"What I want to speak with you about is this," continued the Count: "since I have been away, during this last campaign, there has sprung up, it seems, a dangerous band in this part of the province; consisting of men who are carrying on a system of violence, depredation, and intimidation, which must be put a stop to. What I want to consult with you in regard to, is the best means of putting down this band, for put down I am determined it shall be, and that right speedily." "You will not be able to put them down, my lord!" replied the blacksmith. "If mere simple plunder were the object of these persons, the thing would be easily done. You would have the whole people to aid you, and nothing would be more easy. But, my lord, such is not the case. The men may plunder--I do not say that it is not so--but they only plunder their enemies. It has always been so in this part of the country, as the good Count, your father, well knew, and always will be so to the end of the world. People have given these bands different names, at different times, and from different circumstances. Once they were called _les Faucons_, because, at that time, the minister was sending down men into the country, taxing the salt and the fish, and when any of them came, one of these bands stooped upon him, like a falcon, carried him off, and he was never heard of more. At another time they were called _les Eperviers_, the hawks, because they hovered over all the country and caught what they could. That was the time when the King sent down so many soldiers, that they could not carry off the collectors without hovering round them for a long time. Now they call them _les Chauve-souris_, or the bats, because they fly about just at the setting-in of night, and woe be to the persecuting Papist that falls in their way. To-morrow, if obliged to do the work later at night, they may be called _les Hiboux_, or the owls; and the time may come, perhaps, when they will be called _les Loups_ or _les Chouettes_, the wolves or the screech-owls: but they will do no harm to any one but their enemies. An honest man, who seeks to harm nobody, may go from one end of the province to another,--ay, and through all Brittany, too, as well as Poitou, without meeting with the least annoyance. But if it be different, if he be an oppressor of the people, a seller of men's souls, let him see that he travels by daylight only, and even then he wo'n't be very safe." "I do not know," said the Count, "that I am either an oppressor of the people, or a buyer and seller of men's souls; and yet, my good friend Virlay, these Chauve-souris, as you call them, fastened their claws upon me, and put me to no slight inconvenience and discomfort. They might have shot me, too, for they fired right at my horse. You may have heard of all this before, I dare say," he added, with a smile.