“Had you known M. Denot long?” asked Henri, when he conceived that Plume was sufficiently composed to. hear and answer a question.

“What’s that you say his name was?” said Plume, eagerly, pricking up his ears.  “I beg your pardon, Sir, I didn’t exactly catch the word.”

“And didn’t you know the name of the friend, whom you seem to have valued so highly?”

“Indeed, to tell you the truth, Sir, I did not.  We two used to have a good deal of talk together:  for hours and hours we’ve sat and talked over this war, and he has told me much of what he used to do in Poitou, when he served with the Vendeans; but I could never get him to tell me his name.  It was a question he didn’t like to be asked; and yet I am sure he never did anything to disgrace it.”

“His name was Adolphe Denot,” said Henri.

“Adolphe Denot—­Adolphe Denot! well, I am very glad I know at last.  One doesn’t like not to know the name of the dearest friend one ever had; especially after he’s dead.  But wasn’t he Count Denot, or Baron Denot, or something of that sort?”

“No, he had no title; but yet he was of noble blood.”

“I suppose then we must call him General Denot—­simple General; it sounds as well as Count or Marquis in these days.  Was he a General when you knew him in La Vendee?”

“I have known him all my life,” replied Henri.

“Indeed!” said Plume:  and then gazing at his companion, from head to foot, he continued, “An’t you the gentleman that came with Chapeau to see him last night?  An’t you the Commander-in-Chief of the Vendeans?”

Henri gave him to understand that he was.

“Then this meeting is very lucky,” said Plume, “most exceedingly fortunate!  I am now the Commander-in-Chief of La Petite Vendee.  We must unite our forces.  I am not ambitious—­at least not too ambitious; you shall be the chief, I will be next to you.  Chapeau, I am sure, will be contented to be third. here, over the body of our friend, let us concert our measures for utterly exterminating the republicans.  We have now been victorious, proudly, grandly victorious; my voice shall be for a march to Paris.  Come, General, give me your hand.  Hand in hand, like true comrades, let us march to Paris, and thunder at the doors of the Convention.”

As he spoke, Auguste Emile Septimus held out his hand to the young Commander; and Henri could not refuse the proffered grasp.  He now remembered Chapeau’s description of the martial baker; and as he underwent the merciless squeeze which Plume inflicted on him, the young Marquis meditated, with something like vexation, on the ridiculous figure and language of him who now claimed his friendship and confidence.  He had before been on terms of perfect equality with men equally low in station with poor Plume.  Cathelineau had been a postillion; Stofflet, a game-keeper; but he had admired the enthusiastic genius of Cathelineau, he had respected the practical iron energy of Stofflet—­he could neither admire nor respect Auguste Plume—­and yet he could not reject him.