Long continued exposure at an inclement season of the year at length impaired his health, and he found it necessary to seek some friendly mansion where he might repose in safety and prepare for the approaching struggle. He chose for these purposes the chateau de Laguyomarais, near Lamballe, but he had scarcely gained the protection of that hospitable roof, when he was overtaken by a mortal malady. While the result of his disease was yet doubtful, news came of the king's execution. This unexpected catastrophe troubled his reason and formed the crisis of his fate. On the morning of the 30th

32 THE McDONALD PAPERS

day of January, 1793, after a sickness of fourteen days, he expired in the delirium of a raging fever, at one moment mourning for the monarchy, and the next uttering im-precations against the revolutionary leaders. At midnight, and without the aid of any light but that of the moon, a few chosen friends interred both his body and all the papers of the conspiracy, with the utmost secrecy in seques-tered places. But all these precautions proved insufficient to preserve either the one or the other from discovery. Such was the activity of Morillon, the revolutionary agent, assisted by the traitor Latouche, that little more than a month had passed before the remains of the royalist chief were disinterred and the papers seized. These latter were found to implicate numerous individuals residing in the neighborhood and many of La Rouërie's nearest relatives and friends; but the great body of the conspirators remain to this day unknown, their role having fortunately been destroyed.--By Morillon's orders twenty seven persons, for the most part belonging to the noblest houses of Brittany, and among whom stood con-spicuous the unfortunate families of Laguyomarais, and Desilles, by order of the convention were arrested and sent with all the papers to Paris for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, just at that time instituted.