Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/17

Rh the good sense to keep out of politics, and his name occurs but rarely in memoirs and histories of the day. In Vatel's Vie de Madame du Barry he is mentioned as being present at a dinner party to which she was invited. The incident is related in the MS. Memoirs of Comte Dufort de Cheverny. "Seeing that the Chevalier wore the Order of Cincinnatus, she told us the following story. 'When I was at Versailles, I had the six tallest and best looking footmen that could be found, but the noisiest, laziest rascals that ever lived. The ring-leader of them gave me so much trouble that I was obliged to send him away. The war in America was then beginning, and he asked for letters of recommendation. I gave them, and he left me with a well filled purse, and I was glad to get rid of him. A year ago he came to see me, and he was wearing the Order of Cincinnatus.' We all laughed at the story, except the Chevalier de Pontgibaud."

On the fly leaf of a book in the Library at Clermont Ferrand there are also some