Which shows the truth of the French adage, "L'habit ne fait pas le moine."
I know I am very wrong, very partial, and very inconsiderate, to give two consecutive chapters to the Count de Blenau, when I have more people to despatch than had Captain Bobadil in the play, and less time to do it in. But I could not help it; those two last chapters would go together, and they were too long to be clapped up into one pat, as I have seen Sarah the dairy-maid do with the stray lumps of butter that float about in the butter-milk, after the rest of the churn's produce has been otherwise disposed of. So I am very sorry, and so forth.--And now, if you please, my dear reader, we will go on to some one else. What would you think of the Norman?--Very well!--For my part, I look upon him as the true hero of the story; for according to the best accounts, he eat more, drank more, lied more, and fought more than any one else, and was a great rogue into the bargain; all which, in the opinion of Homer, is requisite to the character of a hero. See the Odyssey _passim_.
At Troyes, the Norman's perquisitions were very successful. No Bow-street officer could have detected all the proceedings of Fontrailles with more acuteness. Step by step he traced him, from his first arrival at Troyes, till the day he set out for Mesnil St. Loup; and learning the road he had taken, he determined upon following the same track, for he shrewdly concluded, that whatever business of import the conspirator had been engaged in, had been transacted in the two days and one night, which, according to the story of the _garçon d'auberge_ at the Hotel du Grand Soleil, he had been absent from the good city of Troyes.
Now, our friend Monsieur Marteville had learned another piece of news, which made him the more willing to bend his steps in the direction pointed out as that which Fontrailles had taken. This was no other than that a considerable band of robbers had lately come down into that part of the country to collect their rents; and that their principal haunt was supposed to be the thick woods which lay on the borders of the high road to Troyes, in the neighbourhood of Mesnil.
True it is, the Norman had abandoned his free companions of the forest, and received the wages of Monsieur de Chavigni; but still he kept up a kind of desultory correspondence with his former associates, and had not lost sight of them till certain reports got about, that the _Lieutenant Criminel_ was going to visit the forest of Laye, which induced them to leave the vicinity of St. Germain, for fear that there should not be room enough in the forest for them and the Lieutenant too. It was natural enough that Marteville should wish to make a morning call upon his old friends: besides--I'll tell you a story. There was once upon a time a man who had a cat, of which he was so fond, that, understanding one Mr. Pigmalion had got an ivory statue changed into a wife by just asking it, he resolved to see what he could do for his cat in the same way. But I dare say you know the story just as well as I do--how the cat was changed into a woman, and how she jumped out of bed after a mouse, and so forth; showing plainly, that "what is bred in the bone will never go out of the flesh;" that "nature is better than a schoolmaster;" and that "you can never make a silk purse out of a sow's ear;" as Sancho would say. But, however, the Norman had a strange hankering after his good old trade, and was very well inclined to pass a day or two in the free forest, and do Chavigni's work into the bargain. There was a little _embarras_ indeed in the case, respecting Louise, for whom, in these first days of possession, he did feel a certain degree of attachment; and did not choose to leave her behind, though he did not like to take her with him, considering the society he was going to meet. "Pshaw!" said he at length, speaking to himself, "I'll leave her at Mesnil."