Moreau had passed the night at Gavrillac in a state of shock, his mind unable to let go of the facts that his godfather had lain before him. Those thoughts had pre-occupied his mind as he travelled back to Paris. He had a mother... a living, breathing mother. Even Aline was temporarily eclipsed by this revelation. Every so often he caught himself saying the words out loud, as though that were the only way to stop this mother from vanishing into thin air. How riddiculous I must look, he thought to himself at those times, and then he would laugh at himself and call from his horse to the next passer-by "J'ai une mere!" and laugh some more.

It was not until Moreau reached the gates of Paris that he realised that something was wrong. He dismounted and flashed his committee pass at the guard, who suddenly became subservience itself. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"They've been rioting for over two hours, Citizen. The people want their Assembly back." said the guard nonchalantly watching the tail end of the violence, "Well, at least some of them do, but if you ask me there's many in that crowd just there for the fun."

Aline! thought Moreau... and then, Mother! They were on the other side of the city. He had to get to them... get through the heated, angry, writhing beast that was the Paris mob with its blood up. Moreau mounted his horse and rode forward then turned up a side street. If he could only skirt the edge of the fight... could he reach the ladies in time?

Moreau steered his horse through the alleyway with difficulty. At times he thought of dismounting, but his fear of the crowd kept him on horseback... the images of M des Amis being trampled on Bastille Day were still vivid in his memory. Occasionally the horse lost his footing and once nearly fell, but somehow Moreau had kept the beast upright. The sounds of the mob were growing ever louder as he made his way towards Mme de Plougastel's residence and the cries only fuelled his efforts to get to the women as quickly as possible. He glanced down an alleyway towards a square where the noise seem especially loud. A man lurched into the alley and stood holding onto the wall as though he would fit or throw up. Moreau recognised Maximillien Robespierre and spurred his horse on. He wasn't about to stop and help that opinionated jerk! It wasn't long before Moreau realised that the epicentre of the riot was moving... his path and the crowd's were on a collision course, converging on the Plougastel residence. The horse complained pitifully, but Moreau worked it harder. There would be time to pamper the beast tomorrow... but if he couldn't reach Aline in time, then tomorrow may as well never arrive!

As he slewed his horse into the stable-yard of the Plougastel residence, Moreau was relieved to have beaten the crowds. He dismounted and ran around to the front of the property. Lights were showing, so someone was at home. He rang the bell... no answer... he rang it again and again and then began to hammer on the door. Eventually, the door opened and Moreau just had time to make out Benyon's features before the servant tried to slam the door in his face. With the shoulder of his sword arm against the door, Moreau was more than a match for the butler, who nevertheless put up a spirited fight. "Benyon, c'est moi... Moreau!" hissed Andre, but all the frightened butler could see was a man dressed in full office of the Committee of Public Safety. "Where's Aline, Benyon? Where's Mme de Plougastel?". Realising he would get no sensible reply, Moreau swore. Closing and bolting the door behind him, he made his own way up the stair to the room in which he'd earlier seen a light.

Moreau didn't need Benyon's introduction, not did he wait for it, so the result was that he almost knocked the poor man flying as he entered the room. Striding into the room, he saw Aline first and then Mme de Plougastel... his mother! He saw her through new eyes and it arrested his movement and thoughts. For a time the usually flippant Moreau was silent, not realising what effect his sudden appearance, in full Committee dress, and silence, at such a time as this, must be having on the two women.

It took a fraction of a second for Moreau to register that he was being spoken to. "Madame," he began, trying to ignore Aline and be business-like with this woman who was his mother, "the government is aware that your husband is a spy. I take it he is in Austria at this moment?" Moreau didn't wait for a reply. No wife worth her salt would give one in such circumstances. "You and all those close to you are tainted by his treachery." Now he looked directly at Aline. "In the absence of M. de Plougastel, your heads will be hunted. I arrived back in Paris from Gavrillac with intention of begging you both to flee the country and meet with my Godfather in Koblenz, but events have overtaken me." He moved to the window and closed the shutters against the approaching mob. "You must both leave Paris immediately... quit this house... leave all your possessions... everything save the clothes you now wear! I can give you but 15 minutes to don your cloaks and collect any money you may have readily to hand, for the mob will be here in 20 and then not even I can save you!"

Moreau stood, kicking his heels in the room that the two women had just quit. Occasionally he stole a glance out of the window to check the progress of the mob... slow but steady. He checked his watch, which ticked so loudly in the silence. What could be taking them so long?

