Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/75

 3. The Queen is reported by Marion to have addressed the messenger as "Breton." This was not an uncommon name about the court and old Versailles. The court almanack for 1783 shows that then the Queen had a Page "de l'Écurie," called "De Bretagne." (The Pages de la Chambre sometimes became "de l'Écurie" before receiving a commission or some other office. ) He is not mentioned in the almanack of 1789, but (as we know from other instances) it does not follow necessarily that he had no office in the household. Madame Éloffe (the Queen's modiste) mentions a Mademoiselle Breton amongst the Queen's women, who does not appear in the almanack.

If "De Bretagne" was 16 years old in 1783, he would have been 22 in 1789,—just in the fresh young vigour suitable to our running man.

The name "Breton" may have referred to his nationality only, for in November, 1907, we discovered that the accent in which the man spoke to us resembled the Breton accent,