LITMIR.BIZ

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these noble individual devotions, an energy which they had never before possessed. “That is one of my men with great ideals,” thought Mademoiselle de Verneuil. “Relying on the present, which they rule, they destroy the past for the benefit of the future.”

      The thought saddened her because she could not apply it to her lover; towards whom she now turned, to discard by a different admiration, these beliefs in the Republic she was already beginning to dislike. Looking at the marquis, surrounded by men who were bold enough, fanatical enough, and sufficiently long-headed as to the future to give battle to a victorious Republic in the hope of restoring a dead monarchy, a proscribed religion, fugitive princes, and lost privileges, “He,” thought she, “has no less an aim than the others; clinging to those fragments, he wants to make a future from the past.” Her mind, thus grasped by conflicting images, hesitated between the new and the old wrecks. Her conscience told her that the one was fighting for a man, the other for a country; but she had now reached, through her feelings, the point to which reason will also bring us, namely: to a recognition that the king is the Nation.

      The steps of a man echoed in the adjoining room, and the marquis rose from the table to greet him. He proved to be the expected guest, and seeing the assembled company he was about to speak, when the Gars made him a hasty sign, which he concealed from the Republicans, to take his place and say nothing. The more the two officers analyzed the faces about them, the more their suspicions increased. The clerical dress of the Abbe Gudin and the singularity of the Chouan garments were so many warnings to them; they redoubled their watchfulness, and soon discovered many discrepancies between the manners of the guests and the topics of their conversation. The republicanism of some was quite as exaggerated as the aristocratic bearing of others was unmistakable. Certain glances which they detected between the marquis and his guests, certain words of double meaning imprudently uttered, but above all the fringe of beard which was round the necks of several of the men and was very ill-concealed by their cravats, brought the officers at last to a full conviction of the truth, which flashed upon their minds at the same instant. They gave each other one look, for Madame du Gua had cleverly separated them and they could only impart their thoughts by their eyes. Such a situation demanded the utmost caution. They did not know whether they and their men were masters of the situation, or whether they had been drawn into a trap, or whether Mademoiselle de Verneuil was the dupe or the accomplice of this inexplicable state of things. But an unforeseen event precipitated a crisis before they had fully recognized the gravity of their situation.

      The new guest was one of those solid men who are square at the base and square at the shoulders, with ruddy skins; men who lean backward when they walk, seeming to displace much atmosphere about them, and who appear to think that more than one glance of the eye is needful to take them in. Notwithstanding his rank, he had taken life as a joke from which he was to get as much amusement as possible; and yet, although he knelt at his own shrine only, he was kind, polite, and witty, after the fashion of those noblemen who, having finished their training at court, return to live on their estates, and never suspect that they have, at the end of twenty years, grown rusty. Men of this type fail in tact with imperturbable coolness, talk folly wittily, distrust good with extreme shrewdness, and take incredible pains to fall into traps.

      When, by a play of his knife and fork which proclaimed him a good feeder, he had made up for lost time, he began to look round on the company. His astonishment was great when he observed the two Republican officers, and he questioned Madame du Gua with a look, while she, for all answer, showed him Mademoiselle de Verneuil in the same way. When he saw the siren whose demeanor had silenced the suspicions Madame du Gua had excited among the guests, the face of the stout stranger broke into one of those insolent, ironical smiles which contain a whole history of scandal. He leaned to his next neighbor and whispered a few words, which went from ear to ear and lip to lip, passing Marie and the two officers, until they reached the heart of one whom they struck to death. The leaders of the Vendeans and the Chouans assembled round that table looked at the Marquis de Montauran with cruel curiosity. The eyes of Madame du Gua, flashing with joy, turned from the marquis to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who was speechless with surprise. The Republican officers, uneasy in mind, questioned each other’s thoughts as they awaited the result of this extraordinary scene. In a moment the forks remained inactive in every hand, silence reigned, and every eye was turned to the Gars. A frightful anger showed upon his face, which turned waxen in tone. He leaned towards the guest from whom the rocket had started and said, in a voice that seemed muffled in crape, “Death of my soul! count, is that true?”

      “On my honor,” said the count, bowing gravely.

      The marquis lowered his eyes for a moment, then he raised them and looked fixedly at Marie, who, watchful of his struggle, knew that look to be her death-warrant.

      “I would give my life,” he said in a low voice, “for revenge on the spot.”

      Madame du Gua understood the words from the mere movement of the young man’s lips, and she smiled upon him as we smile at a friend whose regrets are about to cease. The scorn felt for Mademoiselle de Verneuil and shown on every face, brought to its height the growing indignation of the two Republicans, who now rose hastily:—

      “Do you want anything, citizens?” asked Madame du Gua.

      “Our swords, citoyenne,” said Gerard, sarcastically.

      “You do not need them at table,” said the marquis, coldly.

      “No, but we are going to play at a game you know very well,” replied Gerard. “This is La Pelerine over again.”

      The whole party seemed dumfounded. Just then a volley, fired with terrible regularity, echoed through the courtyard. The two officers sprang to the portico; there they beheld a hundred or so of Chouans aiming at the few soldiers who were not shot down at the first discharge; these they fired upon as upon so many hares. The Bretons swarmed from the bank, where Marche-a-Terre had posted them at the peril of their lives; for after the last volley, and mingling with the cries of the dying, several Chouans were heard to fall into the lake, where they were lost like stones in a gulf. Pille-Miche took aim at Gerard; Marche-a-Terre held Merle at his mercy.

      “Captain,” said the marquis to Merle, repeating to the Republican his own words, “you see that men are like medlars, they ripen on the straw.” He pointed with a wave of his hand to the entire escort of the Blues lying on the bloody litter where the Chouans were despatching those who still breathed, and rifling the dead bodies with incredible rapidity. “I was right when I told you that your soldiers will not get as far as La Pelerine. I think, moreover, that your head will fill with lead before mine. What say you?”

      Montauran felt a horrible necessity to vent his rage. His bitter sarcasm, the ferocity, even the treachery of this military execution, done without his orders, but which he now accepted, satisfied in some degree the craving of his heart. In his fury he would fain have annihilated France. The dead Blues, the living officers, all innocent of the crime for which he demanded vengeance, were to him the cards by which a gambler cheats his despair.

      “I would rather perish than conquer as you are conquering,” said Gerard. Then, seeing the naked and bloody corpses of his men, he cried out, “Murdered basely, in cold blood!”

      “That was how you murdered Louis XVI., monsieur,” said the marquis.

      “Monsieur,” replied Gerard, haughtily, “there are mysteries in a king’s trial which you could never comprehend.”

      “Do you dare to accuse the king?” exclaimed the marquis.

      “Do you dare to fight your country?” retorted Gerard.

      “Folly!” said the marquis.

      “Parricide!” exclaimed the Republican.

      “Well, well,” cried Merle, gaily, “a pretty time to quarrel at the moment of your death.”

      “True,” said Gerard, coldly, turning to the marquis. “Monsieur, if it is your intention to put us to death, at least have the goodness to shoot us at once.”

      “Ah! that’s like you, Gerard,” said Merle, “always in a hurry to finish things. But if one

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