"Stay where you are, vagabond!" said Hulot, keeping his eye on the
apparently indifferent face of the Breton, and giving him a push which
threw him back on the place where he had been sitting.
"Friends," continued Hulot, in a low voice, speaking to the two
officers. "It is time I should tell you that it is all up with the
army in Paris. The Directory, in consequence of a disturbance in the
Assembly, has made another clean sweep of our affairs. Those
pentarchs,--puppets, I call them,--those directors have just lost a
good blade; Bernadotte has abandoned them."
"Who will take his place?" asked Gerard, eagerly.
"Milet-Mureau, an old blockhead. A pretty time to choose to let fools
sail the ship! English rockets from all the headlands, and those
cursed Chouan cockchafers in the air! You may rely upon it that some
one behind those puppets pulled the wire when they saw we were getting
the worst of it."
"How getting the worst of it?"
"Our armies are beaten at all points," replied Hulot, sinking his
voice still lower. "The Chouans have intercepted two couriers; I only
received my despatches and last orders by a private messenger sent by
Bernadotte just as he was leaving the ministry. Luckily, friends have
written me confidentially about this crisis. Fouche has discovered
that the tyrant Louis XVIII. has been advised by traitors in Paris to
send a leader to his followers in La Vendee.
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