When the door was closed he threw off his hat
and cloak.
"My dear marquis, I am delighted to see you; but what means this
wild freak of yours?"
"I will tell you frankly, de Brissac."
And the Marquis de Pignerolles confided to the Count de Brissac his
plan for getting his daughter away to England.
"It is a matter for the Bastille of his most Christian Majesty,
should he learn that I have aided you in carrying your daughter
away; but I will risk it, marquis, for our old friendship's sake.
You want a passport saying that Maitre Antoine Perrot, merchant of
Nantes, with his servant, Jacques Bontemps, is on his way to
Poitiers, to fetch his daughter, residing near that town, and that
that damsel will return with him to Nantes?"
"That is it, de Brissac. What a pity that it is not with us as in
England, where every man may travel where he lists without a soul
asking him where he goes, or why."
"Ah! Well, I don't know," said the count, who had the usual
aristocratic prejudice of a French noble of his time. "It may suit
the islanders of whom you are so fond, marquis, but I doubt whether
it would do here. We should have plotters and conspirators going
all over the country, and stirring up the people."
"Ah! Yes, count; but if the people had nothing to complain of, they
would not listen to the conspirators. But there, I know we shall
never agree about this. When the war is over you must cross the
channel, and see me there.
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