M. Lemot had done all he could to try and organise a National Guard at Clisson; he had already found ten volunteers, who were drilled in secret by the quarter-master and the gendarmerie. This quarter-master was an excellent fellow; though, for all that, he was extremely anxious to arrest me: telling the Liberals that I looked like a Chouan, and the Chouans that I looked like a Liberal; the consequence thereof being that the town would have been very pleased to see me marched off to gaol. I had my choice of a safeguard in my passport, which was perfectly correct, and in the letter from General La Fayette. I decided upon the passport, and I believe I was rightly inspired in my decision. I returned that same night to la Jarrie, although they did not expect me till next day and reproached me terribly for my imprudence; they could not get over their surprise that I had not rested during the journey. It was settled in council that I was to risk no more excursions without my guide, who had asked for a few days to go and visit his children and to spread abroad in the neighbouring villages the story of his adventure, which was to serve as a safeguard for me. He reappeared at the time arranged and put himself at my disposal, making himself answerable for everything. We took the road to Torfou. My man had made himself smart when he was to be condemned to penal servitude; for the type of his face and the style of his dress were those of a town dweller, which had not struck me before; but he adopted the costume of the countryside while acting as my guide. I now for the first time examined him with some attention. He had preserved the primitive type of the peasantry of the second race: from his narrow forehead, his serious face and his hair cut round, he looked like a peasant of the time of Charles le Gros. He scarcely opened his mouth, except it was to point out some topographical point on the right or left hand-- "It was here that the Blues were defeated!" I don't think he had undertaken too much in promising me his protection, for, although he had been pardoned by King Louis-Philippe, the good man was a Chouan to the finger-tips. Moreover, in his eyes, it was I who had pardoned him and not the king at all. A quarter of a league from Torfou, in the middle of a space made by four cross-roads, rose a stone column, twenty feet in height, almost after the pattern of that in the place Vendôme. M. de la Bretèche had it erected at his own expense at the time of the Restoration. Four names in bronze letters, enclosed in a crown of the same metal, were inscribed on it, each name facing one of the four roads, of which this pillar forms the meeting-place: the names are those of Charette, d'Elbée, Bonchamp and Lescure. I asked my guide for an explanation.