Vardenne, the head-bailiff, had much ado to keep his master's impatience in check after that. He was to see at once that the rooms which Madame la Marquise had selected were put ready for her occupation. If men were not available capable women and girls would have to be brought up from the village; in any case, Madame la Marquise should be installed here within the week, and suitable servants engaged for her. He himself was so absolutely ignorant of what ladies required in order to be comfortable in a chateau, that he then and there placed the bailiff entirely at Madame's disposal for any orders she might deign to give. Nothing could have pleased Madame better. She was quite ready to take up her abode at La Frontenay, where already she had arranged to meet M. de Puisaye and the other Royalist leaders, and where every kind of plan and scheme could be discussed and prepared at leisure. Madame had plans of her own to think of as well--plans intimately connected with the armament works of La Frontenay and its disaffected workmen, and which she felt sure would commend themselves at once to Joseph de Puisaye. So she returned to Courson in a high state of exultation. The rapidity wherewith happy events had moved along surpassed her wildest expectations. That same evening M. de Courson decided that he and Laurent had best join de Puisaye, their chief, immediately. The whole aspect of the proposed rising was wearing a different aspect now that such perfect headquarters were at the disposal of its leaders. "Directly you are settled at La Frontenay," M. de Courson said, "I'll communicate with Prigent and d'Ache, and they can come over with de Puisaye as soon as you are ready to receive them. The park is so marvellously secluded and so extensive, that there is practically no fear of Bonaparte's spies being about, and I feel confident that our chiefs can come and go when they like, and as often as they like, without fear of discovery...." "Till we are ready for our big coup," asserted Madame eagerly. "Yes," mused M. le Comte; "it begins to look feasible now." "Feasible?" exclaimed Madame, whose optimism and enthusiasm nothing would ever damp. "Feasible? I look upon it as done. Give Fernande and me three months, and we'll have won over two-thirds of the workmen at La Frontenay. When our recruits march upon the foundry and demand its surrender in the name of the King, they will be received with acclamations of loyalty, and within the hour the foundries of La Frontenay will be manufacturing munitions of war for the triumph of the King's cause and the overthrow of that execrable Bonaparte." "God grant that your hopes may be realized, my dear Denise," rejoined M. de Courson; and Laurent added fervently: "What a triumph that will be for us! The mouths of fire and engines of war fashioned by regicides and traitors for the exaltation of the baseborn Corsican, suddenly turned against that very idol whom they have dared to set up against their lawful King!"