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He was rather an embarrassing prisoner; as he could not be directly accused of the robbery of Quesnay in which he had not taken part, and as they feared to draw him into an affair to which his superb gift of speech, his importance as a Chouan gentleman, his adventurous past and his eloquent professions of faith might give a political significance similar to that of Georges Cadoudal's trial, there remained only the choice of setting him at liberty or trying him simply as a royalist agent.
Madame du Gua, with a finger on her lip to demand silence, walked towards the Chouan, who guessed rather than heard her question, "How many of you are here?" "Eighty-seven." "They are sixty-five; I counted them." "Good," said the savage, with sullen satisfaction.
They then became known by another name, and the Chouan bands for years carried on a fearful war against the government in that part of the province which is called the Morbihan. About eight o'clock in the evening, Henri and Arthur Mondyon returned to the house, after a long day's work, and were the first to bring new tidings both of the blues and their new ally, the Mad Captain.
As he reached the spot where he had left the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, who had seen with apparent indifference the various movements of the commander, but who was now watching with extraordinary intelligence the two soldiers in the woods to the right, suddenly gave the shrill and piercing cry of the chouette, or screech-owl.
The big dog sprang up barking, but a word from Galope-Chopine silenced him and he wagged his tail. As she entered the house Marie gave a look which included everything. The marquis was not there. She breathed more freely, and saw with pleasure that the Chouan had taken some pains to clean the dirty and only room in his hovel.
If the confusing gleam of the fog enabled him to see, here and there, a crouching Chouan, he took him, no doubt, for a fragment of rock, for these human bodies had all the appearance of inert nature. This danger to the invaders was of short duration.
"Are you in such need of money that you must pillage on the high-road?" "I am so eager for it, marquis, that I should put my heart in pawn if it were not already captured," she said, smiling coquettishly. "But where did you get the strange idea that you could manage Chouans without letting them rob a few Blues here and there? Don't you know the saying, 'Thieving as an owl'? and that's a Chouan.
On a certain day in the summer of 1795, a stranger presented himself to Père Lemercier, armed with a password, and a very warm recommendation from a refractory priest, who was in hiding at Caen. He was a Chouan chief, bearing the name and title of General Lebret; of medium stature, with red hair and beard, and cold steel-coloured eyes.
The Abbe Gudin said he'd have to roam round two months as a ghost before he could come to life. We saw him pass us, he was pale, he was cold, he was thin, he smelt of the cemetery." "And his Reverence says that if a ghost gets hold of a living man he can force him to be his companion," said the fourth Chouan.
"I sent the boy to warn you," said Barbette, frightened, "didn't you meet him?" The Chouan rose and struck his wife so violently that she dropped, pale as death, upon the bed. "You cursed woman," he said, "you have killed me!" Then seized with remorse, he took her in his arms. "Barbette!" he cried, "Barbette! Holy Virgin, my hand was too heavy!"
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