"As for the other, if I'm not mistaken, that's a better discovery still--" "But who is it? Come, Courtin, tell me at once." "No, Madame la baronne. I shall tell the name--I shall probably be obliged to do so--to the authorities." "The authorities! Do you mean to tell me you are going to denounce my son?" cried the baroness, amazed and stupefied at the tone her farmer, hitherto so humble, was assuming. "Assuredly I do, Madame la baronne," said Courtin, composedly. "Nonsense! you would not think of it." "I do think it, Madame la baronne, and I should be now on the road to Montaigu or even to Nantes, if I had not wished to warn you, so that you may put Monsieur Michel out of harm's way." "But, supposing that Michel is concerned in this affair," said the baroness, vehemently; "you will compromise me with all my neighbors, and--who knows?--you may draw down horrible reprisals on La Logerie." "Then we must defend the château, that's all, Madame la baronne." "Courtin!" "I saw the great war, Madame la baronne. I was a little fellow then, but I remember it, and on my word of honor I don't want to see the like again. I don't want to see my twenty acres of land a battlefield for both parties, my harvests eaten by one or burned by the other; still less do I want to see the Whites lay hands on the National domain, which they will do if they get the chance. Out of my twenty acres, five belonged to _émigrés_. I bought 'em and paid for 'em; that's one quarter of all I own. Besides, here's another thing: the government relies upon me, and I wish to justify the confidence of the government." "But, Courtin," said the baroness, almost ready to come down to entreaty, "matters can't be as serious as you imagine, I am sure." "Beg pardon, Madame la baronne, they are very serious indeed. I am only a peasant, but that doesn't prevent me from knowing as much as others know, being blessed with a good ear and a gift for listening. The Retz district is all but at the boiling-point; another fagot and the pot will boil over." "Courtin, you must be mistaken." "No, Madame la baronne, I am not mistaken. I know what I know. God bless me! the nobles have met three times,--once at the Marquis de Souday's, once at the house of the man they call Louis Renaud, and once at the Comte de Saint-Amand's. All those meetings smelt of powder, Madame la baronne. _À propos_ of powder, there's two hundred weight of it and sacks of cartridges in the Vicar of Montbert's house. Moreover,--and this is the most serious thing of all,--they are expecting Madame la Duchesse de Berry, and from something I have just seen, it is my opinion they won't have long to wait for her." "Why so?" "I think she is here already." "Good God! where?" "Well, at the château de Souday, where Monsieur Michel took her this evening."