"Why so?"
"Because I am advised,--more than that, I am adjured to do so."
"By whom?"
"By those whose judgment and intelligence I cannot doubt, any more than I distrust their devotion and fidelity."
"But for what reasons?--under what pretexts?"
"It seems that the royalist cause is despaired of even in La Vendée; the white banner is a rag which France repudiates. I am told there are not in Paris twelve hundred men who, for a few francs, would begin a riot in the streets; that it is false to say that we have sympathizers in the army, false that certain of the government are true to us, false that the Bocage is ready to rise as one man to defend the rights of Henri V.--"
"But," interrupted the noble Vendéan who had for the time changed a name illustrious in the great war for that of Gaspard, and who seemed incapable of longer controlling himself, "who gives such advice? Who speaks of La Vendée with such assurance? Who measures our devotion, and says, 'Thus far and no farther shall it go'?"
"Various royalist committees that I need not name to you, but whose opinion we must regard."
"Royalist committees!" cried the Marquis de Souday. "Ha! parbleu! I know them; and if Madame will believe me, we had better treat their advice as the late Marquis de Charette treated the advice of the royalist committees of his day."
"How was that, my brave Souday?" said Petit-Pierre.