Armand de la Rouërie’s turbulent past was indeed common property, and Vendée no less than his native Brittany had heard of his light loves, his follies and his duels, as well as of his sojourn in the Bastille on a point of provincial independence and his service in America under Lafayette. Gilbert knew also, vaguely, that this firebrand had made himself the head of a secret Royalist organisation in Brittany, that his château near Antrain was its focus, and that since the end of the previous May he had disappeared, no research having revealed the retreat whence he still continued the direction of his schemes. But what he had heard of the Marquis had not particularly disposed him in his favour, and of his plans he knew no more than rumour whispered. And here, in a little Maine cottage, the man himself, impetuous and magnetic, and infinitely more capable than Gilbert had ever dreamt, was laying before him the details of an organisation astoundingly complete, ramified throughout Brittany and awaiting only the signal from Coblentz to put itself in motion. When the army of the Princes, said La Rouërie, entering France by Thionville and Verdun, had got as far as Chalons, he should give the word, and march on Paris with his nucleus of ten thousand men. The man himself, of a character so diametrically opposed to his own, attracted Gilbert strangely; the organisation which his fiery brain had conceived and carried out in less than a year amazed him by its efficiency, but with its immediate object he could not sympathise, and he remained silent when La Rouërie had finished. “You don’t approve?” said the Breton, flashing a quick glance at him. “Not of invasion,” answered Gilbert. “Not of the return of voluntary exiles, with our banished Princes at their head?” “Perhaps,” said Château-Foix, “if they came back unsupported by Prussian or Austrian levies. But they will not.” The Marquis de la Rouërie shrugged his shoulders. “Then, were you in my place, Monsieur, you would not, if you could, march on Paris to deliver the King?” “I would do it to-morrow if I were sure that I should not meet Ferdinand of Brunswick under the walls!” La Rouërie sprang to his feet. “M. de Château-Foix, men have called me reckless and unpractical, but you! . . . I will strike a bargain with you. Organise Vendée as I have organised Brittany, and in six months we will march together on Paris with never a Prussian to help us!” So electric was his enthusiasm, as he stood there with sparkling eyes and outstretched hand, that the soldier’s dreams which Château-Foix had long relinquished glowed hot for a moment before him, and he stared up at La Rouërie fascinated, gripping the edge of the settle with his hands. The Breton laid hold of the heavy oaken table and dragged it nearer.