"Abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "I have not read your Polyaenus, and do
not think I ever shall read him. But like every true gentleman, I
have been to the wars. I have served the king for eighteen months.
It is the noblest of all professions. I'll tell you exactly what war
is. I may tell the secret of it, as nobody is present to listen but
yourself, some bottles, yonder gentleman whom I intend to kill very
shortly, and that girl, who begins to undress herself."

"Yes," said Catherine, "I undress, and will keep only my chemise on,
because I feel too hot."

"Well then," M. d'Anquetil continued, "whatever may be printed of it
in the gazettes, war consists, above all things, of stealing the
pigs and chickens of peasants. Soldiers in the fields have no other
occupation."

"You are right," said M. Coignard, "and in days of yore it was the
saying in Gaul that the soldier's best friend was Madame Marauding.
But I beg of you not to kill my pupil, Jacques Tournebroche."

"Ouf!" exclaimed Catherine, arranging the lace of her chemise on her
bosom. "Now I feel easier."

"Abbe," replied M. d'Anquetil, "honour compels me to do it."

But my kind-hearted tutor went on:

"Sir, Jacques Tournebroche is very useful to me for the translation,
I have undertaken, of Zosimus the Panopolitan. I would give you many
thanks not to fight him before the finishing touch has been given to