The Chouans

* * * * *

As Mademoiselle de Verneuil walked through the country she seemed to breathe a new life.  The freshness of the night revived her after the fiery experience of the last few hours.  She tried to follow the path explained to her by d’Orgemont, but the darkness became so dense after the moon had gone down that she was forced to walk hap-hazard, blindly.  Presently the fear of falling down some precipice seized her and saved her life, for she stopped suddenly, fancying the ground would disappear before her if she made another step.  A cool breeze lifting her hair, the murmur of the river, and her instinct all combined to warn her that she was probably on the verge of the Saint-Sulpice rocks.  She slipped her arm around a tree and waited for dawn with keen anxiety, for she heard a noise of arms and horses and human voices; she was grateful to the darkness which saved her from the Chouans, who were evidently, as the miser had said, surrounding Fougeres.

Like fires lit at night as signals of liberty, a few gleams, faintly crimsoned, began to show upon the summits, while the bases of the mountains still retained the bluish tints which contrasted with the rosy clouds that were floating in the valley.  Soon a ruby disk rose slowly on the horizon and the skies greeted it; the varied landscape, the bell-tower of Saint-Leonard, the rocks, the meadows buried in shadow, all insensibly reappeared, and the trees on the summits were defined against the skies in the rising glow.  The sun freed itself with a graceful spring from the ribbons of flame and ochre and sapphire.  Its vivid light took level lines from hill to hill and flowed into the vales.  The dusk dispersed, day mastered Nature.  A sharp breeze crisped the air, the birds sang, life wakened everywhere.  But the girl had hardly time to cast her eyes over the whole of this wondrous landscape before, by a phenomenon not infrequent in these cool regions, the mists spread themselves in sheets, filled the valleys, and rose to the tops of the mountains, burying the great valley beneath a mantle of snow.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil fancied for a moment she saw a mer de glace, like those of the Alps.  Then the vaporous atmosphere rolled like the waves of ocean, lifted impenetrable billows which softly swayed, undulated, and were violently whirled, catching from the sun’s rays a vivid rosy tint, and showing here and there in their depths the transparencies of a lake of molten silver.  Suddenly the north wind swept this phantasmagoric scene and scattered the mists which laid a dew full of oxygen on the meadows.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now able to distinguish a dark mass of men on the rocks of Fougeres.  Seven or eight hundred Chouans were running like ants through the suburb of Saint-Sulpice.  The sleeping town would certainly have been overpowered in spite of its fortifications and its old gray towers, if Hulot had not been alert.  A battery, concealed on a height at the farther end of the basin formed by the ramparts, replied to the first fire of the Chouans by taking them diagonally on the road to the castle.  The balls swept the road.  Then a company of Blues made a sortie from the Saint-Sulpice gate, profited by the surprise of the royalists to form in line upon the high-road, and poured a murderous fire upon them.  The Chouans made no attempt to resist, seeing that the ramparts of the castle were covered with soldiers, and that the guns of the fortress sufficiently protected the Republican advance.

Meantime, however, other Chouans, masters of the little valley of the Nancon, had swarmed up the rocks and reached the Promenade, which was soon covered with goatskins, giving it to Marie’s eyes the appearance of a thatched roof, brown with age.  At the same moment loud reports were heard from the part of the town which overlooks the valley of Couesnon.  Evidently, Fougeres was attacked on all sides and completely surrounded.  Flames rising on the western side of the rock showed that the Chouans were setting fire to the suburbs; but these soon ceased, and a column of black smoke which succeeded them showed that the fire was extinguished.  Brown and white clouds again hid the scene from Mademoiselle de Verneuil, but they were clouds of smoke from the fire and powder, which the wind dispersed.  The Republican commander, as soon as he saw his first orders admirably executed, changed the direction of his battery so as to sweep, successively, the valley of the Nancon, the Queen’s Staircase, and the base of the rock of Fougeres.  Two guns posted at the gate of Saint-Leonard scattered the ant-hill of Chouans who had seized that position, and the national guard of the town, rushing in haste to the square before the Church, succeeded in dislodging the enemy.  The fight lasted only half an hour, and cost the Blues a hundred men.  The Chouans, beaten on all sides, retreated under orders from the Gars, whose bold attempt failed (although he did not know this) in consequence of the massacre at La Vivetiere, which had brought Hulot secretly and in all haste to Fougeres.  The artillery had arrived only that evening, and the news had not reached Montauran; otherwise, he would certainly have abandoned an enterprise which, if it failed, could only have bad results.  As soon as he heard the guns the marquis knew it would be madness to continue, out of mere pride, a surprise which had missed fire.  Therefore, not to lose men uselessly, he sent at once to all points of the attack, ordering an immediate retreat.  The commandant, seeing his adversary on the rocks of Saint-Sulpice surrounded by a council of men, endeavored to pour a volley upon him; but the spot was cleverly selected, and the young leader was out of danger in a moment.  Hulot now changed parts with his opponent and became the aggressor.  At the first sign of the Gars’ intention, the company stationed under the walls of the castle were ordered to cut off the Chouans’ retreat by seizing the upper outlet of the valley of the Nancon.

Notwithstanding her desire for revenge, Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s sympathies were with the men commanded by her lover, and she turned hastily to see if the other end of the valley were clear for them; but the Blues, conquerors no doubt on the opposite side of Fougeres, were returning from the valley of Couesnon and taking possession of the Nid-aux-Crocs and that portion of the Saint-Sulpice rocks which overhang the lower end of the valley of the Nancon.  The Chouans, thus hemmed in to the narrow fields of the gorge, seemed in danger of perishing to the last man, so cleverly and sagaciously were the commandant’s measures taken.  But Hulot’s cannon were powerless at these two points; and here, the town of Fougeres being quite safe, began one of those desperate struggles which denoted the character of Chouan warfare.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil now comprehended the presence of the masses of men she had seen as she left the town, the meeting of the leaders at d’Orgemont’s house, and all the other events of the night, wondering how she herself had escaped so many dangers.  The attack, prompted by desperation, interested her so keenly that she stood motionless, watching the living pictures as they presented themselves to her sight.  Presently the struggle at the foot of the mountain had a deeper interest for her.  Seeing the Blues almost masters of the Chouans, the marquis and his friends rushed into the valley of the Nancon to support their men.  The rocks were now covered with straggling groups of furious combatants deciding the question of life or death on a ground and with weapons that were more favorable to the Goatskins.  Slowly this moving arena widened.  The Chouans, recovering themselves, gained the rocks, thanks to the shrubs and bushes which grew here and there among them.  For a moment Mademoiselle de Verneuil felt alarmed as she saw, rather late, her enemies swarming over the summit and defending the dangerous paths by which alone she could descend.  Every issue on the mountain was occupied by one or other of the two parties; afraid of encountering them she left the tree behind which she had been sheltering, and began to run in the direction of the farm which d’Orgemont had mentioned to her.  After running some time on the slope of Saint-Sulpice which overlooks the valley of Couesnon she saw a cow-shed in the distance, and thought it must belong to the house of Galope-Chopine, who had doubtless left his wife at home and alone during the fight.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil hoped to be able to pass a few hours in this retreat until it was possible for her to return to Fougeres without danger.  According to all appearance Hulot was to triumph.  The Chouans were retreating so rapidly that she heard firing all about her, and the fear of being shot made her hasten to the cottage, the chimney of which was her landmark.  The path she was following ended at a sort of shed covered with a furze-roof, supported by four stout trees with the bark still on them.  A mud wall formed the back of this shed, under which were a cider-mill, a flail to thresh buckwheat, and several agricultural implements.  She stopped before one of the posts, unwilling to cross the dirty bog which formed a sort of courtyard to the house which, in her Parisian ignorance, she had taken for a stable.

The cabin, protected from the north wind by an eminence towering above the roof, which rested against it, was not without a poetry of its own; for the tender shoots of elms, heather, and various rock-flowers wreathed it with garlands.  A rustic staircase, constructed between the shed and the house, enabled the inhabitants to go to the top of the rock and breathe a purer air.  On the left, the eminence sloped abruptly down, giving to view a series of fields, the first of which belonged no doubt to this farm.  These fields were like bowers, separated by banks which were planted with trees.  The road which led to them was barred by the trunk of an old, half-rotten tree,—­a Breton method of enclosure the name of which may furnish, further on, a digression which will complete the characterization of this region.  Between the stairway cut in the schist rock and the path closed by this old tree, in front of the marsh and beneath the overhanging rock, several granite blocks roughly hewn, and piled one upon the other, formed the four corners of the cottage and held up the planks, cobblestones, and pitch amalgam of which the walls were made.  The fact that one half of the roof was covered with furze instead of thatch, and the other with shingles or bits of board cut into the form of slates, showed that the building was in two parts; one half, with a broken hurdle for a door, served as a stable, the other half was the dwelling of the owner.  Though this hut owed to the neighborhood of the town a few improvements which were wholly absent from such buildings that were five or six miles further off, it showed plainly enough the instability of domestic life and habits to which the wars and customs of feudality had reduced the serf; even to this day many of the peasants of those parts call a seignorial chateau, “The Dwelling.”

While examining the place, with an astonishment we can readily conceive, Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed here and there in the filth of the courtyard a few bits of granite so placed as to form stepping-stones to the house.  Hearing the sound of musketry that was evidently coming nearer, she jumped from stone to stone, as if crossing a rivulet, to ask shelter.  The house was closed by a door opening in two parts; the lower one of wood, heavy and massive, the upper one a shutter which served as a window.  In many of the smaller towns of France the shops have the same type of door though far more decorated, the lower half possessing a call-bell.  The door in question opened with a wooden latch worthy of the golden age, and the upper part was never closed except at night, for it was the only opening through which daylight could enter the room.  There was, to be sure, a clumsy window, but the glass was thick like the bottom of a bottle, and the lead which held the panes in place took so much room that the opening seemed intended to intercept the light rather than admit it.  As soon as Mademoiselle de Verneuil had turned the creaking hinges of the lower door she smelt an intolerable ammoniacal odor, and saw that the beasts in the stable had kicked through the inner partition which separated the stable from the dwelling.  The interior of the farmhouse, for such it was, did not belie its exterior.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking herself how it was possible for human beings to live in such habitual filth, when a ragged boy about eight or nine years old suddenly presented his fresh and rosy face, with a pair of fat cheeks, lively eyes, ivory teeth, and a mass of fair hair, which fell in curls upon his half-naked shoulders.  His limbs were vigorous, and his attitude had the charm of that amazement and naive curiosity which widens a child’s eyes.  The little fellow was a picture of beauty.

“Where is your mother?” said Marie, in a gentle voice, stooping to kiss him between the eyes.

After receiving her kiss the child slipped away like an eel, and disappeared behind a muck-heap which was piled at the top of a mound between the path and the house; for, like many Breton farmers who have a system of agriculture that is all their own, Galope-Chopine put his manure in an elevated spot, so that by the time it was wanted for use the rains had deprived it of all its virtue.  Alone for a few minutes, Marie had time to make an inventory.  The room in which she waited for Barbette was the whole house.  The most obvious and sumptuous object was a vast fireplace with a mantle-shelf of blue granite.  The etymology of that word was shown by a strip of green serge, edged with a pale-green ribbon, cut in scallops, which covered and overhung the whole shelf, on which stood a colored plaster cast of the Holy Virgin.  On the pedestal of the statuette were two lines of a religious poem very popular in Brittany:—­

  “I am the mother of God,
  Protectress of the sod.”

