The Chouans

* * * * *

“Are you sure of what you are telling me, old woman?” Hulot was saying to Barbette, who had sought him out as soon as she had reached Fougeres.

“Have you got eyes?  Look at the rocks of Saint-Sulpice, there, my good man, to the right of Saint-Leonard.”

Corentin, who was with Hulot, looked towards the summit in the direction pointed out by Barbette, and, as the fog was beginning to lift, he could see with some distinctness the column of white smoke the woman told of.

“But when is he coming, old woman?—­to-night, or this evening?”

“My good man,” said Barbette, “I don’t know.”

“Why do you betray your own side?” said Hulot, quickly, having drawn her out of hearing of Corentin.

“Ah! general, see my boy’s foot—­that’s washed in the blood of my man, whom the Chouans have killed like a calf, to punish him for the few words you got out of me the other day when I was working in the fields.  Take my boy, for you’ve deprived him of his father and his mother; make a Blue of him, my good man, teach him to kill Chouans.  Here, there’s two hundred crowns,—­keep them for him; if he is careful, they’ll last him long, for it took his father twelve years to lay them by.”

Hulot looked with amazement at the pale and withered woman, whose eyes were dry.

“But you, mother,” he said, “what will become of you? you had better keep the money.”

“I?” she replied, shaking her head sadly.  “I don’t need anything in this world.  You might bolt me into that highest tower over there” (pointing to the battlements of the castle) “and the Chouans would contrive to come and kill me.”

She kissed her boy with an awful expression of grief, looked at him, wiped away her tears, looked at him again, and disappeared.

“Commandant,” said Corentin, “this is an occasion when two heads are better than one.  We know all, and yet we know nothing.  If you surrounded Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s house now, you will only warn her.  Neither you, nor I, nor your Blues and your battalions are strong enough to get the better of that girl if she takes it into her head to save the ci-devant.  The fellow is brave, and consequently wily; he is a young man full of daring.  We can never get hold of him as he enters Fougeres.  Perhaps he is here already.  Domiciliary visit?  Absurdity! that’s no good, it will only give them warning.”

“Well,” said Hulot impatiently, “I shall tell the sentry on the Place Saint-Leonard to keep his eye on the house, and pass word along the other sentinels, if a young man enters it; as soon as the signal reaches me I shall take a corporal and four men and—­”

“—­and,” said Corentin, interrupting the old soldier, “if the young man is not the marquis, or if the marquis doesn’t go in by the front door, or if he is already there, if—­if—­if—­what then?”

Corentin looked at the commandant with so insulting an air of superiority that the old soldier shouted out:  “God’s thousand thunders! get out of here, citizen of hell!  What have I got to do with your intrigues?  If that cockchafer buzzes into my guard-room I shall shoot him; if I hear he is in a house I shall surround that house and take him when he leaves it and shoot him, but may the devil get me if I soil my uniform with any of your tricks.”

“Commandant, the order of the ministers states that you are to obey Mademoiselle de Verneuil.”

“Let her come and give them to me herself and I’ll see about it.”

“Well, citizen,” said Corentin, haughtily, “she shall come.  She shall tell you herself the hour at which she expects the ci-devant.  Possibly she won’t be easy till you do post the sentinels round the house.”

“The devil is made man,” thought the old leader as he watched Corentin hurrying up the Queen’s Staircase at the foot of which this scene had taken place.  “He means to deliver Montauran bound hand and foot, with no chance to fight for his life, and I shall be harrassed to death with a court-martial.  However,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “the Gars certainly is an enemy of the Republic, and he killed my poor Gerard, and his death will make a noble the less—­the devil take him!”

He turned on the heels of his boots and went off, whistling the Marseillaise, to inspect his guard-rooms.