Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/297

Rh was his uncle's mistress, and proposing to marry her. She refused him, very sensibly remarking that their marriage would create a scandal, involve his social ruin, and ultimately cause him to loathe her. Finding that she was firm in her resolve, he first fought a duel with Comte Bourbon-Brisset,—whom he believed to be a favoured rival,—and then retired to the Monastery of La Trappe.

When the war broke out in America, he threw aside the monk's cowl, and joined La Fayette. At the termination of the campaign, he returned to France, and when the Revolution occurred espoused the royalist cause. For some time he, as leader of the Breton peasants, carried on a not altogether unsuccessful warfare against the Revolutionary troops, but his forces were eventually defeated or dispersed, and he was forced to disguise himself as a beggar. For eighteen months he wandered about Brittany, and at last, 30th January, 1793, died of an illness brought on by exposure, and want of food. His body was buried in a grave dug in the midst of a forest. His "papers" were buried with him, in a glass bottle. One of the Revolutionary spies found out the place of his interment, dug up the grave, and secured the papers. The information thus se-