"

"Oh I that is very simple, citizen. You know there is much talk of the
restoration of the Bourbon monarchy?"

"No, I did not know it," replied the dark young man, in a tone which he
vainly strove to render artless; "I am but just arrived, as I told you,
from the end of the earth."

"What! you did not know that? Well, six months hence it will be an
accomplished fact."

"Really!"

"I have the honor to tell you so, citizen."

The two soldier-like young men exchanged a glance and a smile, though
the young blond one was apparently chafing under the weight of his
extreme impatience.

Their informant continued: "Lyons is the headquarters of the conspiracy,
if one can call conspiracy a plot which was organized openly. 'The
provisional government' would be a more suitable word."

"Well, then, citizen," said the dark young man with a politeness not
wholly exempt from satire, "let us call it 'provisional government.'"

"This provisional government has its staff and its armies."

"Bah! its staff perhaps--but its armies--"

"Its armies, I repeat."

"Where are they?"

"One is being organized in the mountains of Auvergne, under the orders
of M. de Chardon; another in the Jura Mountains, under M. Teyssonnet;
and, finally, a third is operating most successfully at this time,
in the Vendee, under the orders of Escarboville, Achille Leblond and
Cadoudal."

"Truly, citizen, you render me a real service in telling me this. I
thought the Bourbons completely resigned to their exile. I supposed the
police so organized as to suppress both provisional royalist committees
in the large towns and bandits on the highways. In fact, I believed the
Vendee had been completely pacificated by Hoche."

The young man to whom this reply was addressed burst out laughing.

"Why, where do you come from?" he exclaimed.

"I told you, citizen, from the end of the earth."

"So it seems." Then he continued: "You understand, the Bourbons are
not rich, the emigres whose property was confiscated are ruined. It is
impossible to organize two armies and maintain a third without money.
The royalists faced an embarrassing problem; the republic alone could
pay for its enemies' troops and, it being improbable that she would do
so of her own volition, the shady negotiation was abandoned, and it was
adjudged quicker to take the money without permission than to ask her
for it."

"Ah! I understand at last."

"That's very fortunate."

"Companions of