The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas

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      IT WAS CADOUDAL, and not a man among the band of indenciaries—or in all of the Morbihan—who would dare to raise a hand against him or hesitate to obey a single one of his orders. So the second in command, who was still holding the children, released them and walked over to Cadoudal. “General,” he said. “What are your orders?”

      “First of all, untie those two poor people.”

      The bandits quickly did Cadoudal’s bidding. Madame Doley collapsed in an armchair, then drew her two children into her arms and pulled them to her breast. Her husband rose to his feet, walked over to Cadoudal, and shook his hand.

      “And now?” asked the second in command.

      “Now,” said Cadoudal, “I’ve been told that there are three brigades like yours.”

      “Yes, General.”

      “Who had the audacity to gather you together to do this odious work?”

      “A man came from Paris; he told us that you would be back to join us within a month; he said that we should gather in your name.”

      “Fighting against the government as Chouans I could understand. But burning, never! Am I an arsonist?”

      “We were even told to choose the man among us who most resembled you, so that people would believe you were already here. We called him George II. What must we do now to atone for our mistake?”

      “Your mistake was to believe that I could ever become the leader of a band of brigands like you, and there is no way to atone for that. Carry my orders to the other groups: They must disband and cease their odious activities immediately. Then send word to all the former leaders, and especially to Sol de Grisolles and Guillemot, asking them to take up arms and prepare once again to embark on a campaign under my command. However, they must not make a move or raise their white flag until I say so.”

      The bandits withdrew without a word.

      The farmer and his wife restored order to their wardrobes. The linen once more took its place on the shelves and the silverware in the drawers. A half hour later, the room looked as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened there at all.

      Madame Doley had not been mistaken. Her husband had indeed taken precautions. He had hidden some of the silverware as well as the sack of gold, which contained probably twelve thousand francs. The Breton peasant, among all peasants, is the most defiant and perhaps the most provident. In spite of Cadoudal’s promise, Doley had worried that things might turn out badly, and in that case, he wanted to protect at least some of his fortune. And so he had done.

      After seeing to Jean and his wife and then carrying out George II’s body, Monsieur and Madame Doley relocked their doors. Cadoudal, who had eaten nothing since morning, now sat at a simple supper, as if his day had passed without event. Refusing the bed the farmer offered, he stretched out on fresh straw in the barn.

      The next day, scarcely had he arisen when Sol de Grisolles arrived. Living in Auray, about two and a half leagues from Plescop, he had been roused by one of the brigands who’d hoped to please Cadoudal by telling Grisolles without delay that Cadoudal was nearby. The news greatly astonished Grisolles, for he believed, like everyone else, that Cadoudal was in London.

      Cadoudal told him the whole story and showed him the traces of fire and blood on the kitchen’s tile floor. These burning brigades had surely been a police plot, devised to nullify the treaty that Cadoudal had signed with Bonaparte by accusing the Breton general of breaking it. So Cadoudal concluded; and in light of that, he said, he was once more free to act as he wished: which was what he wanted to talk to Sol de Grisolles about.

      His first intention was to inform Bonaparte that by virtue of what had recently happened in Brittany, he was withdrawing his word. Still, with proof incontrovertible that he had nothing to do with the new wave of banditry in the west—for indeed he had stopped it at his own life’s peril—he would not declare a war between sovereign powers, since that would be impossible for him to carry out; rather, he would undertake vengeance Corsican style. He wished to charge Sol de Grisolles with communicating the vendetta. It was a charge that Grisolles accepted immediately, for he was a man who never backed away from what he believed to be his duty.

      Grisolles would then join Laurent, wherever Laurent happened to be, and have him put his Companions of Jehu back into operation at once, with the understanding that Cadoudal himself would lose no time in going first to London and then returning to Paris to set his own plans into execution.

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