and there's always a lack of that. We bury men, who go to heaven, and
we take money, which goes into the pockets of heroes. I don't see the
difficulty."

The Chouans approved of her speech by unanimous smiles.

"Do you see nothing in all that to make you blush?" said the young
man, in a low voice. "Are you in such need of money that you must
pillage on the high-road?"

"I am so eager for it, marquis, that I should put my heart in pawn if
it were not already captured," she said, smiling coquettishly. "But
where did you get the strange idea that you could manage Chouans
without letting them rob a few Blues here and there? Don't you know
the saying, 'Thieving as an owl'?--and that's a Chouan. Besides," she
said, raising her voice to be heard by the men, "it is just; haven't
the Blues seized the property of the Church, and our own?"

Another murmur, very different from the growl with which the Chouans
had answered their leader, greeted these words. The young man's face
grew darker; he took the young lady aside and said in the annoyed tone
of a well-bred man, "Will those gentlemen be at La Vivetiere on the
appointed day?"

"Yes," she replied, "all of them, the Claimant, Grand-Jacques, and
perhaps Ferdinand."

"Then allow me to return there. I cannot sanction such robbery. Yes,
madame, I call it robbery. There may be honor in being robbed, but--"