He had joined the Chouans, and had taken
an active part in the fiercest of their fierce acts of vengeance. But
he had lived through it all; and now, in his old age, he had plenty and
comfort; yet he looked back with a fond regret to the days of his
imagined glory and power; he spoke with continual rapture of his own
brave achievements, and regretted that he had not been allowed to
continue a life, the miseries of which it would be impossible to
exaggerate.
"Bah, Auguste," said his mistress; "the gentleman does not care to hear
of your La Petite Vendee; it is of M. Henri--that is, of the young
Marquis de Larochejaquelin, and of Madame and of Mademoiselle Agatha,
and of M. de Lescure, and of Charette, and the Prince de Talmont, that
Monsieur will want to hear!"
The stranger was in the act of explaining that the hostess was right in
her surmise, when the master of the house himself returned. In spite of
what he had suffered, years had sat lightly on Chapeau, as they had done
on his wife. He was now a fat, good-humoured, middle-aged, comfortable
man, who made the most, in his trade, of the eclat which attended him,
as having been the faithful servant of the most popular among the
Vendean leaders.
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