Behind the Virgin a hideous image, daubed with red and blue under pretence of painting, represented Saint-Labre.  A green serge bed of the shape called “tomb,” a clumsy cradle, a spinning-wheel, common chairs, and a carved chest on which lay utensils, were about the whole of Galope-Chopine’s domestic possessions.  In front of the window stood a chestnut table flanked by two benches of the same wood, to which the sombre light coming through the thick panes gave the tone of mahogany.  An immense cask of cider, under the bung of which Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed a pool of yellow mud, which had decomposed the flooring, although it was made of scraps of granite conglomerated in clay, proved that the master of the house had a right to his Chouan name, and that the pints galloped down either his own throat or that of his friends.  Two enormous jugs full of cider stood on the table.  Marie’s attention, caught at first by the innumerable spider’s-webs which hung from the roof, was fixing itself on these pitchers when the noise of fighting, growing more and more distinct, impelled her to find a hiding-place, without waiting for the woman of the house, who, however, appeared at that moment.

“Good-morning, Becaniere,” said Marie, restraining a smile at the appearance of a person who bore some resemblance to the heads which architects attach to window-casings.

“Ha! you come from d’Orgemont?” answered Barbette, in a tone that was far from cordial.

“Yes, where can you hide me? for the Chouans are close by—­”

“There,” replied Barbette, as much amazed at the beauty as by the strange apparel of a being she could hardly believe to be of her own sex,—­“there, in the priest’s hiding-place.”

She took her to the head of the bed, and was putting her behind it, when they were both startled by the noise of a man springing into the courtyard.  Barbette had scarcely time to drop the curtain of the bed and fold it about the girl before she was face to face with a fugitive Chouan.

“Where can I hide, old woman?  I am the Comte de Bauvan,” said the new-comer.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil quivered as she recognized the voice of the belated guest, whose words, still a secret to her, brought about the catastrophe of La Vivetiere.

“Alas! monseigneur, don’t you see, I have no place?  What I’d better do is to keep outside and watch that no one gets in.  If the Blues come, I’ll let you know.  If I stay here, and they find me with you, they’ll burn my house down.”

Barbette left the hut, feeling herself incapable of settling the interests of two enemies who, in virtue of the double role her husband was playing, had an equal right to her hiding-place.

“I’ve only two shots left,” said the count, in despair.  “It will be very unlucky if those fellows turn back now and take a fancy to look under this bed.”

He placed his gun gently against the headboard behind which Marie was standing among the folds of the green serge, and stooped to see if there was room for him under the bed.  He would infallibly have seen her feet, but she, rendered desperate by her danger, seized his gun, jumped quickly into the room, and threatened him.  The count broke into a peal of laughter when he caught sight of her, for, in order to hide herself, Marie had taken off her broad-brimmed Chouan hat, and her hair was escaping, in heavy curls, from the lace scarf which she had worn on leaving home.

“Don’t laugh, monsieur le comte; you are my prisoner.  If you make the least movement, you shall know what an offended woman is capable of doing.”

As the count and Marie stood looking at each other with differing emotions, confused voices were heard without among the rocks, calling out, “Save the Gars! spread out, spread out, save the Gars!”

Barbette’s voice, calling to her boy, was heard above the tumult with very different sensations by the two enemies, to whom Barbette was really speaking instead of to her son.

“Don’t you see the Blues?” she cried sharply.  “Come here, you little scamp, or I shall be after you.  Do you want to be shot?  Come, hide, quick!”

While these things took place rapidly a Blue jumped into the marshy courtyard.

“Beau-Pied!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

Beau-Pied, hearing her voice, rushed into the cottage, and aimed at the count.

“Aristocrat!” he cried, “don’t stir, or I’ll demolish you in a wink, like the Bastille.”

“Monsieur Beau-Pied,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, in a persuasive voice, “you will be answerable to me for this prisoner.  Do as you like with him now, but you must return him to me safe and sound at Fougeres.”

“Enough, madame!”

“Is the road to Fougeres clear?”

“Yes, it’s safe enough—­unless the Chouans come to life.”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil picked up the count’s gun gaily, and smiled satirically as she said to her prisoner, “Adieu, monsieur le comte, au revoir!”

Then she darted down the path, having replaced the broad hat upon her head.

“I have learned too late,” said the count, “not to joke about the virtue of a woman who has none.”

“Aristocrat!” cried Beau-Pied, sternly, “if you don’t want me to send you to your ci-devant paradise, you will not say a word against that beautiful lady.”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil returned to Fougeres by the paths which connect the rocks of Saint-Sulpice with the Nid-aux-Crocs.  When she reached the latter height and had threaded the winding way cut in its rough granite, she stopped to admire the pretty valley of the Nancon, lately so turbulent and now so tranquil.  Seen from that point, the vale was like a street of verdure.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil re-entered the town by the Porte Saint-Leonard.  The inhabitants, still uneasy about the fighting, which, judging by the distant firing, was still going on, were waiting the return of the National Guard, to judge of their losses.  Seeing the girl in her strange costume, her hair dishevelled, a gun in her hand, her shawl and gown whitened against the walls, soiled with mud and wet with dew, the curiosity of the people was keenly excited,—­all the more because the power, beauty, and singularity of this young Parisian had been the subject of much discussion.

Francine, full of dreadful fears, had waited for her mistress throughout the night, and when she saw her she began to speak; but Marie, with a kindly gesture, silenced her.

“I am not dead, my child,” she said.  “Ah!” she added, after a pause, “I wanted emotions when I left Paris, and I have had them!”

Francine asked if she should get her some food, observing that she must be in great need of it.

“No, no; a bath, a bath!” cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil.  “I must dress at once.”

Francine was not a little surprised when her mistress required her to unpack the most elegant of the dresses she had brought with her.  Having bathed and breakfasted, Marie made her toilet with all the minute care which a woman gives to that important act when she expects to meet the eyes of her lover in a ball-room.  Francine could not explain to herself the mocking gaiety of her mistress.  It was not the joy of love,—­a woman never mistakes that; it was rather an expression of concentrated maliciousness, which to Francine’s mind boded evil.  Marie herself drew the curtains of the window from which the glorious panorama could be seen, then she moved the sofa to the chimney corner, turning it so that the light would fall becomingly on her face; then she told Francine to fetch flowers, that the room might have a festive air; and when they came she herself directed their arrangement in a picturesque manner.  Giving a last glance of satisfaction at these various preparations she sent Francine to the commandant with a request that he would bring her prisoner to her; then she lay down luxuriously on a sofa, partly to rest, and partly to throw herself into an attitude of graceful weakness, the power of which is irresistible in certain women.  A soft languor, the seductive pose of her feet just seen below the drapery of her gown, the plastic ease of her body, the curving of the throat,—­all, even the droop of her slender fingers as they hung from the pillow like the buds of a bunch of jasmine, combined with her eyes to produce seduction.  She burned certain perfumes to fill the air with those subtle emanations which affect men’s fibres powerfully, and often prepare the way for conquests which women seek to make without seeming to desire them.  Presently the heavy step of the old soldier resounded in the adjoining room.

“Well, commandant, where is my captive?” she said.

“I have just ordered a picket of twelve men to shoot him, being taken with arms in his hand.”

“Why have you disposed of my prisoner?” she asked.  “Listen to me, commandant; surely, if I can trust your face, the death of a man after a fight is no particular satisfaction to you.  Well, then, give my Chouan a reprieve, for which I will be responsible, and let me see him.  I assure you that aristocrat has become essential to me, and he can be made to further the success of our plans.  Besides, to shoot a mere amateur in Chouannerie would be as absurd as to fire on a balloon when a pinprick would disinflate it.  For heaven’s sake leave cruelty to the aristocracy.  Republicans ought to be generous.  Wouldn’t you and yours have forgiven the victims of Quiberon?  Come, send your twelve men to patrol the town, and dine with me and bring the prisoner.  There is only an hour of daylight left, and don’t you see,” she added smiling, “that if you are too late, my toilet will have lost its effect?”

“But, mademoiselle,” said the commandant, amazed.

“Well, what?  But I know what you mean.  Don’t be anxious; the count shall not escape.  Sooner or later that big butterfly will burn himself in your fire.”

The commandant shrugged his shoulders slightly, with the air of a man who is forced to obey, whether he will or no, the commands of a pretty woman; and he returned in about half an hour, followed by the Comte de Bauvan.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil feigned surprise and seemed confused that the count should see her in such a negligent attitude; then, after reading in his eyes that her first effect was produced, she rose and busied herself about her guests with well-bred courtesy.  There was nothing studied or forced in her motions, smiles, behavior, or voice, nothing that betrayed premeditation or purpose.  All was harmonious; no part was over-acted; an observer could not have supposed that she affected the manners of a society in which she had not lived.  When the Royalist and the Republic were seated she looked sternly at the count.  He, on his part, knew women sufficiently well to feel certain that the offence he had committed against this woman was equivalent to a sentence of death.  But in spite of this conviction, and without seeming either gay or gloomy, he had the air of a man who did not take such serious results into consideration; in fact, he really thought it ridiculous to fear death in presence of a pretty woman.  Marie’s stern manner roused ideas in his mind.

“Who knows,” thought he, “whether a count’s coronet wouldn’t please her as well as that of her lost marquis?  Montauran is as lean as a nail, while I—­” and he looked himself over with an air of satisfaction.  “At any rate I should save my head.”

These diplomatic revelations were wasted.  The passion the count proposed to feign for Mademoiselle de Verneuil became a violent caprice, which the dangerous creature did her best to heighten.

“Monsieur le comte,” she said, “you are my prisoner, and I have the right to dispose of you.  Your execution cannot take place without my consent, and I have too much curiosity to let them shoot you at present.”

“And suppose I am obstinate enough to keep silence?” he replied gaily.

“With an honest woman, perhaps, but with a woman of the town, no, no, monsieur le comte, impossible!” These words, full of bitter sarcasm, were hissed, as Sully says, in speaking of the Duchesse de Beaufort, from so sharp a beak that the count, amazed, merely looked at his antagonist.  “But,” she continued, with a scornful glance, “not to contradict you, if I am a creature of that kind I will act like one.  Here is your gun,” and she offered him his weapon with a mocking air.

“On the honor of a gentleman, mademoiselle—­”

“Ah!” she said, interrupting him, “I have had enough of the honor of gentlemen.  It was on the faith of that that I went to La Vivetiere.  Your leader had sworn to me that I and my escort should be safe there.”

“What an infamy!” cried Hulot, contracting his brows.

“The fault lies with monsieur le comte,” said Marie, addressing Hulot.  “I have no doubt the Gars meant to keep his word, but this gentleman told some calumny about me which confirmed those that Charette’s mistress had already invented—­”

“Mademoiselle,” said the count, much troubled, “with my head under the axe I would swear that I said nothing but the truth.”

“In saying what?”

“That you were the—­”

“Say the word, mistress of—­”

“The Marquis de Lenoncourt, the present duke, a friend of mine,” replied the count.

