to yield before this indisputable alibi.  Le Chevalier, nevertheless, appeared before the tribunal which was trying the cases of his companions, and pleaded their cause with the eloquence inspired by the purest and bravest friendship, and when he heard them condemned to death, he begged in a burst of feeling which amazed everybody, to be allowed to share their fate.  It was considered a sufficient punishment to send him to prison at Caen, whence he was liberated a few months later, though he had to remain in the town under police surveillance.  It was then that the wild romance of his life began.

He possessed an ample fortune.  His chivalrous behaviour in the affair at Evreux had gained for him, among the Chouans such renown that without knowing him otherwise than from hearsay, Mme. de Combray travelled across Normandy, as did many other royalist ladies in order to visit the hero in prison and offer him her services.  He had admirers who fawned on him, flatterers who praised him to the skies, and how could this rather hot-headed youth of twenty resist such adulation at that strange epoch when even the wisest lost their balance?  At least his folly was generous.

Scarcely out of prison he was seized with pity for the misery of the pardoned Chouans, veritable pariahs, who lived by all sorts of contrivances or were dependent on charity, and he made their care his special charge.  He was always followed by a dozen of these parasites, a ragged troop of whom filled the Cafe Hervieux, where he held his court and which moreover was frequented by teachers of English, mathematics and fencing, whom he had in his pay, and from whom he took lessons when not playing faro.

Le Chevalier had a warm heart, and a purse that was never closed.  He was a facile speaker whose eloquence was of a forensic type.  His friendships were passionate.  While in prison he received news of the death of one of his friends, Gilbert, who had been guillotined at Evreux, and when some one congratulated him on his approaching release he replied:  “Ah, my dear comrade! do you think this is a time to congratulate me?  Do you know so little of my heart and are you so ignorant of the love I bore Gilbert?  The happiness of my life is destroyed forever.  Nothing can fill the void in my heart....  I have lived, ah! far too long.  O divine duties of friendship and honour, how my heart burns to fulfil you!  O eternity or annihilation, how sweet will you seem to me whence once I have fulfilled them!” Such was Le Chevalier’s style and this affection contrasted singularly with the world in which he lived.  His comparative wealth, his generosity, and an air of mystery about his life, gave him a certain advantage over the most popular leaders.  People knew that he was dreaming of gigantic projects, and his partisans considered him cut out for the accomplishment of great things.