TWO:The young Comte de Genlis had left the navy, by the advice of M. de Puisieux, who had got him made a Colonel of the Grenadiers de France. [113] He had only a small estate worth about four hundred a year and the prospect of a share in the succession to the property of his grandmother, the Marquise de [368] Dromnil, who was eighty-seven and lived at Reims.Amongst the latter was the singer Dsaugiers, a friend of Grtry, well known for his quick and [55] ready answers. Being still in Paris during the Terror, although never of Republican opinions he was obliged, of course, to wear the tricolour cockade. One day he forgot to put it on and presented himself without it at the gate of the Tuileries in order to go into the gardens, but was brusquely stopped by the official, who asked why he was not wearing it; while a crowd of sinister faces at once began to gather round him. Dsaugiers saw his danger, but with his usual presence of mind showed neither fear nor confusion. Taking off his hat he looked at it slowly with an air of surprise, saying as if to himself
