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I'm reading a manga, and in it one of the characters uses grammar that I've
never seen before. The sentence is as follows:

> 小姓さんが見当たりませぬな。是非お会いしたかったのですが。

I understand pretty much everything else in the sentence:

[小姓]{こしょう}さん = page

見当たる = find

是非 = certainly

お会いしたかった = (humbly) wanted to meet

But because of this conjugation that I'm not familiar with, I'm not sure how
it all fits together. What does +ませぬな mean?
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2014-07-04T14:07:22.653
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2014-07-05T03:54:27.310
2014-07-05T03:54:27.310
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question
conjugations
meaning of (verb stem)＋ませぬな
* [ぬ indicates the negative](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/235/difference-between-negative-forms-%E3%81%9A-and-%E3%81%AC) (as in Classical Japanese) and ~ませぬ is in fact the precursor of the modern ~ません.

  * な is a variant of ね  
(see also [What nuance does "ですな"
bring?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6806/what-nuance-
brings-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%AA) and [「ね」 vs 「な」 in 「そうだね」 /「そうね」/
「そうですね」](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/13474/%E3%81%AD-
vs-%E3%81%AA-
in-%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%A0%E3%81%AD-%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%AD-%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%AD))

Since Manga often indicate the end of a sentence by a line (or column) break,
rather than a period, I would bet that the sentence is

> 小姓さんが見当たりませぬな  
>  是非お会いしたかったのですが。

In any case,

> 小姓さんが見当たりませぬな = 小姓さんが見当たりませんね ( _modulo nuances_ )
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2014-07-04T15:03:18.360
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2014-07-04T15:03:18.360
2017-04-13T12:43:44.740
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answer