“Mademoiselle, no one is looking for the others! let them save themselves as they can; we must think only of the Messieurs de Simeuse.  It is enough just to warn the rest.”

“What! abandon the Hauteserres? never!” she said.  “They must all perish or be saved together!”

“Only petty noblemen!” remarked Michu.

“They are only chevaliers, I know that,” she replied, “but they are related to the Cinq-Cygne and Simeuse blood.  Save them all, and advise them how best to regain this forest.”

“The gendarmes are here,—­don’t you hear them? they are holding a council of war.”

“Well, you have twice had luck to-night; go! bring my cousins here and hide them in these vaults; they’ll be safe from all pursuit—­Alas!  I am good for nothing!” she cried, with rage; “I should be only a beacon to light the enemy—­but the police will never imagine that my cousins are in the forest if they see me at my ease.  So the question resolves itself into this:  how can we get five good horses to bring them in six hours from Lagny to the forest,—­five horses to be killed and hidden in some thicket.”

“And the money?” said Michu, who was thinking deeply as he listened to the young countess.

“I gave my cousins a hundred louis this evening,” she replied.

“I’ll answer for them!” cried Michu.  “But once hidden here you must not attempt to see them.  My wife, or the little one, shall bring them food twice a week.  But, as I can’t be sure of what may happen to me, remember, mademoiselle, in case of trouble, that the main beam in my hay-loft has been bored with an auger.  In the hole, which is plugged with a bit of wood, you will find a plan showing how to reach this spot.  The trees which you will find marked with a red dot on the plan have a black mark at their foot close to the earth.  Each of these trees is a sign-post.  At the foot of the third old oak which stands to the left of each sign-post, two feet in front of it and buried seven feet in the ground, you will find a large metal tube; in each tube are one hundred thousand francs in gold.  These eleven trees—­there are only eleven—­contain the whole fortune of the Simeuse brothers, now that Gondreville has been taken from them.”

“It will take a hundred years for the nobility to recover from such blows,” said Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, slowly.

“Is there a pass-word?” asked Michu.

“‘France and Charles’ for the soldiers, ‘Laurence and Louis’ for the Messieurs d’Hauteserre and Simeuse.  Good God! to think that I saw them yesterday for the first time in eleven years, and that now they are in danger of death—­and what a death!  Michu,” she said, with a melancholy look, “be as prudent during the next fifteen hours as you have been grand and devoted during the last twelve years.  If disaster were to overtake my cousins now I should die of it—­No,” she added, quickly, “I would live long enough to kill Bonaparte.”