I think,
however, I know the man. It must be Charette. He is courageous, but yet
cruel; and he has exactly that dash of mad romance in him which seems
to belong to this new hero."
"Charette is in the island of Noirmoutier," said de Lescure, "and by all
accounts, means to stay there. Had he been really willing to give us his
assistance, we never need have crossed the Loire."
"Oh! it certainly was not Charette," said Chapeau. "I saw M. Charette
on horseback once, and he carries himself as though he had swallowed a
poker; and this gentleman twists himself about like--like--"
"Like a mountebank, I suppose," said de Lescure.
"He rides well, all the same, M. Charles," rejoined Chapeau.
"And who do you think he is, Chapeau?" said Henri.
Chapeau shrugged his shoulders, as no one but a Frenchman can shrug
them, intending to signify the impossibility of giving an opinion;
immediately afterwards he walked close up to his master, and whispered
something in his ear. Henri looked astonished, almost confounded, by
what his servant said to him, and then replied, almost in a whisper:
"Impossible, Chapeau, quite impossible.
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