Nothing more was seen of Adolphe Denot that night.
Henri asked his sister whether she had seen him, and
she told him that he had made a declaration of love
to her, and had expressed himself ill-satisfied with
the only answer she had been able to give him.
She did not tell her brother how like a demoniac his
friend had behaved. To Marie she was more explicit;
to her she repeated as nearly as possible the whole
scene as it had occurred; and although Agatha was
almost weeping with sorrow, there was so much that
was ludicrous in the affair, that Marie could not
keep herself from laughing.
“He will trouble you no more,” said she.
“You will find that he will not return to Durbelliere
to carry you off through the armed hosts. He will
go to England or emigrate; and in a few years’
time, when you meet him again, you will find him settled
down, and as quiet as his neighbours. He is like
new-made wine, my dear—he only wants age.”
On the following morning, by break of day, the party
left Durbelliere, and Adolphe Denot joined his friend
on the gravelled ring before the house; and Agatha,
who had been with her brother in his room, looking
from the widow saw her unmanageable lover mount his
horse in a quiet, decent way, like the rest of the
party.
Le mouchoir rouge.
Nothing interfered to oppose the advance of the royalist
troops towards Saumur. At Coron, as had been
proposed, Larochejaquelin and Denot joined Father
Jerome; and Cathelineau also, and M. d’Elbee
joined them there. Every house in the town was
open to them, and the provisions, which by the care
of M. de Larochejaquelin had been sent there, were
almost unneeded. If there was any remnant of
republican feeling in Coron, at any rate it did not
dare to shew itself. The road which the royalists
intended to take ran from Cholet, through Coron, Vihiers,
and Doue, to Saumur. The republicans, who were
now in great force at Saumur, under Generals Coustard
and Quetineau, had sent small parties of soldiers into
the town of Vihiers and Doue, the inhabitants of which
were mostly republican. Before the arrival of
M. de Larochejaquelin, the blues, as the republican
troops were called by the Vendeans, had been driven
out of Vihiers by a party of royalists under the direction
of Stofflet, who had raised himself to distinction
soon after the commencement of the revolt. This
man was a gamekeeper in the employment of an emigrant
nobleman, and though he was a rough, harsh, uneducated,
quarrelsome man, nevertheless, by his zeal and courage,
he had acquired great influence among the people,
and was now at the head of a numerous, and, for La
Vendee, well-armed body of men.
