Madame had a little chat with the man, who pleased her, and was charged with the commission. They had relied on his prudence: he was too prudent. His purchases achieved, he told the provision merchant, in order to allay suspicions, to send the boxes to Pont-Rousseau, where he would await them. Now, whilst he was loading his horse with the boxes, a patriot passed by. Patriots generally have their eyes wide open on all occasions; but, in this instance, he of Nantes had his particularly wide open. Our man saw the tin boxes, took them for powder boxes, and imagined they were meant for the Chouans. Whilst the sexton loaded his remaining boxes, the patriot got the start and warned the gendarmerie of Souniers. They arrested the churchman in his transit, and took him back to Nantes. The boxes were opened and, instead of munition, they found vegetables; but, although vegetables may appear very inoffensive, to suspicious minds they have a certain signification. When the sexton was interrogated as to the rank in life of those who had charged him with this gastronomic commission, he replied that they were persons unknown to him, and that they waited on the heath of Génusson. He had indicated a point opposite to where the Duchesse de Berry really was. Some gendarmes went to the heath of Génusson, which, we may be very sure, was deserted. The sexton was taken to the prison of Nantes. A peasant had seen him amidst the gendarmes, and had taken to his heels to warn the duchesse. For greater safety, Madame left her hiding-place, as she knew the sexton too little to judge the length to which his devotion would run, and she took refuge in a stable. She there spent the night and day of the 19th with the farmer's oxen. One of these animals took a fancy to her, and came several times to breathe in her face. "I want," she said, laughing at her situation the next day, "to be painted as soon as I can manage it, _tête-à-tête_ with the fat ox which came so pleasantly to _puff_ in my face." Another ox had directed his affections towards M. de Ménars, and had spent the night licking his face; but M. de Ménars was so tired that he had received the animal's caresses without waking. In the midst of a terrible storm and beating rain, at 1 o'clock in the morning of 20 May, Madame left the farm to go to L----e, an occupied country house, belonging to the family of la R----e, situated in the commune of Saint-Philibert. The roads were fearful, and a deep bog intersected the way; they could only advance across the miry marsh by sounding the way step by step. M. Charette had committed Madame to the care of his young comrade, de la R----e, to whose home they were going; so, in order to cross the dangerous passage, the young man wished to trust to his own devices; he took Madame on his shoulders and, when risking his first step in the marsh, he said--