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At any cost, therefore, Cadoudal and his Chouans must prove to the commander-in-chief that they knew no fear, and had nothing to expect from intimidation. Just then the gallop of a horse was heard; the rider no doubt had the countersign, for he passed without difficulty the various patrols stationed along the toad to La Roche-Bernard, and entered the village of Muzillac, also without difficulty.
"How many men are stationed along the road from here to La Roche-Bernard, which the gentleman followed in coming to see me?" "Six hundred on the Arzal moor, six hundred among the Marzan gorse, three hundred at Peaule, three hundred at Billiers." "Total, eighteen hundred. How many between Noyal and Muzillac?" "Four hundred." "Two thousand two hundred. How many between here and Vannes?"
If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbe Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the Vilaine River falls.
When they reached the end of the village, Roland darted his eyes along the road, which stretches in a straight line from Muzillac to the Trinite. The road, fully exposed to view, seemed absolutely solitary. They rode on for about a mile and a half, then Roland said: "But where the devil are your men?" "To right and left, before and behind us." "Ha, what a joke!"
Let us pass through this network of invisible sentinels, and after fording two streams, the affluents of a nameless river which flows into the sea near Billiers, between Arzal and Dangau, let us boldly enter the village of Muzillac. All is still and sombre; a single light shines through the blinds of a house, or rather a cottage, which nothing distinguishes from its fellows.
His adventures at Avignon and Bourg with Morgan and the Company of Jehu, his adventures in the villages of Muzillac and the Trinite with Cadoudal and his Chouans, seemed to him some strange initiation in an unknown religion; but like those courageous neophytes who risk death to learn the secrets of initiation, he resolved to follow to the end.
Such were the men, who, at the time we are crossing the borderland between the Loire-Inferieure and Morbihan, were scattered from La Roche-Bernard to Vannes, and from Quertemberg to Billiers, surrounding consequently the village of Muzillac.
"But if you had raised your voice at any spot on the road and asked: 'Where shall I find Georges Cadoudal? a voice would have answered: 'At the village of Muzillac, fourth house to the right. You saw no one, colonel; but at that very moment fifteen hundred men, or thereabout, knew that Colonel Roland, the First Consul's aide-de-camp, was on his way to a conference with the son of the miller of Leguerno."
"Fifty at Theix, three hundred at the Trinite, six hundred between the Trinite and Muzillac." "Three thousand two hundred. And from Ambon to Leguerno?" "Twelve hundred." "Four thousand four hundred. And in the village around me, in the houses, the gardens, the cellars?" "Five to six hundred, general." "Thank you, Benedicite." He made a sign with his head and Benedicite went out.
Roland, tell the colonel that he is as free in Paris as you were in his camp at Muzillac, and that if he wishes a passport for any country in the world, Fouche has orders to give it to him." "Your word suffices, citizen First Consul," replied Cadoudal, bowing. "I leave to-night." "May I ask where you are going?" "To London, general." "So much the better." "Why so much the better?"
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