“Now I can let you go to execution,” she said, without seeming at all agitated by the outspoken reply of the count, who was amazed at the real or pretended indifference with which she heard his statement.  “However,” she added, laughing, “you have not wronged me more than that friend of whom you suppose me to have been the—­Fie! monsieur le comte; surely you used to visit my father, the Duc de Verneuil?  Yes? well then—­”

Evidently considering Hulot one too many for the confidence she was about to make, Mademoiselle de Verneuil motioned the count to her side, and said a few words in her ear.  Monsieur de Bauvan gave a low ejaculation of surprise and looked with bewilderment at Marie, who completed the effect of her words by leaning against the chimney in the artless and innocent attitude of a child.

“Mademoiselle,” cried the count, “I entreat your forgiveness, unworthy as I am of it.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she replied.  “You have no more ground for repentance than you had for the insolent supposition you proclaimed at La Vivetiere.  But this is a matter beyond your comprehension.  Only, remember this, monsieur le comte, the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil has too generous a spirit not to take a lively interest in your fate.”

“Even after I have insulted you?” said the count, with a sort of regret.

“Some are placed so high that insult cannot touch them.  Monsieur le comte,—­I am one of them.”

As she said the words, the girl assumed an air of pride and nobility which impressed the prisoner and made the whole of this strange intrigue much less clear to Hulot than the old soldier had thought it.  He twirled his moustache and looked uneasily at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who made him a sign, as if to say she was still carrying out her plan.

“Now,” continued Marie, after a pause, “let us discuss these matters.  Francine, my dear, bring lights.”

She adroitly led the conversation to the times which had now, within a few short years, become the “ancien regime.”  She brought back that period to the count’s mind by the liveliness of her remarks and sketches, and gave him so many opportunities to display his wit, by cleverly throwing repartees in his way, that he ended by thinking he had never been so charming; and that idea having rejuvenated him, he endeavored to inspire this seductive young woman with his own good opinion of himself.  The malicious creature practised, in return, every art of her coquetry upon him, all the more adroitly because it was mere play to her.  Sometimes she let him think he was making rapid progress, and then, as if surprised at the sentiment she was feeling, she showed a sudden coolness which charmed him, and served to increase imperceptibly his impromptu passion.  She was like a fisherman who lifts his line from time to time to see if the fish is biting.  The poor count allowed himself to be deceived by the innocent air with which she accepted two or three neatly turned compliments.  Emigration, Brittany, the Republic, and the Chouans were far indeed from his thoughts.  Hulot sat erect and silent as the god Thermes.  His want of education made him quite incapable of taking part in a conversation of this kind; he supposed that the talking pair were very witty, but his efforts at comprehension were limited to discovering whether they were plotting against the Republic in covert language.

“Montauran,” the count was saying, “has birth and breeding, he is a charming fellow, but he doesn’t understand gallantry.  He is too young to have seen Versailles.  His education is deficient.  Instead of diplomatically defaming, he strikes a blow.  He may be able to love violently, but he will never have that fine flower of breeding in his gallantry which distinguished Lauzun, Adhemar, Coigny, and so many others!  He hasn’t the winning art of saying those pretty nothings to women which, after all, they like better than bursts of passion, which soon weary them.  Yes, though he has undoubtedly had many love-affairs, he has neither the grace nor the ease that should belong to them.”

“I have noticed that myself,” said Marie.

“Ah!” thought the count, “there’s an inflection in her voice, and a look in her eye which shows me plainly I shall soon be on terms with her; and faith! to get her, I’ll believe all she wants me to.”

He offered her his hand, for dinner was now announced.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil did the honors with a politeness and tact which could only have been acquired by the life and training of a court.

“Leave us,” she whispered to Hulot as they left the table.  “You will only frighten him; whereas, if I am alone with him I shall soon find out all I want to know; he has reached the point where a man tells me everything he thinks, and sees through my eyes only.”

“But afterwards?” said Hulot, evidently intending to claim the prisoner.

“Afterwards, he is to be free—­free as air,” she replied.

“But he was taken with arms in his hand.”

“No,” she said, making one of those sophistical jokes with which women parry unanswerable arguments, “I had disarmed him.  Count,” she said, turning back to him as Hulot departed, “I have just obtained your liberty, but—­nothing for nothing,” she added, laughing, with her head on one side as if to interrogate him.

“Ask all, even my name and my honor,” he cried, intoxicated.  “I lay them at your feet.”

He advanced to seize her hand, trying to make her take his passion for gratitude; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil was not a woman to be thus misled.  So, smiling in a way to give some hope to this new lover, she drew back a few steps and said:  “You might make me regret my confidence.”

“The imagination of a young girl is more rapid than that of a woman,” he answered, laughing.

“A young girl has more to lose than a woman.”

“True; those who carry a treasure ought to be distrustful.”

“Let us quit such conventional language,” she said, “and talk seriously.  You are to give a ball at Saint-James.  I hear that your headquarters, arsenals, and base of supplies are there.  When is the ball to be?”

“To-morrow evening.”

“You will not be surprised if a slandered woman desires, with a woman’s obstinacy, to obtain a public reparation for the insults offered to her, in presence of those who witnessed them.  I shall go to your ball.  I ask you to give me your protection from the moment I enter the room until I leave it.  I ask nothing more than a promise,” she added, as he laid his hand on his heart.  “I abhor oaths; they are too like precautions.  Tell me only that you engage to protect my person from all dangers, criminal or shameful.  Promise to repair the wrong you did me, by openly acknowledging that I am the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil; but say nothing of the trials I have borne in being illegitimate,—­this will pay your debt to me.  Ha! two hours’ attendance on a woman in a ball-room is not so dear a ransom for your life, is it?  You are not worth a ducat more.”  Her smile took the insult from her words.

“What do you ask for the gun?” said the count, laughing.

“Oh! more than I do for you.”

“What is it?”

“Secrecy.  Believe me, my dear count, a woman is never fathomed except by a woman.  I am certain that if you say one word of this, I shall be murdered on my way to that ball.  Yesterday I had warning enough.  Yes, that woman is quick to act.  Ah!  I implore you,” she said, “contrive that no harm shall come to me at the ball.”

“You will be there under my protection,” said the count, proudly.  “But,” he added, with a doubtful air, “are you coming for the sake of Montauran?”

“You wish to know more than I know myself,” she answered, laughing.  “Now go,” she added, after a pause.  “I will take you to the gate of the town myself, for this seems to me a cannibal warfare.”

“Then you do feel some interest in me?” exclaimed the count.  “Ah! mademoiselle, permit me to hope that you will not be insensible to my friendship—­for that sentiment must content me, must it not?” he added with a conceited air.

“Ah! diviner!” she said, putting on the gay expression a woman assumes when she makes an avowal which compromises neither her dignity nor her secret sentiments.

Then, having slipped on a pelisse, she accompanied him as far as the Nid-aux-Crocs.  When they reached the end of the path she said, “Monsieur, be absolutely silent on all this; even to the marquis”; and she laid her finger on both lips.

The count, emboldened by so much kindness, took her hand; she let him do so as though it were a great favor, and he kissed it tenderly.

“Oh! mademoiselle,” he cried, on knowing himself beyond all danger, “rely on me for life, for death.  Though I owe you a gratitude equal to that I owe my mother, it will be very difficult to restrain my feelings to mere respect.”

He sprang into the narrow pathway.  After watching him till he reached the rocks of Saint-Sulpice, Marie nodded her head in sign of satisfaction, saying to herself in a low voice:  “That fat fellow has given me more than his life for his life!  I can make him my creator at a very little cost!  Creature or creator, that’s all the difference there is between one man and another—­”

She did not finish her thought, but with a look of despair she turned and re-entered the Porte Saint-Leonard, where Hulot and Corentin were awaiting her.

“Two more days,” she cried, “and then—­” She stopped, observing that they were not alone—­“he shall fall under your guns,” she whispered to Hulot.

The commandant recoiled a step and looked with a jeering contempt, impossible to render, at the woman whose features and expression gave no sign whatever of relenting.  There is one thing remarkable about women:  they never reason about their blameworthy actions,—­feeling carries them off their feet; even in their dissimulation there is an element of sincerity; and in women alone crime may exist without baseness, for it often happens that they do not know how it came about that they committed it.

“I am going to Saint-James, to a ball the Chouans give to-morrow night, and—­”

“But,” said Corentin, interrupting her, “that is fifteen miles distant; had I not better accompany you?”

“You think a great deal too much of something I never think of at all,” she replied, “and that is yourself.”

Marie’s contempt for Corentin was extremely pleasing to Hulot, who made his well-known grimace as she turned away in the direction of her own house.  Corentin followed her with his eyes, letting his face express a consciousness of the fatal power he knew he could exercise over the charming creature, by working upon the passions which sooner or later, he believed, would give her to him.

As soon as Mademoiselle de Verneuil reached home she began to deliberate on her ball-dress.  Francine, accustomed to obey without understanding her mistress’s motives, opened the trunks, and suggested a Greek costume.  The Republican fashions of those days were all Greek in style.  Marie chose one which could be put in a box that was easy to carry.

“Francine, my dear, I am going on an excursion into the country; do you want to go with me, or will you stay behind?”

“Stay behind!” exclaimed Francine; “then who would dress you?”

“Where have you put that glove I gave you this morning?”

“Here it is.”

“Sew this green ribbon into it, and, above all, take plenty of money.”  Then noticing that Francine was taking out a number of the new Republican coins, she cried out, “Not those; they would get us murdered.  Send Jeremie to Corentin—­no, stay, the wretch would follow me—­send to the commandant; ask him from me for some six-franc crowns.”

With the feminine sagacity which takes in the smallest detail, she thought of everything.  While Francine was completing the arrangements for this extraordinary trip, Marie practised the art of imitating an owl, and so far succeeded in rivalling Marche-a-Terre that the illusion was a good one.  At midnight she left Fougeres by the gate of Saint-Leonard, took the little path to Nid-aux-Crocs, and started, followed by Francine, to cross the Val de Gibarry with a firm step, under the impulse of that strong will which gives to the body and its bearing such an expression of force.  To leave a ball-room with sufficient care to avoid a cold is an important affair to the health of a woman; but let her have a passion in her heart, and her body becomes adamant.  Such an enterprise as Marie had now undertaken would have floated in a bold man’s mind for a long time; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil had no sooner thought of it than its dangers became to her attractions.

“You are starting without asking God to bless you,” said Francine, turning to look at the tower of Saint-Leonard.

The pious Breton stopped, clasped her hands, and said an “Ave” to Saint Anne of Auray, imploring her to bless their expedition; during which time her mistress waited pensively, looking first at the artless attitude of her maid who was praying fervently, and then at the effects of the vaporous moonlight as it glided among the traceries of the church building, giving to the granite all the delicacy of filagree.  The pair soon reached the hut of Galope-Chopine.  Light as their steps were they roused one of those huge watch-dogs on whose fidelity the Bretons rely, putting no fastening to their doors but a simple latch.  The dog ran to the strangers, and his bark became so threatening that they were forced to retreat a few steps and call for help.  But no one came.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil then gave the owl’s cry, and instantly the rusty hinges of the door made a creaking sound, and Galope-Chopine, who had risen hastily, put out his head.

“I wish to go to Saint-James,” said Marie, showing the Gars’ glove.  “Monsieur le Comte de Bauvan told me that you would take me there and protect me on the way.  Therefore be good enough to get us two riding donkeys, and make yourself ready to go with us.  Time is precious, for if we do not get to Saint-James before to-morrow night I can neither see the ball nor the Gars.”