Did she? Did she really understand... understand that he was risking everything... his job, his reputation, even his life? But what was the alternative? To see his mother and Aline fall prey to to mob outside... to stand by and watch them violated in every possible way... and do nothing! "Madame, I would sacrifice anything to save Aline and in helping you also, I do no more than a dutiful son should." There, it was said, with a tremble in his voice and an almost apologetic look upon his face.

"M. de Kercadieu. Don't be angry with him," he added hastily, "he had no choice." He wanted to run to her... to feel for the first time in his life a mother's embrace... but something made him hold back. Perhaps it was the fear that his touch would be unwelcome.

That was all the encouragement he needed. Moreau knelt by the side of her chair and embraced her warmly. "I understand." He said. It was a lie, of course. He didn't understand, could never understand; but he knew that would help neither of them now. Besides, what did the past matter any more. They had the rest of their lives to get to know one another... though granted that wouldn't be very long if Aline and Benyon didn't hurry up!

Moreau looked up too. "M. de Kercadieu told me not 48 hours ago." he said, by way of explanation. "But time is short and we must leave. Where is the servant with your things?" He asked, but could see no sign of the servant who was supposed to travel with them.

Moreau was agast. He looked from D'Azyr to Aline to Mme de Plougastel for an explanation which never came. Was it Aline, still in love with him, who had disguised D'Azyr? Then a strange look came into his eye as he turned his gaze back on D'Azyr, standing there with the servant's cloak in his hand. Next a smile began to play around his mouth and within an instant Moreau was laughing heartily. "I have found you to be many things," he said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye, "but never in all my wildest dreams did I think I would find you an honest man... it's so damnably amusing!"

"Why truly you are a wit! What do you intend to do about it?... or is your arm sufficiently healed from our last encounter?" Moreau regarded the man as though he was nothing... a gnat to be swatted away at will. "I am inclined to be lenient for the sake of the ladies. A duel now would waste valuable time. Take you things and go! What happens to you once you leave this house is not my concern." He could sense that Mme de Plougastel wanted to protest, "Go now, d'Azyr, before I change my mind!" The dismissal was deliberately high-handed and designed to show d'Azyr just how low his status had fallen... and provoke him.

Moreau refused to be drawn to look towards the sound of the mob. "That is merely a symptom, you are the disease... you and those like you, who abused the priviledges granted to you by birth... and I too am a symptom. You made me," he declared, not realising just how true that was, "when you murdered my best friend. You, one of the greatest swordsman in the country, against a novice priest. You could have taught him a lesson then spared him, but instead you goaded him into a duel and slew him in cold blood. If fate has inter-twined our paths since then, it is you who are to blame, not I. But I agree, it is becoming tiresome. Shall we end it now?" The mob was upon them anyway. It little mattered now if Moreau spared a moment to finish his nemesis once and for all.

Moreau was agast! Stunned, shocked, silent, he stared at d'Azyr conscious that for possibly the first time they were of one mind... they both desparately wished they had not heard that revelation. Moreau had a father... and what a father! He would have preferred the meanest peasant to this monster of the ancien regime.

There was a look in Moreau's eyes that told the world that at last he had found something he could not laugh at. Forcing himself to remain controlled, his voice was bitter and cold. "I am sure that this revelation can be no more distasteful to you than it is to me. It does not change my base opinion of you... if anything it confirms it. However, my mother it seems is quicker to forgive and in deference to her wishes, I will not fight you here. Take this pass." He threw it towards d'Azyr's feet so that the Marquis would have to stoop to pick it up. "It is made out for the footman. Take it, use it, save yourself the best you can... but I never, never want to see or hear of you again. If I do, I swear to you I will kill you."

"After a remark like that, I'm almost tempted to be more lenient just to spite you! I'll thank you not to remind me of the connection I'm trying to ignore." Moreau did not like to think that any characteristic of his was the direct result of having this man as his father.

"Touche, Monsieur." replied Moreau with theatrical gallantry, before adding icily, "but I am not the one in trouble now!"

