"We have not put up at any towns, as yet; but have slept at little places, where no questions were asked."
"But you can't get on like that, monsieur. Even in the small villages, they are on the watch for suspected persons. You must have papers of some sort."
"That is all very well," Leigh said; "the question is, where to get them?"
"What story do you mean to tell?"
"If we had been stopped anywhere on our way here, we should have said that we belonged to Le Mans; that, like most of the other inhabitants, we fled before the Vendeans entered, and in such haste that I forgot all about papers; and indeed could not have got them, had I thought of it, as all the authorities had fled before we did."
"That story, added to your appearance and that of madame as respectable citizens, might succeed sometimes, with those who are not anxious to show their zeal; but as most of these functionaries are so, you would probably, if it was a village, be sent on under a guard to the next town, and if it were a town would be thrown into prison. And you know, to get in a prison in our days is--"
"Equivalent to a sentence of death," Leigh put in as he hesitated.
"You must get papers somehow--something that would pass at any rate in the villages, where as often as not there is not a man who can read. I will see what I can do. A cousin of mine is clerk to the mayor. He is a good fellow, though he has to pretend to be a violent supporter of the Convention.
"I don't know how you are situated, monsieur, but times are hard, and all salaries terribly in arrears; and when they are paid it is in assignats, and I need hardly say that when you pay in assignats you don't buy cheap."
"We have money," Leigh said, "and I would pay any reasonable sum, in gold, for proper papers."