SONS OF THE SOIL by HONORE DE BALZAC

SONS OF THE SOIL
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
DEDICATION
To Monsieur P. S. B. Gavault.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote these words at the beginning of his
Nouvelle Heloise: "I have seen the morals of my time and I publish
these letters." May I not say to you, in imitation of that great
writer, "I have studied the march of my epoch and I publish this
work"?
The object of this particular study--startling in its truth so
long as society makes philanthropy a principle instead of
regarding it as an accident--is to bring to sight the leading
characters of a class too long unheeded by the pens of writers who
seek novelty as their chief object. Perhaps this forgetfulness is
only prudence in these days when the people are heirs of all the
sycophants of royalty. We make criminals poetic, we commiserate
the hangman, we have all but deified the proletary. Sects have
risen, and cried by every pen, "Arise, working-men!" just as
formerly they cried, "Arise!" to the "tiers etat." None of these
Erostrates, however, have dared to face the country solitudes and
study the unceasing conspiracy of those whom we term weak against
those others who fancy themselves strong,--that of the peasant
against the proprietor. It is necessary to enlighten not only the
legislator of to-day but him of to-morrow. In the midst of the
present democratic ferment, into which so many of our writers
blindly rush, it becomes an urgent duty to exhibit the peasant who
renders Law inapplicable, and who has made the ownership of land
to be a thing that is, and that is not.
You are now to behold that indefatigable mole, that rodent which
undermines and disintegrates the soil, parcels it out and divides
an acre into a hundred fragments,--ever spurred on to his banquet
by the lower middle classes who make him at once their auxiliary
and their prey. This essentially unsocial element, created by the
Revolution, will some day absorb the middle classes, just as the
middle classes have destroyed the nobility. Lifted above the law
by its own insignificance, this Robespierre, with one head and
twenty million arms, is at work perpetually; crouching in country
districts, intrenched in municipal councils, under arms in the
national guard of every canton in France,--one result of the year
1830, which failed to remember that Napoleon preferred the chances
of defeat to the danger of arming the masses.
If during the last eight years I have again and again given up the
writing of this book (the most important of those I have
undertaken to write), and as often returned to it, it was, as you
and other friends can well imagine, because my courage shrank from
the many difficulties, the many essential details of a drama so
doubly dreadful and so cruelly bloody. Among the reasons which
render me now almost, it may be thought, foolhardy, I count the
desire to finish a work long designed to be to you a proof of my
deep and lasting gratitude for a friendship that has ever been
among my greatest consolations in misfortune.
De Balzac.
SONS OF THE SOIL
PART I
Whoso land hath, contention hath.
CHAPTER I
THE CHATEAU
Les Aigues, August 6, 1823.
To Monsieur Nathan,
My dear Nathan,--You, who provide the public with such delightful
dreams through the magic of your imagination, are now to follow me
while I make you dream a dream of truth. You shall then tell me
whether the present century is likely to bequeath such dreams to the
Nathans and the Blondets of the year 1923; you shall estimate the
distance at which we now are from the days when the Florines of the
eighteenth century found, on awaking, a chateau like Les Aigues in the
terms of their bargain.
My dear fellow, if you receive this letter in the morning, let your
mind travel, as you lie in bed, fifty leagues or thereabouts from
Paris, along the great mail road which leads to the confines of
Burgundy, and behold two small lodges built of red brick, joined, or
separated, by a rail painted green. It was there that the diligence
deposited your friend and correspondent.
On either side of this double pavilion grows a quick-set hedge, from
which the brambles straggle like stray locks of hair. Here and there a
tree shoots boldly up; flowers bloom on the slopes of the wayside
ditch, bathing their feet in its green and sluggish water. The hedge
at both ends meets and joins two strips of woodland, and the double
meadow thus inclosed is doubtless the result of a clearing.
These dusty and deserted lodges give entrance to a magnificent avenue
of centennial elms, whose umbrageous heads lean toward each other and
form a long and most majestic arbor. The grass grows in this avenue,
and only a few wheel-tracks can be seen along its double width of way.
The great age of the trees, the breadth of the avenue, the venerable
construction of the lodges, the brown tints of their stone courses,
all bespeak an approach to some half-regal residence.
Before reaching this enclosure from the height of an eminence such as
we Frenchmen rather conceitedly call a mountain, at the foot of which
lies the village of Conches (the last post-house), I had seen the long
valley of Aigues, at the farther end of which the mail road turns to
follow a straight line into the little sub-prefecture of La Ville-aux-
Fayes, over which, as you know, the nephew of our friend des Lupeaulx
lords it. Tall forests lying on the horizon, along vast slopes which
skirt a river, command this rich valley, which is framed in the far
distance by the mountains of a lesser Switzerland, called the Morvan.
These forests belong to Les Aigues, and to the Marquis de Ronquerolles
and the Comte de Soulanges, whose castles and parks and villages, seen
in the distance from these heights, give the scene a strong
resemblance to the imaginary landscapes of Velvet Breughel.
If these details do not remind you of all the castles in the air you
have desired to possess in France you are not worthy to receive the
present narrative of an astounded Parisian. At last I have seen a
landscape where art is blended with nature in such a way that neither
of them spoils the other; the art is natural, and the nature artistic.
I have found the oasis that you and I have dreamed of when reading
novels,--nature luxuriant and adorned, rolling lines that are not
confused, something wild withal, unkempt, mysterious, not common. Jump
that green railing and come on!
When I tried to look up the avenue, which the sun never penetrates
except when it rises or when it sets, striping the road like a zebra
with its oblique rays, my view was obstructed by an outline of rising
ground; after that is passed, the long avenue is obstructed by a
copse, within which the roads meet at a cross-ways, in the centre of
which stands a stone obelisk, for all the world like an eternal
exclamation mark. From the crevices between the foundation stones of
this erection, which is topped by a spiked ball (what an idea!), hang
flowering plants, blue or yellow according to the season. Les Aigues
must certainly have been built by a woman, or for a woman; no man
would have had such dainty ideas; the architect no doubt had his cue.
Passing through the little wood placed there as sentinel, I came upon
a charming declivity, at the foot of which foamed and gurgled a little
brook, which I crossed on a culvert of mossy stones, superb in color,
the prettiest of all the mosaics which time manufactures. The avenue
continues by the brookside up a gentle rise. In the distance, the
first tableau is now seen,--a mill and its dam, a causeway and trees,
linen laid out to dry, the thatched cottage of the miller, his
fishing-nets, and the tank where the fish are kept,--not to speak of
the miller's boy, who was already watching me. No matter where you are
in the country, however solitary you may think yourself, you are
certain to be the focus of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a
laborer rests on his hoe, a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a
little goat-girl, or shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a willow to stare
at you.
Presently the avenue merges into an alley of acacias, which leads to
an iron railing made in the days when iron-workers fashioned those
slender filagrees which are not unlike the copies set us by a writingmaster.
On either side of the railing is a ha-ha, the edges of which
bristle with angry spikes,--regular porcupines in metal. The railing
is closed at both ends by two porter's-lodges, like those of the
palace at Versailles, and the gateway is surmounted by colossal vases.
The gold of the arabesques is ruddy, for rust has added its tints, but
this entrance, called "the gate of the Avenue," which plainly shows
the hand of the Great Dauphin (to whom, indeed, Les Aigues owes it),
seems to me none the less beautiful for that. At the end of each ha-ha
the walls of the park, built of rough-hewn stone, begin. These stones,
set in a mortar made of reddish earth, display their variegated
colors, the warm yellows of the silex, the white of the lime
carbonates, the russet browns of the sandstone, in many a fantastic
shape. As you first enter it, the park is gloomy, the walls are hidden
by creeping plants and by trees that for fifty years have heard no
sound of axe. One might think it a virgin forest, made primeval again
through some phenomenon granted exclusively to forests. The trunks of
the trees are swathed with lichen which hangs from one to another.
Mistletoe, with its viscid leaves, droops from every fork of the
branches where moisture settles. I have found gigantic ivies, wild
arabesques which flourish only at fifty leagues from Paris, here where
land does not cost enough to make one sparing of it. The landscape on
such free lines covers a great deal of ground. Nothing is smoothed
off; rakes are unknown, ruts and ditches are full of water, frogs are
tranquilly delivered of their tadpoles, the woodland flowers bloom,
and the heather is as beautiful as that I have seen on your mantleshelf
in January in the elegant beau-pot sent by Florine. This mystery
is intoxicating, it inspires vague desires. The forest odors, beloved
of souls that are epicures of poesy, who delight in the tiny mosses,
the noxious fungi, the moist mould, the willows, the balsams, the wild
thyme, the green waters of a pond, the golden star of the yellow
water-lily,--the breath of all such vigorous propagations came to my
nostrils and filled me with a single thought; was it their soul? I
seemed to see a rose-tinted gown floating along the winding alley.
The path ended abruptly in another copse, where birches and poplars
and all the quivering trees palpitated,--an intelligent family with
graceful branches and elegant bearing, the trees of a love as free! It
was from this point, my dear fellow, that I saw a pond covered with
the white water-lily and other plants with broad flat leaves and
narrow slender ones, on which lay a boat painted white and black, as
light as a nut-shell and dainty as the wherry of a Seine boatman.
Beyond rose the chateau, built in 1560, of fine red brick, with stone
courses and copings, and window-frames in which the sashes were of
small leaded panes (O Versailles!). The stone is hewn in diamond
points, but hollowed, as in the Ducal Palace at Venice on the facade
toward the Bridge of Sighs. There are no regular lines about the
castle except in the centre building, from which projects a stately
portico with double flights of curving steps, and round balusters
slender at their base and broadening at the middle. The main building
is surrounded by clock-towers and sundry modern turrets, with
galleries and vases more or less Greek. No harmony there, my dear
Nathan! These heterogeneous erections are wrapped, so to speak, by
various evergreen trees whose branches shed their brown needles upon
the roofs, nourishing the lichen and giving tone to the cracks and
crevices where the eye delights to wander. Here you see the Italian
pine, the stone pine, with its red bark and its majestic parasol; here
a cedar two hundred years old, weeping willows, a Norway spruce, and a
beech which overtops them all; and there, in front of the main tower,
some very singular shrubs,--a yew trimmed in a way that recalls some
long-decayed garden of old France, and magnolias with hortensias at
their feet. In short, the place is the Invalides of the heroes of
horticulture, once the fashion and now forgotten, like all other
heroes.
A chimney, with curious copings, which was sending forth great volumes
of smoke, assured me that this delightful scene was not an opera
setting. A kitchen reveals human beings. Now imagine ME, Blondet, who
shiver as if in the polar regions at Saint-Cloud, in the midst of this
glowing Burgundian climate. The sun sends down its warmest rays, the
king-fisher watches on the shores of the pond, the cricket chirps, the
grain-pods burst, the poppy drops its morphia in glutinous tears, and
all are clearly defined on the dark-blue ether. Above the ruddy soil
of the terraces flames that joyous natural punch which intoxicates the
insects and the flowers and dazzles our eyes and browns our faces. The
grape is beading, its tendrils fall in a veil of threads whose
delicacy puts to shame the lace-makers. Beside the house blue
larkspur, nasturtium, and sweet-peas are blooming. From a distance
orange-trees and tuberoses scent the air. After the poetic exhalations
of the woods (a gradual preparation) came the delectable pastilles of
this botanic seraglio.
Standing on the portico, like the queen of flowers, behold a woman
robed in white, with hair unpowdered, holding a parasol lined with
white silk, but herself whiter than the silk, whiter than the lilies
at her feet, whiter than the starry jasmine that climbed the
balustrade,--a woman, a Frenchwoman born in Russia, who said as I
approached her, "I had almost given you up." She had seen me as I left
the copse. With what perfection do all women, even the most guileless,
understand the arrangement of a scenic effect? The movements of the
servants, who were preparing to serve breakfast, showed me that the
meal had been delayed until after the arrival of the diligence. She
had not ventured to come to meet me.
Is this not our dream,--the dream of all lovers of the beautiful,
under whatsoever form it comes; the seraphic beauty that Luini put
into his Marriage of the Virgin, that noble fresco at Sarono; the
beauty that Rubens grasped in the tumult of his "Battle of the
Thermodon"; the beauty that five centuries have elaborated in the
cathedrals of Seville and Milan; the beauty of the Saracens at
Granada, the beauty of Louis XIV. at Versailles, the beauty of the
Alps, and that of this Limagne in which I stand?