Galope-Chopine, completely bewildered, took the glove and turned it over and over, after lighting a pitch candle about a finger thick and the color of gingerbread.  This article of consumption, imported into Brittany from the North, was only one more proof to the eyes in this strange country of a utter ignorance of all commercial principles, even the commonest.  After seeing the green ribbon, staring at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, scratching his ear, and drinking a beaker of cider (having first offered a glass to the beautiful lady), Galope-Chopine left her seated before the table and went to fetch the required donkeys.

The violet gleam cast by the pitch candle was not powerful enough to counteract the fitful moonlight, which touched the dark floor and furniture of the smoke-blackened cottage with luminous points.  The little boy had lifted his pretty head inquisitively, and above it two cows were poking their rosy muzzles and brilliant eyes through the holes in the stable wall.  The big dog, whose countenance was by no means the least intelligent of the family, seemed to be examining the strangers with as much curiosity as the little boy.  A painter would have stopped to admire the night effects of this scene, but Marie, not wishing to enter into conversation with Barbette, who sat up in bed and began to show signs of amazement at recognizing her, left the hovel to escape its fetid air and the questions of its mistress.  She ran quickly up the stone staircase behind the cottage, admiring the vast details of the landscape, the aspect of which underwent as many changes as spectators made steps either upward to the summits or downward to the valleys.  The moonlight was now enveloping like a luminous mist the valley of Couesnon.  Certainly a woman whose heart was burdened with a despised love would be sensitive to the melancholy which that soft brilliancy inspires in the soul, by the weird appearance it gives to objects and the colors with which it tints the streams.

The silence was presently broken by the braying of a donkey.  Marie went quickly back to the hut, and the party started.  Galope-Chopine, armed with a double-barrelled gun, wore a long goatskin, which gave him something the look of Robinson Crusoe.  His blotched face, seamed with wrinkles, was scarcely visible under the broad-brimmed hat which the Breton peasants still retain as a tradition of the olden time; proud to have won, after their servitude, the right to wear the former ornament of seignorial heads.  This nocturnal caravan, protected by a guide whose clothing, attitudes, and person had something patriarchal about them, bore no little resemblance to the Flight into Egypt as we see it represented by the sombre brush of Rembrandt.  Galope-Chopine carefully avoided the main-road and guided the two women through the labyrinth of by-ways which intersect Brittany.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil then understood the Chouan warfare.  In threading these complicated paths, she could better appreciate the condition of a country which when she saw it from an elevation had seemed to her so charming, but into which it was necessary to penetrate before the dangers and inextricable difficulties of it could be understood.  Round each field, and from time immemorial, the peasants have piled mud walls, about six feet high, and prismatic in shape; on the top of which grow chestnuts, oaks and beeches.  The walls thus planted are called hedges (Norman hedges) and the long branches of the trees sweeping over the pathways arch them.  Sunken between these walls (made of a clay soil) the paths are like the covered ways of a fortification, and where the granite rock, which in these regions comes to the surface of the ground, does not make a sort of rugged natural pavement, they become so impracticable that the smallest vehicles can only be drawn over them by two pairs of oxen or Breton horses, which are small but usually vigorous.  These by-ways are so swampy that foot-passengers have gradually by long usage made other paths beside them on the hedge-banks which are called “rotes”; and these begin and end with each division into fields.  In order to cross from one field to another it is necessary to climb the clay banks by means of steps which are often very slippery after a rain.

Travellers have many other obstacles to encounter in these intricate paths.  Thus surrounded, each field is closed by what is called in the West an echalier.  That is a trunk or stout branch of a tree, one end of which, being pierced, is fitted to an upright post which serves as a pivot on which it turns.  One end of the echalier projects far enough beyond the pivot to hold a weight, and this singular rustic gate, the post of which rests in a hole made in the bank, is so easy to work that a child can handle it.  Sometimes the peasants economize the stone which forms the weight by lengthening the trunk or branch beyond the pivot.  This method of enclosure varies with the genius of each proprietor.  Sometimes it consists of a single trunk or branch, both ends of which are embedded in the bank.  In other places it looks like a gate, and is made of several slim branches placed at regular distances like the steps of a ladder lying horizontally.  The form turns, like the echalier, on a pivot.  These “hedges” and echaliers give the region the appearance of a huge chess-board, each field forming a square, perfectly isolated from the rest, closed like a fortress and protected by ramparts.  The gate, which is very easy to defend, is a dangerous spot for assailants.  The Breton peasant thinks he improves his fallow land by encouraging the growth of gorse, a shrub so well treated in these regions that it soon attains the height of a man.  This delusion, worthy of a population which puts its manure on the highest spot in the courtyard, has covered the soil to a proportion of one fourth with masses of gorse, in the midst of which a thousand men might ambush.  Also there is scarcely a field without a number of old apple-trees, the fruit being used for cider, which kill the vegetation wherever their branches cover the ground.  Now, if the reader will reflect on the small extent of open ground within these hedges and large trees whose hungry roots impoverish the soil, he will have an idea of the cultivation and general character of the region through which Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now passing.

It is difficult to say whether the object of these enclosures is to avoid all disputes of possession, or whether the custom is a lazy one of keeping the cattle from straying, without the trouble of watching them; at any rate such formidable barriers are permanent obstacles, which make these regions impenetrable and ordinary warfare impossible.  There lies the whole secret of the Chouan war.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil saw plainly the necessity the Republic was under to strangle the disaffection by means of police and by negotiation, rather than by a useless employment of military force.  What could be done, in fact, with a people wise enough to despise the possession of towns, and hold to that of an open country already furnished with indestructible fortifications?  Surely, nothing except negotiate; especially as the whole active strength of these deluded peasants lay in a single able and enterprising leader.  She admired the genius of the minister who, sitting in his study, had been able to grasp the true way of procuring peace.  She thought she understood the considerations which act on the minds of men powerful enough to take a bird’s-eye view of an empire; men whose actions, criminal in the eyes of the masses, are the outcome of a vast and intelligent thought.  There is in these terrible souls some mysterious blending of the force of fate and that of destiny, some prescience which suddenly elevates them above their fellows; the masses seek them for a time in their own ranks, then they raise their eyes and see these lordly souls above them.

Such reflections as these seemed to Mademoiselle de Verneuil to justify and even to ennoble her thoughts of vengeance; this travail of her soul and its expectations gave her vigor enough to bear the unusual fatigues of this strange journey.  At the end of each property Galope-Chopine made the women dismount from their donkeys and climb the obstructions; then, mounting again, they made their way through the boggy paths which already felt the approach of winter.  The combination of tall trees, sunken paths, and enclosed places, kept the soil in a state of humidity which wrapped the travellers in a mantle of ice.  However, after much wearisome fatigue, they managed to reach the woods of Marignay by sunrise.  The journey then became less difficult, and led by a broad footway through the forest.  The arch formed by the branches, and the great size of the trees protected the travellers from the weather, and the many difficulties of the first half of their way did not recur.

They had hardly gone a couple of miles through the woods before they heard a confused noise of distant voices and the tinkling of a bell, the silvery tones of which did not have the monotonous sound given by the movements of cattle.  Galope-Chopine listened with great attention, as he walked along, to this melody; presently a puff of wind brought several chanted words to his ear, which seemed to affect him powerfully, for he suddenly turned the wearied donkeys into a by-path, which led away from Saint-James, paying no attention to the remonstrances of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose fears were increased by the darkness of the forest path along which their guide now led them.  To right and left were enormous blocks of granite, laid one upon the other, of whimsical shape.  Across them huge roots had glided, like monstrous serpents, seeking from afar the juicy nourishment enjoyed by a few beeches.  The two sides of the road resembled the subterranean grottos that are famous for stalactites.  Immense festoons of stone, where the darkling verdure of ivy and holly allied itself to the green-gray patches of the moss and lichen, hid the precipices and the openings into several caves.  When the three travellers had gone a few steps through a very narrow path a most surprising spectacle suddenly unfolded itself to Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s eyes, and made her understand the obstinacy of her Chouan guide.

A semi-circular basin of granite blocks formed an ampitheatre, on the rough tiers of which rose tall black pines and yellowing chestnuts, one above the other, like a vast circus, where the wintry sun shed its pale colors rather than poured its light, and autumn had spread her tawny carpet of fallen leaves.  About the middle of this hall, which seemed to have had the deluge for its architect, stood three enormous Druid stones,—­a vast altar, on which was raised an old church-banner.  About a hundred men, kneeling with bared heads, were praying fervently in this natural enclosure, where a priest, assisted by two other ecclesiastics, was saying mass.  The poverty of the sacerdotal vestments, the feeble voice of the priest, which echoed like a murmur through the open space, the praying men filled with conviction and united by one and the same sentiment, the bare cross, the wild and barren temple, the dawning day, gave the primitive character of the earlier times of Christianity to the scene.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil was struck with admiration.  This mass said in the depths of the woods, this worship driven back by persecution to its sources, the poesy of ancient times revived in the midst of this weird and romantic nature, these armed and unarmed Chouans, cruel and praying, men yet children, all these things resembled nothing that she had ever seen or yet imagined.  She remembered admiring in her childhood the pomps of the Roman church so pleasing to the senses; but she knew nothing of God alone, his cross on the altar, his altar the earth.  In place of the carved foliage of a Gothic cathedral, the autumnal trees upheld the sky; instead of a thousand colors thrown through stained glass windows, the sun could barely slide its ruddy rays and dull reflections on altar, priest, and people.  The men present were a fact, a reality, and not a system,—­it was a prayer, not a religion.  But human passions, the momentary repression of which gave harmony to the picture, soon reappeared on this mysterious scene and gave it powerful vitality.

As Mademoiselle de Verneuil reached the spot the reading of the gospel was just over.  She recognized in the officiating priest, not without fear, the Abbe Gudin, and she hastily slipped behind a granite block, drawing Francine after her.  She was, however, unable to move Galope-Chopine from the place he had chosen, and from which he intended to share in the benefits of the ceremony; but she noticed the nature of the ground around her, and hoped to be able to evade the danger by getting away, when the service was over, before the priests.  Through a large fissure of the rock that hid her, she saw the Abbe Gudin mounting a block of granite which served him as a pulpit, where he began his sermon with the words,—­

“In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

All present made the sign of the cross.

“My dear friends,” continued the abbe, “let us pray in the first place for the souls of the dead,—­Jean Cochegrue, Nicalos Laferte, Joseph Brouet, Francois Parquoi, Sulpice Coupiau, all of this parish, and dead of wounds received in the fight on Mont Pelerine and at the siege of Fougeres. De profundis,” etc.

The psalm was recited, according to custom, by the congregation and the priests, taking verses alternately with a fervor which augured well for the success of the sermon.  When it was over the abbe continued, in a voice which became gradually louder and louder, for the former Jesuit was not unaware that vehemence of delivery was in itself a powerful argument with which to persuade his semi-savage hearers.

