“Well, I don’t think anybody heard me scream,” said Momont:  “but there’s a difference I know between a man and a woman.  ’It’s all for my King and my master,’ said I to myself.  Besides a man can die but once, and it’s a great thing to die honourably.”  The old man turned round to receive the approbation, which he considered was due to the sentiment he had expressed, and found that Chapeau was gone.  The kitchen, however, was filled with peasants, and in them Momont found ready listeners and warm admirers.

Both Chapeau and the priest had spent the greater portion of the night in collecting what they considered would be a sufficient number of men to enable them to attack, with any chance of success, the republican soldiers who had taken possession of Durbelliere.  They had neither of them the slightest idea what amount of force had been brought against the chateau, and, consequently, wasted much time in procuring many more men than were necessary for the purpose.  The three hundred, who were immediately got together on the sounding of the tocsin in the village of Echanbroignes, would have been sufficient to have done the work without further assistance, for they were all well armed, and, by this time, tolerably well trained in the use of their arms.

There was ten times more confusion now in the chateau, than there had been during the night:  every room and passage was crowded with peasants, who took up their positions there under the plea of guarding their prisoners, and with the girls and women of the neighbourhood who flocked to that place, as soon as they heard that the horrible blues were all prisoners, and that the Marquis and Mademoiselle were once more at liberty.  Agatha’s troubles were by no means ended.  Provisions of some kind were to be procured for the friends who had come so far and done so much to relieve them; and she had no one on whom she could depend to assist her in procuring them:  the servants all considered themselves utterly unfitted for anything, except talking of the events of the evening; and though every one was burning with affection and zeal for Monseigneur and Mademoiselle, no one appeared willing to make himself useful.

The reaction on his feelings was too much for the poor Marquis.  During the long evening and night, in which he had been a prisoner and looking forward to nothing but death; in which he had sat beside his fondly-loved daughter, whose fate he feared would be so much more horrible than death itself, he had patiently and manfully born his sufferings; he had even displayed a spirit for which few gave him credit, who were accustomed to his gentle temper and mild manners; but the unexpected recovery of his own and his daughter’s liberty upset him entirely.  As soon as he had pressed Father Jerome’s hand, and thanked Chapeau fur what he had done, he begged that he might be carried off to his bed, and left there quietly till the return of his son, for whom, he was told, a messenger had been sent.