che-a-Terre, retreating three steps and
aiming at his aggressor. "It isn't that you hate the Blues, but you love
the gold. Die without confession and be damned, for you haven't taken
the sacrament for a year."

This insult so incensed the Chouan that he turned pale and a low growl
came from his chest as he aimed in turn at Marche-a-Terre. The young
chief sprang between them and struck their weapons from their hands with
the barrel of his own carbine; then he demanded an explanation of the
dispute, for the conversation had been carried on in the Breton dialect,
an idiom with which he was not familiar.

"Monsieur le marquis," said Marche-a-Terre, as he ended his account of
the quarrel, "it is all the more unreasonable in them to find fault with
me because I have left Pille-Miche behind me; he'll know how to save the
coach for us."

"What!" exclaimed the young man, angrily, "are you waiting here, all
of you, to pillage that coach?--a parcel of cowards who couldn't win a
victory in the first fight to which I led you! But why should you win if
that's your object? The defenders of God and the king are thieves,
are they? By Saint Anne of Auray! I'd have you know, we are making war
against the Republic, and not robbing travellers. Those who are guilty
in future of such shameful actions shall not receive absolution, nor any
of the favors reserved for the faithful servants of the king."

A murmur came from the group of Chouans, and it was easy to see that the
authority of the new chief was about to be disputed. The young man, on
whom this effect of his words was by no means lost, was thinking of the
best means of maintaining the dignity of his command, when the trot of a
horse was heard in the vicinity. All heads turned in the direction
from which the sound came. A lady appeared, sitting astride of a little
Breton horse, which she put at a gallop as soon as she saw the young
leader, so as to reach the group of Chouans as quickly as possible.

"What is the matter?" she said, looking first at the Chouans and then at
their chief.

"Could you believe it, madame? they are waiting to rob the diligence
from Mayenne to Fougeres when we have just had a skirmish, in order to
release the conscripts of Fougeres, which has cost us a great many men
without defeating the Blues."

"Well, where's the harm of that?" asked the young lady, to whom the
natural shrewdness of a woman explained the whole scene. "You have lost
men, but there's no