“Why the chapel of Genet,” said he, “is but a short quarter of a league from you, and the Cure’s house is close by, but the village and the chateau are a long way beyond that, and not on the straight road either.”

“Ask him the Cure’s name, Chapeau,” said Marie:  “we will go there and tell him, who we are.’

“If he lives in his own house quietly now, Mademoiselle,” answered Chapeau, “it would be dangerous to do so; he must be one of the constitutional priests.”  He asked the man, however, what was the name of the Cure.

“Why the regular old Cure went away long since, and another was here a while in his place—­”

“Well, and he has gone away now, I suppose?” said Chapeau.

“Why, yes; he went away too a while since, when Cathelineau turned the soldiers out of St. Florent.”

“God bless him,” said Chapeau, meaning Cathelineau, and not the priest.  “And is there no one in the house now, my friend? for you see these two ladies are unable to travel further.  If there be a friend living there, I am sure he will procure them some accommodation.”

“And where did the ladies come from?” asked the man.

“You need not be afraid,” replied Chapeau, “they, and all belonging to them, are friends to the good cause;” and then, after considering within himself for a while, he added, “I will tell you who they are, they are the wife and sister of M. de Lescure.”

Had he told the man that they were angels from heaven, and had the man believed him, he could neither have been more surprised, or expressed a stronger feeling of adoration.

The poor man implored a multitude of blessings on the two ladies, whose names were so dear to every peasant of La Vendee, and then told them that after the new priest had ran away, the old Cure had come back to his own house again, but that Father Bernard was a very old man, hardly strong enough even to perform mass, though, as there was no one else to it, he did go through it every Sabbath morning; that for these two days past there had been another priest staying with Father Bernard; he did not, however, know what his name was, but he knew that he had been with the army, and that no priest through all La Vendee had been more active than he had been to encourage the royalists.  The man then offered to show them to the Cure’s house, and they all turned thither together.

The little chapel was on one side of the road, and the humble house of the parish priest was immediately opposite to it, ensconced among a few trees, at a little distance from the road.  The door of the chapel was open, and the murmuring sound of low voices within told the party that vespers were being sung.  Madame de Lescure did not like calling at the priest’s house without being announced, and she therefore desired Chapeau to go down and explain who she was, and the circumstances under which she begged for the Cure’s hospitality, and proposed that she and Marie should get off their horses, and remain in the chapel till Chapeau returned.