Belonging to the estate, about which there is nothing too princely,
nor yet too financial, where prince and farmer-general have both lived
(which fact serves to explain it), are four thousand acres of
woodland, a park of some nine hundred acres, the mill, three leased
farms, another immense farm at Conches, and vineyards,--the whole
producing a revenue of about seventy thousand francs a year. Now you
know Les Aigues, my dear fellow; where I have been expected for the
last two weeks, and where I am at this moment, in the chintz-lined
chamber assigned to dearest friends.
Above the park, towards Conches, a dozen little brooks, clear, limpid
streams coming from the Morvan, fall into the pond, after adorning
with their silvery ribbons the valleys of the park and the magnificent
gardens around the chateau. The name of the place, Les Aigues, comes
from these charming streams of water; the estate was originally called
in the old title-deeds "Les Aigues-Vives" to distinguish it from
"Aigues-Mortes"; but the word "Vives" has now been dropped. The pond
empties into the stream, which follows the course of the avenue,
through a wide and straight canal bordered on both sides and along its
whole length by weeping willows. This canal, thus arched, produces a
delightful effect. Gliding through it, seated on a thwart of the
little boat, one could fancy one's self in the nave of some great
cathedral, the choir being formed of the main building of the house
seen at the end of it. When the setting sun casts its orange tones
mingled with amber upon the casements of the chateau, the effect is
that of painted windows. At the other end of the canal we see Blangy,
the county-town, containing about sixty houses, and the village
church, which is nothing more than a tumble-down building with a
wooden clock-tower which appears to hold up a roof of broken tiles.
One comfortable house and the parsonage are distinguishable; but the
township is a large one,--about two hundred scattered houses in all,
those of the village forming as it were the capital. The roads are
lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens are strewn here
and there,--true country gardens with everything in them; flowers,
onions, cabbages and grapevines, currants, and a great deal of manure.
The village has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative
simplicity which we artists are forever seeking. In the far distance
is the little town of Soulanges overhanging a vast sheet of water,
like the buildings on the lake of Thune.
When you stroll in the park, which has four gates, each superb in
style, you feel that our mythological Arcadias are flat and stale.
Arcadia is in Burgundy, not in Greece; Arcadia is at Les Aigues and
nowhere else. A river, made by scores of brooklets, crosses the park
at its lower level with a serpentine movement; giving a dewy freshness
and tranquillity to the scene,--an air of solitude, which reminds one
of a convent of Carthusians, and all the more because, on an
artificial island in the river, is a hermitage in ruins, the interior
elegance of which is worthy of the luxurious financier who constructed
it. Les Aigues, my dear Nathan, once belonged to that Bouret who spent
two millions to receive Louis XV. on a single occasion under his roof.
How many ardent passions, how many distinguished minds, how many
fortunate circumstances have contributed to make this beautiful place
what it is! A mistress of Henri IV. rebuilt the chateau where it now
stands. The favorite of the Great Dauphin, Mademoiselle Choin (to whom
Les Aigues was given), added a number of farms to it. Bouret furnished
the house with all the elegancies of Parisian homes for an Opera
celebrity; and to him Les Aigues owes the restoration of its ground
floor in the style Louis XV.
I have often stood rapt in admiration at the beauty of the diningroom.
The eye is first attracted to the ceiling, painted in fresco in
the Italian manner, where lightsome arabesques are frolicking. Female
forms, in stucco ending in foliage, support at regular distances
corbeils of fruit, from which spring the garlands of the ceiling.
Charming paintings, the work of unknown artists, fill the panels
between the female figures, representing the luxuries of the table,--
boar's-heads, salmon, rare shell-fish, and all edible things,--which
fantastically suggest men and women and children, and rival the
whimsical imagination of the Chinese,--the people who best understand,
to my thinking at least, the art of decoration. The mistress of the
house finds a bell-wire beneath her feet to summon servants, who enter
only when required, disturbing no interviews and overhearing no
secrets. The panels above the doorways represent gay scenes; all the
embrasures, both of doors and windows, are in marble mosaics. The room
is heated from below. Every window looks forth on some delightful
view.
This room communicates with a bath-room on one side and on the other
with a boudoir which opens into the salon. The bath-room is lined with
Sevres tiles, painted in monochrome, the floor is mosaic, and the bath
marble. An alcove, hidden by a picture painted on copper, which turns
on a pivot, contains a couch in gilt wood of the truest Pompadour. The
ceiling is lapis-lazuli starred with gold. The tiles are painted from
designs by Boucher. Bath, table and love are therefore closely united.
After the salon, which, I should tell you, my dear fellow, exhibits
the magnificence of the Louis XIV. manner, you enter a fine billiardroom
unrivalled so far as I know in Paris itself. The entrance to this
suite of ground-floor apartments is through a semi-circular
antechamber, at the lower end of which is a fairy-like staircase,
lighted from above, which leads to other parts of the house, all built
at various epochs--and to think that they chopped off the heads of the
wealthy in 1793! Good heavens! why can't people understand that the
marvels of art are impossible in a land where there are no great
fortunes, no secure, luxurious lives? If the Left insists on killing
kings why not leave us a few little princelings with money in their
pockets?
At the present moment these accumulated treasures belong to a charming
woman with an artistic soul, who is not content with merely restoring
them magnificently, but who keeps the place up with loving care. Sham
philosophers, studying themselves while they profess to be studying
humanity, call these glorious things extravagance. They grovel before
cotton prints and the tasteless designs of modern industry, as if we
were greater and happier in these days than in those of Henri IV.,
Louis XIV., and Louis XVI., monarchs who have all left the stamp of
their reigns upon Les Aigues. What palace, what royal castle, what
mansions, what noble works of art, what gold brocaded stuffs are
sacred now? The petticoats of our grandmothers go to cover the chairs
in these degenerate days. Selfish and thieving interlopers that we
are, we pull down everything and plant cabbages where marvels once
were rife. Only yesterday the plough levelled Persan, that magnificent
domain which gave a title to one of the most opulent families of the
old parliament; hammers have demolished Montmorency, which cost an
Italian follower of Napoleon untold sums; Val, the creation of
Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, Cassan, built by a mistress of the
Prince de Conti; in all, four royal houses have disappeared in the
valley of the Oise alone. We are getting a Roman campagna around Paris
in advance of the days when a tempest shall blow from the north and
overturn our plaster palaces and our pasteboard decorations.
Now see, my dear fellow, to what the habit of bombasticising in
newspapers brings you to. Here am I writing a downright article. Does
the mind have its ruts, like a road? I stop; for I rob the mail, and I
rob myself, and you may be yawning--to be continued in our next; I
hear the second bell, which summons me to one of those abundant
breakfasts the fashion of which has long passed away, in the diningrooms
of Paris, be it understood.
Here's the history of my Arcadia. In 1815, there died at Les Aigues
one of the famous wantons of the last century,--a singer, forgotten of
the guillotine and the nobility, after preying upon exchequers, upon
literature, upon aristocracy, and all but reaching the scaffold;
forgotten, like so many fascinating old women who expiate their golden
youth in country solitudes, and replace their lost loves by another,--
man by Nature. Such women live with the flowers, with the woodland
scents, with the sky, with the sunshine, with all that sings and skips
and shines and sprouts,--the birds, the squirrels, the flowers, the
grass; they know nothing about these things, they cannot explain them,
but they love them; they love them so well that they forget dukes,
marshals, rivalries, financiers, follies, luxuries, their paste jewels
and their real diamonds, their heeled slippers and their rouge,--all,
for the sweetness of country life.
I have gathered, my dear fellow, much precious information about the
old age of Mademoiselle Laguerre; for, to tell you the truth, the
after life of such women as Florine, Mariette, Suzanne de Val Noble,
and Tullia has made me, every now and then, extremely inquisitive, as
though I were a child inquiring what had become of the old moons.
In 1790 Mademoiselle Laguerre, alarmed at the turn of public affairs,
came to settle at Les Aigues, bought and given to her by Bouret, who
passed several summers with her at the chateau. Terrified at the fate
of Madame du Barry, she buried her diamonds. At that time she was only
fifty-three years of age, and according to her lady's-maid, afterwards
married to a gendarme named Soudry, "Madame was more beautiful than
ever." My dear Nathan, Nature has no doubt her private reasons for
treating women of this sort like spoiled children; excesses, instead
of killing them, fatten them, preserve them, renew their youth. Under
a lymphatic appearance they have nerves which maintain their
marvellous physique; they actually preserve their beauty for reasons
which would make a virtuous woman haggard. No, upon my word, Nature is
not moral!
Mademoiselle Laguerre lived an irreproachable life at Les Aigues, one
might even call it a saintly one, after her famous adventure,--you
remember it? One evening in a paroxysm of despairing love, she fled
from the opera-house in her stage dress, rushed into the country, and
passed the night weeping by the wayside. (Ah! how they have
calumniated the love of Louis XV.'s time!) She was so unused to see
the sunrise, that she hailed it with one of her finest songs. Her
attitude, quite as much as her tinsel, drew the peasants about her;
amazed at her gestures, her voice, her beauty, they took her for an
angel, and dropped on their knees around her. If Voltaire had not
existed we might have thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God
gave her much credit for her tardy virtue, for love after all must be
a sickening thing to a woman as weary of it as a wanton of the old
Opera. Mademoiselle Laguerre was born in 1740, and her hey-day was in
1760, when Monsieur (I forget his name) was called the "ministre de la
guerre," on account of his liaison with her. She abandoned that name,
which was quite unknown down here, and called herself Madame des
Aigues, as if to merge her identity in the estate, which she delighted
to improve with a taste that was profoundly artistic. When Bonaparte
became First Consul, she increased her property by the purchase of
church lands, for which she used the proceeds of her diamonds. As an
Opera divinity never knows how to take care of her money, she
intrusted the management of the estate to a steward, occupying herself
with her flowers and fruits and with the beautifying of the park.
After Mademoiselle was dead and buried at Blangy, the notary of
Soulanges--that little town which lies between Ville-aux-Fayes and
Blangy, the capital of the township--made an elaborate inventory, and
sought out the heirs of the singer, who never knew she had any. Eleven
families of poor laborers living near Amiens, and sleeping in cotton
sheets, awoke one fine morning in golden ones. The property was sold
at auction. Les Aigues was bought by Montcornet, who had laid by
enough during his campaigns in Spain and Pomerania to make the
purchase, which cost about eleven hundred thousand francs, including
the furniture. The general, no doubt, felt the influence of these
luxurious apartments; and I was arguing with the countess only
yesterday that her marriage was a direct result of the purchase of Les
Aigues.
To rightly understand the countess, my dear Nathan, you must know that
the general is a violent man, red as fire, five feet nine inches tall,
round as a tower, with a thick neck and the shoulders of a blacksmith,
which must have amply filled his cuirass. Montcornet commanded the
cuirassiers at the battle of Essling (called by the Austrians Gross-
Aspern), and came near perishing when that noble corps was driven back
on the Danube. He managed to cross the river astride a log of wood.
The cuirassiers, finding the bridge down, took the glorious
resolution, at Montcornet's command, to turn and resist the entire
Austrian army, which carried off on the morrow over thirty wagon-loads
of cuirasses. The Germans invented a name for their enemies on this
occasion which means "men of iron."[*] Montcornet has the outer man of
a hero of antiquity. His arms are stout and vigorous, his chest deep
and broad; his head has a leonine aspect, his voice is of those that
can order a charge in the thick of battle; but he has nothing more
than the courage of a daring man; he lacks mind and breadth of view.
Like other generals to whom military common-sense, the natural
boldness of those who spend their lives in danger, and the habit of
command gives an appearance of superiority, Montcornet has an imposing
effect when you first meet him; he seems a Titan, but he contains a
dwarf, like the pasteboard giant who saluted Queen Elizabeth at the
gates of Kenilworth. Choleric though kind, and full of imperial
hauteur, he has the caustic tongue of a soldier, and is quick at
repartee, but quicker still with a blow. He may have been superb on a
battle-field; in a household he is simply intolerable. He knows no
love but barrack love,--the love which those clever myth-makers, the
ancients, placed under the patronage of Eros, son of Mars and Venus.
