Like a thunder-clap came the news of the King’s death. It had been provided that word should be sent to Clisson of any impending rescue. Not a hand worth counting had been raised to save him. Lescure and La Rochejaquelein looked at each other in profound grief and dismay; and among the twenty-five men in the château capable of bearing arms, the spark of desperate merriment flickered out. So they remained for months, in the midst of threats growing from day to day. Madame de Lescure was learning to ride, as an initiation into the possible life before her, and sat trembling upon the saddle, while her husband and Henri walked on either side over the greensward, supporting her, and comforting her tears. Henri began to be more moody and preoccupied, saying little. He traversed the country alone, often facing and surmounting danger with his consummate physical skill, sometimes hiding, or galloping madly to the woods. On one occasion gendarmes made a descent on Clisson, and carried off his favorite horse. They told Lescure that “the son of Monsieur de La Rochejaquelein was much more sharply suspected” than he was. “I do not see why,” Lescure replied, with his habitual directness; “we are relatives and fast friends; our opinions are quite the same.” Citizens were summoned to the defence of Bressuire. Lescure had been for four years back commandant of his parish of Boismé. Hourly he expected his orders to march against his insurgent neighbors: there seemed no way out of it. The men were holding a council of debate, determined, at least, to make a passive resistance when, early in April, the name of La Rochejaquelein was called to be drawn for the militia. On the track of this announcement followed a secret message, brought by a young peasant named Morin, from Henri’s unmarried aunt, living in retirement some miles away. Chollet had been taken; the people had arisen; there were wild hopes that the royalist faction might get the upperhand. The young peasant, eager and breathless, fixed his glance upon Henri. He spoke persuasively, with a fervor that seemed to thrill his whole body. “Sir, will you draw to-morrow for the militia, when your farmers are about to fight rather than be drafted? Come with us! The whole country-side looks to you; it will obey you.” “God wills it,” cried Peter the Hermit. He willed that God should will it, at any rate, and all Christendom took him at his word. The peasant boy had some spell beside eloquence, for Henri’s thinking was over. “Tell them that I will come,” he answered. That night, accompanied by one servant, a guide, and the tremulous Chevalier, afraid to stand his chances at Clisson, provided with a brace of pistols and carrying a stick, Henri mounted his horse and waved farewell. There were protestations, arguments, women’s prayers and tears; but he silently tightened his belt upon his pistols, and threw himself, at parting, into Lescure’s arms. “Then first came the eagle-look into his eyes”