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Stripped each of coat and waistcoat, shoeless and with shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, they faced each other at last, with the common resolve of paying in full the long score that stood between them. I doubt if either of them entertained a misgiving as to what must be the issue. Beside them, and opposite each other, stood Le Chapelier and the young captain, alert and watchful.
Although his cabriolet was already at the door, he had a few minutes to spare. He excused himself from Le Chapelier, and went briskly out to the anteroom. She advanced to meet him, her manner eager, almost feverish. "I will not affect ignorance of why you have come," he said quickly, to make short work. "But time presses, and I warn you that only the most solid of reasons can be worth stating."
"So that I am to go another jaunt to the Bois. Isaac, perhaps you will kindly have a word with one of these friends of M. le Marquis', and arrange for nine o'clock to-morrow, as usual." "Not to-morrow," said the Marquis shortly to Le Chapeher. "I have an engagement in the country, which I cannot postpone." Le Chapelier looked at Andre-Louis.
Le Chapelier waved him into silence, and proceeded. "Anyhow, the matter has been more than enough, added to all the rest, to set us by the ears again in the Assembly. It is open war between the Third Estate and the Privileged." "Was it ever anything else?" "Perhaps not; but it has assumed a new character. You'll have heard of the duel between Lameth and the Duc de Castries?" "A trifling affair."
Those two letters, both written in April of that year 1789, had for only immediate effect to increase the activity with which Andre-Louis Moreau was being sought. Le Chapelier would have found him so as to lend him assistance, to urge upon him once again that he should take up a political career.
It was Le Chapelier, a lawyer of Rennes, a prominent member of the Literary Chamber of that city, a forceful man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional gift of eloquence. "Ah, it is you, Chapelier! Why don't you speak to them? Why don't you tell them what to do? Up with you, man!" And he pointed to the plinth.
Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the influence of the seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long since have found himself excluded from that assembly of the intellectual youth of Rennes, which he exasperated by his eternal mockery of their ideals.
Since he could not be found, the delegations had been made up without him. But now it happened that one or two vacancies had occurred in the Nantes representation; and it was the business of filling these vacancies that had brought Le Chapelier to Nantes. Andre-Louis firmly shook his head in answer to Le Chapelier's proposal. "You refuse?" the other cried. "Are you mad?
And do you know that we are after all not so dissimilar, you and I?" "What?" "Once like you I went about inciting other people to go and kill the man I wanted dead. You'll say I was a coward, of course." Le Chapelier prepared to slip between them as the clouds gathered on the giant's brow. Then these were dispelled again, and the great laugh vibrated through the long room.
Le Chapelier was ever the same direct and downright Breton, abrupt of manner and of speech. He stood smiling a moment in mingled surprise and pleasure; then opened wide his arms. They embraced under the awe-stricken gaze of the waiter, who at once effaced himself. "Andre-Louis, my friend! Whence do you drop?" "We drop from above.
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