"What!" exclaimed Hubert, not having noticed Lebrenn as he came in, "is that true?" Then, addressing the young man, to whom he extended his hand, "I was unaware of the misfortune which has fallen upon you, Monsieur Lebrenn; I know what interest you have always borne me, and if I can to-day in my turn prove useful to you, I am entirely at your service."
The commissioner received the report of his agents. They had unearthed not a paper in the entire house, nor in the furniture, nor in the workshop. They had sounded the cellar floor, examined the earth in the garden, nothing gave suspicion of a secret hiding place. Little Rodin also confirmed this information to the Jesuit.
"Citizen," said the magistrate to John, "a coach is at the door. Are you ready to follow me?"
"We are ready," said Charlotte, hastily throwing a cloak over her shoulders. "Come, my friend, let us go. I shall accompany my husband to the prison door."
"Adieu, good and dear mother," said John to Madam Desmarais, embracing her. "Be of good heart, we shall see each other soon again, I hope. Adieu, Citizen Hubert. Revolutions have strange outcomes! You, the royalist, are free—I, the republican, go to prison!"
"Whatever your opinions, I have always found you a man of courage," quoth the financier, in a voice of emotion. "If any consolation can temper the bitterness of your temporary separation, let it be the certainty that my sister and my niece, your wife, will find in me a most tender and devoted friend. I shall watch over them both."
John Lebrenn and Charlotte left with the commissioner. Monsieur Hubert and Madam Desmarais accompanied them as far as the waiting carriage, and strained them in a last adieu.
CHAPTER XXXV.
DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.
Eight months after the events of Thermidor just described, I, John Lebrenn, write this chapter of the story of the Sword of Honor, on the 26th Germinal, year III of the Republic (April 15, 1795).
Escaped from my prison, I lay for several weeks in hiding in a retreat offered me by the friendship of Billaud-Varenne; to him I also owed a passport made out in another name, thanks to which I was enabled to leave Paris, gain Havre, and there take a coasting vessel for Vannes. I chose Vannes as a haven not alone because I was unknown in that retired community, but because it was close by the cradle of our family, towards which, after such excitement and such cruel political deception, I felt myself strongly attracted. At the end of about a month's sojourn in Vannes, certain then that I could continue to dwell there without danger, I wrote to my wife to rejoin me in Brittany, with her mother and our son, whom she had named Marik, and who was born the 7th Vendemiaire, year III. Thus I had the joy of being soon reunited with my family. My wife brought with her the inestimable treasure of our domestic legends, happily preserved from the clutches of Jesuit Morlet. My wound, received at the battle of the Lines of Weissenburg, having reopened, I was for some time almost helpless, and was forced to give up my trade of ironsmith. Madam Desmarais was able to lay out for us some moneys, and Charlotte proposed that they be expended in setting up a linen-drapery and cloth store in Vannes.