She kissed her boy with an awful expression of grief, looked at him, wiped away her tears, looked at him again, and disappeared.
“Commandant,” said Corentin, “this is an occasion when two heads are better than one. We know all, and yet we know nothing. If you surrounded Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s house now, you will only warn her. Neither you, nor I, nor your Blues and your battalions are strong enough to get the better of that girl if she takes it into her head to save the _ci-devant_. The fellow is brave, and consequently wily; he is a young man full of daring. We can never get hold of him as he enters Fougeres. Perhaps he is here already. Domiciliary visit? Absurdity! that’s no good, it will only give them warning.”
“Well,” said Hulot impatiently, “I shall tell the sentry on the Place Saint-Leonard to keep his eye on the house, and pass word along the other sentinels, if a young man enters it; as soon as the signal reaches me I shall take a corporal and four men and--”
“--and,” said Corentin, interrupting the old soldier, “if the young man is not the marquis, or if the marquis doesn’t go in by the front door, or if he is already there, if--if--if--what then?”
Corentin looked at the commandant with so insulting an air of superiority that the old soldier shouted out: “God’s thousand thunders! get out of here, citizen of hell! What have I got to do with your intrigues? If that cockchafer buzzes into my guard-room I shall shoot him; if I hear he is in a house I shall surround that house and take him when he leaves it and shoot him, but may the devil get me if I soil my uniform with any of your tricks.”
“Commandant, the order of the ministers states that you are to obey Mademoiselle de Verneuil.”
“Let her come and give them to me herself and I’ll see about it.”
“Well, citizen,” said Corentin, haughtily, “she shall come. She shall tell you herself the hour at which she expects the _ci-devant_. Possibly she won’t be easy till you do post the sentinels round the house.”
“The devil is made man,” thought the old leader as he watched Corentin hurrying up the Queen’s Staircase at the foot of which this scene had taken place. “He means to deliver Montauran bound hand and foot, with no chance to fight for his life, and I shall be harrassed to death with a court-martial. However,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “the Gars certainly is an enemy of the Republic, and he killed my poor Gerard, and his death will make a noble the less--the devil take him!”