, as you were wont to term it,--was a secret
treaty with Pitt for the restoration of the exiled family on his
reaching Paris. These facts--and facts you shall confess them--are in my
power to prove; and prove them I will in the face of all France.'"

"Poor Pichegru!" said the abbe, contemptuously. "What an ill-tempered
child a great general may be, after all! Did he think the hour would
ever come for him to realize such a dream?"

"What do you mean?" cried two or three together.

"The Corsican never forgets a vendetta," was the cool reply, as he
walked away.

"True," said the colonel, thoughtfully; "quite true."

To me these words were riddles. My only feeling towards Pichegru was one
of contempt and pity, that in any depth of misfortune he could resort
to such an unworthy attack upon him who still was the idol of all my
thoughts; and for this, the conqueror of Holland stood now as low in my
esteem as the most vulgar of the rabble gang that each day saw sentenced
to the galleys.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE REIGN OF TERROR UNDER THE CONSULATE.

On the morning that followed the scene I have spoken of came the news of
the arrest, the trial, and the death of the Duc d'Enghien. That terrible
tragedy--which yet weighs, and will weigh forever, on the memory of
the period--reached us in our prison with all the terrible force of
circumstances to make it a day of sorrow and mourning. Such details as
the journals afforded but little satisfied our curiosity. The youth, the
virtues, the bravery of the prince had made him the idol of his party;
and while his death was lamented for his own sake, his followers read
in it the determination of the Government to stop at nothing in their
resolve to exterminate that party. A gloomy silence sat upon the
Chouans, who no longer moved about as before, regardless of their
confinement to a prison. Their chief remained apart: he neither spoke
to any one nor seemed to notice those who passed; he looked stunned and
stupefied, rather than deeply affected, and when he lifted his eyes,
their expression was cold and wandering. Even the other prisoners, who
rarely gave way to feeling of any kind, seemed at first overwhelmed by
these sad tidings; and doubtless many who before had trusted to rank and
influence for their safety, saw how little dependence could be placed on
such aid when the blow had fallen upon a "Conde" himself.

I, who neither knew the political movements of the time nor the sources
o