History is full of strange presentiments which come like warnings, but which have the peculiar property of defeating themselves; for they exercise sometimes a fatal fascination akin to that of the snake over the bird, which paralyses the victim's efforts to escape the threatened peril. Trying to argue down her fears, she made it the more evident to herself that whatever came of it, duty pointed in the direction of Lorge. The grim chateau was her own now; the fields were her own fields; the peasants her own vassals. In the interests of the darlings she would be very energetic, learn to farm, improve the property, and draw the bonds closer than heretofore between mistress and tenants. But what if the clever abbé's prognostications were to be realized, and the flames which she had seen burning so fiercely in Paris, were indeed to spread dismay and ruin even to remote Touraine? Was he right in the advice which she had resented so warmly--the unwelcome advice to be content with the money-bags at Geneva, and abandon the chateau to the wreckers? No. She had always disapproved the craven conduct of the fugitives. It was not in the nature of things for the present cataclysm to go on for ever. Temporary insanity would give way to reason; the mob, glutted by impunity and gorged by excess, would calm down again, and those who had had presence of mind to hold their own while passively bowing before the storm would reap the reward of their bravery. The chatelaine knew herself to be a favourite with the people and that her presence at the chateau would go far in the event of a revolutionary wave, to save it from destruction. She could not believe that the shadow she felt approaching could come from that quarter. Whence then? It was probably a bugaboo, born of nervousness, resulting from sympathy with the desperate condition of the queen. Dismissed by Marie Antoinette, her place was at Lorge on the estates, and since flesh is grass, it was only right to make a will.