There are, perhaps, no such things as political bolts from the blue. Such projectiles fall usually from a clouded sky, upon the heads of persons who have already discerned threatening atmospheric symptoms. But whether the peasants of Vendée had or had not been looking skywards, the decree struck them with fearful force. . . . Should they, to whom the very name of Blue was execrable—whether applied to National Guard or to soldier of the line—should they be forced to enroll themselves in the ranks of the men to whom they owed the carrying out of more than two years of persecution and vexation? Were they, the most stay-at-home, possibly, of all the peasantry of France, to be forced to leave their homesteads to fight on the frontiers? The hated words of conscription and _tirage au sort_ were not indeed mentioned in the decree, but they had already been spoken in the Assembly, and since the drawing of lots was the simplest method of forced recruiting, to that method it would come in the end. From the moment when the news struck the inhabitants of the town of Cholet, busy on that Saturday in their weekly market, the cry rang hot through all the countryside: “Down with the tirage!” “We will not give our names!” The tinder was alight. But the inner mental atmosphere of a house is sometimes so charged with emotion as to resist the pressure of outer conditions, and to one inmate at least of the château the breath of nearing revolt brought with it, after all, nothing of exultation. So, on the Wednesday evening, Louis was sitting on the edge of his bed hardly heeding the disjointed tale of some affray which Jasmin poured out as he pulled off his master’s boots. At any other time it would have been exceedingly welcome to the young man, but now—— “That will do, Jasmin,” he said. He got up and threw off his coat and waistcoat. “No, I don’t want you any more now. Give me my dressing-gown and my slippers, and don’t come back till I ring.” “Monsieur le Vicomte is not ill?” queried Jasmin anxiously, as he held out the flowered silk. “Good God, no! What put such a foolish idea into your head?” “Oh, nothing, nothing,” responded his domestic rather hastily. “Only I thought, Monsieur Louis, that you did not seem quite yourself.” Louis looked after him as he went out with a frown. “Curse it!” he said between his teeth. “Even the servants are noticing. . . .” He caught sight of his own face in the glass, and laughed. “Small wonder!” he exclaimed, and threw himself down moodily in his big chair in front of the fire.