“These defenders of our God, Christians, have set you an example of duty,” he said.  “Are you not ashamed of what will be said of you in paradise?  If it were not for these blessed ones, who have just been received with open arms by all the saints, our Lord might have thought that your parish is inhabited by Mahometans!—­Do you know, men, what is said of you in Brittany and in the king’s presence?  What! you don’t know?  Then I shall tell you.  They say:  ’Behold, the Blues have cast down altars, and killed priests, and murdered the king and queen; they mean to make the parish folk of Brittany Blues like themselves, and send them to fight in foreign lands, away from their churches, where they run the risk of dying without confession and going eternally to hell; and yet the gars of Marignay, whose churches they have burned, stand still with folded arms!  Oh! oh! this Republic of damned souls has sold the property of God and that of the nobles at auction; it has shared the proceeds with the Blues; it has decreed, in order to gorge itself with money as it does with blood, that a crown shall be only worth three francs instead of six; and yet the gars of Marignay haven’t seized their weapons and driven the Blues from Brittany!  Ha! paradise will be closed to them! they can never save their souls!’ That’s what they say of you in the king’s presence!  It is your own salvation, Christians, which is at stake.  Your souls are to be saved by fighting for religion and the king.  Saint Anne of Auray herself appeared to me yesterday at half-past two o’clock; and she said to me these very words which I now repeat to you:  ’Are you a priest of Marignay?’ ‘Yes, madame, ready to serve you.’  ’I am Saint Anne of Auray, aunt of God, after the manner of Brittany.  I have come to bid you warn the people of Marignay that they must not hope for salvation if they do not take arms.  You are to refuse them absolution for their sins unless they serve God.  Bless their guns, and those who gain absolution will never miss the Blues, because their guns are sanctified.’  She disappeared, leaving an odor of incense behind her.  I marked the spot.  It is under the oak of the Patte d’Oie; just where that beautiful wooden Virgin was placed by the rector of Saint-James; to whom the crippled mother of Pierre Leroi (otherwise called Marche-a-Terre) came to pray, and was cured of all her pains, because of her son’s good deeds.  You see her there in the midst of you, and you know that she walks without assistance.  It was a miracle—­a miracle intended, like the resurrection of Marie Lambrequin to prove to you that God will never forsake the Breton cause so long as the people fight for his servants and for the king.  Therefore, my dear brothers, if you wish to save your souls and show yourselves defenders of God and the king, you will obey all the orders of the man whom God has sent to us, and whom we call THE GARS.  Then indeed, you will no longer be Mahometans; you will rank with all the gars of Brittany under the flag of God.  You can take from the pockets of the Blues the money they have stolen from you; for, if the fields have to go uncultivated while you are making war, God and the king will deliver to you the spoils of your enemies.  Shall it be said, Christians, that the gars of Marignay are behind the gars of the Morbihan, the gars of Saint-Georges, of Vitre, or Antrain, who are all faithful to God and the king?  Will you let them get all the spoils?  Will you stand like heretics, with your arms folded, when other Bretons are saving their souls and saving their king?  ‘Forsake all, and follow me,’ says the Gospel.  Have we not forsaken our tithes, we priests?  And you, I say to you, forsake all for this holy war!  You shall be like the Maccabees.  All will be forgiven you.  You will find the priests and curates in your midst, and you will conquer!  Pay attention to these words, Christians,” he said, as he ended; “for this day only have we the power to bless your guns.  Those who do not take advantage of the Saint’s favor will not find her merciful; she will not forgive them or listen to them as she did in the last war.”

This appeal, enforced by the power of a loud voice and by many gestures, the vehemence of which bathed the orator in perspiration, produced, apparently, very little effect.  The peasants stood motionless, their eyes on the speaker, like statues; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil presently noticed that this universal attitude was the result of a spell cast by the abbe on the crowd.  He had, like great actors, held his audience as one man by addressing their passions and self-interests.  He had absolved excesses before committal, and broken the only bonds which held these boorish men to the practice of religious and social precepts.  He had prostituted his sacred office to political interests; but it must be said that, in these times of revolution, every man made a weapon of whatever he possessed for the benefit of his party, and the pacific cross of Jesus became as much an instrument of war as the peasant’s plough-share.

Seeing no one with whom to advise, Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned to look for Francine, and was not a little astonished to see that she shared in the rapt enthusiasm, and was devoutly saying her chaplet over some beads which Galope-Chopine had probably given her during the sermon.

“Francine,” she said, in a low voice, “are you afraid of being a Mahometan?”

“Oh! mademoiselle,” replied the girl, “just see Pierre’s mother; she is walking!”

Francine’s whole attitude showed such deep conviction that Marie understood at once the secret of the homily, the influence of the clergy over the rural masses, and the tremendous effect of the scene which was now beginning.

The peasants advanced one by one and knelt down, presenting their guns to the preacher, who laid them upon the altar.  Galope-Chopine offered his old duck-shooter.  The three priests sang the hymn “Veni, Creator,” while the celebrant wrapped the instruments of death in bluish clouds of incense, waving the smoke into shapes that appeared to interlace one another.  When the breeze had dispersed the vapor the guns were returned in due order.  Each man received his own on his knees from the hands of the priests, who recited a Latin prayer as they returned them.  After the men had regained their places, the profound enthusiasm of the congregation, mute till then, broke forth and resounded in a formidable manner.

“Domine salvum fac regem!” was the prayer which the preacher intoned in an echoing voice, and was then sung vehemently by the people.  The cry had something savage and warlike in it.  The two notes of the word regem, readily interpreted by the peasants, were taken with such energy that Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s thoughts reverted almost tenderly to the exiled Bourbon family.  These recollections awakened those of her past life.  Her memory revived the fetes of a court now dispersed, in which she had once a share.  The face of the marquis entered her reverie.  With the natural mobility of a woman’s mind she forgot the scene before her and reverted to her plans of vengeance, which might cost her her life or come to nought under the influence of a look.  Seeing a branch of holly the trivial thought crossed her mind that in this decisive moment, when she wished to appear in all her beauty at the ball, she had no decoration for her hair; and she gathered a tuft of the prickly leaves and shining berries with the idea of wearing them.

“Ho! ho! my gun may miss fire on a duck, but on a Blue, never!” cried Galope-Chopine, nodding his head in sign of satisfaction.

Marie examined her guide’s face attentively, and found it of the type of those she had just seen.  The old Chouan had evidently no more ideas than a child.  A naive joy wrinkled his cheeks and forehead as he looked at his gun; but a pious conviction cast upon that expression of his joy a tinge of fanaticism, which brought into his face for an instant the signs of the vices of civilization.

Presently they reached a village, or rather a collection of huts like that of Galope-Chopine, where the rest of the congregation arrived before Mademoiselle de Verneuil had finished the milk and bread and butter which formed the meal.  This irregular company was led by the abbe, who held in his hand a rough cross draped with a flag, followed by a gars, who was proudly carrying the parish banner.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil was compelled to mingle with this detachment, which was on its way, like herself, to Saint-James, and would naturally protect her from all danger as soon as Galope-Chopine informed them that the Gars glove was in her possession, provided always that the abbe did not see her.

Towards sunset the three travellers arrived safely at Saint-James, a little town which owes its name to the English, by whom it was built in the fourteenth century, during their occupation of Brittany.  Before entering it Mademoiselle de Verneuil was witness of a strange scene of this strange war, to which, however, she gave little attention; she feared to be recognized by some of her enemies, and this dread hastened her steps.  Five or six thousand peasants were camping in a field.  Their clothing was not in any degree warlike; in fact, this tumultuous assembly resembled that of a great fair.  Some attention was needed to even observe that these Bretons were armed, for their goatskins were so made as to hide their guns, and the weapons that were chiefly visible were the scythes with which some of the men had armed themselves while awaiting the distribution of muskets.  Some were eating and drinking, others were fighting and quarrelling in loud tones, but the greater part were sleeping on the ground.  An officer in a red uniform attracted Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s attention, and she supposed him to belong to the English service.  At a little distance two other officers seemed to be trying to teach a few Chouans, more intelligent than the rest, to handle two cannon, which apparently formed the whole artillery of the royalist army.  Shouts hailed the coming of the gars of Marignay, who were recognized by their banner.  Under cover of the tumult which the new-comers and the priests excited in the camp, Mademoiselle de Verneuil was able to make her way past it and into the town without danger.  She stopped at a plain-looking inn not far from the building where the ball was to be given.  The town was so full of strangers that she could only obtain one miserable room.  When she was safely in it Galope-Chopine brought Francine the box which contained the ball dress, and having done so he stood stock-still in an attitude of indescribable irresolution.  At any other time Mademoiselle de Verneuil would have been much amused to see what a Breton peasant can be like when he leaves his native parish; but now she broke the charm by opening her purse and producing four crowns of six francs each, which she gave him.

“Take it,” she said, “and if you wish to oblige me, you will go straight back to Fougeres without entering the camp or drinking any cider.”

The Chouan, amazed at her liberality, looked first at the crowns (which he had taken) and then at Mademoiselle de Verneuil; but she made him a sign with her hand and he disappeared.

“How could you send him away, mademoiselle?” said Francine.  “Don’t you see how the place is surrounded? we shall never get away! and who will protect you here?”

“You have a protector of your own,” said Marie maliciously, giving in an undertone Marche-a-Terre’s owl cry which she was constantly practising.

Francine colored, and smiled rather sadly at her mistress’s gaiety.

“But who is yours?” she said.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil plucked out her dagger, and showed it to the frightened girl, who dropped on a chair and clasped her hands.

“What have you come here for, Marie?” she cried in a supplicating voice which asked no answer.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was busily twisting the branches of holly which she had gathered.

“I don’t know whether this holly will be becoming,” she said; “a brilliant skin like mine may possibly bear a dark wreath of this kind.  What do you think, Francine?”

Several remarks of the same kind as she dressed for the ball showed the absolute self-possession and coolness of this strange woman.  Whoever had listened to her then would have found it hard to believe in the gravity of a situation in which she was risking her life.  An Indian muslin gown, rather short and clinging like damp linen, revealed the delicate outlines of her shape; over this she wore a red drapery, numerous folds of which, gradually lengthening as they fell by her side, took the graceful curves of a Greek peplum.  This voluptuous garment of the pagan priestesses lessened the indecency of the rest of the attire which the fashions of the time suffered women to wear.  To soften its immodesty still further, Marie threw a gauze scarf over her shoulders, left bare and far too low by the red drapery.  She wound the long braids of her hair into the flat irregular cone above the nape of the neck which gives such grace to certain antique statues by an artistic elongation of the head, while a few stray locks escaping from her forehead fell in shining curls beside her cheeks.  With a form and head thus dressed, she presented a perfect likeness of the noble masterpieces of Greek sculpture.  She smiled as she looked with approval at the arrangement of her hair, which brought out the beauties of her face, while the scarlet berries of the holly wreath which she laid upon it repeated charmingly the color of the peplum.  As she twisted and turned a few leaves, to give capricious diversity to their arrangement, she examined her whole costume in a mirror to judge of its general effect.

“I am horrible to-night,” she said, as though she were surrounded by flatterers.  “I look like a statue of Liberty.”

She placed the dagger carefully in her bosom leaving the rubies in the hilt exposed, their ruddy reflections attracting the eye to the hidden beauties of her shape.  Francine could not bring herself to leave her mistress.  When Marie was ready she made various pretexts to follow her.  She must help her to take off her mantle, and the overshoes which the mud and muck in the streets compelled her to wear (though the roads had been sanded for this occasion); also the gauze veil which Mademoiselle de Verneuil had thrown over her head to conceal her features from the Chouans who were collecting in the streets to watch the company.  The crowd was in fact so great that they were forced to make their way through two hedges of Chouans.  Francine no longer strove to detain her mistress, and after giving a few last touches to a costume the greatest charm of which was its exquisite freshness, she stationed herself in the courtyard that she might not abandon this beloved mistress to her fate without being able to fly to her succor; for the poor girl foresaw only evil in these events.

