es there' is all humbug."

"Are we in any real danger?" asked Gerard, as much surprised by Hulot's
coolness as he was by his evident alarm.

"Hush!" said the commandant, in a low voice. "We are in the jaws of the
wolf; it is as dark as a pocket; and we must get some light. Luckily,
we've got the upper end of the slope!"

So saying, he moved, with his two officers, in a way to surround
Marche-a-Terre, who rose quickly, pretending to think himself in the
way.

"Stay where you are, vagabond!" said Hulot, keeping his eye on the
apparently indifferent face of the Breton, and giving him a push which
threw him back on the place where he had been sitting.

"Friends," continued Hulot, in a low voice, speaking to the two
officers. "It is time I should tell you that it is all up with the
army in Paris. The Directory, in consequence of a disturbance in
the Assembly, has made another clean sweep of our affairs. Those
pentarchs,--puppets, I call them,--those directors have just lost a good
blade; Bernadotte has abandoned them."

"Who will take his place?" asked Gerard, eagerly.

"Milet-Mureau, an old blockhead. A pretty time to choose to let fools
sail the ship! English rockets from all the headlands, and those cursed
Chouan cockchafers in the air! You may rely upon it that some one behind
those puppets pulled the wire when they saw we were getting the worst of
it."

"How getting the worst of it?"

"Our armies are beaten at all points," replied Hulot, sinking his voice
still lower. "The Chouans have intercepted two couriers; I only received
my despatches and last orders by a private messenger sent by Bernadotte
just as he was leaving the ministry. Luckily, friends have written me
confidentially about this crisis. Fouche has discovered that the tyrant
Louis XVIII. has been advised by traitors in Paris to send a leader to
his followers in La Vendee. It is thought that Barras is betraying
the Republic. At any rate, Pitt and the princes have sent a man, a
_ci-devant_, vigorous, daring, full of talent, who intends, by uniting
the Chouans with the Vendeans, to pluck the cap of liberty from the head
of the Republic. The fellow has lately landed in the Morbihan; I was the
first to hear of it, and I sent the news to those knaves in Paris. 'The
Gars' is the name he goes by. All those beasts," he added, pointing
to Marche-a-Terre, "stick on names which would give a stomach-ache to
honest patriots if they bore them. The Gars is now in