Monsieur de Clagny threw the dice with a convulsive jerk, and dared
not look up at the journalist.

"A story, from you!" cried Madame de la Baudraye. "I should hardly
have dared to hope for such a treat--"

"It is not my story, madame; I am not clever enough to invent such a
tragedy. It was told me--and how delightfully!--by one of our greatest
writers, the finest literary musician of our day, Charles Nodier."

"Well, tell it," said Dinah. "I never met Monsieur Nodier, so you have
no comparison to fear."

"Not long after the 18th Brumaire," Etienne began, "there was, as you
know, a call to arms in Brittany and la Vendee. The First Consul,
anxious before all things for peace in France, opened negotiations
with the rebel chiefs, and took energetic military measures; but,
while combining his plans of campaign with the insinuating charm of
Italian diplomacy, he also set the Machiavelian springs of the police
in movement, Fouche then being at its head. And none of these means
were superfluous to stifle the fire of war then blaring in the West.

"At this time a young man of the Maille family was despatched by the
Chouans from Brittany to Saumur, to open communications between
certain magnates of that town and its environs and the leaders of the
Royalist party. The envoy was, in fact, arrested on the very day he
landed--for he traveled by boat, disguised as a master mariner.
However, as a man of practical intelligence, he had calculated all the
risks of the undertaking; his passport and papers were all in order,