Some minutes later Gaspard, Louis Renaud, and the Marquis de Souday entered the room. Seeing Petit-Pierre on her knees, absorbed in prayer and meditation, they paused on the threshold; and the Marquis de Souday, who had thought proper to salute the reveille, as in the good old times, with a song, stopped short in his tune respectfully. But Petit-Pierre had heard the opening of the door. She rose and addressed those who stood there. "Come in, gentlemen, and forgive me for disturbing you so early," she said; "but I have important determinations to announce to you." "On the contrary, it is we who ought to ask your Royal Highness's pardon for not foreseeing her wishes and for having slept while we might have been useful to her," said Louis Renaud. "A truce to compliments, my friend," interrupted Petit-Pierre. "That appanage of royalty is ill-timed now that royalty is deserted and engulfed for the second time." "What can you mean?" "I mean, my good and dear friends," resumed Petit-Pierre turning her back to the fireplace, while the Vendéans stood in a circle round her,--"I mean that I have called you to me that I may now give back your promises and bid you farewell." "Give back our promises! bid us farewell!" cried her astonished partisans. "Your Royal Highness is surely not thinking of leaving us?" Then, all together, looking at each other, they cried out:-- "It is impossible!" "Nevertheless, I must." "Why so?" "Because I am advised,--more than that, I am adjured to do so." "By whom?" "By those whose judgment and intelligence I cannot doubt, any more than I distrust their devotion and fidelity." "But for what reasons?--under what pretexts?" "It seems that the royalist cause is despaired of even in La Vendée; the white banner is a rag which France repudiates. I am told there are not in Paris twelve hundred men who, for a few francs, would begin a riot in the streets; that it is false to say that we have sympathizers in the army, false that certain of the government are true to us, false that the Bocage is ready to rise as one man to defend the rights of Henri V.--" "But," interrupted the noble Vendéan who had for the time changed a name illustrious in the great war for that of Gaspard, and who seemed incapable of longer controlling himself, "who gives such advice? Who speaks of La Vendée with such assurance? Who measures our devotion, and says, 'Thus far and no farther shall it go'?" "Various royalist committees that I need not name to you, but whose opinion we must regard." "Royalist committees!" cried the Marquis de Souday. "Ha! _parbleu!_ I know them; and if Madame will believe me, we had better treat their advice as the late Marquis de Charette treated the advice of the royalist committees of his day." "How was that, my brave Souday?" said Petit-Pierre. "The respect I have for your Royal Highness," replied the marquis, with magnificent self-possession, "will not, unfortunately, allow of my specifying further."