But he was not long wanting the occasion to prove his taste in the
matter of handling a weapon. A certain led-captain, Rohrer by
name, notorious, amongst other things, for bearing a dexterous and
bloodthirsty blade, came to Bath post-haste, one night, and jostled
heartily against him, in the pump-room on the following morning. M.
de Chauteaurien bowed, and turned aside without offense, continuing a
conversation with some gentlemen near by. Captain Rohrer jostled
against him a second time. M. de Chateaurien looked him in the eye, and
apologized pleasantly for being so much in the way. Thereupon Rohrer
procured an introduction to him, and made some observations derogatory
to the valor and virtue of the French. There was current a curious piece
of gossip of the French court: a prince of the blood royal, grandson of
the late Regent and second in the line of succession to the throne
of France, had rebelled against the authority of Louis XV, who had
commanded him to marry the Princess Henriette, cousin to both of them.
The princess was reported to be openly devoted to the cousin who refused
to accept her hand at the bidding of the king; and, as rumor ran, the
prince's caprice elected in preference the discipline of Vincennes, to
which retirement the furious king had consigned him. The story was the
staple gossip of all polite Europe; and Captain Rohrer, having in his
mind a purpose to make use of it in leading up to a statement that
should be general to the damage of all Frenchwomen, and which a
Frenchman might not pass over as he might a jog of the elbow, repeated
it with garbled truths to make a scandal of a story which bore none on a
plain relation.
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