Those delightful chroniclers of the old religions provided themselves
with a dozen different Loves. Study the fathers and the attributes of
these Loves, and you will discover a complete social nomenclature,--
and yet we fancy that we originate things! When the world turns upside
down like an hour-glass, when the seas become continents, Frenchmen
will find canons, steamboats, newspapers, and maps wrapped up in
seaweed at the bottom of what is now our ocean.
[*] I do not, on principle, like foot-notes, and this is the first I
have ever allowed myself. Its historical interest must be my
excuse; it will prove, moreover, that descriptions of battles
should be something more than the dry particulars of technical
writers, who for the last three thousand years have told us about
left and right wings and centres being broken or driven in, but
never a word about the soldier himself, his sufferings, and his
heroism. The conscientious care with which I prepared myself to
write the "Scenes from Military Life," led me to many a battlefield
once wet with the blood of France and her enemies. Among
them I went to Wagram. When I reached the shores of the Danube,
opposite Lobau, I noticed on the bank, which is covered with turf,
certain undulations that reminded me of the furrows in a field of
lucern. I asked the reason of it, thinking I should hear of some
new method of agriculture: "There sleep the cavalry of the
imperial guard," said the peasant who served us as a guide; "those
are their graves you see there." The words made me shudder. Prince
Frederic Schwartzenburg, who translated them, added that the man
had himself driven one of the wagons laden with cuirasses. By one
of the strange chances of war our guide had served a breakfast to
Napoleon on the morning of the battle of Wagram. Though poor, he
had kept the double napoleon which the Emperor gave him for his
milk and his eggs. The curate of Gross-Aspern took us to the
famous cemetery where French and Austrians struggled together
knee-deep in blood, with a courage and obstinacy glorious to each.
There, while explaining that a marble tablet (to which our
attention had been attracted, and on which were inscribed the
names of the owner of Gross-Aspern, who had been killed on the
third day) was the sole compensation ever given to the family, he
said, in a tone of deep sadness: "It was a time of great misery,
and of great hopes; but now are the days of forgetfulness." The
saying seemed to me sublime in its simplicity; but when I came to
reflect upon the matter, I felt there was some justification for
the apparent ingratitude of the House of Austria. Neither nations
nor kings are wealthy enough to reward all the devotions to which
these tragic struggles give rise. Let those who serve a cause with
a secret expectation of recompense, set a price upon their blood
and become mercenaries. Those who wield either sword or pen for
their country's good ought to think of nothing but of DOING THEIR
BEST, as our fathers used to say, and expect nothing, not even
glory, except as a happy accident.
It was in rushing to retake this famous cemetery for the third
time that Massena, wounded and carried in the box of a cabriolet,
made this splendid harangue to his soldiers: "What! you rascally
curs, who have only five sous a day while I have forty thousand,
do you let me go ahead of you?" All the world knows the order
which the Emperor sent to his lieutenant by M. de Sainte-Croix,
who swam the Danube three times: "Die or retake the village; it is
a question of saving the army; the bridges are destroyed."
The Author.
Now, I must tell you that the Comtesse de Montcornet is a fragile,
timid, delicate little woman. What do you think of such a marriage as
that? To those who know society such things are common enough; a wellassorted
marriage is the exception. Nevertheless, I have come to see
how it is that this slender little creature handles her bobbins in a
way to lead this heavy, solid, stolid general precisely as he himself
used to lead his cuirassiers.
If Montcornet begins to bluster before his Virginie, Madame lays a
finger on her lips and he is silent. He smokes his pipes and his
cigars in a kiosk fifty feet from the chateau, and airs himself before
he returns to the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns to her,
like a bear drunk on grapes, and says, when anything is proposed, "If
Madame approves." When he comes to his wife's room, with that heavy
step which makes the tiles creak as though they were boards, and she,
not wanting him, calls out: "Don't come in!" he performs a military
volte-face and says humbly: "You will let me know when I can see you?"
--in the very tones with which he shouted to his cuirassiers on the
banks of the Danube: "Men, we must die, and die well, since there's
nothing else we can do!" I have heard him say, speaking of his wife,
"Not only do I love her, but I venerate her." When he flies into a
passion which defies all restraint and bursts all bonds, the little
woman retires into her own room and leaves him to shout. But four or
five hours later she will say: "Don't get into a passion, my dear, you
might break a blood-vessel; and besides, you hurt me." Then the lion
of Essling retreats out of sight to wipe his eyes. Sometimes he comes
into the salon when she and I are talking, and if she says: "Don't
disturb us, he is reading to me," he leaves us without a word.
It is only strong men, choleric and powerful, thunder-bolts of war,
diplomats with olympian heads, or men of genius, who can show this
utter confidence, this generous devotion to weakness, this constant
protection, this love without jealousy, this easy good humor with a
woman. Good heavens! I place the science of the countess's management
of her husband as far above the peevish, arid virtues as the satin of
a causeuse is superior to the Utrecht velvet of a dirty bourgeois
sofa.
My dear fellow, I have spent six days in this delightful countryhouse,
and I never tire of admiring the beauties of the park,
surrounded by forests where pretty wood-paths lead beside the brooks.
Nature and its silence, these tranquil pleasures, this placid life to
which she woos me,--all attract. Ah! here is true literature; no fault
of style among the meadows. Happiness forgets all things here,--even
the Debats! It has rained all the morning; while the countess slept
and Montcornet tramped over his domain, I have compelled myself to
keep my rash, imprudent promise to write to you.
Until now, though I was born at Alencon, of an old judge and a
prefect, so they say, and though I know something of agriculture, I
supposed the tale of estates bringing in four or five thousand francs
a month to be a fable. Money, to me, meant a couple of dreadful
things,--work and a publisher, journalism and politics. When shall we
poor fellows come upon a land where gold springs up with the grass?
That is what I desire for you and for me and the rest of us in the
name of the theatre, and of the press, and of book-making! Amen!
Will Florine be jealous of the late Mademoiselle Laguerre? Our modern
Bourets have no French nobles now to show them how to live; they hire
one opera-box among three of them; they subscribe for their pleasures;
they no longer cut down magnificently bound quartos to match the
octavos in their library; in fact, they scarcely buy even stitched
paper books. What is to become of us?
Adieu; continue to care for
Your Blondet.
If this letter, dashed off by the idlest pen of the century, had not
by some lucky chance been preserved, it would have been almost
impossible to describe Les Aigues; and without this description the
history of the horrible events that occurred there would certainly be
less interesting.
After that remark some persons will expect to see the flashing of the
cuirass of the former colonel of the guard, and the raging of his
anger as he falls like a waterspout upon his little wife; so that the
end of this present history may be like the end of all modern dramas,
--a tragedy of the bed-chamber. Perhaps the fatal scene will take
place in that charming room with the blue monochromes, where beautiful
ideal birds are painted on the ceilings and the shutters, where
Chinese monsters laugh with open jaws on the mantle-shelf, and
dragons, green and gold, twist their tails in curious convolutions
around rich vases, and Japanese fantasy embroiders its designs of many
colors; where sofas and reclining-chairs and consoles and what-nots
invite to that contemplative idleness which forbids all action.
No; the drama here to be developed is not one of private life; it
concerns things higher, or lower. Expect no scenes of passion; the
truth of this history is only too dramatic. And remember, the
historian should never forget that his mission is to do justice to
all; the poor and the prosperous are equals before his pen; to him the
peasant appears in the grandeur of his misery, and the rich in the
pettiness of his folly. Moreover, the rich man has passions, the
peasant only wants. The peasant is therefore doubly poor; and if,
politically, his aggressions must be pitilessly repressed, to the eyes
of humanity and religion he is sacred.
CHAPTER II
A BUCOLIC OVERLOOKED BY VIRGIL
When a Parisian drops into the country he is cut off from all his
usual habits, and soon feels the dragging hours, no matter how
attentive his friends may be to him. Therefore, because it is so
impossible to prolong in a tete-a-tete conversations that are soon
exhausted, the master and mistress of a country-house are apt to say,
calmly, "You will be terribly bored here." It is true that to
understand the delights of country life one must have something to do,
some interests in it; one must know the nature of the work to be done,
and the alternating harmony of toil and pleasure,--eternal symbol of
human life.
When a Parisian has recovered his powers of sleeping, shaken off the
fatigues of his journey, and accustomed himself to country habits, the
hardest period of the day (if he wears thin boots and is neither a
sportsman nor an agriculturalist) is the early morning. Between the
hours of waking and breakfasting, the women of the family are sleeping
or dressing, and therefore unapproachable; the master of the house is
out and about on his own affairs; a Parisian is therefore compelled to
be alone from eight to eleven o'clock, the hour chosen in all countryhouses
for breakfast. Now, having got what amusement he can out of
carefully dressing himself, he has soon exhausted that resource. Then,
perhaps, he has brought with him some work, which he finds it
impossible to do, and which goes back untouched, after he sees the
difficulties of doing it, into his valise; a writer is then obliged to
wander about the park and gape at nothing or count the big trees. The
easier the life, the more irksome such occupations are,--unless,
indeed, one belongs to the sect of shaking quakers or to the honorable
guild of carpenters or taxidermists. If one really had, like the
owners of estates, to live in the country, it would be well to supply
one's self with a geological, mineralogical, entomological, or
botanical hobby; but a sensible man doesn't give himself a vice merely
to kill time for a fortnight. The noblest estate, and the finest
chateaux soon pall on those who possess nothing but the sight of them.
The beauties of nature seem rather squalid compared to the
representation of them at the opera. Paris, by retrospection, shines
from all its facets. Unless some particular interest attaches us, as
it did in Blondet's case, to scenes honored by the steps and lighted
by the eyes of a certain person, one would envy the birds their wings
and long to get back to the endless, exciting scenes of Paris and its
harrowing strifes.
The long letter of the young journalist must make most intelligent
minds suppose that he had reached, morally and physically, that
particular phase of satisfied passions and comfortable happiness which
certain winged creatures fed in Strasbourg so perfectly represent
when, with their heads sunk behind their protruding gizzards, they
neither see nor wish to see the most appetizing food. So, when the
formidable letter was finished, the writer felt the need of getting
away from the gardens of Armida and doing something to enliven the
deadly void of the morning hours; for the hours between breakfast and
dinner belonged to the mistress of the house, who knew very well how
to make them pass quickly. To keep, as Madame de Montcornet did, a man
of talent in the country without ever seeing on his face the false
smile of satiety, or detecting the yawn of a weariness that cannot be
concealed, is a great triumph for a woman. The affection which is
equal to such a test certainly ought to be eternal. It is to be
wondered at that women do not oftener employ it to judge of their
lovers; a fool, an egoist, or a petty nature could never stand it.
Philip the Second himself, the Alexander of dissimulation, would have
told his secrets if condemned to a month's tete-a-tete in the country.
Perhaps this is why kings seek to live in perpetual motion, and allow
no one to see them more than fifteen minutes at a time.
Notwithstanding that he had received the delicate attentions of one of
the most charming women in Paris, Emile Blondet was able to feel once
more the long forgotten delights of a truant schoolboy; and on the
morning of the day after his letter was written he had himself called
by Francois, the head valet, who was specially appointed to wait on
him, for the purpose of exploring the valley of the Avonne.
The Avonne is a little river which, being swollen above Conches by
numerous rivulets, some of which rise in Les Aigues, falls at Villeaux-
Fayes into one of the large affluents of the Seine. The
geographical position of the Avonne, navigable for over twelve miles,
had, ever since Jean Bouvet invented rafts, given full money value to
the forests of Les Aigues, Soulanges, and Ronquerolles, standing on
the crest of the hills between which this charming river flows. The
park of Les Aigues covers the greater part of the valley, between the
river (bordered on both sides by the forest called des Aigues) and the
royal mail road, defined by a line of old elms in the distance along
the slopes of the Avonne mountains, which are in fact the foot-hills
of that magnificent ampitheatre called the Morvan.
However vulgar the comparison may be, the park, lying thus at the
bottom of the valley, is like an enormous fish with its head at
Conches and its tail in the village of Blangy; for it widens in the
middle to nearly three hundred acres, while towards Conches it counts
less than fifty, and sixty at Blangy. The position of this estate,
between three villages, and only three miles from the little town of
Soulanges, from which the descent is rapid, may perhaps have led to
the strife and caused the excesses which are the chief interest
attaching to the place. If, when seen from the mail road or from the
uplands beyond Ville-aux-Fayes, the paradise of Les Aigues induces
mere passing travellers to commit the mortal sin of envy, why should
the rich burghers of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes who had it before
their eyes and admired it every day of their lives, have been more
virtuous?
