The sun freed itself
with a graceful spring from the ribbons of flame and ochre and
sapphire. Its vivid light took level lines from hill to hill and
flowed into the vales. The dusk dispersed, day mastered Nature. A
sharp breeze crisped the air, the birds sang, life wakened everywhere.
But the girl had hardly time to cast her eyes over the whole of this
wondrous landscape before, by a phenomenon not infrequent in these
cool regions, the mists spread themselves in sheets, filled the
valleys, and rose to the tops of the mountains, burying the great
valley beneath a mantle of snow. Mademoiselle de Verneuil fancied for
a moment she saw a /mer de glace/, like those of the Alps. Then the
vaporous atmosphere rolled like the waves of ocean, lifted
impenetrable billows which softly swayed, undulated, and were
violently whirled, catching from the sun's rays a vivid rosy tint, and
showing here and there in their depths the transparencies of a lake of
molten silver. Suddenly the north wind swept this phantasmagoric scene
and scattered the mists which laid a dew full of oxygen on the
meadows.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now able to distinguish a dark mass of
men on the rocks of Fougeres. Seven or eight hundred Chouans were
running like ants through the suburb of Saint-Sulpice. The sleeping
town would certainly have been overpowered in spite of its
fortifications and its old gray towers, if Hulot had not been alert.
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