He gathered up a pinch of the ash and blew it into the air.
"Happily the poet smelt nothing but paper. Lockets and love-letters;
and D'Hérouville and I for cutting each other's throats! That is
droll. . . . My faith, I will do it! It will be a tolerably good
stroke. 'I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times'! Chevalier,
Chevalier! Dip steel into blood, and little comes of it; but dip steel
into that black liquid named ink, and a kingdom topples. She is to
become a nun, too, she says. I think not."
It was the Vicomte d'Halluys; and when, shortly after this soliloquy,
Montaigne came in, he saw that the vicomte was smiling and stabbing
with the tip of his finger some black ash which sifted about on the
table.