ht first, and see what comes of it."

"Ha! that's good advice," said Brigaut. "I have never yet known a day's
pay drawn in the morning."

The assembly dispersed about the rooms, where the guests were now
arriving. The marquis tried in vain to shake off the gloom which
darkened his face. The chiefs perceived the unfavorable impression
made upon a young man whose devotion was still surrounded by all the
beautiful illusions of youth, and they were ashamed of their action.

However, a joyous gaiety soon enlivened the opening of the ball, at
which were present the most important personages of the royalist party,
who, unable to judge rightly, in the depths of a rebellious province, of
the actual events of the Revolution, mistook their hopes for realities.
The bold operations already begun by Montauran, his name, his
fortune, his capacity, raised their courage and caused that political
intoxication, the most dangerous of all excitements, which does not cool
till torrents of blood have been uselessly shed. In the minds of all
present the Revolution was nothing more than a passing trouble to the
kingdom of France, where, to their belated eyes, nothing was changed.
The country belonged as it ever did to the house of Bourbon. The
royalists were the lords of the soil as completely as they were four
years earlier, when Hoche obtained less a peace than an armistice. The
nobles made light of the revolutionists; for them Bonaparte was another,
but more fortunate, Marceau. So gaiety reigned. The women had come to
dance. A few only of the chiefs, who had fought the Blues, knew the
gravity of the situation; but they were well aware that if they talked
of the First Consul and his power to their benighted companions, they
could not make themselves understood. These men stood apart and looked
at the women with indifference. Madame du Gua, who seemed to do the
honors of the ball, endeavored to quiet the impatience of the dancers by
dispensing flatteries to each in turn. The musicians were tuning their
instruments and the dancing was about to begin, when Madame du Gua
noticed the gloom on de Montauran's face and went hurriedly up to him.

"I hope it is not that vulgar scene you have just had with those
clodhoppers which depresses you?" she said.

She got no answer; the marquis, absorbed in thought, was listening in
fancy to the prophetic reasons which Marie had given him in the midst of
the same chiefs at La Vivetiere, urging him to abando