"Well, go if you will, but understand, Tournay, that if you refuse to obey this summons, I will protect you. They shall bring no fictitious charges against a trusted officer in my army without entering into a contest with me."
"I thank you again, my general, but I will not permit you to embroil yourself with the committee on my account. You are too indispensable to France. Now I will take the leave of absence you accord me. In ten days you may look for my return."
General Hoche shook his head as Tournay left his presence:—
"I fear it will be longer than that, my friend," he sighed to himself.
Colonel Tournay, accompanied by but one orderly, rode toward Paris. The feelings of pride and pleasure which his general's praise had raised in his heart were subdued by the humiliation at being summoned before the Committee of Public Safety. But there was a fire in his eye, and a hardening of the lines near the mouth which boded that he would not submit tamely to insult nor an unjust sentence.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SWORD OF ROCROY
Citizen St. Hilaire had just come in from making a few purchases at the baker's shop in the Rue des Mathurins. Shortly after dusk that evening he had recalled to mind that he was without the gill of cream for his next morning's coffee, and also that the small white loaf which formed a part of his breakfast was at that moment reposing crisp and warm on the counter of the baker's shop a few doors distant.
As Citizen St. Hilaire was very particular about his coffee and always liked to have a certain choice loaf that Jules, the baker in the Rue des Mathurins, made to perfection late every afternoon, he had braved the wind and rain of a stormy January evening, and gone out to procure his next morning's repast.