"Nobody."
"Good; keep it secret for some little time yet. Select ten or twelve of your worst soldiers; you should have some fishermen, or poachers?"
"We have only too many of them, commandant."
"Well, as I was saying, select ten of them, and give them leave of absence till to-morrow morning. Let them go and throw their lines in the Garonne, and set their snares in the fields. To-night Espagnet and Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld will take them and question them."
"I don't understand—"
"Don't you understand that it is most essential that the assailants should believe that we are entirely unprepared for them? These men, who know nothing, will take their oaths with an air of sincerity, which will carry conviction because it will not be assumed, that we are sound asleep in our beds."
"Ah! excellent!"
"Let the enemy approach, let him disembark, let him plant his ladders."
"But when shall we fire on him?"
"When I give the word. If a single shot is fired from our ranks before I order it, the man who fires it shall die, my word for it!"