found its hand to a certain extent forced by Georges Cadoudal, a man
of action who took counsel of himself only, and who was hiding in
Paris with twenty-five _chouans_ for the purpose of attacking the First
Consul.

Laurence combined both hatred and love within her breast. To destroy
Bonaparte and bring back the Bourbons was to recover Gondreville and
make the fortune of her cousins. The two sentiments, one the counterpart
of the other, were sufficient, more especially at twenty-three years of
age, to excite all the faculties of her soul and all the powers of her
being. So, for the last two months, she had seemed to the inhabitants
of Cinq-Cygne more beautiful than at any other period of her life.
Her cheeks became rosy; hope gave pride to her brow; but when old
d'Hauteserre read the Gazette at night and discussed the conservative
course of the First Consul she lowered her eyes to conceal her
passionate hopes of the coming fall of that enemy of the Bourbons.

No one at the chateau had the faintest idea that the young countess had
met her cousins the night before. The two sons of Monsieur and Madame
d'Hauteserre had passed the preceding night in Laurence's own room,
under the same roof with their father and mother; and Laurence, after
knowing them safely in bed had gone between one and two o'clock in the
morning to a rendezvous with her cousins in the forest, where she hid
them in the deserted hut of a wood-dealer's agent. The following day,
certain of seeing them again, she showed no signs of her joy; nothing
about her betrayed emotion; she was able to efface all traces of
pleasure at having met them again; in fact, she was impassible.
Catherine, her pretty maid, daughter of her former nurse, and Gothard,
both in the secret, modelled their behavior upon hers. Catherine was
nineteen years old. At that age a girl is a fanatic and would let
her throat be cut before betraying a thought of one she loves. As for
Gothard, merely to inhale the perfume which the countess used in her
hair and among her clothes he would have born the rack without a word.

CHAPTER V. ROYALIST HOMES AND PORTRAITS UNDER THE CONSULATE

At the moment when Marthe, driven by the imminence of the peril, was
gliding with the rapidity of a shadow towards the breach of which
Michu had told her, the salon of the chateau of Cinq-Cygne presented a
peaceful sight. Its occupants were so far from suspecting the storm that
was about to burst upon them th