one that I let it stay on his head.

The second time was with young Gaston Cheverny, who afterward became a devoted adherent of my master—and whose strange story will be told in these pages. I will say, however, it is pretty generally understood when Babache, captain of Count Saxe’s body-guard of Uhlans, sometimes known as the Clear-the-way-boys, or the Storm-alongs, and also as the Devil’s Own, is in the neighborhood, that Count Saxe is the greatest man that ever lived.

I am supposed to be a Tatar prince, by birth, that is; but in truth the only claim I have to either the race or the title is, that I am very ugly. God could have made an uglier man than I am, because He is omnipotent, but I am sure He never did. I accept my ugliness. I can say as the actor at the Théâtre Français said, when the audience hissed him on account of his ugliness—it will be a great deal easier for people to get used to my face than for me to change it.

As to my birthplace, I was born in the Marais, in the cursed town of Paris, and my father was a notary in a small way. So was the father of Monsieur François Marie Arouet, who now calls himself Voltaire—and Count Saxe always swore I could write tragedies and national 3 epics as well as Arouet had I but tried. Especially, as I ever wrote, with the greatest readiness imaginable, a much better hand than Arouet, or Voltaire, or whatever his name is—we knew the fellow well in Paris. But I never laid claim to more than what the English call mother-wit, the Spanish call freckled grammar, and the French call, being born with one’s shirt on. It was, however, my readiness with the pen that first won for me the highest fortune that could befall a man—the patronage, the friendship and the affection of Maurice, Count of Saxe.

I did not turn my hand to writing for money, and paying my court to the great, as Arouet did; but being left penniless and an orphan at fourteen, and his Majesty’s recruiting officers coming after me, I went to serve as a foot soldier in Flanders. I carried a musket for twelve years. Of those years I like neither to speak nor to think. At the end of that time came what I supposed would be the end of Babache: standing up before a file of soldiers, to be shot down and to die like a dog, for theft. I was innocent—that I swore on the holy Gospels, and call God to witness—but the money, two crowns, was found on me; and I could not tell how it got there, except that I had been carousing in bad company. Count Saxe being very strict against marauding, I was tried and condemned to be shot.

The whole business, trial and all, was over in a day, and on a summer morning I was led out to be shot on a bastion of the walls of Mons. It was a very beautiful morning, I remember, and also that the buglers, playing the dirge, played horribly out of time, as they always do at military executions. As I was on my way 4 to die, Count Saxe, with a half dozen officers galloping after him, met the procession. I raised my dull eyes and looked him in the face—a thing I would not have done, except that a man who has but a quarter of an hour to live need not be bashful about anything. Count Saxe asked about my case, and the officer in charge said I was to die for stealing two crowns—and that I had been a good soldier. Count Saxe rode up close to me.

“What a fool you were to risk your life for a couple of crowns,” he said.

“I risk it every day,” I replied, “for a couple of sous. But I am innocent.”

“Give him his life,” said Count Saxe.

The buglers changed their tune from a dirge to a lively marching air; the drummer beat a couple of ruffles on his drum, and we faced about—I think the honest soldiers who were going to shoot me felt almost as glad as I. Men have to be driven and threatened with punishment to keep them from shirking when it is necessary to shoot a comrade, and there would certainly be a mutiny every time, except that a certain number of muskets have no ball cartridges in them—and every fellow thinks that he has got an empty cartridge.

That same day I wrote a letter to Count Saxe, expressing, as well as I knew how, my thanks for my life. I took it myself to his quarters—and as good luck would have it, while I was begging a pert young aide to give the letter to Count Saxe, the count himself came out of his tent. He read the letter—asked me if I wrote it—and not believing me, told me to come into his tent, 5 sit down at his table, and write at his dictation. I did so, and I have written every line to which his name is signed since, except his love letters. Writing is, in itself, no great accomplishment. Monsieur Voltaire himself has said that a man may have a great deal of esprit and yet write like a cat. Still less important is spelling.

My master would not in his youth give attention to writing and spelling, having more important things to learn, and he had an early quarrel with grammar, which was never made up. Nevertheless, he has written the best book about war yet published—that is to say, he dictated it to me. And the French Academy elected him a member; but he made merry at the expense of the Academicians, saying as he knew not how to spell, much less to write, a seat in the Academy would become him about as well as a ring would become a cat. Also, that if the Academy elected him, it should also elect Marshal Villars, who could neither read nor write; but that I, Babache, was better fitted for an Academician than either.

It is certain, however, that no lady ever refused to accept a love letter from Count Saxe because it was ill spelled and ill written—for that part of his correspondence he attended to strictly himself. I know that certain things concerning the ladies have been urged against him. I know he has been described as “a glorious devil, loving beauty only”—but all I know concerning Count Saxe and the ladies is, the women mobbed him and sent him thousands of love letters. It may be said that I know more than I will admit. Not so. And it may also be said that I could have known all if I had wished. Well, 6 so might I have known astronomy, if I had possessed a taste for the science. But I never liked it. I ever felt small enough anyhow without considering those myriads of suns and worlds which make one feel considerably less than nothing.

One thing I do know about Count Saxe and one lady, in particular; if he had been willing to marry that ugly Duchess of Courland, Anna Iwanowna, now Czarina of Russia, he would have been Duke of Courland de facto as well as de jure; he would have become “cousin” to the Kings of France and Spain; he would have been “most Illustrious” to the Emperor, and “most Illustrious, most Mighty,” to the King of Poland, and what is more, he would have had the right of coining money.

But Count Saxe never put any compulsion on himself in affairs of the heart. And I say this; that with the only two ladies concerning whose relations with him I was familiar—for he was as secretive with me as I could wish about such things—I never knew a man more blameless. And these two ladies were both of them singularly beautiful and charming. One of them was an actress—Mademoiselle Adrienne Lecouvreur, and the other one was Mademoiselle Francezka Capello—that star-like creature whose beauty, whose riches, whose airy high spirit, whose strange, brilliant story, laid her open to peculiar dangers. Yet, toward Mademoiselle Capello, Count Saxe behaved with the most delicate chivalry during the whole of her eventful life. And he forwarded the love of Mademoiselle Capello and Gaston Cheverny with the noblest disinterestedness.

Count Saxe had a taste not common among soldiers. He liked to hear sermons read—good sermons, that is, by the great