"You were never more mistaken in your life, Master Fenton. We measured swords in the purest spirit of _esprit du corps_. I will tell you how it was. We were with the army that invested Doesburg, where the famous Adjutant Martinet was killed by a cannon-ball within a pike's length of me. We had long been at feud with that Regiment de Picardie, anent certain points of precedence and posts of honour, which was a state of matters not to be borne by us, who represent les Gardes-Ecossais of the sainted Louis, while the Battalion de Picardie was but one of the mere _vieux corps_ of Charles the Ninth's time. The Sieur de Guichet, their captain-lieutenant, and I came to high words about it, in a certain house ---- of ---- of ----."
"Ay, ay, Doctor, we all know the place," said two or three cavaliers, amid loud laughter. "Madame Papillotes' little château on the banks of the Issel: she always accompanied the army. A nice billet for your reverence truly."
"De Guichet quarrelled with me about precedence and right of _entrée_, though, as Chaplain of the Scots Royals, in the line of battle I rode next to Dunbarton himself. 'Tush, monsieur,' said I, laying hand on my sword, 'remember I am a Scottish cavalier, and Chaplain to the Guards of Pontius Pilate.' '_Nombril de Beelzebub!_' said the irreverend rascal, 'I believe you rightly name yourselves the Guards of Monseigneur Pilate, for had the old _routiers_ of the Regiment de Picardie kept guard on the Holy Sepulchre, they would not have slept on their posts as the Scots Musqueteers must have done.' 'This to a clergyman?' I exclaimed. 'Have at thee, d----d runnion!' and attacking him, sword in hand, I disarmed him at the third pass; and ever afterwards Messieurs the Regiment de Picardie cocked their beavers the other way when passing us in the breach or on the Boulevards."
"'Tis a brave old band," said Gavin of that ilk. "I saw them on the plains of Nordlingien. You remember how gallantly they repulsed a charge of the Count de Merci's steel-clad Lancers. We had just formed square, with Sweyns' feathers in front, to repel their onfall, when Monsieur de Martinet (whom all the world knows of), Adjutant of the Regiment du Roi, galloped up, rapier in hand, with an order from Monseigneur le Duc d'Enghien to form line in battalion with the horse and dragoons on the wings; but my Lord of Dunbarton was too old a soldier to hear him amid the roar of such a battle; and luckily a cannon-ball took Martinet's charger in the crupper, on which he scrambled away. But only conceive, sirs, to form line in face of a horse brigade! By my sooth, wild Hielandmen would have known better, and I marvel that Monseigneur d'Enghien and Monsieur de Martinet so greatly forgot their boasted _tactiques de guerre_; but, as I said to my Lord Dunbarton," _et cetera_, and so forth.