and below were my white buskins and spurs.'

Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, could not help
laughing at the parti-coloured costume, sacerdotal above, soldier-like
below; but the cardinal was greatly offended--not with the absence of
decorum, but with the dangerous wit, that could laugh in public at the
cowl and shaven crown, points which constituted the greatest portion of
Richelieu's sanctity.

De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed the Chevalier:--'Well, my
little parson,' said he, as they went home, 'you have acted your part to
perfection; but now you must choose your career. If you like to stick to
the church, you will possess great revenues, and nothing to do; if you
choose to go into the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in
time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg and a glass eye, the
spectacle of an indifferent, ungrateful court. Make your choice.'

The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. For the good of his
soul, he renounced the church, but for his own advantage, he kept his
abbacy. This was not difficult in days when secular abbés were common;
nothing would induce him to change his resolution of being a soldier.
Meantime he was perfecting his accomplishments as a fine gentleman, one
of the requisites for which was a knowledge of all sorts of games. No
matter that his mother was miserable at his decision. Had her son been
an abbé, she thought he would have become a saint: nevertheless, when he
returned home, with the air of a courtier and a man of the world, boy as
he was, and the very impersonation of what might then be termed _la
jeune France_, she was so enchanted with him that she consented to his
going to the wars, attended again by Brinon, his valet, equerry, and
Mentor in one. Next in De Grammont's narrative came his adventure at