There may be some who refuse to take seriously a person like Albert
de Chantonnay because, forsooth, he happened to possess a sense of
the picturesque. There are, as a matter of fact, thousands of
sensible persons in the British Isles who fail completely to
understand the average Frenchman. To the English comprehension it
is, for instance, surprising that in time of stress--when Paris was
besieged by a German army--a hundred franc-tireur corps should
spring into existence, who gravely decked themselves in sombreros
and red waist-cloths, and called themselves the "Companions of
Death," or some claptrap title of a similar sound. Nevertheless,
these "Companions of Death" fought at Orleans as few have fought
since man walked this earth, and died as bravely as any in a
government uniform. Even the stolid German foe forgot, at last, to
laugh at the sombrero worn in midwinter.

It is useless to dub a Frenchman unreal and theatrical when he gaily
carries his unreality and his perception of the dramatic to the
lucarne of the guillotine and meets imperturbably the most real
thing on earth, Death.

Albert de Chantonnay was a good Royalist--a better Royalist, as many
were in France at this time, than the King--and, perhaps, he carried
his loyalty to the point that is reached by the best form of
flattery.

Let it be remembered that when, on the 3rd of May, 1814, Louis
XVIII. was reinstated, not by his own influence or exertions, but by
the allied sovereigns who had overthrown Napoleon, he began at once
to issue declarations and decrees as of the nineteenth year of his