He had not time to finish; a report was heard; seven bullets had pierced his breast; he fell face down upon the ground. Charles picked up the foraging cap, put it inside his vest, and buttoned the latter over it; and, as he put it in his vest, he made sure that the letter was there. A quarter of an hour later he entered citizen-general Pichegru's cabinet. CHAPTER XVII PICHEGRU Pichegru is destined to play so important a part in this story that we must fix the eyes of the reader upon him with more attention than we have done with the secondary characters that we have hitherto put upon the scene. Charles Pichegru was born on the 16th of February, 1761, in the village of Planches, near Arbois. His family were poor and rustic; his forefathers had been known for three or four hundred years as honest day-laborers, and they had derived their name from the character of their work. They reaped their _gru_ or grain, with the _pic_ or mattock; from these two words, _pic_ and _gru_, the name of Pichegru had been derived. Pichegru, who early showed traces of that precocious disposition which marks the distinguished man, began his education at the school of the Paulist Fathers at Arbois; they, seeing his rapid progress, particularly in mathematics, sent him, with Father Patrault, one of their professors, to the College of Brienne. There he made such progress that at the end of two years he was appointed assistant professor. At this period his whole ambition was to be a monk; but Father Patrault, who divined Napoleon's genius, saw, with equal clearness, Pichegru's possibilities, and induced him to turn his attention to military life. Yielding to his advice, Pichegru, in 1783, entered the first foot artillery, where, thanks to his incontestable merit, he promptly rose to the rank of adjutant, in which grade he made his first campaign in America. Upon his return to France he ardently embraced the principles of 1789, and was a leader in a popular society in Besançon, when a regiment of the Volunteer Guards, passing through the city, chose him for their commander. Two months later Pichegru was commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine. M. de Narbonne, Minister of War, having missed him, asked one day in speaking of him: "What became of that young officer to whom all the colonels were tempted to take off their hats when they spoke to him?" This young officer had become commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine, a promotion that had not tended to make him any prouder than he had been before. And, indeed, Pichegru's rapid advancement, his fine education, and the exalted position he held in the army had not changed in the least the simplicity of his heart. As a sub-officer, he had had a mistress, and had always provided for her; her name was Rose, she was thirty years old, a dressmaker, lame, and not at all pretty. She lived at Besançon. Once a week she wrote to the general, always in the most respectful manner.