es, his hair, cut in the peasant fashion, his
clothes, and his slow growth gave him the appearance of a child of ten.

The two young d'Hauteserres and the twin brothers Simeuse, under the
guidance of their cousin Laurence, who had been watching over their
safety and that of the other _emigres_ who accompanied them from
Strasburg to Bar-sur-Aube, had just passed through Alsace and Lorraine,
and were now in Champagne while other conspirators, not less bold,
were entering France by the cliffs of Normandy. Dressed as workmen the
d'Hauteserres and the Simeuse twins had walked from forest to forest,
guided on their way by relays of persons, chosen by Laurence during
the last three months from among the least suspected of the Bourbon
adherents living in each neighborhood. The _emigres_ slept by day and
travelled by night. Each brought with him two faithful soldiers; one
of whom went before to warn of danger, the other behind to protect a
retreat. Thanks to these military precautions, this valuable detachment
had at last reached, without accident, the forest of Nodesme, which
was chosen as the rendezvous. Twenty-seven other gentlemen had entered
France from Switzerland and crossed Burgundy, guided towards Paris with
the same caution.

Monsieur de Riviere counted on collecting five hundred men, one hundred
of whom were young nobles, the officers of this sacred legion. Monsieur
de Polignac and Monsieur de Riviere, whose conduct as chiefs of this
advance was most remarkable, afterwards preserved an impenetrable
secrecy as to the names of those of their accomplices who were not
discovered. It may be said, therefore, now that the Restoration has made
matters clearer, that Bonaparte never knew the extent of the danger he
then ran, any more than England knew the peril she had escaped from
the camp at Boulogne; and yet the police of France was never more
intelligently or ably managed.

At the period when this history begins, a coward--for cowards are always
to be found in conspiracies which are not confined to a small number
of equally strong men--a sworn confederate, brought face to face with
death, gave certain information, happily insufficient to cover the
extent of the conspiracy, but precise enough to show the object of the
enterprise. The police had therefore, as Malin told Grevin, left the
conspirators at liberty, though all the while watching them, hoping to
discover the ramifications of the plot. Nevertheless, the government