A strange scene was taking place in Montauran’s chamber as Marie was on her way to the ball.  The young marquis, who had just finished dressing, was putting on the broad red ribbon which distinguished him as first in rank of the assembly, when the Abbe Gudin entered the room with an anxious air.

“Monsieur le marquis, come quickly,” he said.  “You alone can quell a tumult which has broken out, I don’t know why, among the leaders.  They talk of abandoning the king’s cause.  I think that devil of a Rifoel is at the bottom of it.  Such quarrels are always caused by some mere nonsense.  Madame du Gua reproached him, so I hear, for coming to the ball ill-dressed.”

“That woman must be crazy,” cried the marquis, “to try to—­”

“Rifoel retorted,” continued the abbe, interrupting his chief, “that if you had given him the money promised him in the king’s name—­”

“Enough, enough; I understand it all now.  This scene has all been arranged, and you are put forward as ambassador—­”

“I, monsieur le marquis!” said the abbe, again interrupting him.  “I am supporting you vigorously, and you will, I hope, do me the justice to believe that the restoration of our altars in France and that of the king upon the throne of his fathers are far more powerful incentives to my humble labors than the bishopric of Rennes which you—­”

The abbe dared say no more, for the marquis smiled bitterly at his last words.  However, the young chief instantly repressed all expression of feeling, his brow grew stern, and he followed the Abbe Gudin into a hall where the worst of the clamor was echoing.

“I recognize no authority here,” Rifoel was saying, casting angry looks at all about him and laying his hand on the hilt of his sabre.

“Do you recognize that of common-sense?” asked the marquis, coldly.

The young Chevalier de Vissard, better known under his patronymic of Rifoel, was silent before the general of the Catholic armies.

“What is all this about, gentlemen?” asked the marquis, examining the faces round him.

“This, monsieur le marquis,” said a famous smuggler, with the awkwardness of a man of the people who long remains under the yoke of respect to a great lord, though he admits no barriers after he has once jumped them, and regards the aristocrat as an equal only, “this,” he said, “and you have come in the nick of time to hear it.  I am no speaker of gilded phrases, and I shall say things plainly.  I commanded five hundred men during the late war.  Since we have taken up arms again I have raised a thousand heads as hard as mine for the service of the king.  It is now seven years that I have risked my life in the good cause; I don’t blame you, but I say that the laborer is worthy of his hire.  Now, to begin with, I demand that I be called Monsieur de Cottereau.  I also demand that the rank of colonel shall be granted me, or I send in my adhesion to the First Consul!  Let me tell you, monsieur le marquis, my men and I have a devilishly importunate creditor who must be satisfied—­he’s here!” he added, striking his stomach.

“Have the musicians come?” said the marquis, in a contemptuous tone, turning to Madame du Gua.

But the smuggler had dealt boldly with an important topic, and the calculating, ambitious minds of those present had been too long in suspense as to what they might hope for from the king to allow the scorn of their new leader to put an end to the scene.  Rifoel hastily blocked the way before Montauran, and seized his hand to oblige him to remain.

“Take care, monsieur le marquis,” he said; “you are treating far too lightly men who have a right to the gratitude of him whom you are here to represent.  We know that his Majesty has sent you with full powers to judge of our services, and we say that they ought to be recognized and rewarded, for we risk our heads upon the scaffold daily.  I know, so far as I am concerned, that the rank of brigadier-general—­”

“You mean colonel.”

“No, monsieur le marquis; Charette made me a colonel.  The rank I mention cannot be denied me.  I am not arguing for myself, I speak for my brave brothers-in-arms, whose services ought to be recorded.  Your signature and your promise will suffice them for the present; though,” he added, in a low voice, “I must say they are satisfied with very little.  But,” he continued, raising his voice, “when the sun rises on the chateau of Versailles to glorify the return of the monarchy after the faithful have conquered France, in France, for the king, will they obtain favors for their families, pensions for widows, and the restitution of their confiscated property?  I doubt it.  But, monsieur le marquis, we must have certified proof of our services when that time comes.  I will never distrust the king, but I do distrust those cormorants of ministers and courtiers, who tingle his ears with talk about the public welfare, the honor of France, the interests of the crown, and other crochets.  They will sneer at a loyal Vendean or a brave Chouan, because he is old and the sword he drew for the good cause dangles on his withered legs, palsied with exposure.  Can you say that we are wrong in feeling thus?”

“You talk well, Monsieur du Vissard, but you are over hasty,” replied the marquis.

“Listen, marquis,” said the Comte de Bauvan, in a whisper.  “Rifoel has really, on my word, told the truth.  You are sure, yourself, to have the ear of the king, while the rest of us only see him at a distance and from time to time.  I will own to you that if you do not give me your word as a gentleman that I shall, in due course of time, obtain the place of Master of Woods and Waters in France, the devil take me if I will risk my neck any longer.  To conquer Normandy for the king is not an easy matter, and I demand the Order for it.  But,” he added, coloring, “there’s time enough to think of that.  God forbid that I should imitate these poor mercenaries and harass you.  Speak to the king for me, and that’s enough.”

Each of the chiefs found means to let the marquis know, in a more or less ingenious manner, the exaggerated price they set upon their services.  One modestly demanded the governorship of Brittany; another a barony; this one a promotion; that one a command; and all wanted pensions.

“Well, baron,” said the marquis to Monsieur du Guenic, “don’t you want anything?”

“These gentlemen have left me nothing but the crown of France, marquis, but I might manage to put up with that—­”

“Gentlemen!” cried the Abbe Gudin, in a loud voice, “remember that if you are too eager you will spoil everything in the day of victory.  The king will then be compelled to make concessions to the revolutionists.”

“To those Jacobins!” shouted the smuggler.  “Ha! if the king would let me have my way, I’d answer for my thousand men; we’d soon wring their necks and be rid of them.”

“Monsieur de Cottereau,” said the marquis, “I see some of our invited guests arriving.  We must all do our best by attention and courtesy to make them share our sacred enterprise; you will agree, I am sure, that this is not the moment to bring forward your demands, however just they may be.”

So saying, the marquis went to the door, as if to meet certain of the country nobles who were entering the room, but the bold smuggler barred his way in a respectful manner.

“No, no, monsieur le marquis, excuse me,” he said; “the Jacobins taught me too well in 1793 that it is not he who sows and reaps who eats the bread.  Sign this bit of paper for me, and to-morrow I’ll bring you fifteen hundred gars.  If not, I’ll treat with the First Consul.”

Looking haughtily about him, the marquis saw plainly that the boldness of the old partisan and his resolute air were not displeasing to any of the spectators of this debate.  One man alone, sitting by himself in a corner of the room, appeared to take no part in the scene, and to be chiefly occupied in filling his pipe.  The contemptuous air with which he glanced at the speakers, his modest demeanor, and a look of sympathy which the marquis encountered in his eyes, made the young leader observe the man, whom he then recognized as Major Brigaut, and he went suddenly up to him.

“And you, what do you want?” he said.

“Oh, monsieur le marquis, if the king comes back that’s all I want.”

“But for yourself?”

“For myself? are you joking?”

The marquis pressed the horny hand of the Breton, and said to Madame du Gua, who was near them:  “Madame, I may perish in this enterprise before I have time to make a faithful report to the king on the Catholic armies of Brittany.  I charge you, in case you live to see the Restoration, not to forget this honorable man nor the Baron du Guenic.  There is more devotion in them than in all those other men put together.”

He pointed to the chiefs, who were waiting with some impatience till the marquis should reply to their demands.  They were all holding papers in their hands, on which, no doubt, their services were recorded over the signatures of the various generals of the former war; and all were murmuring.  The Abbe Gudin, the Comte de Bauvan, and the Baron du Guenic were consulting how best to help the marquis in rejecting these extravagant demands, for they felt the position of the young leader to be extremely delicate.

Suddenly the marquis ran his blue eyes, gleaming with satire, over the whole assembly, and said in a clear voice:  “Gentlemen, I do not know whether the powers which the king has graciously assigned to me are such that I am able to satisfy your demands.  He doubtless did not foresee such zeal, such devotion, on your part.  You shall judge yourselves of the duties put upon me,—­duties which I shall know how to accomplish.”

So saying, he left the room and returned immediately holding in his hand an open letter bearing the royal seal and signature.

“These are the letters-patent in virtue of which you are to obey me,” he said.  “They authorize me to govern the provinces of Brittany, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, in the king’s name, and to recognize the services of such officers as may distinguish themselves in his armies.”

A movement of satisfaction ran through the assembly.  The Chouans approached the marquis and made a respectful circle round him.  All eyes fastened on the king’s signature.  The young chief, who was standing near the chimney, suddenly threw the letters into the fire, and they were burned in a second.

“I do not choose to command any,” cried the young man, “but those who see a king in the king, and not a prey to prey upon.  You are free, gentlemen, to leave me.”

Madame du Gua, the Abbe Gudin, Major Brigaut, the Chevalier du Vissard, the Baron du Guenic, and the Comte de Bauvan raised the cry of “Vive le roi!” For a moment the other leaders hesitated; then, carried away by the noble action of the marquis, they begged him to forget what had passed, assuring him that, letters-patent or not, he must always be their leader.

“Come and dance,” cried the Comte de Bauvan, “and happen what will!  After all,” he added, gaily, “it is better, my friends, to pray to God than the saints.  Let us fight first, and see what comes of it.”

“Ha! that’s good advice,” said Brigaut.  “I have never yet known a day’s pay drawn in the morning.”

The assembly dispersed about the rooms, where the guests were now arriving.  The marquis tried in vain to shake off the gloom which darkened his face.  The chiefs perceived the unfavorable impression made upon a young man whose devotion was still surrounded by all the beautiful illusions of youth, and they were ashamed of their action.

However, a joyous gaiety soon enlivened the opening of the ball, at which were present the most important personages of the royalist party, who, unable to judge rightly, in the depths of a rebellious province, of the actual events of the Revolution, mistook their hopes for realities.  The bold operations already begun by Montauran, his name, his fortune, his capacity, raised their courage and caused that political intoxication, the most dangerous of all excitements, which does not cool till torrents of blood have been uselessly shed.  In the minds of all present the Revolution was nothing more than a passing trouble to the kingdom of France, where, to their belated eyes, nothing was changed.  The country belonged as it ever did to the house of Bourbon.  The royalists were the lords of the soil as completely as they were four years earlier, when Hoche obtained less a peace than an armistice.  The nobles made light of the revolutionists; for them Bonaparte was another, but more fortunate, Marceau.  So gaiety reigned.  The women had come to dance.  A few only of the chiefs, who had fought the Blues, knew the gravity of the situation; but they were well aware that if they talked of the First Consul and his power to their benighted companions, they could not make themselves understood.  These men stood apart and looked at the women with indifference.  Madame du Gua, who seemed to do the honors of the ball, endeavored to quiet the impatience of the dancers by dispensing flatteries to each in turn.  The musicians were tuning their instruments and the dancing was about to begin, when Madame du Gua noticed the gloom on de Montauran’s face and went hurriedly up to him.

“I hope it is not that vulgar scene you have just had with those clodhoppers which depresses you?” she said.

