your superior knowledge of your friends, M. le Colonel,"
responded Deroulede, as he silently drew his sword from its sheath.

The centre of the saloon was quickly cleared. The seconds measured
the length of the swords and then stood behind the antagonists,
slightly in advance of the groups of spectators, who stood massed all
round the room.

They represented the flower of what France had of the best and noblest
in name, in lineage, in chivalry, in that year of grace 1783. The
storm-cloud which a few years hence was destined to break over their
heads, sweeping them from their palaces to the prison and the
guillotine, was only gathering very slowly in the dim horizon of
squalid, starving Paris: for the next half-dozen years they would
still dance and gamble, fight and flirt, surround a tottering throne,
and hoodwink a weak monarch. The Fates' avenging sword still rested in
its sheath; the relentless, ceaseless wheel still bore them up in
their whirl of pleasure; the downward movement had only just begun:
the cry of the oppressed children of France had not yet been heard
above the din of dance music and lovers' serenades.

The young Duc de Chateaudun was there, he who, nine years later, went
to the guillotine on that cold September morning, his hair dressed in