This last topographical detail was needed to explain the site, also
the use of the four gates by which alone the park of Les Aigues was
entered; for it was completely surrounded by walls, except where
nature had provided a fine view, and at such points sunk fences or hahas
had been placed. The four gates, called the gate of Conches, the
gate of Avonne, the gate of Blangy, and the gate of the Avenue, showed
the styles of the different periods at which they were constructed so
admirably that a brief description, in the interest of archaeologists,
will presently be given, as brief as the one Blondet has already
written about the gate of the Avenue.
After eight days of strolling about with the countess, the illustrious
editor of the "Journal des Debats" knew by heart the Chinese kiosk,
the bridges, the isles, the hermitage, the dairy, the ruined temple,
the Babylonian ice-house, and all the other delusions invented by
landscape architects which some nine hundred acres of land can be made
to serve. He now wished to find the sources of the Avonne, which the
general and the countess daily extolled in the evening, making plans
to visit them which were daily forgotten the next morning. Above Les
Aigues the Avonne really had the appearance of an alpine torrent.
Sometimes it hollowed a bed among the rocks, sometimes it went
underground; on this side the brooks came down in cascades, there they
flowed like the Loire on sandy shallows where rafts could not pass on
account of the shifting channels. Blondet took a short cut through the
labyrinths of the park to reach the gate of Conches. This gate demands
a few words, which give, moreover, certain historical details about
the property.
The original founder of Les Aigues was a younger son of the Soulanges
family, enriched by marriage, whose chief ambition was to make his
elder brother jealous,--a sentiment, by the bye, to which we owe the
fairy-land of Isola Bella in the Lago Maggiore. In the middle ages the
castle of Les Aigues stood on the banks of the Avonne. Of this old
building nothing remains but the gateway, which has a porch like the
entrance to a fortified town, flanked by two round towers with conical
roofs. Above the arch of the porch are heavy stone courses, now draped
with vegetation, showing three large windows with cross-bar sashes. A
winding stairway in one of the towers leads to two chambers, and a
kitchen occupies the other tower. The roof of the porch, of pointed
shape like all old timber-work, is noticeable for two weathercocks
perched at each end of a ridge-pole ornamented with fantastic ironwork.
Many an important place cannot boast of so fine a town hall. On
the outside of this gateway, the keystone of the arch still bears the
arms of Soulanges, preserved by the hardness of the stone on which the
chisel of the artist carved them, as follows: Azure, on a pale,
argent, three pilgrim's staff's sable; a fess bronchant, gules,
charged with four grosses patee, fitched, or; with the heraldic form
of a shield awarded to younger sons. Blondet deciphered the motto, "Je
soule agir,"--one of those puns that crusaders delighted to make upon
their names, and which brings to mind a fine political maxim, which,
as we shall see later, was unfortunately forgotten by Montcornet. The
gate, which was opened for Blondet by a very pretty girl, was of timeworn
wood clamped with iron. The keeper, wakened by the creaking of
the hinges, put his nose out of the window and showed himself in his
night-shirt.
"So our keepers sleep till this time of day!" thought the Parisian,
who thought himself very knowing in rural customs.
After a walk of about quarter of an hour, he reached the sources of
the river above Conches, where his ravished eyes beheld one of those
landscapes that ought to be described, like the history of France, in
a thousand volumes or in only one. We must here content ourselves with
two paragraphs.
A projecting rock, covered with dwarf trees and abraded at its base by
the Avonne, to which circumstance it owes a slight resemblance to an
enormous turtle lying across the river, forms an arch through which
the eye takes in a little sheet of water, clear as a mirror, where the
stream seems to sleep until it reaches in the distance a series of
cascades falling among huge rocks, where little weeping willows with
elastic motion sway back and forth to the flow of waters.
Beyond these cascades is the hillside, rising sheer, like a Rhine rock
clothed with moss and heather, gullied like it, again, by sharp ridges
of schist and mica sending down, here and there, white foaming
rivulets to which a little meadow, always watered and always green,
serves as a cup; farther on, beyond the picturesque chaos and in
contrast to this wild, solitary nature, the gardens of Conches are
seen, with the village roofs and the clock-tower and the outlying
fields.
There are the two paragraphs, but the rising sun, the purity of the
air, the dewy sheen, the melody of woods and waters--imagine them!
"Almost as charming as at the Opera," thought Blondet, making his way
along the banks of the unnavigable portion of the Avonne, whose
caprices contrast with the straight and deep and silent stream of the
lower river, flowing between the tall trees of the forest of Les
Aigues.
Blondet did not proceed far on his morning walk, for he was presently
brought to a stand-still by the sight of a peasant,--one of those who,
in this drama, are supernumeraries so essential to its action that it
may be doubted whether they are not in fact its leading actors.
When the clever journalist reached a group of rocks where the main
stream is imprisoned, as it were, between two portals, he saw a man
standing so motionless as to excite his curiosity, while the clothes
and general air of this living statue greatly puzzled him.
The humble personage before him was a living presentment of the old
men dear to Charlet's pencil; resembling the troopers of that Homer of
soldiery in a strong frame able to endure hardship, and his immortal
skirmishers in a fiery, crimson, knotted face, showing small capacity
for submission. A coarse felt hat, the brim of which was held to the
crown by stitches, protected a nearly bald head from the weather;
below it fell a quantity of white hair which a painter would gladly
have paid four francs an hour to copy,--a dazzling mass of snow, worn
like that in all the classical representations of Deity. It was easy
to guess from the way in which the cheeks sank in, continuing the
lines of the mouth, that the toothless old fellow was more given to
the bottle than the trencher. His thin white beard gave a threatening
expression to his profile by the stiffness of its short bristles. The
eyes, too small for his enormous face, and sloping like those of a
pig, betrayed cunning and also laziness; but at this particular moment
they were gleaming with the intent look he cast upon the river. The
sole garments of this curious figure were an old blouse, formerly
blue, and trousers of the coarse burlap used in Paris to wrap bales.
All city people would have shuddered at the sight of his broken
sabots, without even a wisp of straw to stop the cracks; and it is
very certain that the blouse and the trousers had no money value at
all except to a paper-maker.
As Blondet examined this rural Diogenes, he admitted the possibility
of a type of peasantry he had seen in old tapestries, old pictures,
old sculptures, and which, up to this time, had seemed to him
imaginary. He resolved for the future not to utterly condemn the
school of ugliness, perceiving a possibility that in man beauty may be
but the flattering exception, a chimera in which the race struggles to
believe.
"What can be the ideas, the morals, the habits, of such a being? What
is he thinking of?" thought Blondet, seized with curiosity. "Is he my
fellow-creature? We have nothing in common but shape, and even
that!--"
He noticed in the old man's limbs the peculiar rigidity of the tissues
of persons who live in the open air, accustomed to the inclemencies of
the weather and to the endurance of heat and cold,--hardened to
everything, in short,--which makes their leathern skin almost a hide,
and their nerves an apparatus against physical pain almost as powerful
as that of the Russians or the Arabs.
"Here's one of Cooper's Red-skins," thought Blondet; "one needn't go
to America to study savages."
Though the Parisian was less than ten paces off, the old man did not
turn his head, but kept looking at the opposite bank with a fixity
which the fakirs of India give to their vitrified eyes and their
stiffened joints. Compelled by the power of a species of magnetism,
more contagious than people have any idea of, Blondet ended by gazing
at the water himself.
"Well, my good man, what do you see there?" he asked, after the lapse
of a quarter of an hour, during which time he saw nothing to justify
this intent contemplation.
"Hush!" whispered the old man, with a sign to Blondet not to ruffle
the air with his voice; "You will frighten it--"
"What?"
"An otter, my good gentleman. If it hears us it'll go quick under
water. I'm certain it jumped there; see! see! there, where the water
bubbles! Ha! it sees a fish, it is after that! But my boy will grab it
as it comes back. The otter, don't you know, is very rare; it is
scientific game, and good eating, too. I get ten francs for every one
I carry to Les Aigues, for the lady fasts Fridays, and to-morrow is
Friday. Years agone the deceased madame used to pay me twenty francs,
and gave me the skin to boot! Mouche," he called, in a low voice,
"watch it!"
Blondet now perceived on the other side of the river two bright eyes,
like those of a cat, beneath a tuft of alders; then he saw the tanned
forehead and tangled hair of a boy about ten years of age, who was
lying on his stomach and making signs towards the otter to let his
master know he kept it well in sight. Blondet, completely mastered by
the eagerness of the old man and boy, allowed the demon of the chase
to get the better of him,--that demon with the double claws of hope
and curiosity, who carries you whithersoever he will.
"The hat-makers buy the skin," continued the old man; "it's so soft,
so handsome! They cover caps with it."
"Do you really think so, my old man?" said Blondet, smiling.
"Well truly, my good gentleman, you ought to know more than I, though
I am seventy years old," replied the old fellow, very humbly and
respectfully, falling into the attitude of a giver of holy water;
"perhaps you can tell me why conductors and wine-merchants are so fond
of it?"
Blondet, a master of irony, already on his guard from the word
"scientific," recollected the Marechal de Richelieu and began to
suspect some jest on the part of the old man; but he was reassured by
his artless attitude and the perfectly stupid expression of his face.
"In my young days we had lots of otters," whispered the old fellow;
"but they've hunted 'em so that if we see the tail of one in seven
years it is as much as ever we do. And the sub-prefect at Ville-auxFayes,--
doesn't monsieur know him? though he be a Parisian, he's a
fine young man like you, and he loves curiosities,--so, as I was
saying, hearing of my talent for catching otters, for I know 'em as
you know your alphabet, he says to me like this: 'Pere Fourchon,' says
he, "when you find an otter bring it to me, and I'll pay you well; and
if it's spotted white on the back,' says he, 'I'll give you thirty
francs.' That's just what he did say to me as true as I believe in God
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And there's a learned man at
Soulanges, Monsieur Gourdon, our doctor, who is making, so they tell
me, a collection of natural history which hasn't its mate at Dijon
even; indeed he is first among the learned men in these parts, and
he'll pay me a fine price, too; he stuffs men and beasts. Now my boy
there stands me out that that otter has got the white spots. 'If
that's so,' says I to him, 'then the good God wishes well to us this
morning!' Ha! didn't you see the water bubble? yes, there it is! there
it is! Though it lives in a kind of a burrow, it sometimes stays whole
days under water. Ha, there! it heard you, my good gentleman; it's on
its guard now; for there's not a more suspicious animal on earth; it's
worse than a woman."
"So you call women suspicious, do you?" said Blondet.
"Faith, monsieur, if you come from Paris you ought to know about that
better than I. But you'd have done better for me if you had stayed in
your bed and slept all the morning; don't you see that wake there?
that's where she's gone under. Get up, Mouche! the otter heard
monsieur talking, and now she's scary enough to keep us at her heels
till midnight. Come, let's be off! and good-bye to our thirty francs!"
Mouche got up reluctantly; he looked at the spot where the water
bubbled, pointed to it with his finger and seemed unable to give up
all hope. The child, with curly hair and a brown face, like the angels
in a fifteenth-century picture, seemed to be in breeches, for his
trousers ended at the knee in a ragged fringe of brambles and dead
leaves. This necessary garment was fastened upon him by cords of
tarred oakum in guise of braces. A shirt of the same burlap which made
the old man's trousers, thickened, however, by many darns, open in
front showed a sun-burnt little breast. In short, the attire of the
being called Mouche was even more startlingly simple than that of Pere
Fourchon.
"What a good-natured set of people they are here," thought Blondet;
"if a man frightened away the game of the people of the suburbs of
Paris, how their tongues would maul him!"
As he had never seen an otter, even in a museum, he was delighted with
this episode of his early walk. "Come," said he, quite touched when
the old man walked away without asking him for a compensation, "you
say you are a famous otter catcher. If you are sure there is an otter
down there--"
From the other side of the water Mouche pointed his finger to certain
air-bubbles coming up from the bottom of the Avonne and bursting on
its surface.
"It has come back!" said Pere Fourchon; "don't you see it breathe, the
beggar? How do you suppose they manage to breathe at the bottom of the
water? Ah, the creature's so clever it laughs at science."
