“And then?”
“Then, after I had seen him and talked with him, I found it was not so easy to get back as it had been to get there. The Blues were hunting vigorously for him; he had constantly to change his hiding-place and I was forced to go with him. Nor could I send a message to you. So it happened that I was with him when the news came of Valmy, with all that it meant to his plans. Calonne’s letter was the final blow.”
“Calonne’s letter?” enquired Louis.
“The minister wrote bidding him defer action till March. That was really the end of everything. The confederates dispersed, and I, too, could delay no longer. I started homewards. Then came my accident. I was nursed at the manoir where it happened, in the family of an old gentleman, a M. de Saint-Gervais, who had just been sheltering La Rouërie himself. That was why I dared not give you the name. As soon as I was fit to travel I started again—and here I am.”
“Then where is La Rouërie now?” asked both his hearers in a breath.
“Somewhere in the heart of Brittany. He absolutely refused to seek safety in Jersey. I understand that he left the château of La Fosse-Hingant, near Saint Malo, at the beginning of October. If Chalons had fallen he and his Bretons would be in Paris now; perhaps the King would be back at the Tuileries.”
Gilbert spoke with a fire new to him, and the priest looked at him in a contemplative silence. Yet the recital, whose beginning had been full of promising description, had disappointingly tailed off when it came to the real issue. Both men were conscious of this, but Louis’ attempts to extract more particulars met with small success.
“Then what,” asked the Curé at last, “do you consider to be the result of your journey?”
“To be frank,” replied the Marquis, “nothing at all.”
But the priest did not believe him.