"Come, come, my child, do not weep," Coursegol would say at times like these. "We shall soon discover what has become of them."
"They are in England or in Germany," added Bridoul, "probably quite as much distressed about you as you are about them. You will see them again some day. Until then, have patience."
More than four months had passed when it was suddenly announced that the king, who had been a prisoner in the Temple for some time, was to be brought to trial. It was also rumored that a number of noblemen had eluded the vigilance of the authorities and had entered Paris resolved upon a desperate attempt to save him at the very last moment.
Coursegol's hope revived. He felt certain that Philip would not hesitate to hazard his life in such an enterprise if he were still alive; and it was in the hope of meeting him that he attended the trial of the unfortunate monarch, and that, on the twentieth day of January, he accompanied Bridoul to the very steps of the guillotine. The king was beheaded; no attempt was made to rescue him. Then Coursegol decided upon a step which he had been contemplating for some little time.
It will be remembered that Philip on his first arrival in Paris, had been attached to the household of the Duke de Penthieore, into which he had been introduced by the efforts of the Chevalier de Florian. The duke was the only member of the royal family who had remained in France unmolested. He owed this fortunate exemption of which the history of that epoch offers no similar example, to his many virtues and especially to his well known benevolence. Since the death of his daughter-in-law, the Princess de Lamballe, whom he had been unable to save from the hands of the executioners, he had lived with his daughter, the Duchess of Orleans at the Château de Bisy, in Vernon. He was living there, not as a proscribed man but as a prince, ill, broken-hearted at the death of his relatives, almost dying, surrounded by his friends and protected from the fury of the Revolutionists by the veneration of the inhabitants of Vernon, who had displayed their reverence by planting with great pomp, in front of the good duke's château, a tree of liberty crowned with this inscription: "A Tribute to Virtue;" and who evinced it still more strongly a little later by sending a deputation to his death-bed to implore him before his departure from earth, to bless the humble village in which his last days had been spent.
One morning, Coursegol, having obtained a passport through Bridoul, started for Vernon. This village is situated a few leagues from Paris on the road to Normandy. Coursegol, who in his double rôle of peasant and soldier was accustomed to walking, made the journey afoot, which enabled him to see with his own eyes the misery that was then prevailing in the provinces as well as in Paris. It was horrible. On every side he saw only barren and devastated fields, and ragged, starving villagers, trembling with fear. The revolution which had promised these poor wretches deliverance and comfort, had as yet brought them only misfortunes.
Coursegol reached Vernon that evening, spent the night at an inn, and the next morning at sunrise, repaired to the duke's château. That good old man had long been in the habit of receiving all who desired to speak with him, so it was easy for Coursegol to obtain an interview. He was ushered into a hall where several persons were already waiting, and through which the duke was obliged to pass on his way to attend morning services in the chapel.
At ten o'clock, the duke appeared. Coursegol, who had not seen him for several years, found him greatly changed. But the face surrounded by white floating locks had not lost the benign expression which had always characterized it; and he displayed the same simplicity of manner that had always endeared him to the poor and humble. When he entered the hall, the people who had been waiting for him, advanced to meet him. They were mostly noblemen who owed their lives to his influence, and who, thanks to him, were allowed to remain in France unmolested. He listened to them with an abstracted air, glancing to the right and left while they offered him their homage. Suddenly he perceived Coursegol who was standing at a little distance awaiting his turn. He stepped toward him and said:
"What do you desire, my friend?"
Coursegol bowed profoundly.