“Pardon me,” said the General. “I make no prophecy regarding the future. As I have said before, the success of a campaign depends upon circumstances impossible to foresee. All I can do is to take into consideration the quality of the conflicting elements, and from this point of view the advantage is certainly with Spain, although her fleet does not include a sufficiency of naval units.”
“Certain symptoms,” said the Duke, “would point to the fact that the Americans have already begun to repent of their temerity. I have heard it positively stated that they are panic-stricken. They live in daily dread of seeing the Spanish ironclads appear on their coasts. The inhabitants of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are fleeing inland en masse; in fact, a general panic exists.”
“Vive le roi!” repeated Madame de Courtrai, with fierce delight.
“What about little Honorine?” asked M. Lerond. “Is she still favoured with the visitations of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles?”
“Yes,” replied the dowager duchess, with some embarrassment.
“It would be a good idea,” ventured the ex-deputy, “to make an official report of the child’s statements of what she sees and hears when in her trances.”
No reply was forthcoming to this remark, the reason being that, having undertaken to note down the words attributed by Honorine to the Blessed Virgin, Madame de Brécé very soon stopped doing so: the child’s expressions were not nice. Besides, M. le Curé Traviès, who was in the habit of shooting rabbits every evening in the woods of Lénonville, had too often surprised Isidore and Honorine lying among the dead leaves to be any longer in doubt as to why they were there. M. Traviès was something of a poacher, but both his morals and his doctrine were sound. He gathered from repeated observations that it was hardly likely the Blessed Virgin would appear to Honorine.
He had spoken on the matter to the ladies of the castle, who were, if not convinced, at least somewhat perplexed. So when M. Lerond asked them for details of the latest ecstasies, they changed the subject.
“If you care to hear news from Lourdes,” said the dowager duchess, “we have some.”
“My nephew writes me that many miracles take place in the grotto,” said M. de Brécé.