"Well," said Blondet, who supposed the last word was a jest of the
peasantry in general rather than of this peasant in particular, "wait
and catch the otter."
"And what are we to do about our day's work, Mouche and I?"
"What is your day worth?"
"For the pair of us, my apprentice and me?--Five francs," said the old
man, looking Blondet in the eye with a hesitation which betrayed an
enormous overcharge.
The journalist took ten francs from his pocket, saying, "There's ten,
and I'll give you ten more for the otter."
"And it won't cost you dear if there's white on its back; for the subprefect
told me there wasn't one o' them museums that had the like;
but he knows everything, our sub-prefect,--no fool he! If I hunt the
otter, he, M'sieur des Lupeaulx, hunts Mademoiselle Gaubertin, who has
a fine white "dot" on her back. Come now, my good gentleman, if I may
make so bold, plunge into the middle of the Avonne and get to that
stone down there. If we head the otter off, it will come down stream;
for just see their slyness, the beggars! they always go above their
burrow to feed, for, once full of fish, they know they can easily
drift down, the sly things! Ha! if I'd been trained in their school I
should be living now on an income; but I was a long time finding out
that you must go up stream very early in the morning if you want to
bag the game before others. Well, somebody threw a spell over me when
I was born. However, we three together ought to be slyer than the
otter."
"How so, my old necromancer?"
"Why, bless you! we are as stupid as the beasts, and so we come to
understand the beasts. Now, see, this is what we'll do. When the otter
wants to get home Mouche and I'll frighten it here, and you'll
frighten it over there; frightened by us and frightened by you it will
jump on the bank, and when it takes to earth, it is lost! It can't
run; it has web feet for swimming. Ho, ho! it will make you laugh,
such floundering! you don't know whether you are fishing or hunting!
The general up at Les Aigues, I have known him to stay here three days
running, he was so bent on getting an otter."
Blondet, armed with a branch cut for him by the old man, who requested
him to whip the water with it when he called to him, planted himself
in the middle of the river by jumping from stone to stone.
"There, that will do, my good gentleman."
Blondet stood where he was told without remarking the lapse of time,
for every now and then the old fellow made him a sign as much as to
say that all was going well; and besides, nothing makes time go so
fast as the expectation that quick action is to succeed the perfect
stillness of watching.
"Pere Fourchon," whispered the boy, finding himself alone with the old
man, "there's REALLY an otter!"
"Do you see it?"
"There, see there!"
The old fellow was dumb-founded at beholding under water the reddishbrown
fur of an actual otter.
"It's coming my way!" said the child.
"Hit him a sharp blow on the head and jump into the water and hold him
fast down, but don't let him go!"
Mouche dove into the water like a frightened frog.
"Come, come, my good gentleman," cried Pere Fourchon to Blondet,
jumping into the water and leaving his sabots on the bank, "frighten
him! frighten him! Don't you see him? he is swimming fast your way!"
The old man dashed toward Blondet through the water, calling out with
the gravity that country people retain in the midst of their greatest
excitements:--
"Don't you see him, there, along the rocks?"
Blondet, placed by direction of the old fellow in such a way that the
sun was in his eyes, thrashed the water with much satisfaction to
himself.
"Go on, go on!" cried Pere Fourchon; "on the rock side; the burrow is
there, to your left!"
Carried away by excitement and by his long waiting, Blondet slipped
from the stones into the water.
"Ha! brave you are, my good gentleman! Twenty good Gods! I see him
between your legs! you'll have him!-- Ah! there! he's gone--he's
gone!" cried the old man, in despair.
Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fellow plunged into the
deepest part of the stream in front of Blondet.
"It's your fault we've lost him!" he cried, as Blondet gave him a hand
to pull him out, dripping like a triton, and a vanquished triton. "The
rascal, I see him, under those rocks! He has let go his fish,"
continued Fourchon, pointing to something that floated on the surface.
"We'll have that at any rate; it's a tench, a real tench."
Just then a groom in livery on horseback and leading another horse by
the bridle galloped up the road toward Conches.
"See! there's the chateau people sending after you," said the old man.
"If you want to cross back again I'll give you a hand. I don't mind
about getting wet; it saves washing!"
"How about rheumatism?"
"Rheumatism! don't you see the sun has browned our legs, Mouche and
me, like tobacco-pipes. Here, lean on me, my good gentleman--you're
from Paris; you don't know, though you DO know so much, how to walk on
our rocks. If you stay here long enough, you'll learn a deal that's
written in the book o' nature,--you who write, so they tell me, in the
newspapers."
Blondet had reached the bank before Charles, the groom, perceived him.
"Ah, monsieur!" he cried; "you don't know how anxious Madame has been
since she heard you had gone through the gate of Conches; she was
afraid you were drowned. They have rung the great bell three times,
and Monsieur le cure is hunting for you in the park."
"What time is it, Charles?"
"A quarter to twelve."
"Help me to mount."
"Ha!" exclaimed the groom, noticing the water that dripped from
Blondet's boots and trousers, "has monsieur been taken in by Pere
Fourchon's otter?"
The words enlightened the journalist.
"Don't say a word about it, Charles," he cried, "and I'll make it all
right with you."
"Oh, as for that!" answered the man, "Monsieur le comte himself has
been taken in by that otter. Whenever a visitor comes to Les Aigues,
Pere Fourchon sets himself on the watch, and if the gentleman goes to
see the sources of the Avonne he sells him the otter; he plays the
trick so well that Monsieur le comte has been here three times and
paid him for six days' work, just to stare at the water!"
"Heavens!" thought Blondet. "And I imagined I had seen the greatest
comedians of the present day!--Potier, the younger Baptiste, Michot,
and Monrose. What are they compared to that old beggar?"
"He is very knowing at the business, Pere Fourchon is," continued
Charles; "and he has another string to his bow, besides. He calls
himself a rope-maker, and has a walk under the park wall by the gate
of Blangy. If you merely touch his rope he'll entangle you so cleverly
that you will want to turn the wheel and make a bit of it yourself;
and for that you would have to pay a fee for apprenticeship. Madame
herself was taken in, and gave him twenty francs. Ah! he is the king
of tricks, that old fellow!"
The groom's gossip set Blondet thinking of the extreme craftiness and
wiliness of the French peasant, of which he had heard a great deal
from his father, a judge at Alencon. Then the satirical meaning hidden
beneath Pere Fourchon's apparent guilelessness came back to him, and
he owned himself "gulled" by the Burgundian beggar.
"You would never believe, monsieur," said Charles, as they reached the
portico at Les Aigues, "how much one is forced to distrust everybody
and everything in the country,--especially here, where the general is
not much liked--"
"Why not?"
"That's more than I know," said Charles, with the stupid air servants
assume to shield themselves when they wish not to answer their
superiors, which nevertheless gave Blondet a good deal to think of.
"Here you are, truant!" cried the general, coming out on the terrace
when he heard the horses. "Here he is; don't be uneasy!" he called
back to his wife, whose little footfalls were heard behind him. "Now
the Abbe Brossette is missing. Go and find him, Charles," he said to
the groom.
CHAPTER III
THE TAVERN
The gate of Blangy, built by Bouret, was formed of two wide pilasters
of projecting rough-hewn stone; each surmounted by a dog sitting on
his haunches and holding an escutcheon between his fore paws. The
proximity of a small house where the steward lived dispensed with the
necessity for a lodge. Between the two pilasters, a sumptuous iron
gate, like those made in Buffon's time for the Jardin des Plantes,
opened on a short paved way which led to the country road (formerly
kept in order by Les Aigues and the Soulanges family) which unites
Conches, Cerneux, Blangy, and Soulanges to Ville-aux-Fayes, like a
wreath, for the whole road is lined with flowering hedges and little
houses covered with roses and honey-suckle and other climbing plants.
There, along a pretty wall which extends as far as a terrace from
which the land of Les Aigues falls rapidly to the valley till it meets
that of Soulanges, are the rotten posts, the old wheel, and the forked
stakes which constituted the manufactory of the village rope-maker.
Soon after midday, while Blondet was seating himself at table opposite
the Abbe Brossette and receiving the tender expostulations of the
countess, Pere Fourchon and Mouche arrived at this establishment. From
that vantage-ground Pere Fourchon, under pretence of rope-making,
could watch Les Aigues and see every one who went in and out. Nothing
escaped him, the opening of the blinds, tete-a-tete loiterings, or the
least little incidents of country life, were spied upon by the old
fellow, who had set up this business within the last three years,--a
trifling circumstance which neither the masters, nor the servants, nor
the keepers of Les Aigues had as yet remarked upon.
"Go round to the house by the gate of the Avonne while I put away the
tackle," said Pere Fourchon to his attendant, "and when you have
blabbed about the thing, they'll no doubt send after me to the Grand-
I-Vert, where I am going for a drop of drink,--for it makes one
thirsty enough to wade in the water that way. If you do just as I tell
you, you'll hook a good breakfast out of them; try to meet the
countess, and give a slap at me, and that will put it into her head to
come and preach morality or something! There's lots of good wine to
get out of it."
After these last instructions, which the sly look in Mouche's face
rendered quite superfluous, the old peasant, hugging the otter under
his arm, disappeared along the country road.
Half-way between the gate and the village there stood, at the time
when Emile Blondet stayed at Les Aigues, one of those houses which are
never seen but in parts of France where stone is scarce. Bits of
bricks picked up anywhere, cobblestones set like diamonds in the clay
mud, formed very solid walls, though worn in places; the roof was
supported by stout branches and covered with rushes and straw, while
the clumsy shutters and the broken door--in short, everything about
the cottage was the product of lucky finds, or of gifts obtained by
begging.
The peasant has an instinct for his habitation like that of an animal
for its nest or its burrow, and this instinct was very marked in all
the arrangements of this cottage. In the first place, the door and the
window looked to the north. The house, placed on a little rise in the
stoniest angle of a vineyard, was certainly healthful. It was reached
by three steps, carefully made with stakes and planks filled in with
broken stone and gravel, so that the water ran off rapidly; and as the
rain seldom comes from the northward in Burgundy, no dampness could
rot the foundations, slight as they were. Below the steps and along
the path ran a rustic paling, hidden beneath a hedge of hawthorn and
sweet-brier. An arbor, with a few clumsy tables and wooden benches,
filled the space between the cottage and the road, and invited the
passers-by to rest themselves. At the upper end of the bank by the
house roses grew, and wall-flowers, violets, and other flowers that
cost nothing. Jessamine and honey-suckle had fastened their tendrils
on the roof, mossy already, though the building was far from old.
To the right of the house, the owner had built a stable for two cows.
In front of this erection of old boards, a sunken piece of ground
served as a yard where, in a corner, was a huge manure-heap. On the
other side of the house and the arbor stood a thatched shed, supported
on trunks of trees, under which the various outdoor properties of the
peasantry were put away,--the utensils of the vine-dressers, their
empty casks, logs of wood piled about a mound which contained the
oven, the mouth of which opened, as was usual in the houses of the
peasantry, under the mantle-piece of the chimney in the kitchen.
About an acre of land adjoined the house, inclosed by an evergreen
hedge and planted with grape-vines; tended as peasants tend them,--
that is to say, well-manured, and dug round, and layered so that they
usually set their fruit before the vines of the large proprietors in a
circuit of ten miles round. A few trees, almond, plum, and apricot,
showed their slim heads here and there in this enclosure. Between the
rows of vines potatoes and beans were planted. In addition to all
this, on the side towards the village and beyond the yard was a bit of
damp low ground, favorable for the growth of cabbages and onions
(favorite vegetables of the working-classes), which was closed by a
wooden gate, through which the cows were driven, trampling the path
into mud and covering it with dung.
The house, which had two rooms on the ground-floor, opened upon the
vineyard. On this side an outer stairway, roofed with thatch and
resting against the wall of the house, led up to the garret, which was
lighted by one round window. Under this rustic stairway opened a
cellar built of Burgundy brick, containing several casks of wine.
Though the kitchen utensils of the peasantry are usually only two,
namely, a frying-pan and an iron pot, with which they manage to do all
their cooking, exceptions to this rule, in the shape of two enormous
saucepans hanging beneath the mantle-shelf and above a small portable
stove, were to be seen in this cottage. In spite, however, of this
indication of luxury, the furniture was in keeping with the external
appearance of the place. A jar held water, the spoons were of wood or
pewter, the dishes, of red clay without and white within, were scaling
off and had been mended with pewter rivets; the heavy table and chairs
were of pine wood, and for flooring there was nothing better than the
hardened earth. Every fifth year the walls received a coat of whitewash
and so did the narrow beams of the ceiling, from which hung
bacon, strings of onions, bundles of tallow candles, and the bags in
which a peasant keeps his seeds; near the bread-box stood an oldfashioned
wardrobe in walnut, where the scanty household linen, and
the one change of garments together with the holiday attire of the
entire family were kept.
