r royalist ladies in order to visit the
hero in prison and offer him her services. He had admirers who fawned
on him, flatterers who praised him to the skies, and how could this
rather hot-headed youth of twenty resist such adulation at that strange
epoch when even the wisest lost their balance? At least his folly was
generous.

Scarcely out of prison he was seized with pity for the misery of the
pardoned Chouans, veritable pariahs, who lived by all sorts of
contrivances or were dependent on charity, and he made their care his
special charge. He was always followed by a dozen of these parasites, a
ragged troop of whom filled the Cafe Hervieux, where he held his court
and which moreover was frequented by teachers of English, mathematics
and fencing, whom he had in his pay, and from whom he took lessons when
not playing faro.

Le Chevalier had a warm heart, and a purse that was never closed. He was
a facile speaker whose eloquence was of a forensic type. His friendships
were passionate. While in prison he received news of the death of one of
his friends, Gilbert, who had been guillotined at Evreux, and when some
one congratulated him on his approaching release he replied: "Ah, my
dear comrade! do you think this is a time to congratulate me? Do you
know so little of my heart and are you so ignorant of the love I bore
Gilbert? The happiness of my life is destroyed forever. Nothing can fill
the void in my heart.... I have lived, ah! far too long. O divine duties
of friendship and honour, how my heart burns to fulfil you! O eternity
or annihilation, how sweet will you seem to me whence once I have
fulfilled them!" Such was Le Chevalier's style and this affection
contrasted singularly with the world in which he lived. His comparative
wealth, his generosity, and an air of mystery about his life, gave him a
certain advantage over the most popular leaders. People knew that he was
dreaming of gigantic projects, and his partisans considered him cut out
for the accomplishment of great things.

In reality Le Chevalier squandered his patrimony recklessly.
The treasury of the party--presided over by an old officer of
Frotte's, Bureau de Placene, who pompously styled himself the
Treasurer-General--was empty, and orders came from "high places,"
without any one exactly knowing whence they emanated, for the faithful
to refill them by pillaging the coffers of the state. The police had
little by little relaxed their supervision of Le Chev