I vowed that this skin, pierced with three holes, should eternally cry vengeance before my eyes.

I made it my battle waistcoat." "Ah!" exclaimed Morgan, with a certain astonishment, in which, for the first time, was mingled something akin to terror--"Ah! then that waistcoat is made of your brother's skin?
And the trousers ?" "Oh!" replied the Vendean, "the trousers, that's another matter.
They are made of the skin of Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris." At that moment the voice again called out, in the same order, the names of Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.
Morgan rushed out of the study, crossed the dancing-hall from end to end, and made his way to a little salon on the other side of the dressing-room.

His three companions, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, were there already.

With them was a young man in the government livery of a bearer of despatches, namely a green and gold coat.

His boots were dusty, and he wore a visored cap and carried the despatch-box, the essential accoutrements of a cabinet courier.
One of Cassini's maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the land, was spread on the table.
Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an important part in the rest of this history.
The reader already knows Morgan, the Achilles and the Paris of this strange association; Morgan, with his blue eyes, his black hair, his tall, well-built figure, graceful, easy, active bearing; his eye, which was never without animation; his mouth, with its fresh lips and white teeth, that was never without a smile; his remarkable countenance, composed of mingling elements that seemed so foreign to each other--strength and tenderness, gentleness and energy; and, through it all, that bewildering expression of gayety that was at times alarming when one remembered that this man was perpetually rubbing shoulders with death, and the most terrifying of all deaths--that of the scaffold.
As for d'Assas, he was a man from thirty-five to thirty-eight years of age, with bushy hair that was turning gray, and mustaches as black as ebony.