"Very well, I shall tell you." he replied to his mother, ignoring d'Azyr's jibes, "and you shall judge for yourself whether on not he can be forgiven. My best and closest friend was a young prelate named Phillipe de Vilmorin. He cared passionately about the well- being of his flock. He saw the humanity and suffering where most men of his class refused to look. He was moved by the plight of a widow, who's husband had been shot by the Marquis for poaching. Granted the man was in the wrong, but his family were starving... his children were dying... and poaching is not a crime usually punished by death. Phillipe tried to speak with this man," he gestured at d'Azyr, "to reason with him, to extract some small recompense for the widow and her family. Your response, Sir," he spat the words directly at d'Ayzr, "was to goad him, taunt him, trick him into challenging you to a duel. He was a priest! Never held a sword, let alone used one... and you are well known to be one of the best blades in France. Naively I thought you would merely teach him a lesson, but no... you played with him until he was entirely at your mercy and then murdered him! I was Phillipe's second, Madame," Moreau turned back to his mother, "I witnessed the manner of his death first hand and murder is the only word to describe it. Their can be no other when the opponents are so unequally matched and where the stronger has blatantly entrapped the weaker into fighting by a means so foreign to him that he could never hope to win."

"That is, perhaps, the one injustice out of many that I can forgive." replied Moreau. "You opened my eyes to Mlle Binet's true character, Monsieur. At the time I thought myself in love, but I realise now it was a hollow emotion." he looked deeply at Aline, "But in awakening me, you showed yourself unworthy of another woman... the one you hoped to wed."

"Would it have made any difference to you if you had?" he replied, ignoring his mother's pleas for a reconcilliation.

"I would never treat someone as though they were a trinket... something to be bought and possessed." He snapped back, dangerously close to drawing his sword again. The howling mob was getting gradually nearer, but fortunately their progress was being slowed by interesting opportunities for vandalism and thuggery along the way. "And you are wrong to say that all members of your class have such vices. M. de Kercadieu is of your class and has none of them!"

Aline's words brought him back to reality and he felt his hand unclench from his sword hilt. "You are right, we must leave. Come, we must yet harness the carriage." He ushered the women out of the room and then shot a parting glance back at d'Azyr. "You are a fugitive now, Monsieur. I am used to it, but I wonder if you will cope so well?"

He gave her a winning, if slightly mischievious, smile. "You forget, Aline, that I am a member of the Committee. No guard would dare countermand any order of mine. Of course, once word spreads of what I have done, and spread it must, I will be a fugitive too. But by then you and Mme de Plougastel will be safe in Koblenz."

"I've lived so much of my life as an outsider that it doesn't seem right to fit in." he was trying to bouy her spirits. "Besides, you know me... I have to be contentious and always have the last word. If the whole of France were not arrayed against me, I'd soon be bored!"

After giving some final instructions to the servant who would drive them, Moreau climbed inside the carriage and seated himself opposite the two women. He noticed that Mme de Plougastel was shaking slightly, but that Aline was as collected as ever under pressure. How well he recalled her cool headed actions that had saved his life at Gavrillac. "We will leave the city by the south and then turn east." he explained, "There will be many guard posts along the way, but my committee pass should take us through them all without question. Whatever happens, you must follow my lead." He looked at the women keenly to see if they understood.

He was relieved to see that they weren't going to faint or cry. As they wound their way through the streets, he could hear angry shouts in the distance and the sound of breaking glass. Vaguely he wondered whether D'Azyr was caught up in it all, but the thought was more curiosity than concern. They left Paris towards the south and then turned east. It would take them all night and much of the next day to reach the border and he knew that the officials in those principalities could be officious to the point of infuriation. He hoped the stoic calm of his companions would hold. "We are going to Koblenz." He explained, to initiate some conversation, "I have a small property there... a farm. I've never seen it, but I believe it will be comfortable enough, though not a palace. M de Kercadieu is to join us. He may already be there awaiting our arrival."

"Not quite, but it soon will be. It is best that he quit the now, whilst it is still easy for him to do so. Beside," he added with an old smile, for he could see Aline was worried, "You ladies will need a protector in Koblenz."

"I may have to." He replied. The prospect of spending any length of time surrounded by bitter emigres, who would like nothing better than to put a knife into the back of the Paladin of the 3rd Estate, was not a welcome one. Moreau would much rather take his chances with the republicans.

Moreau grinned "You forget I've spent most of my adult life on the wrong side of the French government. Besides, I have friends who would help me, just as I would help them."

