the mind reflected in all this.

And as the heavy diligence trundles out of Caen and takes the
open country and the Paris road, not even the thought of the
errand upon which she goes, of her death-dealing and death-
receiving mission, can shake that normal calm. Here is no wild
exaltation, no hysterical obedience to hotly-conceived impulse.
Here is purpose, as cold as it is lofty, to liberate France and
pay with her life for the privilege of doing so.

That lover of hers, whom we are presently to see, has compared
her ineptly with Joan of Arc, that other maid of France. But Joan
moved with pomp in a gorgeous pageantry, amid acclamations,
sustained by the heady wine of combat and of enthusiasm openly
indulged, towards a goal of triumph. Charlotte travelled quietly
in the stuffy diligence with the quiet conviction that her days
were numbered.

So normal did she appear to her travelling companions, that one
among them, with an eye for beauty, pestered her with amorous
attentions, and actually proposed marriage to her before the
coach had rolled over the bridge of Neuilly into Paris two days
later.

She repaired to the Providence Inn in the Rue des Vieux
Augustine, where she engaged a room on the first floor, and then
she set out in quest of the Deputy Duperret. She had a letter of
introduction to him from the Girondin Barbaroux, with whom she
had been on friendly terms at Caen. Duperret was to assist her to
obtain an interview with the Minister of the Interior. She had