Above the mantel of the chimney gleamed a poacher's old gun, not worth
five francs,--the wood scorched, the barrel to all appearances never
cleaned. An observer might reflect that the protection of a hovel with
only a latch, and an outer gate that was only a paling and never
closed, needed no better weapon; but still the wonder was to what use
it was put. In the first place, though the wood was of the commonest
kind, the barrel was carefully selected, and came from a valuable gun,
given in all probability to a game-keeper. Moreover, the owner of this
weapon never missed his aim; there was between him and his gun the
same intimate acquaintance that there is between a workman and his
tool. If the muzzle must be raised or lowered the merest fraction in
its aim, because it carries just an atom above or below the range, the
poacher knows it; he obeys the rule and never misses. An officer of
artillery would have found the essential parts of this weapon in good
condition notwithstanding its uncleanly appearance. In all that the
peasant appropriates to his use, in all that serves him, he displays
just the amount of force that is needed, neither more nor less; he
attends to the essential and to nothing beyond. External perfection he
has no conception of. An unerring judge of the necessary in all
things, he thoroughly understands degrees of strength, and knows very
well when working for an employer how to give the least possible for
the most he can get. This contemptible-looking gun will be found to
play a serious part in the life of the family inhabiting this cottage,
and you will presently learn how and why.
Have you now taken in all the many details of this hovel, planted
about five hundred feet away from the pretty gate of Les Aigues? Do
you see it crouching there, like a beggar beside a palace? Well, its
roof covered with velvet mosses, its clacking hens, its grunting pig,
its straying heifer, all its rural graces have a horrible meaning.
Fastened to a pole, which was stuck in the ground beside the entrance
through the fence, was a withered bunch of three pine branches and
some old oak-leaves tied together with a rag. Above the door of the
house a roving artist had painted, probably in return for his
breakfast, a huge capital "I" in green on a white ground two feet
square; and for the benefit of those who could read, this witty joke
in twelve letters: "Au Grand-I-Vert" (hiver). On the left of the door
was a vulgar sign bearing, in colored letters, "Good March beer," and
the picture of a foaming pot of the same, with a woman, in a dress
excessively low-necked, on one side, and an hussar on the other,--both
coarsely colored. Consequently, in spite of the blooming flowers and
the fresh country air, this cottage exhaled the same strong and
nauseous odor of wine and food which assails you in Paris as you pass
the door of the cheap cook-shops of the faubourg.
Now you know the surroundings. Behold the inhabitants and hear their
history, which contains more than one lesson for philanthropists.
The proprietor of the Grand-I-Vert, named Francois Tonsard, commends
himself to the attention of philosophers by the manner in which he had
solved the problem of an idle life and a busy life, so as to make the
idleness profitable, and occupation nil.
A jack-of-all-trades, he knew how to cultivate the ground, but for
himself only. For others, he dug ditches, gathered fagots, barked the
trees, or cut them down. In all such work the employer is at the mercy
of the workman. Tonsard owned his plot of ground to the generosity of
Mademoiselle Laguerre. In his early youth he had worked by the day for
the gardener at Les Aigues; and he really had not his equal in
trimming the shrubbery-trees, the hedges, the horn-beams, and the
horse-chestnuts. His very name shows hereditary talent. In remote
country-places privileges exist which are obtained and preserved with
as much care as the merchants of a city display in getting theirs.
Mademoiselle Laguerre was one day walking in the garden, when she
overheard Tonsard, then a strapping fellow, say, "All I need to live
on, and live happily, is an acre of land." The kind creature,
accustomed to make others happy, gave him the acre of vineyard near
the gate of Blangy, in return for one hundred days' work (a delicate
regard for his feelings which was little understood), and allowed him
to stay at Les Aigues, where he lived with her servants, who thought
him one of the best fellows in Burgundy.
Poor Tonsard (that is what everybody called him) worked about thirty
days out of the hundred that he owed; the rest of the time he idled
about, talking and laughing with Mademoiselle's women, particularly
with Mademoiselle Cochet, the lady's maid, though she was ugly, like
all confidential maids of handsome actresses. Laughing with
Mademoiselle Cochet signified so many things that Soudry, the
fortunate gendarme mentioned in Blondet's letter, still looked askance
at Tonsard after the lapse of nearly twenty-five years. The walnut
wardrobe, the bedstead with the tester and curtains, and the ornaments
about the bedroom were doubtless the result of the said laughter.
Once in possession of his care, Tonsard replied to the first person
who happened to mention that Mademoiselle Laguerre had given it to
him, "I've bought it deuced hard, and paid well for it. Do rich folks
ever give us anything? Are one hundred days' work nothing? It has cost
me three hundred francs, and the land is all stones." But that speech
never got beyond the regions of his own class.
Tonsard built his house himself, picking up the materials here and
there as he could,--getting a day's work out of this one and that one,
gleaning in the rubbish that was thrown away, often asking for things
and always obtaining them. A discarded door cut in two for convenience
in carrying away became the door of the stable; the window was the
sash of a green-house. In short, the rubbish of the chateau, served to
build the fatal cottage.
Saved from the draft by Gaubertin, the steward of Les Aigues, whose
father was prosecuting-attorney of the department, and who, moreover,
could refuse nothing to Mademoiselle Cochet, Tonsard married as soon
as his house was finished and his vines had begun to bear. A wellgrown
fellow of twenty-three, in everybody's good graces at Les
Aigues, on whom Mademoiselle had bestowed an acre of her land, and who
appeared to be a good worker, he had the art to ring the praises of
his negative merits, and so obtained the daughter of a farmer on the
Ronquerolles estate, which lies beyond the forest of Les Aigues.
This farmer held the lease of half a farm, which was going to ruin in
his hands for want of a helpmate. A widower, and inconsolable for the
loss of his wife, he tried to drown his troubles, like the English, in
wine, and then, when he had put the poor deceased out of his mind, he
found himself married, so the village maliciously declared, to a woman
named Boisson. From being a farmer he became once more a laborer, but
an idle and drunken laborer, quarrelsome and vindictive, capable of
any ill-deed, like most of his class when they fall from a well-to-do
state of life into poverty. This man, whose practical information and
knowledge of reading and writing placed him far above his fellowworkmen,
while his vices kept him at the level of pauperism, you have
already seen on the banks of the Avonne, measuring his cleverness with
that of one of the cleverest men in Paris, in a bucolic overlooked by
Virgil.
Pere Fourchon, formerly a schoolmaster at Blangy, lost that place
through misconduct and his singular ideas as to public education. He
helped the children to make paper boats with their alphabets much
oftener than he taught them how to spell; he scolded them in so
remarkable a manner for pilfering fruit that his lectures might really
have passed for lessons on the best way of scaling the walls. From
teacher he became a postman. In this capacity, which serves as a
refuge to many an old soldier, Pere Fourchon was daily reprimanded.
Sometimes he forgot the letters in a tavern, at other times he kept
them in his pocket. When he was drunk he left those for one village in
another village; when he was sober he read them. Consequently, he was
soon dismissed. No longer able to serve the State, Pere Fourchon ended
by becoming a manufacturer. In the country a poor man can always get
something to do, and make at least a pretence of gaining an honest
livelihood. At sixty-eight years of age the old man started his ropewalk,
a manufactory which requires the very smallest capital. The
workshop is, as we have seen, any convenient wall; the machinery costs
about ten francs. The apprentice slept, like his master, in a hayloft,
and lived on whatever he could pick up. The rapacity of the law
in the matter of doors and windows expires "sub dio." The tow to make
the first rope can be borrowed. But the principal revenue of Pere
Fourchon and his satellite Mouche, the natural son of one of his
natural daughters, came from the otters; and then there were
breakfasts and dinners given them by peasants who could neither read
nor write, and were glad to use the old fellow's talents when they had
a bill to make out, or a letter to dispatch. Besides all this, he knew
how to play the clarionet, and he went about with his friend
Vermichel, the miller of Soulanges, to village weddings and the grand
balls given at the Tivoli of Soulanges.
Vermichel's name was Michel Vert, but the transposition was so
generally used that Brunet, the clerk of the municipal court of
Soulanges, was in the habit of writing Michel-Jean-Jerome Vert, called
Vermichel, practitioner. Vermichel, a famous violin in the Burgundian
regiment of former days, had procured for Pere Fourchon, in
recognition of certain services, a situation as practitioner, which in
remote country-places usually devolves on those who are able to sign
their name. Pere Fourchon therefore added to his other avocations that
of witness, or practitioner of legal papers, whenever the Sieur Brunet
came to draw them in the districts of Cerneux, Conches, and Blangy.
Vermichel and Fourchon, allied by a friendship of twenty years'
tippling, might really be considered a business firm.
Mouche and Fourchon, bound together by vice as Mentor and Telemachus
by virtue, travelled like the latter, in search of their father,
"panis angelorum,"--the only Latin words which the old fellow's memory
had retained. They went about scraping up the pickings of the Grand-IVert,
and those of the adjacent chateaux; for between them, in their
busiest and most prosperous years, they had never contrived to make as
much as three hundred and sixty fathoms of rope. In the first place,
no dealer within a radius of fifty miles would have trusted his tow to
either Mouche or Fourchon. The old man, surpassing the miracles of
modern chemistry, knew too well how to resolve the tow into the allbenignant
juice of the grape. Moreover, his triple functions of public
writer for three townships, legal practitioner for one, and clarionetplayer
at large, hindered, so he said, the development of his
business.
Thus it happened that Tonsard was disappointed from the start in the
hope he had indulged of increasing his comfort by an increase of
property in marriage. The idle son-in-law had chanced, by a very
common accident, on an idler father-in-law. Matters went all the worse
because Tonsard's wife, gifted with a sort of rustic beauty, being
tall and well-made, was not fond of work in the open air. Tonsard
blamed his wife for her father's short-comings, and ill-treated her,
with the customary revenge of the common people, whose minds take in
only an effect and rarely look back to causes.
Finding her fetters heavy, the woman lightened them. She used
Tonsard's vices to get the better of him. Loving comfort and good
eating herself, she encouraged his idleness and gluttony. In the first
place, she managed to procure the good-will of the servants of the
chateau, and Tonsard, in view of the results, made no complaint as to
the means. He cared very little what his wife did, so long as she did
all he wanted of her. That is the secret agreement of many a
household. Madame Tonsard established the wine-shop of the Grand-IVert,
her first customers being the servants of Les Aigues and the
keepers and huntsmen.
Gaubertin, formerly steward to Mademoiselle Laguerre, one of La
Tonsard's chief patrons, gave her several puncheons of excellent wine
to attract custom. The effect of these gifts (continued as long as
Gaubertin remained a bachelor) and the fame of her rather lawless
beauty commended this beauty to the Don Juans of the valley, and
filled the wine-shop of the Grand-I-Vert. Being a lover of good
eating, La Tonsard was naturally an excellent cook; and though her
talents were only exercised on the common dishes of the country,
jugged hare, game sauce, stewed fish and omelets, she was considered
in all the country round to be an admirable cook of the sort of food
which is eaten at a counter and spiced in a way to excite a desire for
drink. By the end of two years, she had managed to rule Tonsard, and
turn him to evil courses, which, indeed, he asked no better than to
indulge in.
The rascal was continually poaching, and with nothing to fear from it.
The intimacies of his wife with Gaubertin and the keepers and the
rural authorities, together with the laxity of the times, secured him
impunity. As soon as his children were large enough he made them
serviceable to his comfort, caring no more for their morality than for
that of his wife. He had two sons and two daughters. Tonsard, who
lived, as did his wife, from hand to mouth, might have come to an end
of this easy life if he had not maintained a sort of martial law over
his family, which compelled them to work for the preservation of it.
When he had brought up his children, at the cost of those from whom
his wife was able to extort gifts, the following charter and budget
were the law at the Grand-I-Vert.