He was surprised that they had reached Riems so quickly, but relieved nonetheless. The queue of carriages waiting to leave was far longer than the inward bound queue, but still they were forced to wait for a quarter hour. The sergeant was a gruff, officious man; but he took one look at Moreau's pass and waved them through with something approaching a bow... just as the guards in Paris had done. "We must find somewhere to eat and rest. We have an early start ahead of us tomorrow." Moreau told the women as they passed through the narrow streets. The Paris mob would keep the authorities busy all night and most of the next morning, but questions would soon be asked when the ladies were found missing and not among the dead. He did not want any messenger to have a chance to overtake them. "Driver!" He called out, "Take us to the inn nearest the East gate of the city." They would be first in the queue to leave on the morrow.

"I've done no more than my duty... to my mother and to..." his voice faltered and Moreau quickly turned towards the hearth to hide the expression on his face. He still recalled her earlier reaction to his declaration of love.

"What did you say that I didn't deserve?" he asked, looking up at her with a self-depreciative smile. "If I act like Monsieur Scaramouche, the world has every right to treat me like him." It was clear that Aline had hurt him deeply, but he considered it his own fault... and now... was she offering a ray of hope?

"You do?" he asked, scarce able to believe his ears. He must be drunk or dreaming! Suddenly Moreau was seized by the need to touch the beautiful apparition in front of him to ensure she was not a mirage. He reached out an gently took her hand. "You truly do?" he asked again, but very softly.

"You have it, Aline... my forgiveness and my undying devotion. I have loved you since childhood. I will always love you. Just say the word and you would make me the happiest man alive!"

"Then you will marry me?" he asked in delight. God, this must be a dream... but he'd kill the person who woke him up! Instinctively Moreau had gone down on one knee. It was proscribed in the theatre that proposals should be made that way and, having nothing else to base his actions on, Moreau bowed to the tradition.

"But if M. de Kercadieu agreed, would you consent to be my wife?" Moreau pressed on, determined to either get the answer he'd so long desired or else wreck himself totally in pursuit of it.

He kissed the hand he was holding, whilst warm tears of joy appeared in his eyes. He would have gone further, but the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside arrested his inevitable progress towards the mouth of this angel who'd just agreed to be his bride.

The delicate tread my not have been a man's, but there were enough serving girls ready to denounce strangers to the authorities. Moreau motioned to Aline to remain quiet, then moved to the door and opened it a crack. Immensely relieved to see a familiar face, he opened the door wide and invited his mother to join their party. "We have such news to tell you!" He said, glancing at Aline for his angel's permission to tell of their engagement.

"Aline and I are engaged!" he blurted out with unaccustomed joy. "If you will give us your blessing, then we need only that of M. de Kercadieu, who will meet us in Koblenz, and we can be married."

Well, perhaps he hadn't realistically expected gushing congratulations, but the subdued reaction from his newly discovered mama was not at all what he'd hoped for. "What is there to be uncertain about?" he asked, puzzled.

"Calm yourself, my dear," he took Aline's hand to try to sooth her nerves. "I do not expect a warm welcome from anyone we meet, except perhaps M. de Kercadieu. But they all know of me. I was not dubbed the Paladin of the 3rd Estate for nothing. They will sneer and snub me, but none will challenge me, or if they do..." he paused ominously, "But I should not speak to ladies of such matters." Moreau's confidence that he would win any duel was not an empty vanity. Any man who challenged him would do well to purchase a coffin in advance.

"The Marquis," Moreau could not bear to think of that man as his father, "has a brand of arrogance that I do not and I'll thank you not to compare us." Probably the comparison was accurate, but Moreau would rather be liken to a viper than to d'Azyr!

Moreau flashed his mother a most theatrical smile and replied, "Then I shall play Scaramouche for you, so you can never complain. But tomorrow, not tonight. We are all tired and it will be a long drive to reach the boarder." What did she mean by admonishing him in that way? He had done very well without a mother and didn't need her to start acting like one now!

The look on Aline's face, as she guided her future mother-in-law from the room, made Moreau forget any ill sentiment that had passed just moments before... the more he saw her, the more he wanted her... the bigger the obstacles placed in his way, the more determined he would be to overcome them... it was Aline or oblivion for Scaramouche. That night he dreamt of her as never before, and the memory of that backward glance figured large throughout.

When he awoke the next morning, birds were chirrupping in the trees outside. It was almost enough to convince him that the horrors of Paris had not occurred... but if they had not, then the blissful scenes of the night before must also be chimeras and that could not be! Moreau made his way down to breakfast with a renewed spring in his step. He hoped Aline would also have risen early... the sooner he confirmed that he hadn't imagined her acceptance of him, the better.