“We have had enough of blood. Let us have peace. To proceed is certain death to all, and your cause worse lost. On my honour, monseigneur, I do this at some risk, in memory of old days. I have lost too many friends,” he added in a lower voice.
Detricand was moved. “I thank you for this honest courtesy. I had almost misread your letter,” he answered. “Now I will speak freely. I had hoped to leave my bones in Brittany. It was my will to fight to the last, with my doomed followers as you call them—comrades and lovers of France I say. And it was their wish to die with me. Till this afternoon I had no other purpose. Willing deaths ours, for I am persuaded, for every one of us that dies, a hundred men will rise up again and take revenge upon this red debauch of government!”
“Have a care,” said Grandjon-Larisse with sudden anger, his hand dropping upon the handle of his sword.
“I ask leave for plain beliefs as you asked leave for plain words. I must speak my mind, and I will say now that it has changed in this matter of fighting and surrender. I will tell you what has changed it,” and Detricand drew from his pocket Lorenzo Dow’s journal. “It concerns both you and me.”
Grandjon-Larisse flashed a look of inquiry at him. “It concerns your cousin the Comtesse Chantavoine and Philip d’Avranche, who calls himself her husband and Duc de Bercy.”
He opened the journal, and handed it to Grandjon-Larisse. “Read,” he said.
As Grandjon-Larisse read, an oath broke from him. “Is this authentic, monseigneur?” he said in blank astonishment “and the woman still lives?”
Detricand told him all he knew, and added:
“A plain duty awaits us both, monsieur le general. You are concerned for the Comtesse Chantavoine; I am concerned for the Duchy of Bercy and for this poor lady—this poor lady in Jersey,” he added.
Grandjon-Larisse was white with rage. “The upstart! The English brigand!” he said between his teeth.