“See,” he said, taking out a knife and scoring the wood, “here is the Loire; here is your coast-line. I began by creating a council in the _chef-lieu_ of every department. Now here are yours—Fontenay for your own department of Vendée proper,” he stabbed the point into the table, “Niort for Deux-Sèvres, Angers——” Gilbert got up and interrupted the draughtsman. “Tell me as much as you will of your own plans, M. de la Rouërie,” he said gravely, “and be assured of my sympathy and admiration, but do not hope to see the like succeed on the left bank of the Loire. If our people ever rise——” “You will wish that you had organised them beforehand,” said La Rouërie like a flash. He had left the knife still stabbed into the table. “You do concede, then, that there is a chance of their rising?” “I do not know what to think,” replied Gilbert. “But if ever they do, I am assured of this, that they will never be organised from above, nor will political considerations have much power to sway them. If ever it comes, the uprising will be a purely spontaneous movement from below, due to the religious persecution which has pressed so heavily on Vendée for the past two years and more.” “And who will lead them?” cried the Breton. “Their priests? M. de Château-Foix, pardon me for saying so, but you are a true Liberal—you are refusing to look facts in the face. I will grant you, since you are so convinced of it, that your tenantry, if ever they take up arms, will do so of their own volition; but to whom will they come when they have got together the obsolete fowling-pieces and the pitchforks which will be their arms—in place of the muskets with which you might have furnished them? Why, to you, to their natural leader! And what will you do then? Let them go alone to be mown down by the regulars because the Prussians——” He checked himself. “I sincerely beg your pardon, Monsieur le Marquis, for I believe that I was on the verge of insulting you, which was not my intention, since I know that you would not let them go alone.” Gilbert put his elbows on the table and his head between his hands. “You speak nothing but the truth,” he said dejectedly. “God knows what will happen; I don’t.” La Rouërie studied him for a moment as he sat there, and then, casting a sudden glance towards the bed in the corner, crossed the room towards it. “Can’t you get to sleep?” he asked. “I am afraid we are doing a devilish amount of talking.” “Oh, I find it rather soothing than otherwise,” was the Vicomte’s reply, and La Rouërie, coming back, observed in a low tone to Gilbert: “I like that cousin of yours, M. de Château-Foix. He has the pluck of twenty.” To which Gilbert replied rather stiffly that the Marquis was very good. . . .