She got no answer; the marquis, absorbed in thought, was listening in fancy to the prophetic reasons which Marie had given him in the midst of the same chiefs at La Vivetiere, urging him to abandon the struggle of kings against peoples.  But the young man’s soul was too proud, too lofty, too full perhaps of conviction, to abandon an enterprise he had once begun, and he decided at this moment, to continue it boldly in the face of all obstacles.  He raised his head haughtily, and for the first time noticed that Madame du Gua was speaking to him.

“Your mind is no doubt at Fougeres,” she remarked bitterly, seeing how useless her efforts to attract his attention had been.  “Ah, monsieur, I would give my life to put her within your power, and see you happy with her.”

“Then why have you done all you could to kill her?”

“Because I wish her dead or in your arms.  Yes, I may have loved the Marquis de Montauran when I thought him a hero, but now I feel only a pitying friendship for him; I see him shorn of all his glory by a fickle love for a worthless woman.”

“As for love,” said the marquis, in a sarcastic tone, “you judge me wrong.  If I loved that girl, madame, I might desire her less; if it were not for you, perhaps I should not think of her at all.”

“Here she is!” exclaimed Madame du Gua, abruptly.

The haste with which the marquis looked round went to the heart of the woman; but the clear light of the wax candles enabled her to see every change on the face of the man she loved so violently, and when he turned back his face, smiling at her woman’s trick, she fancied there was still some hope of recovering him.

“What are you laughing at?” asked the Comte de Bauvan.

“At a soap-bubble which has burst,” interposed Madame du Gua, gaily.  “The marquis, if we are now to believe him, is astonished that his heart ever beat the faster for that girl who presumes to call herself Mademoiselle de Verneuil.  You know who I mean.”

“That girl!” echoed the count.  “Madame, the author of a wrong is bound to repair it.  I give you my word of honor that she is really the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil.”

“Monsieur le comte,” said the marquis, in a changed voice, “which of your statements am I to believe,—­that of La Vivetiere, or that now made?”

The loud voice of a servant at the door announced Mademoiselle de Verneuil.  The count sprang forward instantly, offered his hand to the beautiful woman with every mark of profound respect, and led her through the inquisitive crowd to the marquis and Madame du Gua.  “Believe the one now made,” he replied to the astonished young leader.

Madame du Gua turned pale at the unwelcome sight of the girl, who stood for a moment, glancing proudly over the assembled company, among whom she sought to find the guests at La Vivetiere.  She awaited the forced salutation of her rival, and, without even looking at the marquis, she allowed the count to lead her to the place of honor beside Madame du Gua, whose bow she returned with an air that was slightly protecting.  But the latter, with a woman’s instinct, took no offense; on the contrary, she immediately assumed a smiling, friendly manner.  The extraordinary dress and beauty of Mademoiselle de Verneuil caused a murmur throughout the ballroom.  When the marquis and Madame du Gua looked towards the late guests at La Vivetiere they saw them in an attitude of respectful admiration which was not assumed; each seemed desirous of recovering favor with the misjudged young woman.  The enemies were in presence of each other.

“This is really magic, mademoiselle,” said Madame du Gua; “there is no one like you for surprises.  Have you come all alone?”

“All alone,” replied Mademoiselle de Verneuil.  “So you have only one to kill to-night, madame.”

“Be merciful,” said Madame du Gua.  “I cannot express to you the pleasure I have in seeing you again.  I have truly been overwhelmed by the remembrance of the wrongs I have done you, and am most anxious for an occasion to repair them.”

“As for those wrongs, madame, I readily pardon those you did to me, but my heart bleeds for the Blues whom you murdered.  However, I excuse all, in return for the service you have done me.”

Madame du Gua lost countenance as she felt her hand pressed by her beautiful rival with insulting courtesy.  The marquis had hitherto stood motionless, but he now seized the arm of the count.

“You have shamefully misled me,” he said; “you have compromised my honor.  I am not a Geronte of comedy, and I shall have your life or you will have mine.”

“Marquis,” said the count, haughtily, “I am ready to give you all the explanations you desire.”

They passed into the next room.  The witnesses of this scene, even those least initiated into the secret, began to understand its nature, so that when the musicians gave the signal for the dancing to begin no one moved.

“Mademoiselle, what service have I rendered you that deserves a return?” said Madame du Gua, biting her lips in a sort of rage.

“Did you not enlighten me as to the true character of the Marquis de Montauran, madame?  With what utter indifference that man allowed me to go to my death!  I give him up to you willingly!”

“Then why are you here?” asked Madame du Gua, eagerly.

“To recover the respect and consideration you took from me at La Vivetiere, madame.  As for all the rest, make yourself easy.  Even if the marquis returned to me, you know very well that a return is never love.”

Madame du Gua took Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s hand with that affectionate touch and motion which women practise to each other, especially in the presence of men.

“Well, my poor dear child,” she said, “I am glad to find you so reasonable.  If the service I did you was rather harsh,” she added, pressing the hand she held, and feeling a desire to rend it as her fingers felt its softness and delicacy, “it shall at least be thorough.  Listen to me, I know the character of the Gars; he meant to deceive you; he neither can nor will marry any woman except—­”

“Ah!”

“Yes, mademoiselle, he has accepted his dangerous mission to win the hand of Mademoiselle d’Uxelles, a marriage to which his Majesty has promised his countenance.”

“Ah! ah!”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil added not a word to that scornful ejaculation.  The young and handsome Chevalier du Vissard, eager to be forgiven for the joke which had led to the insults at La Vivetiere, now came up to her and respectfully invited her to dance.  She placed her hand in his, and they took their places in a quadrille opposite to Madame du Gua.  The gowns of the royalist women, which recalled the fashions of the exiled court, and their creped and powdered hair seemed absurd as soon as they were contrasted with the attire which republican fashions authorized Mademoiselle de Verneuil to wear.  This attire, which was elegant, rich, and yet severe, was loudly condemned but inwardly envied by all the women present.  The men could not restrain their admiration for the beauty of her natural hair and the adjustment of a dress the charm of which was in the proportions of the form which it revealed.

At that moment the marquis and the count re-entered the ballroom behind Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who did not turn her head.  If a mirror had not been there to inform her of Montauran’s presence, she would have known it from Madame du Gua’s face, which scarcely concealed, under an apparently indifferent air, the impatience with which she awaited the conflict which must, sooner or later, take place between the lovers.  Though the marquis talked with the count and other persons, he heard the remarks of all the dancers who from time to time in the mazes of the quadrille took the place of Mademoiselle de Verneuil and her partner.

“Positively, madame, she came alone,” said one.

“She must be a bold woman,” replied the lady.

“If I were dressed like that I should feel myself naked,” said another woman.

“Oh, the gown is not decent, certainly,” replied her partner; “but it is so becoming, and she is so handsome.”

“I am ashamed to look at such perfect dancing, for her sake; isn’t it exactly that of an opera girl?” said the envious woman.

“Do you suppose that she has come here to intrigue for the First Consul?” said another.

“A joke if she has,” replied the partner.

“Well, she can’t offer innocence as a dowry,” said the lady, laughing.

The Gars turned abruptly to see the lady who uttered this sarcasm, and Madame du Gua looked at him as if to say, “You see what people think of her.”

“Madame,” said the count, laughing, “so far, it is only women who have taken her innocence away from her.”

The marquis privately forgave the count.  When he ventured to look at his mistress, whose beauty was, like that of most women, brought into relief by the light of the wax candles, she turned her back upon him as she resumed her place, and went on talking to her partner in a way to let the marquis hear the sweetest and most caressing tones of her voice.

“The First Consul sends dangerous ambassadors,” her partner was saying.

“Monsieur,” she replied, “you all said that at La Vivetiere.”

“You have the memory of a king,” replied he, disconcerted at his own awkwardness.

“To forgive injuries one must needs remember them,” she said quickly, relieving his embarrassment with a smile.

“Are we all included in that amnesty?” said the marquis, approaching her.

But she darted away in the dance, with the gaiety of a child, leaving him without an answer.  He watched her coldly and sadly; she saw it, and bent her head with one of those coquettish motions which the graceful lines of her throat enabled her to make, omitting no movement or attitude which could prove to him the perfection of her figure.  She attracted him like hope, and eluded him like a memory.  To see her thus was to desire to possess her at any cost.  She knew that, and the sense it gave her of her own beauty shed upon her whole person an inexpressible charm.  The marquis felt the storm of love, of rage, of madness, rising in his heart; he wrung the count’s hand violently, and left the room.

“Is he gone?” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, returning to her place.

The count gave her a glance and passed into the next room, from which he presently returned accompanied by the Gars.

“He is mine!” she thought, observing his face in the mirror.

She received the young leader with a displeased air and said nothing, but she smiled as she turned away from him; he was so superior to all about him that she was proud of being able to rule him; and obeying an instinct which sways all women more or less, she resolved to let him know the value of a few gracious words by making him pay dear for them.  As soon as the quadrille was over, all the gentlemen who had been at La Vivetiere surrounded Mademoiselle de Verneuil, wishing by their flattering attentions to obtain her pardon for the mistake they had made; but he whom she longed to see at her feet did not approach the circle over which she now reigned a queen.

“He thinks I still love him,” she thought, “and does not wish to be confounded with mere flatterers.”

She refused to dance again.  Then, as if the ball were given for her, she walked about on the arm of the Comte de Bauvan, to whom she was pleased to show some familiarity.  The affair at La Vivetiere was by this time known to all present, thanks to Madame du Gua, and the lovers were the object of general attention.  The marquis dared not again address his mistress; a sense of the wrong he had done her and the violence of his returning passion made her seem to him actually terrible.  On her side Marie watched his apparently calm face while she seemed to be observing the ball.

“It is fearfully hot here,” she said to the count.  “Take me to the other side where I can breathe; I am stifling here.”

And she motioned towards a small room where a few card-players were assembled.  The marquis followed her.  He ventured to hope she had left the crowd to receive him, and this supposed favor roused his passion to extreme violence; for his love had only increased through the resistance he had made to it during the last few days.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil still tormented him; her eyes, so soft and velvety for the count, were hard and stern when, as if by accident, they met his.  Montauran at last made a painful effort and said, in a muffled voice, “Will you never forgive me?”

“Love forgives nothing, or it forgives all,” she said, coldly.  “But,” she added, noticing his joyful look, “it must be love.”

She took the count’s arm once more and moved forward into a small boudoir which adjoined the cardroom.  The marquis followed her.

“Will you not hear me?” he said.

“One would really think, monsieur,” she replied, “that I had come here to meet you, and not to vindicate my own self-respect.  If you do not cease this odious pursuit I shall leave the ballroom.”

“Ah!” he cried, recollecting one of the crazy actions of the last Duc de Lorraine, “let me speak to you so long as I can hold this live coal in my hand.”

He stooped to the hearth and picking up a brand held it tightly.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil flushed, took her arm from that of the count, and looked at the marquis in amazement.  The count softly withdrew, leaving them alone together.  So crazy an action shook Marie’s heart, for there is nothing so persuasive in love as courageous folly.

“You only prove to me,” she said, trying to make him throw away the brand, “that you are willing to make me suffer cruelly.  You are extreme in everything.  On the word of a fool and the slander of a woman you suspected that one who had just saved your life was capable of betraying you.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I have been very cruel to you; but nevertheless, forget it; I shall never forget it.  Hear me.  I have been shamefully deceived; but so many circumstances on that fatal day told against you—­”

“And those circumstances were stronger than your love?”

He hesitated; she made a motion of contempt, and rose.

