We have said that at the very moment when Morgan and his three companions stopped the Geneva diligence between Bar-sur-Seine and Châtillon, Roland was entering Nantes.  
If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbé Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the Vilaine River falls.
 
There we find ourselves in the heart of the Morbihan; that is to say, in the region that gave birth to the Chouannerie. It was close to Laval, on the little farm of the Poiriers, that the four Chouan brothers were born to Pierre Cottereau and Jeanne Moyné. One of their ancestors, a misanthropical¹ woodcutter, a morose² peasant, kept himself aloof³ from the other peasants as the chat-huant (screech-owl) keeps aloof from the other birds; hence the name Chouan, a corruption⁴ of chat-huant.
 
The name became that of a party. On the right bank of the Loire they said Chouans when they meant Bretons, just as on the left bank they said brigands⁵ when they meant Vendéans.
 
It is not for us to relate the death and destruction of that heroic family, nor follow to the scaffold the two sisters and a brother, nor tell of battlefields where Jean and René, martyrs⁶ to their faith, lay dying or dead. Many years have elapsed since the executions of Perrine, René and Pierre, and the death of Jean; and the martyrdom of the sisters, the exploits of the brothers have passed into legends. We have now to do with their successors.
 
It is true that these gars (lads) are faithful to their traditions. As they fought beside la Rouërie, Bois-Hardy and Bernard de Villeneuve, so did they fight beside Bourmont, Frotté, and Georges Cadoudal. Theirs was always the same courage, the same devotion—that of the Christian⁷ soldier, the faithful royalist. Their aspect is always the same, rough and savage⁸; their weapons, the same gun or cudgel, called in those parts a “ferte.” Their garments are the same; a brown woollen cap, or a broad-brimmed hat scarcely covering the long straight hair that fell in tangles⁹ on their shoulders, the old Aulerci Cenomani, as in Cæsar’s day, promisso capillo; they are the same Bretons with wide breeches of whom Martial¹⁰ said:
 
  Tam laxa est...
  Quam veteres braccoe Britonis pauperis.
To protect themselves from rain and cold they wore goatskin garments, made with the long hair turned outside; on the breasts of which, as countersign¹¹, some wore a scapulary and chaplet, others a heart, the heart of Jesus; this latter was the distinctive¹² sign of a fraternity which withdrew apart each day for common prayer.
 
Such were the men, who, at the time we are crossing the borderland between the Loire-Inférieure and Morbihan, were scattered¹³ from La Roche-Bernard to Vannes, and from Quertemberg to Billiers, surrounding consequently the village of Muzillac.
 
But it needed the eye of the eagle soaring in the clouds, or that of the screech-owl piercing the darkness, to distinguish these men among the gorse and heather and underbrush where they were crouching¹⁴.
 
Let us pass through this network of invisible sentinels, and after fording two streams, the affluents¹⁵ of a nameless river which flows into the sea near Billiers, between Arzal and Dangau, let us boldly enter the village of Muzillac.
 
All is still and sombre; a single light shines through the blinds of a house, or rather a cottage, which nothing distinguishes from its fellows. It is the fourth to the right on entering the village.
 
Let us put our eye to one of these chinks and look in.
 
We see a man dressed like the rich peasants of Morbihan, except that gold lace about a finger wide stripes the collar and buttonholes of his coat and also the edges of his hat. The rest of his dress consists of leathern trousers and high-topped boots. His sword is thrown upon a chair. A brace¹⁶ of pistols lies within reach of his hand. Within the fireplace the barrels of two or three muskets¹⁷ reflect the light of a blazing fire.
 
The man is seated before a table; a lamp lights some papers which he is reading with great attention, and illuminates¹⁸ his face at the same time.
 
The face is that of a man of thirty. When the cares of a partisan¹⁹ warfare²⁰ do not darken it, its expression must surely be frank and joyous²¹. Beautiful blond hair frames it; great blue eyes enliven it; the head, of a shape peculiarly Breton, seems to show, if we believe in Gall’s system, an exaggerated development of the organs of self-will. And the man has two names. That by which he is known to his soldiers, his familiar name, is Round-head; and his real name, received from brave and worthy²² parents, Georges Cadudal, or rather Cadoudal, tradition having changed the orthography²³ of a name that is now historic.
 
Georges was the son of a farmer of the parish of Kerléano in the commune of Brech. The story goes that this farmer was once a miller²⁴. Georges had just received at the college of Vannes—distant only a few leagues from Brech—a good and solid education when the first appeals for a royalist insurrection were made in Vendée. Cadoudal listened to them, gathered together a number of his companions, and offered his services to Stofflet. But Stofflet insisted on seeing him at work before he accepted him. Georges asked nothing better. Such occasions were not long to seek in the Vendéan army. On the next day there was a battle; Georges went into it with such determination and made so desperate a rush that M. de Maulevrier’s former huntsman, on seeing him charge the Blues²⁵, could not refrain from saying aloud to Bonchamp, who was near him:
 
“If a cannon²⁶ ball doesn’t take off that Big Round Head, it will roll far, I warrant you.”
 
The name clung to Cadoudal—a name by which, five centuries earlier, the lords of Malestroit, Penhoël, Beaumanoir and Rochefort designated the great Constable²⁷, whose ransom²⁸ was spun²⁹ by the women of Brittany.
 
“There’s the Big Round Head,” said they; “now we’ll exchange some good sword-play with the English.”
 
Unfortunately, at this time it was not Breton sword-thrusts against English, but Frenchmen against Frenchmen.
 
Georges remained in Vendée until after the defeat of Savenay. The whole Vendéan army was either left upon the battlefield or vanished in smoke. For three years, Georges had performed prodigies³⁰ of valor³¹, strength and dexterity³²; he now crossed the Loire and re-entered Morbihan with only one man left of all who had followed him.
 
That man became his aide-de-camp, or rather his brother-in-arms. He never left him, and in memory of the hard campaign they had made together he changed his name from Lemercier to Tiffauges. We have seen him at the ball of the Victims charged with a message to Morgan.
 
As soon as Cadoudal returned to his own part of the country, he fomented³³ insurrection on his own responsibility. Bullets respected that big round head, and the big round head justified³⁴ Stofflet’s prediction. He succeeded La Rochejacquelin, d’Elbée, Bonchamp, Lescure, even Stoffle............