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The 24th, she went to Saint Anne d'Auray, a pilgrimage venerated throughout all Brittany, and visited the Champ des Martyrs, the little plain where thirty-three years before, the EMIGRES taken at Quiberon had been shot, despite their capitulation. When Madame appeared on the consecrated field, the crowd cheered her, then became still, and amid solemn silence, sang the de Profundis.
"They have killed her!" she said at last, clasping her hands. She fell on her knees which struck sharp blows on the brick-laid floor, making a vow no doubt to Saint Anne d'Auray, the most powerful of the madonnas of Brittany. "A doctor from Paris," she said to Brigaut. "Go and fetch one, Brigaut, go!" She took him by the shoulder and gave him a despotic push to send him from the room.
Anne d'Auray, so highly venerated by Breton pilgrims, and to give some hasty alms to the crowd of beggars clustered on the steps of the sanctuary. They all limped off at once, with a great clatter of crutches and wooden shoes, to fetch us water from the Bonne-Mere to wash our faces and eyes with.
"They have killed her!" she said at last, clasping her hands. She fell on her knees which struck sharp blows on the brick-laid floor, making a vow no doubt to Saint Anne d'Auray, the most powerful of the madonnas of Brittany. "A doctor from Paris," she said to Brigaut. "Go and fetch one, Brigaut, go!" She took him by the shoulder and gave him a despotic push to send him from the room.
. . . You never heard of this place, I daresay. After staying a few days at Paris we started for Rennes, reached Caen and halted a little thence made for Auray, where we made excursions to Carnac, Lokmariaker, and Ste.-Anne d'Auray; all very interesting of their kind; then saw Brest, Morlaix, St.-Pol de Leon, and the sea-port Roscoff, our intended bathing place it was full of folk, however, and otherwise impracticable, so we had nothing for it, but to "rebrousser chemin" and get to the south-west again.
They were all muscular and well set-up with blue eyes and blonde mustaches, and were wearing hidden medallions. One of them had presented to the cook one of his religious charms which he had bought on a pilgrimage to Ste. Anne d'Auray. Caragol was wearing it upon his hairy chest, and experiencing a new-born faith in the miracles of this foreign image.
The Chouans are fighting like demons, extended in long skirmishing lines, picking out the cluster of gunners, making right deadly use of their English powder; imperceptibly but unflinchingly closing their scattered groups until the signal comes and with ringing cries: "Notre Dame d'Auray!" and "Vive le roi!" they charge, undismayed by odds, the serried ranks of the Republicans.
"My God, yes," quoth René cheerfully from his corner. "Notre Dame d'Auray has watched over Mademoiselle to-day. She would not permit the daughter to die like the mother. And now we have got her ladyship we shall keep her too. This, if your honour remembers his sailor's knowledge, looks like a three-days' gale."
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