For long my heart had been with my country in her struggle, and yet while my father lived I had never dared to say so; for to him, who had served under Conde and fought at Quiberon, it would have seemed the blackest treason.  But after his death there was no reason why I should not return to the land of my birth, and my desire was the stronger because Eugenie—­the same Eugenie who has been thirty years my wife—­was of the same way of thinking as myself.  Her parents were a branch of the de Choiseuls, and their prejudices were even stronger than those of my father.  Little did they think what was passing in the minds of their children.  Many a time when they were mourning a French victory in the parlour we were both capering with joy in the garden.  There was a little window, all choked round with laurel bushes, in the corner of the bare brick house, and there we used to meet at night, the dearer to each other from our difference with all who surrounded us.  I would tell her my ambitions; she would strengthen them by her enthusiasm.  And so all was ready when the time came.

But there was another reason besides the death of my father and the receipt of this letter from my uncle.  Ashford was becoming too hot to hold me.  I will say this for the English, that they were very generous hosts to the French emigrants.  There was not one of us who did not carry away a kindly remembrance of the land and its people.  But in every country there are overbearing, swaggering folk, and even in quiet, sleepy Ashford we were plagued by them.  There was one young Kentish squire, Farley was his name, who had earned a reputation in the town as a bully and a roisterer.  He could not meet one of us without uttering insults not merely against the present French Government, which might have been excusable in an English patriot, but against France itself and all Frenchmen.  Often we were forced to be deaf in his presence, but at last his conduct became so intolerable that I determined to teach him a lesson.  There were several of us in the coffee-room at the Green Man one evening, and he, full of wine and malice, was heaping insults upon the French, his eyes creeping round to me every moment to see how I was taking it.  ‘Now, Monsieur de Laval,’ he cried, putting his rude hand upon my shoulder, ’here is a toast for you to drink.  This is to the arm of Nelson which strikes down the French.’  He stood leering at me to see if I would drink it.  ‘Well, sir,’ said I, ’I will drink your toast if you will drink mine in return.’  ‘Come on, then!’ said he.  So we drank.  ‘Now, monsieur, let us have your toast,’ said he.  ’Fill your glass, then,’ said I.  ‘It is full now.’  ’Well, then, here’s to the cannon-ball which carried off that arm!’ In an instant I had a glass of port wine running down my face, and within an hour a meeting had been arranged.  I shot him through the shoulder, and that night, when I came to the little window, Eugenie plucked off some of the laurel leaves and stuck them in my hair.