Somewhere between three and four in the morning an émigré named de Manny, whom La Vireville had known some years previously, came past, and, finding a little vacant space by the Chouan leader, sat down, and recalled himself to his memory.
"You have been in Holland since then?" inquired Fortuné, looking at the faded sky-blue uniform with its orange cuffs. The fact was equally proclaimed by the black cockade which marked him as one of the second—Sombreuil's—contingent.
"Yes; I was—and am—in the Légion de Béon, and had the luck to escape when the Republicans massacred eighty of us as we marched out at the surrender of Bois-le-Duc. This time——" he shrugged his shoulders.
"We surrendered on terms, even if the capitulation was only verbal," said La Vireville, without much conviction. "There are plenty of witnesses to that."
"Yes," retorted de Manny; "and what are the chances of the capitulation being observed?"
La Vireville said nothing.
"There is one man who will not escape in any case," went on the lieutenant of Béon, looking towards the tombstone a little way off where Sombreuil sat talking to some of his officers. "He is exempt from the capitulation—he exempted himself. And do you know, La Vireville, that he was summoned by the English Admiralty to Portsmouth, to take command of us of the black cockade, on the very eve of his wedding day? The summons came at midnight, and he obeyed it instantly; but he was to have been married on the morrow to a lady whom he adored."
La Vireville made a sudden movement, as if his posture irked him.
"How very dramatic!" he observed drily. "Was the lady sorry or relieved, I wonder?"