“Thirteen thousand francs from the Lake of Silans, twenty-two thousand from Les Carronnières, fourteen thousand from Meximieux, forty-nine thousand in all,” said one of the group.
“You hear, Branche-d’Or?” said Morgan; “it is not much—only half what we gave you last time, but you know the proverb: ‘The handsomest girl in the world can only give what she has.’”
“The general knows what you risk to obtain this money, and he says that, no matter how little you send, he will receive it gratefully.”
“All the more, that the next will be better,” said a young man who had just joined the group, unperceived, so absorbed were all present in Cadoudal’s letter. “More especially if we say two words to the mail-coach from Chambéry next Saturday.”
“Ah! is that you, Valensolle?” said Morgan.
“No real names, if you please, baron; let us be shot, guillotined, drawn and quartered, but save our family honor. My name is Adler; I answer to no other.”
“Pardon me, I did wrong—you were saying?”
“That the mail-coach from Paris to Chambéry will pass through Chapelle-de-Guinchay and Belleville next Saturday, carrying fifty thousand francs of government money to the monks of Saint-Bernard; to which I may add that there is between those two places a spot called the Maison-Blanche, which seems to me admirably adapted for an ambuscade.”
“What do you say, gentlemen?” asked Morgan, “Shall we do citizen Fouché the honor to worry about his police? Shall we leave France? Or shall we still remain faithful Companions of Jehu?”
There was but one reply—“We stay.”