. .They are ready to join issue
with any enemy bold enough to attack France. . .Now, within the last
month scores of these EMIGRES, some only suspected of treason,
others actually condemned by the Tribunal of Public Safety, have
succeeded in crossing the Channel. Their escape in each instance was
planned, organized and effected by this society of young English
jackanapes, headed by a man whose brain seems as resourceful as his
identity is mysterious. All the most strenuous efforts on the part of
my spies have failed to discover who he is; whilst the others are the
hands, he is the head, who beneath this strange anonymity calmly works
at the destruction of France. I mean to strike at that head, and for
this I want your help--through him afterwards I can reach the rest of
the gang: he is a young buck in English society, of that I feel sure.
Find that man for me, citoyenne!" he urged, "find him for France."
Marguerite had listened to Chauvelin's impassioned speech
without uttering a word, scarce making a movement, hardly daring to
breathe. She had told him before that this mysterious hero of romance
was the talk of the smart set to which she belonged; already, before
this, her heart and her imagination had stirred by the thought of the
brave man, who, unknown to fame, had rescued hundreds of lives from a
terrible, often an unmerciful fate.
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