Tonsard's old mother and his two daughters, Catherine and Marie, went
into the woods at certain seasons twice a-day, and came back laden
with fagots which overhung the crutch of their poles at least two feet
beyond their heads. Though dried sticks were placed on the outside of
the heap, the inside was made of live wood cut from young trees. In
plain words, Tonsard helped himself to his winter's fuel in the woods
of Les Aigues. Besides this, father and sons were constantly poaching.
From September to March, hares, rabbits, partridges, deer, in short,
all the game that was not eaten at the chateau, was sold at Blangy and
at Soulanges, where Tonsard's two daughters peddled milk in the early
mornings,--coming back with the news of the day, in return for the
gossip they carried about Les Aigues, and Cerneux, and Conches. In the
months when the three Tonsards were unable to hunt with a gun, they
set traps. If the traps caught more game than they could eat, La
Tonsard made pies of it and sent them to Ville-aux-Fayes. In harvesttime
seven Tonsards--the old mother, the two sons (until they were
seventeen years of age), the two daughters, together with old Fourchon
and Mouche--gleaned, and generally brought in about sixteen bushels a
day of all grains, rye, barley, wheat, all good to grind.
The two cows, led to the roadside by the youngest girl, always managed
to stray into the meadows of Les Aigues; but as, if it ever chanced
that some too flagrant trespass compelled the keepers to take notice
of it, the children were either whipped or deprived of a coveted
dainty, they had acquired such extraordinary aptitude in hearing the
enemy's footfall that the bailiff or the park-keeper of Les Aigues was
very seldom able to detect them. Besides, the relations of those
estimable functionaries with Tonsard and his wife tied a bandage over
their eyes. The cows, held by long ropes, obeyed a mere twitch or a
special low call back to the roadside, knowing very well that, the
danger once past, they could finish their browsing in the next field.
Old mother Tonsard, who was getting more and more infirm, succeeded
Mouche in his duties, after Fourchon, under pretence of caring for his
natural grandson's education, kept him to himself; while Marie and
Catherine made hay in the woods. These girls knew the exact spots
where the fine forest-grass abounded, and there they cut and spread
and cocked and garnered it, supplying two thirds, at least, of the
winter fodder, and leading the cows on all fine days to sheltered
nooks where they could still find pasture. In certain parts of the
valley of Les Aigues, as in all places protected by a chain of
mountains, in Piedmont and in Lombardy for instance, there are spots
where the grass keeps green all the year. Such fields, called in Italy
"marciti," are of great value; though in France they are often in
danger of being injured by snow and ice. This phenomenon is due, no
doubt, to some favorable exposure, and to the infiltration of water
which keeps the ground at a warmer temperature.
The calves were sold for about eighty francs. The milk, deducting the
time when the cows calved or went dry, brought in about one hundred
and sixty francs a year besides supplying the wants of the family.
Tonsard himself managed to earn another hundred and sixty by doing odd
jobs of one kind or another.
The sale of food and wine in the tavern, after all costs were paid,
returned a profit of about three hundred francs, for the great
drinking-bouts happened only at certain times and in certain seasons;
and as the topers who indulged in them gave Tonsard and his wife due
notice, the latter bought in the neighboring town the exact quantity
of provisions needed and no more. The wine produced by Tonsard's
vineyard was sold in ordinary years for twenty francs a cask to a
wine-dealer at Soulanges with whom Tonsard was intimate. In very
prolific years he got as much as twelve casks from his vines; but
eight was the average; and Tonsard kept half for his own traffic. In
all wine-growing districts the gleaning of the large vineyards gives a
good perquisite, and out of it the Tonsard family usually managed to
obtain three casks more. But being, as we have seen, sheltered and
protected by the keepers, they showed no conscience in their
proceedings,--entering vineyards before the harvesters were out of
them, just as they swarmed into the wheat-fields before the sheaves
were made. So, the seven or eight casks of wine, as much gleaned as
harvested, were sold for a good price. However, out of these various
proceeds the Grand-I-Vert was mulcted in a good sum for the personal
consumption of Tonsard and his wife, who wanted the best of everything
to eat, and better wine than they sold,--which they obtained from
their friend at Soulanges in payment for their own. In short, the
money scraped together by this family amounted to about nine hundred
francs, for they fattened two pigs a year, one for themselves and the
other to sell.
The idlers and scapegraces and also the laborers took a fancy to the
tavern of the Grand-I-Vert, partly because of La Tonsard's merits, and
partly on account of the hail-fellow-well-met relation existing
between this family and the lower classes of the valley. The two
daughters, both remarkably handsome, followed the example of their
mother as to morals. Moreover, the long established fame of the Grand-
I-Vert, dating from 1795, made it a venerable spot in the eyes of the
common people. From Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, workmen came there to
meet and make their bargains and hear the news collected by the
Tonsard women and by Mouche and old Fourchon, or supplied by Vermichel
and Brunet, that renowned official, when he came to the tavern in
search of his practitioner. There the price of hay and of wine was
settled; also that of a day's work and of piece-work. Tonsard, a
sovereign judge in such matters, gave his advice and opinion while
drinking with his guests. Soulanges, according to a saying in these
parts, was a town for society and amusement only, while Blangy was a
business borough; crushed, however, by the great commercial centre of
Ville-aux-Fayes, which had become in the last twenty-five years the
capital of this flourishing valley. The cattle and grain market was
held at Blangy, in the public square, and the prices there obtained
served as a tariff for the whole arrondissement.
By staying in the house and doing no out-door work, La Tonsard
continued fresh and fair and dimpled, in comparison with the women who
worked in the fields and faded as rapidly as the flowers, becoming old
and haggard before they were thirty. She liked to be well-dressed. In
point of fact, she was only clean, but in a village cleanliness is a
luxury. The daughters, better dressed than their means warranted,
followed their mother's example. Beneath their outer garment, which
was relatively handsome, they wore linen much finer than that of the
richest peasant women. On fete-days they appeared in dresses that were
really pretty, obtained, Heaven knows how! For one thing, the menservants
at Les Aigues sold to them, at prices that were easily paid,
the cast-off clothing of the lady's-maids, which, after sweeping the
streets of Paris and being made over to fit Marie and Catherine,
appeared triumphantly in the precincts of the Grand-I-Vert. These
girls, bohemians of the valley, received not one penny in money from
their parents, who gave them food only, and the wretched pallets on
which they slept with their grandmother in the barn, where their
brothers also slept, curled up in the hay like animals. Neither father
nor mother paid any heed to this propinquity.
The iron age and the age of gold are more alike than we think for. In
the one nothing aroused vigilance; in the other, everything rouses it;
the result to society is, perhaps, very much the same. The presence of
old Mother Tonsard, which was more a necessity than a precaution, was
simply one immorality the more. And thus it was that the Abbe
Brossette, after studying the morals of his parishioners, made this
pregnant remark to his bishop:--
"Monseigneur, when I observe the stress that the peasantry lay on
their poverty, I realize how they fear to lose that excuse for their
immorality."
Though everybody knew that the family had no principles and no
scruples, nothing was ever said against the morals of the Grand-IVert.
At the beginning of this book it is necessary to explain, once
for all, to persons accustomed to the decencies of middle-class life,
that the peasants have no decency in their domestic habits and
customs. They make no appeal to morality when their daughters are
seduced, unless the seducer is rich and timid. Children, until the
State takes possession of them, are used either as capital or as
instruments of convenience. Self-interest has become, specially since
1789, the sole motive of the masses; they never ask if an action is
legal or immoral, but only if it is profitable. Morality, which is not
to be confounded with religion, begins only at a certain competence,--
just as one sees, in a higher sphere, how delicacy blossoms in the
soul when fortune decorates the furniture. A positively moral and
upright man is rare among the peasantry. Do you ask why? Among the
many reasons that may be given for this state of things, the principal
one is this: Through the nature of their social functions, the
peasants live a purely material life which approximates to that of
savages, and their constant union with nature tends to foster it. When
toil exhausts the body it takes from the mind its purifying action,
especially among the ignorant. The Abbe Brossette was right in saying
that the state policy of the peasant is his poverty.
Meddling in everybody's interests, Tonsard heard everybody's
complaints, and often instigated frauds to benefit the needy. His
wife, a kindly appearing woman, had a good word for evil-doers, and
never withheld either approval or personal help from her customers in
anything they undertook against the rich. This inn, a nest of vipers,
brisk and venomous, seething and active, was a hot-bed for the hatred
of the peasants and the workingmen against the masters and the
wealthy.
The prosperous life of the Tonsards was, therefore, an evil example.
Others asked themselves why they should not take their wood, as the
Tonsards did, from the forest; why not pasture their cows and have
game to eat and to sell as well as they; why not harvest without
sowing the grapes and the grain. Accordingly, the pilfering thefts
which thin the woods and tithe the ploughed lands and meadows and
vineyards became habitual in this valley, and soon existed as a right
throughout the districts of Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, all adjacent
to the domain of Les Aigues. This sore, for certain reasons which will
be given in due time, did far greater injury to Les Aigues than to the
estates of Ronquerolles or Soulanges. You must not, however, fancy
that Tonsard, his wife and children, and his old mother ever
deliberately said to themselves, "We will live by theft, and commit it
as cleverly as we can." Such habits grow slowly. To the dried sticks
they added, in the first instance, a single bit of good wood; then,
emboldened by habit and a carefully prepared immunity (necessary to
plans which this history will unfold), they ended at last in cutting
"their wood," and stealing almost their entire livelihood. Pasturage
for the cows and the abuses of gleaning were established as customs
little by little. When the Tonsards and the do-nothings of the valley
had tasted the sweets of these four rights (thus captured by rural
paupers, and amounting to actual robbery) we can easily imagine they
would never give them up unless compelled by a power greater than
their own audacity.
At the time when this history begins Tonsard, then about fifty years
of age, tall and strong, rather stout than thin, with curly black
hair, skin highly colored and marbled like a brick with purple
blotches, yellow whites to the eyes, large ears with broad flaps, a
muscular frame, encased, however, in flabby flesh, a retreating
forehead, and a hanging lip,--Tonsard, such as you see him, hid his
real character under an external stupidity, lightened at times by a
show of experience, which seemed all the more intelligent because he
had acquired in the company of his father-in-law a sort of bantering
talk, much affected by old Fourchon and Vermichel. His nose, flattened
at the end as if the finger of God intended to mark him, gave him a
voice which came from his palate, like that of all persons disfigured
by a disease which thickens the nasal passages, through which the air
then passes with difficulty. His upper teeth overlapped each other,
and this defect (which Lavater calls terrible) was all the more
apparent because they were as white as those of a dog. But for a
certain lawless and slothful good humor, and the free-and-easy ways of
a rustic tippler, the man would have alarmed the least observing of
spectators.
If the portraits of Tonsard, his inn, and his father-in-law take a
prominent place in this history, it is because that place belongs to
him and to the inn and to the family. In the first place, their
existence, so minutely described, is the type of a hundred other
households in the valley of Les Aigues. Secondly, Tonsard, without
being other than the instrument of deep and active hatreds, had an
immense influence on the struggle that was about to take place, being
the friend and counsellor of all the complainants of the lower
classes. His inn, as we shall presently see, was the rendezvous for
the aggressors; in fact, he became their chief, partly on account of
the fear he inspired throughout the valley--less, however, by his
actual deeds than by those that were constantly expected of him. The
threat of this man was as much dreaded as the thing threatened, so
that he never had occasion to execute it.
Every revolt, open or concealed, has its banner. The banner of the
marauders, the drunkards, the idlers, the sluggards of the valley des
Aigues was the terrible tavern of the Grand-I-Vert. Its frequenters
found amusement there,--as rare and much-desired a thing in the
country as in a city. Moreover, there was no other inn along the
country-road for over twelve miles, a distance which conveyances (even
when laden) could easily do in three hours; so that those who went
from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes always stopped at the Grand-I-Vert, if
only to refresh themselves. The miller of Les Aigues, who was also
assistant-mayor, and his men came there. The grooms and valets of the
general were not averse to Tonsard's wine, rendered attractive by
Tonsard's daughters; so the Grand-I-Vert held subterraneous
communication with the chateau through the servants, and knew
immediately everything that they knew. It is impossible either by
benefits or through their own self-interests, to break up the
perpetual understanding that exists between the servants of a
household and the people from whom they come. Domestic service is of
the masses, and to the masses it will ever remain attached. This fatal
comradeship explains the reticence of the last words of Charles the
groom, as he and Blondet reached the portico of the chateau.