“Oh, Marie.  I shall never cease to believe in you now.”

“Then throw that fire away.  You are mad.  Open your hand; I insist upon it.”

He took delight in still resisting the soft efforts of her fingers, but she succeeded in opening the hand she would fain have kissed.

“What good did that do you?” she said, as she tore her handkerchief and laid it on the burn, which the marquis covered with his glove.

Madame du Gua had stolen softly into the cardroom, watching the lovers with furtive eyes, but escaping theirs adroitly; it was, however, impossible for her to understand their conversation from their actions.

“If all that they said of me was true you must admit that I am avenged at this moment,” said Marie, with a look of malignity which startled the marquis.

“What feeling brought you here?” he asked.

“Do you suppose, my dear friend, that you can despise a woman like me with impunity?  I came here for your sake and for my own,” she continued, after a pause, laying her hand on the hilt of rubies in her bosom and showing him the blade of her dagger.

“What does all that mean?” thought Madame du Gua.

“But,” she continued, “you still love me; at any rate, you desire me, and the folly you have just committed,” she added, taking his hand, “proves it to me.  I will again be that I desired to be; and I return to Fougeres happy.  Love absolves everything.  You love me; I have regained the respect of the man who represents to me the whole world, and I can die.”

“Then you still love me?” said the marquis.

“Have I said so?” she replied with a scornful look, delighting in the torture she was making him endure.  “I have run many risks to come here.  I have saved Monsieur de Bauvan’s life, and he, more grateful than others, offers me in return his fortune and his name.  You have never even thought of doing that.”

The marquis, bewildered by these words, stifled the worst anger he had ever felt, supposing that the count had played him false.  He made no answer.

“Ah! you reflect,” she said, bitterly.

“Mademoiselle,” replied the young man, “your doubts justify mine.”

“Let us leave this room,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, catching sight of a corner of Madame du Gua’s gown, and rising.  But the wish to reduce her rival to despair was too strong, and she made no further motion to go.

“Do you mean to drive me to hell?” cried the marquis, seizing her hand and pressing it violently.

“Did you not drive me to hell five days ago? are you not leaving me at this very moment uncertain whether your love is sincere or not?”

“But how do I know whether your revenge may not lead you to obtain my life to tarnish it, instead of killing me?”

“Ah! you do not love me! you think of yourself and not of me!” she said angrily, shedding a few tears.

The coquettish creature well knew the power of her eyes when moistened by tears.

“Well, then,” he cried, beside himself, “take my life, but dry those tears.”

“Oh, my love! my love!” she exclaimed in a stifled voice:  “those are the words, the accents, the looks I have longed for, to allow me to prefer your happiness to mine.  But,” she added, “I ask one more proof of your love, which you say is so great.  I wish to stay here only so long as may be needed to show the company that you are mine.  I will not even drink a glass of water in the house of a woman who has twice tried to kill me, who is now, perhaps, plotting mischief against us,” and she showed the marquis the floating corner of Madame du Gua’s drapery.  Then she dried her eyes and put her lips to the ear of the young man, who quivered as he felt the caress of her warm breath.  “See that everything is prepared for my departure,” she said; “you shall take me yourself to Fougeres and there only will I tell you if I love you.  For the second time I trust you.  Will you trust me a second time?”

“Ah, Marie, you have brought me to a point where I know not what I do.  I am intoxicated by your words, your looks, by you—­by you, and I am ready to obey you.”

“Well, then, make me for an instant very happy.  Let me enjoy the only triumph I desire.  I want to breathe freely, to drink of the life I have dreamed, to feed my illusions before they are gone forever.  Come —­come into the ballroom and dance with me.”

They re-entered the room together, and though Mademoiselle de Verneuil was as completely satisfied in heart and vanity as any woman ever could be, the unfathomable gentleness of her eyes, the demure smile on her lips, the rapidity of the motions of a gay dance, kept the secret of her thoughts as the sea swallows those of the criminal who casts a weighted body into its depths.  But a murmur of admiration ran through the company as, circling in each other’s arms, voluptuously interlaced, with heavy heads, and dimmed sight, they waltzed with a sort of frenzy, dreaming of the pleasures they hoped to find in a future union.

A few moments later Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the marquis were in the latter’s travelling-carriage drawn by four horses.  Surprised to see these enemies hand in hand, and evidently understanding each other, Francine kept silence, not daring to ask her mistress whether her conduct was that of treachery or love.  Thanks to the darkness, the marquis did not observe Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s agitation as they neared Fougeres.  The first flush of dawn showed the towers of Saint-Leonard in the distance.  At that moment Marie was saying to herself:  “I am going to my death.”

As they ascended the first hill the lovers had the same thought; they left the carriage and mounted the rise on foot, in memory of their first meeting.  When Marie took the young man’s arm she thanked him by a smile for respecting her silence; then, as they reached the summit of the plateau and looked at Fougeres, she threw off her reverie.

“Don’t come any farther,” she said; “my authority cannot save you from the Blues to-day.”

Montauran showed some surprise.  She smiled sadly and pointed to a block of granite, as if to tell him to sit down, while she herself stood before him in a melancholy attitude.  The rending emotions of her soul no longer permitted her to play a part.  At that moment she would have knelt on red-hot coals without feeling them any more than the marquis had felt the fire-brand he had taken in his hand to prove the strength of his passion.  It was not until she had contemplated her lover with a look of the deepest anguish that she said to him, at last:—­

“All that you have suspected of me is true.”

The marquis started.

“Ah!  I pray you,” she said, clasping her hands, “listen to me without interruption.  I am indeed the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil,—­but his natural daughter.  My mother, a Demoiselle de Casteran, who became a nun to escape the reproaches of her family, expiated her fault by fifteen years of sorrow, and died at Seez, where she was abbess.  On her death-bed she implored, for the first time and only for me, the help of the man who had betrayed her, for she knew she was leaving me without friends, without fortune, without a future.  The duke accepted the charge, and took me from the roof of Francine’s mother, who had hitherto taken care of me; perhaps he liked me because I was beautiful; possibly I reminded him of his youth.  He was one of those great lords of the old regime, who took pride in showing how they could get their crimes forgiven by committing them with grace.  I will say no more, he was my father.  But let me explain to you how my life in Paris injured my soul.  The society of the Duc de Verneuil, to which he introduced me, was bitten by that scoffing philosophy about which all France was then enthusiastic because it was wittily professed.  The brilliant conversations which charmed my ear were marked by subtlety of perception and by witty contempt for all that was true and spiritual.  Men laughed at sentiments, and pictured them all the better because they did not feel them; their satirical epigrams were as fascinating as the light-hearted humor with which they could put a whole adventure into a word; and yet they had sometimes too much wit, and wearied women by making love an art, and not a matter of feeling.  I could not resist the tide.  And yet my soul was too ardent—­forgive this pride—­not to feel that their minds had withered their hearts; and the life I led resulted in a perpetual struggle between my natural feelings and beliefs and the vicious habits of mind which I there contracted.  Several superior men took pleasure in developing in me that liberty of thought and contempt for public opinion which do tear from a woman her modesty of soul, robbed of which she loses her charm.  Alas! my subsequent misfortunes have failed to lessen the faults I learned through opulence.  My father,” she continued, with a sigh, “the Duc de Verneuil, died, after duly recognizing me as his daughter and making provisions for me by his will, which considerably reduced the fortune of my brother, his legitimate son.  I found myself one day without a home and without a protector.  My brother contested the will which made me rich.  Three years of my late life had developed my vanity.  By satisfying all my fancies my father had created in my nature a need of luxury, and given me habits of self-indulgence of which my own mind, young and artless as it then was, could not perceive either the danger or the tyranny.  A friend of my father, the Marechal Duc de Lenoncourt, then seventy years old, offered to become my guardian, and I found myself, soon after the termination of the odious suit, in a brilliant home, where I enjoyed all the advantages of which my brother’s cruelty had deprived me.  Every evening the old marechal came to sit with me and comfort me with kind and consoling words.  His white hair and the many proofs he gave me of paternal tenderness led me to turn all the feelings of my heart upon him, and I felt myself his daughter.  I accepted his presents, hiding none of my caprices from him, for I saw how he loved to gratify them.  I heard one fatal evening that all Paris believed me the mistress of the poor old man.  I was told that it was then beyond my power to recover an innocence thus gratuitously denied me.  They said that the man who had abused my inexperience could not be lover, and would not be my husband.  The week in which I made this horrible discovery the duke left Paris.  I was shamefully ejected from the house where he had placed me, and which did not belong to him.  Up to this point I have told you the truth as though I stood before God; but now, do not ask a wretched woman to give account of sufferings which are buried in her heart.  The time came when I found myself married to Danton.  A few days later the storm uprooted the mighty oak around which I had thrown my arms.  Again I was plunged into the worst distress, and I resolved to kill myself.  I don’t know whether love of life, or the hope of wearying ill-fortune and of finding at the bottom of the abyss the happiness which had always escaped me were, unconsciously to myself, my advisers, or whether I was fascinated by the arguments of a young man from Vendome, who, for the last two years, has wound himself about me like a serpent round a tree,—­in short, I know not how it is that I accepted, for a payment of three hundred thousand francs, the odious mission of making an unknown man fall in love with me and then betraying him.  I met you; I knew you at once by one of those presentiments which never mislead us; yet I tried to doubt my recognition, for the more I came to love you, the more the certainty appalled me.  When I saved you from the hands of Hulot, I abjured the part I had taken; I resolved to betray the slaughterers, and not their victim.  I did wrong to play with men, with their lives, their principles, with myself, like a thoughtless girl who sees only sentiments in this life.  I believed you loved me; I let myself cling to the hope that my life might begin anew; but all things have revealed my past,—­even I myself, perhaps, for you must have distrusted a woman so passionate as you have found me.  Alas! is there no excuse for my love and my deception?  My life was like a troubled sleep; I woke and thought myself a girl; I was in Alencon, where all my memories were pure and chaste.  I had the mad simplicity to think that love would baptize me into innocence.  For a moment I thought myself pure, for I had never loved.  But last night your passion seemed to me true, and a voice cried to me, ‘Do not deceive him.’  Monsieur le marquis,” she said, in a guttural voice which haughtily challenged condemnation, “know this; I am a dishonored creature, unworthy of you.  From this hour I accept my fate as a lost woman.  I am weary of playing a part,—­the part of a woman to whom you had brought back the sanctities of her soul.  Virtue is a burden to me.  I should despise you if you were weak enough to marry me.  The Comte de Bauvan might commit that folly, but you—­you must be worthy of your future and leave me without regret.  A courtesan is too exacting; I should not love you like the simple, artless girl who felt for a moment the delightful hope of being your companion, of making you happy, of doing you honor, of becoming a noble wife.  But I gather from that futile hope the courage to return to a life of vice and infamy, that I may put an eternal barrier between us.  I sacrifice both honor and fortune to you.  The pride I take in that sacrifice will support me in my wretchedness, —­fate may dispose of me as it will.  I will never betray you.  I shall return to Paris.  There your name will be to me a part of myself, and the glory you win will console my grief.  As for you, you are a man, and you will forget me.  Farewell.”

She darted away in the direction of the gorges of Saint-Sulpice, and disappeared before the marquis could rise to detain her.  But she came back unseen, hid herself in a cavity of the rocks, and examined the young man with a curiosity mingled with doubt.  Presently she saw him walking like a man