upon that face where, for the
last year or so, sleep, the forerunner of death, seemed to be preparing
him for rest eternal. This constant somnolence, becoming daily more and
more frequent, did not alarm either his wife, his blind sister, or his
friends, whose medical knowledge was of the slightest. To them these
solemn pauses of a life without reproach, but very weary, were naturally
explained: the baron had done his duty, that was all.

In this ancient mansion the absorbing interests were the fortunes of the
dispossessed Elder branch. The future of the exiled Bourbons, that
of the Catholic religion, the influence of political innovations on
Brittany were the exclusive topics of conversation in the baron's
family. There was but one personal interest mingled with these most
absorbing ones: the attachment of all for the only son, for Calyste, the
heir, the sole hope of the great name of the du Guenics.

The old Vendean, the old Chouan, had, some years previously, a return of
his own youth in order to train his son to those manly exercises which
were proper for a gentleman liable to be summoned at any moment to
take arms. No sooner was Calyste sixteen years of age than his father
accompanied him to the marshes and the forest, teaching him through
the pleasures of the chase the rudiments of war, preaching by example,
indifferent to fatigue, firm in his saddle, sure of his shot whatever
the game might be,--deer, hare, or a bird on the wing,--intrepid in face
of obstacles, bidding his son follow him into danger as though he had
ten other sons to take Calyste's place.

So, when the Duchesse de Berry landed in France to conquer back the
kingdom for her son, the father judged it right to take his boy to join
her, and put in practice the motto of their ancestors. The baron started
in the dead of night, saying no word to his wife, who might perhaps have
weakened him; taking his son under fire as if to a fete, and Gasselin,
his only vassal, who followed him joyfully. The three men of the family
were absent for three months without sending news of their whereabouts
to the baroness, who never read the "Quotidienne" without trembling from
line to line, nor to his old blind sister, heroically erect, whose nerve
never faltered for an instance as she heard that paper read. The three
guns hanging to the walls had therefore seen service recently. The
baron, who considered the enterprise useless, left the region before
the affair of La P