r equipment, subsistence, and munitions
from our enemies, they would unbind you and obey you blindly."

"And you wish me to command such men under such circumstances? If my
life is necessary to the cause which I defend allow me at any rate to
save the honor of my position. If I withdraw now I can ignore this base
act. I will return, in order to escort you."

So saying, he rapidly disappeared. The young lady listened to his
receding steps with evident displeasure. When the sound on the dried
leaves ceased, she stood for a moment as if confounded, then she
hastily returned to the Chouans. With a gesture of contempt she said
to Marche-a-Terre, who helped her to dismount, "That young man wants to
make regular war on the Republic! Ah, well! he'll get over that in a few
days. How he treated me!" she thought, presently.

She seated herself on the rock where the marquis had been sitting, and
silently awaited the arrival of the coach. It was one of the phenomena
of the times, and not the least of them, that this young and noble lady
should be flung by violent partisanship into the struggle of monarchies
against the spirit of the age, and be driven by the strength of her
feelings into actions of which it may almost be said she was not
conscious. In this she resembled others of her time who were led away by
an enthusiasm which was often productive of noble deeds. Like her, many
women played heroic or blameworthy parts in the fierce struggle. The
royalist cause had no emissaries so devoted and so active as these
women; but none of the heroines on that side paid for mistaken devotion
or for actions forbidden to their sex, with a greater expiation than did
this lady when, seated on that wayside rock, she was forced to admire
the young leader's noble disdain and loyalty to principle. Insensibly
she dropped into reverie. Bitter memories made her long for the
innocence of her early years, and regret that she had escaped being
a victim of the Revolution whose victorious march could no longer be
arrested by feeble hands.

The coach, which, as we now see, had much to do with the attack of the
Chouans, had started from the little town of Ernee a few moments before
the skirmishing began. Nothing pictures a region so well as the state
of its social material. From this point of view the coach deserves a
mention. The Revolution itself was powerless to destroy it; in fact, it
still rolls to this present day. When Turgot bought up the privileg