I have said that the riots in Nîmes lasted three days. On the last Buton came to me and told us we must go; that to avoid worse things we must leave the city without delay, or he and the more moderate party who had saved us would no longer be responsible. On this, Louis was for retiring to Montpellier, and thence to the _émigrés_ at Turin; and for a few hours I was of the same mind, desiring most of all to place the women in safety. I owe it to Buton that I did not take a step hard to recall, and of which I am sure that I should have repented later. He asked me bluntly whither I was going, and when I told him, set his back against the door. "God forbid!" he said. "Who go, go. Few will return." I answered him with heat. "Nonsense!" I cried. "I tell you, within a year you will be on your knees to us to come back." "Why?" he said. "You cannot keep order without us!" "With ease," he answered coolly. "Look at the state of things here!" "It will pass." "But who will govern?" "The fittest," he replied doggedly. "For do you still think, M. le Vicomte--after all that has happened--that a man to make laws must have a title--saving your presence? Do you still think that the wheat will not grow, nor the hens lay eggs, unless the Seigneur's shadow falls on them? Do you think that to fight, a man must have powder on his head as well as in his musket?" "I think," I retorted, "that when a man who does not know the sea turns pilot it is time to leave the vessel!" "The pilot will learn," he answered. "And for quitting the vessel, let those go who have no business on board. Be guided, Monseigneur," he continued in a different tone. "Be guided. They have killed in Nîmes three hundred in three days." "And you say, stay?" "Ay, for there is blood between us," he answered grimly. "That has been done now which will not easily be forgiven; that has been done which will abide. Go abroad after this--and stay abroad! Or rather do not--do not, but be guided," he continued, with rough emotion in his voice. "Go home to the Château, and be quiet, Monsieur, and no one will harm you." There was much in what he said. At any rate, I thought the advice so good that, after some hesitation, I not only determined to follow it, but I gave it to the others. But Louis would not change his mind. A horror of the country had seized him since his escape; and he would go. He raised no opposition, however, when I asked him to give me Denise; and within twenty-four hours of her mother's death she became my wife, in that dark-shuttered house by the Capuchins' alley, Father Benôit performing the service. Louis was at the same time married to Madame Catinot, who was to share his exile. Needless to say there were no rejoicings at these weddings; no _fête_ and no joy-bells, and no bride-clothes, but sobs and wailings, and cold lips and passive hands.