Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in Languedoc that day, for
they believed that it was against the Cardinal, who sought to strip
them of so many privileges, that Gaston d'Orleans had set up his
standard.
That those rumours of battle and defeat were true we had ample
proof some few hours later, when a company of dragoons in buff and
steel rode into the courtyard of the Auberge de Navarre, headed by
a young spark of an officer, who confirmed the rumour and set the
number of Montmorency's wounds at seventeen. He was lying, the
officer told us, at Castelnaudary, and his duchess was hastening
to him from Beziers. Poor woman! She was destined to nurse him
back to life and vigour only that he might take his trial at
Toulouse and pay with his head the price of his rebellion.
Ganymede who, through the luxurious habits of his more recent years
had - for all his fine swagger - developed a marked distaste for
warfare and excitement, besought me to take thought for my safety
and to lie quietly at Montauban until the province should be more
settled.
"The place is a hotbed of rebellion," he urged. "If these Chouans
but learn that we are from Paris and of the King's party, we shall
have our throats slit, as I live. There is not a peasant in all
this countryside indeed, scarce a man of any sort but is a red-hot
Orleanist, anti-Cardinalist, and friend of the Devil. Bethink you,
monseigneur, to push on at the present is to court murder.
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