She felt her heart stand still suddenly, and with a tremor, as of fear,
she gathered her child close to her. "What is all those ships, maman?"
asked the child. "They are ships to defend Jersey," she said, watching
the Imperturbable and its flotilla range on.

"Will they affend us, maman?"

"Perhaps-at the last," she said.




CHAPTER XXXVI

Off Grouville Bay lay the squadron of the Jersey station. The St.
George's Cross was flying at the fore of the Imperturbable, and on every
ship of the fleet the white ensign flapped in the morning wind. The
wooden-walled three-decked flag-ship, with her 32-pounders, and six
hundred men, was not less picturesque and was more important than the
Castle of Mont Orgueil near by, standing over two hundred feet above the
level of the sea: the home of Philip d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy, and the
Comtesse Chantavoine, now known to the world as the Duchesse de Bercy.

The Comtesse had arrived in the island almost simultaneously with Philip,
although he had urged her to remain at the ducal palace of Bercy. But
the duchy of Bercy was in hard case. When the imbecile Duke Leopold John
died and Philip succeeded, the neutrality of Bercy had been proclaimed,
but this neutrality had since been violated, and there was danger at once
from the incursions of the Austrians and the ravages of the French