“I will do my best,” said d’Elbée “as I am called upon; and may the Lord direct me, that I may fight His battle so as to do honour to His name.”
“I think I will name Stofflet,” said Cathelineau, consulting with Bonchamps and de Lescure; “he is a brave man, and though rude in his manner, he will make perhaps the best soldier among us; already the men obey him almost more implicitly than any one.”
“Do—do!” said Bonchamps; “you cannot do better.”
“I think you will be right to do so,” said de Lescure, “though I do not like the man; but the peasants know him, and he is one of themselves. Yesterday morning I had ample proof of his courage. As you say, he is a brave man and a good soldier.”
Stofflet was then informed that he had been named, and though he muttered some expressions as to his own want of the necessary qualifications, he was evidently well pleased that the choice had fallen on him.
And now the last of the lot was to be chosen. As the two last names had been mentioned, Denot’s brow had grown blacker and blacker. Henri Larochejaquelin, during the whole proceeding, had been walking about the room, sitting now in one place, and now in another. At the present moment, he was sitting next to Adolphe, who, when Stofflet’s name was mentioned, whispered to him, but almost audibly:
“Gracious heaven! Stofflet!—the whole affair is becoming discreditable. How can any gentleman serve under such a man as that?”
“You think too much of rank, Adolphe,” said Henri; “we should entirely forget all distinctions of person now; unless we do so we can never succeed.”
“But do you think we are more likely to set the King upon his throne, by making such a brute as that a General? I wonder whom our Commander-in-Chief will choose next—Foret, I suppose.”
After having again consulted for some time, Bonchamps said to Cathelineau: “I do not think you can do better than name Adolphe Denot.”