As for Andre-Louis, his godfather’s house saw him no more, as a result of his conviction that M. de Kercadiou would not relent from his written resolve never to receive him again if the duel were fought.

He threw himself into his duties at the Assembly with such zeal and effect that when — its purpose accomplished — the Constituent was dissolved in September of the following year, membership of the Legislative, whose election followed immediately, was thrust upon him.

He considered then, like many others, that the Revolution was a thing accomplished, that France had only to govern herself by the Constitution which had been given her, and that all would now be well.  And so it might have been but that the Court could not bring itself to accept the altered state of things.  As a result of its intrigues half Europe was arming to hurl herself upon France, and her quarrel was the quarrel of the French King with his people.  That was the horror at the root of all the horrors that were to come.

Of the counter-revolutionary troubles that were everywhere being stirred up by the clergy, none were more acute than those of Brittany, and, in view of the influence it was hoped he would wield in his native province, it was proposed to Andre-Louis by the Commission of Twelve, in the early days of the Girondin ministry, that he should go thither to combat the unrest.  He was desired to proceed peacefully, but his powers were almost absolute, as is shown by the orders he carried — orders enjoining all to render him assistance and warning those who might hinder him that they would do so at their peril.

He accepted the task, and he was one of the five plenipotentiaries despatched on the same errand in that spring of 1792.  It kept him absent from Paris for four months and might have kept him longer but that at the beginning of August he was recalled.  More imminent than any trouble in Brittany was the trouble brewing in Paris itself; when the political sky was blacker than it had been since ’89.  Paris realized that the hour was rapidly approaching which would see the climax of the long struggle between Equality and Privilege.  And it was towards a city so disposed that Andre-Louis came speeding from the West, to find there also the climax of his own disturbed career.

Mlle. de Kercadiou, too, was in Paris in those days of early August, on a visit to her uncle’s cousin and dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel.  And although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest that heralded the explosion to come, yet the air of gaiety, indeed of jocularity, prevailing at Court — whither madame and mademoiselle went almost daily — reassured them.  M. de Plougastel had come and gone again, back to Coblenz on that secret business that kept him now almost constantly absent from his wife.  But whilst with her he had positively assured her that all measures were taken, and that an insurrection was a thing to be welcomed, because it could have one only conclusion, the final crushing of the Revolution in the courtyard of the Tuileries.  That, he added, was why the King remained in Paris.  But for his confidence in that he would put himself in the centre of his Swiss and his knights of the dagger, and quit the capital.  They would hack a way out for him easily if his departure were opposed.  But not even that would be necessary.