And now the sun had risen brightly on the morning which was to add another care to those which already burthened the shoulders of Henri Larochejaquelin.  They all sat down together and eat their quiet breakfast in the parlour, to which a fortnight’s habitation had now accustomed them.  Henri wore no bridal dress.  He had on the uniform of a Vendean officer, and round his waist was fastened a white scarf with a black knot, the distinguishing mark which he now bore of his rank in the army as Commander-in-Chief.  Marie de Lescure was dressed in white, but her dress was as simple and unadorned as it could be well made; no bride, young, beautiful, and noble was ever prepared for the altar with less costly care, with less attention to the generally acknowledged proprieties of hymeneal decoration.  Agatha and Madame de Lescure had in no respect altered their usual attire.  It may easily be understood that leaving their homes in the manner they had done, they had not brought with them a full wardrobe; and since their arrival in Laval, they had had more pressing cares than that of supplying it.

De Lescure was daily getting weaker; but still the weaker he got the less he suffered, and the more capable he became of assuming his accustomed benevolent demeanour and anxious care for others.  Both he and his wife knew that he was approaching the term of his mortal sufferings; but others, and among them Henri was the most sanguine, still hoped that he would recover; and there certainly was nothing in his cheery manner On the morning of the wedding, to make any one think that such hopes were misplaced.  The old Marquis was more sad and melancholy than he had used to be among his beloved birds and cherry trees at Durbelliere; and, on this occasion, he was probably the saddest of the party, for he was the one who would have rejoiced the most that the wedding of his son should be an occasion of joy to relatives, servants, tenants, and the numerous neighbours among whom he had always lived with so much mutual affection.

The most singular figure of the whole party was Father Jerome, the Cure of St. Laud’s.  He still wore the same long grey coat in which he was first introduced to the reader at Durbelliere; which had since that time figured at Saumur and many another scene of blood and violence, and which we last saw when he was found by Madame de Lescure in the chapel at Genet.  It had now been so patched and darned, that its oldest friends could not have recognized it.  But Father Jerome still maintained that it was good enough for the ordinary run of his present daily duties, though he jocosely apologized to Marie for appearing, on such an occasion, in so mean a garment.