When the curé Paquin had begged the people to give in, Chénier’s wife added her entreaties, saying there was no disgrace in surrendering to such a superior force. But her husband had only fondly kissed her, repeating that well-worn sentence, “La garde meurt mais ne se rend pas,” bade her good-bye and sent her to a place of safety. One tradition has it that a greater ordeal than farewell and death awaited her. The usual terrors of the law were expended upon her scorched remnant of a husband; the mutilated quarters lay tossed about in the house of one Anderson, near the battlefield, and she was not allowed to bury them. After a burial of some fashion she had the hardihood to seek the remains, disinter and secrete them, and when opportunity came, in the refuge of a friend’s garret, sew the parts together and have them buried properly. The edge of romance is dulled when we read that there was more of the hot head and mulish foot about Chénier than the hero; but to the present day there is a local phrase, “Brave comme Chénier.” The day after the battle Colborne’s chief officers declared that they were obliged to despatch Chénier. A patriot dame standing by said none but an English soldier was capable of killing a wounded man. The Abbé Paquin declares that the mutilation of the body and the removal of the heart were incidents in the _post mortem_, held by the desire of the surgeons, to ascertain the precise wound of which he died, and the historian De Bellefeuille corroborates his assertion. This scarcely accounts for parading the heart about on the point of a bayonet, and it is also pertinently asked, “Depuis quand ouvre-t-on les corps des soldats tués sur un champ de bataille pour savoir de quoi ils sont morts!” * * * * *