The old soldier shoved back his hat, and offered me his snuff-box. I
judged by this that he was a little mollified.

"Ah!" he renewed, after a pause, "ah! times are sadly changed since the
year 1667; when the young King--he was young then--took the field in
Flanders, under the great Turenne. /Sacristie/! What a hero he looked
upon his white war-horse! I would have gone--ay, and the meanest and
backwardest soldier in the camp would have gone--into the very mouth of
the cannon for a look from that magnificent countenance, or a word from
that mouth which knew so well what words were! Sir, there was in the
war of '72, when we were at peace with Great Britain, an English
gentleman, then in the army, afterwards a marshal of France: I remember,
as if it were yesterday, how gallantly he behaved. The King sent to
compliment him after some signal proof of courage and conduct, and asked
what reward he would have. 'Sire,' answered the Englishman, 'give me
the white plume you wore this day.' From that moment the Englishman's
fortune was made."

"The flattery went further than the valour!" said I, smiling, as I
recognized in the anecdote the first great step which my father had made
in the ascent of fortune.

"/Sacristie/!" cried the Frenchman, "it was no flattery then. We so
idolized the King that mere truth would have seemed disloyalty; and we
no more thought that praise, however extravagant, was adulation, when
directed to him, than we should have thought there was adulation in the
praise we would have given to our first mistress. But it is all changed
now! Who now cares for the old priest-ridden monarch?"

And upon this the veteran, having conquered the momentary enthusiasm