CHAPTER IV
ANOTHER IDYLL
"Ha! by my pipe, papa!" exclaimed Tonsard, seeing his father-in-law as
the old man entered and supposing him in quest of food, "your stomach
is lively this morning! We haven't anything to give you. How about
that rope,--the rope, you know, you were to make for us? It is amazing
how much you make over night and how little there is made in the
morning! You ought long ago to have twisted the one that is to twist
you out of existence; you are getting too costly for us."
The wit of a peasant or laborer is very Attic; it consists in speaking
out his mind and giving it a grotesque expression. We find the same
thing in a drawing-room. Delicacy of wit takes the place of
picturesque vulgarity, and that is really all the difference there is.
"That's enough for the father-in-law!" said the old man. "Talk
business; I want a bottle of the best."
So saying, Fourchon rapped a five-franc piece that gleamed in his hand
on the old table at which he was seated,--which, with its coating of
grease, its scorched black marks, its wine stains, and its gashes, was
singular to behold. At the sound of coin Marie Tonsard, as trig as a
sloop about to start on a cruise, glanced at her grandfather with a
covetous look that shot from her eyes like a spark. La Tonsard came
out of her bedroom, attracted by the music of metal.
"You are always rough to my poor father," she said to her husband,
"and yet he has earned a deal of money this year; God grant he came by
it honestly. Let me see that," she added, springing at the coin and
snatching it from Fourchon's fingers.
"Marie," said Tonsard, gravely, "above the board you'll find some
bottled wine. Go and get a bottle."
Wine is of only one quality in the country, but it is sold as of two
kinds,--cask wine and bottled wine.
"Where did you get this, papa" demanded La Tonsard, slipping the coin
into her pocket.
"Philippine! you'll come to a bad end," said the old man, shaking his
head but not attempting to recover his money. Doubtless he had long
realized the futility of a struggle between his daughter, his terrible
son-in-law, and himself.
"Another bottle of wine for which you get five francs out of me," he
added, in a peevish tone. "But it shall be the last. I shall give my
custom to the Cafe de la Paix."
"Hold your tongue, papa!" remarked his fair and fat daughter, who bore
some resemblance to a Roman matron. "You need a shirt, and a pair of
clean trousers, and a hat; and I want to see you with a waistcoat.
That's what I take the money for."
"I have told you again and again that such things would ruin me," said
the old man. "People would think me rich and stop giving me anything."
The bottle brought by Marie put an end to the loquacity of the old
man, who was not without that trait, characteristic of those whose
tongues are ready to tell out everything, and who shrink from no
expression of their thought, no matter how atrocious it may be.
"Then you don't want to tell where you filched that money?" said
Tonsard. "We might go and get more where that came from,--the rest of
us."
He was making a snare, and as he finished it the ferocious innkeeper
happened to glance at his father-in-law's trousers, and there he spied
a raised round spot which clearly defined a second five-franc piece.
"Having become a capitalist I drink your health," said Pere Fourchon.
"If you choose to be a capitalist you can be," said Tonsard; "you have
the means, you have! But the devil has bored a hole in the back of
your head through which everything runs out."
"Hey! I only played the otter trick on that young fellow they have got
at Les Aigues. He's from Paris. That's all there is to it."
"If crowds of people would come to see the sources of the Avonne,
you'd be rich, Grandpa Fourchon," said Marie.
"Yes," he said, drinking the last glassful the bottle contained, "and
I've played the sham otter so long, the live otters have got angry,
and one of them came right between my legs to-day; Mouche caught it,
and I am to get twenty francs for it."
"I'll bet your otter is made of tow," said Tonsard, looking slyly at
his father-in-law.
"If you will give me a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, and some list
braces, so as not to disgrace Vermichel on the music stand at Tivoli
(for old Socquard is always scolding about my clothes), I'll let you
keep that money, my daughter; your idea is a good one. I can squeeze
that rich young fellow at Les Aigues; may be he'll take to otters."
"Go and get another bottle," said Tonsard to his daughter. "If your
father really had an otter, he would show it to us," he added,
speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon.
"I'm too afraid it would get into your frying-pan," said the old man,
winking one of his little green eyes at his daughter. "Philippine has
already hooked my five-franc piece; and how many more haven't you
bagged under pretence of clothing me and feeding me? and now you say
that my stomach is too lively, and that I go half-naked."
"You sold your last clothes to drink boiled wine at the Cafe de la
Paix, papa," said his daughter, "though Vermichel tried to prevent
it."
"Vermichel! the man I treated! Vermichel is incapable of betraying my
friendship. It must have been that lump of old lard on two legs that
he is not ashamed to call his wife!"
"He or she," replied Tonsard, "or Bonnebault."
"If it was Bonnebault," cried Fourchon, "he who is one of the pillars
of the place, I'll--I'll--Enough!"
"You old sot, what has all that got to do with having sold your
clothes? You sold them because you did sell them; you're of age!" said
Tonsard, slapping the old man's knee. "Come, do honor to my drink and
redden up your throat! The father of Mam Tonsard has a right to do so;
and isn't that better than spending your silver at Socquard's?"
"What a shame it is that you have been fifteen years playing for
people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how
Socquard cooks his wine,--you who are so shrewd!" said his daughter;
"and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon
get as rich as Rigou."
Throughout the Morvan, and in that region of Burgundy which lies at
its feet on the side toward Paris, this boiled wine with which Mam
Tonsard reproached her father is a rather costly beverage which plays
a great part in the life of the peasantry, and is made by all grocers
and wine-dealers, and wherever a drinking-shop exists. This precious
liquor, made of choice wine, sugar, and cinnamon and other spices, is
preferable to all those disguises or mixtures of brandy called
ratafia, one-hundred-and-seven, brave man's cordial, black currant
wine, vespetro, spirit-of-sun, etc. Boiled wine is found throughout
France and Switzerland. Among the Jura, and in the wild districts
trodden only by a few special tourists, the innkeepers call it, on the
word of commercial travellers, the wine of Syracuse. Excellent it is,
however, and their guests, hungry as hounds after ascending the
surrounding peaks, very gladly pay three and four francs a bottle for
it. In the homes of the Morvan and in Burgundy the least illness or
the slightest agitation of the nerves is an excuse for boiled wine.
Before and after childbirth the women take it with the addition of
burnt sugar. Boiled wine has soaked up the property of many a peasant,
and more than once the seductive liquid has been the cause of marital
chastisement.
"Ha! there's no chance of grabbing that secret," replied Fourchon,
"Socquard always locks himself in when he boils his wine; he never
told how he does it to his late wife. He sends to Paris for his
materials."
"Don't plague your father," cried Tonsard; "doesn't he know? well,
then, he doesn't know! People can't know everything!"
Fourchon grew very uneasy on seeing how his son-in-law's countenance
softened as well as his words.
"What do you want to rob me of now?" he asked, candidly.
"I?" said Tonsard, "I take none but my legitimate dues; if I get
anything from you it is in payment of your daughter's portion, which
you promised me and never paid."
Fourchon, reassured by the harshness of this remark, dropped his head
on his breast as though vanquished and convinced.
"Look at that pretty snare," resumed Tonsard, coming up to his fatherin-
law and laying the trap upon his knee. "Some of these days they'll
want game at Les Aigues, and we shall sell them their own, or there
will be no good God for the poor folks."
"A fine piece of work," said the old man, examining the mischievous
machine.
"It is very well to pick up the sous now, papa," said Mam Tonsard,
"but you know we are to have our share in the cake of Les Aigues."
"Oh, what chatterers women are!" cried Tonsard. "If I am hanged it
won't be for a shot from my gun, but for the gabble of your tongue."
"And do you really suppose that Les Aigues will be cut up and sold in
lots for your pitiful benefit?" asked Fourchon. "Pshaw! haven't you
discovered in the last thirty years that old Rigou has been sucking
the marrow out of your bones that the middle-class folks are worse
than the lords? Mark my words, when that affair happens, my children,
the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, the Rigous, will make you kick your heels
in the air. 'I've the good tobacco, it never shall be thine,' that's
the national air of the rich man, hey? The peasant will always be the
peasant. Don't you see (but you never did understand anything of
politics!) that government puts such heavy taxes on wine only to
hinder our profits and keep us poor? The middle classes and the
government, they are all one. What would become of them if everybody
was rich? Could they till their fields? Would they gather the harvest?
No, they WANT the poor! I was rich for ten years and I know what I
thought of paupers."
"Must hunt with them, though," replied Tonsard, "because they mean to
cut up the great estates; after that's done, we can turn against them.
If I'd been Courtecuisse, whom that scoundrel Rigou is ruining, I'd
have long ago paid his bill with other balls than the poor fellow
gives him."
"Right enough, too," replied Fourchon. "As Pere Niseron says (and he
stayed republican long after everybody else), 'The people are tough;
they don't die; they have time before them.'"
Fourchon fell into a sort of reverie; Tonsard profited by his
inattention to take back the trap, and as he took it up he cut a slip
below the coin in his father-in-law's pocket at the moment when the
old man raised his glass to his lips; then he set his foot on the
five-franc piece as it dropped on the earthen floor just where it was
always kept damp by the heel-taps which the customers flung from their
glasses. Though quickly and lightly done, the old man might, perhaps,
have felt the theft, if Vermichel had not happened to appear at that
moment.
"Tonsard, do you know where you father is?" called that functionary
from the foot of the steps.
Vermichel's shout, the theft of the money, and the emptying of old
Fourchon's glass, were simultaneous.
"Present, captain!" cried Fourchon, holding out a hand to Vermichel to
help him up the steps.
Of all Burgundian figures, Vermichel would have seemed to you the most
Burgundian. The practitioner was not red, he was scarlet. His face,
like certain tropical portions of the globe, was fissured, here and
there, with small extinct volcanoes, defined by flat and greenish
patches which Fourchon called, not unpoetically, the "flowers of
wine." This fiery face, the features of which were swelled out of
shape by continual drunkenness, looked cyclopic; for it was lighted on
the right side by a gleaming eye, and darkened on the other by a
yellow patch over the left orb. Red hair, always tousled, and a beard
like that of Judas, made Vermichel as formidable in appearance as he
was meek in reality. His prominent nose looked like an interrogationmark,
to which the wide-slit mouth seemed to be always answering, even
when it did not open. Vermichel, a short man, wore hob-nail shoes,
bottle-green velveteen trousers, an old waistcoat patched with diverse
stuffs which seemed to have been originally made of a counterpane, a
jacket of coarse blue cloth and a gray hat with a broad brim. All this
luxury, required by the town of Soulanges where Vermichel fulfilled
the combined functions of porter at the town-hall, drummer, jailer,
musician, and practitioner, was taken care of by Madame Vermichel, an
alarming antagonist of Rabelaisian philosophy. This virago with
moustachios, about one yard in width and one hundred and twenty
kilograms in weight (but very active), ruled Vermichel with a rod of
iron. Thrashed by her when drunk, he allowed her to thrash him still
when sober; which caused Pere Fourchon to say, with a sniff at
Vermichel's clothes, "It is the livery of a slave."
"Talk of the sun and you'll see its beams," cried Fourchon, repeating
a well-worn allusion to the rutilant face of Vermichel, which really
did resemble those copper suns painted on tavern signs in the
provinces. "Has Mam Vermichel spied too much dust on your back, that
you're running away from your four-fifths,--for I can't call her your
better half, that woman! What brings you here at this hour, drummajor?"
"Politics, always politics," replied Vermichel, who seemed accustomed
to such pleasantries.
"Ah! business is bad in Blangy, and there'll be notes to protest, and
writs to issue," remarked Pere Fourchon, filling a glass for his
friend.
"That APE of ours is right behind me," replied Vermichel, with a
backward gesture.
In workmen's slang "ape" meant master. The word belonged to the
dictionary of the worthy pair.
"What's Monsieur Brunet coming bothering about here?" asked Tonsard.
"Hey, by the powers, you folks!" said Vermichel, "you've brought him
in for the last three years more than you are worth. Ha! that master
at Les Aigues, he has his eye upon you; he'll punch you in the ribs;
he's after you, the Shopman! Brunet says, if there were three such
landlords in the valley his fortune would be made."
"What new harm are they going to do to the poor?" asked Marie.
"A pretty wise thing for themselves," replied Vermichel. "Faith!
you'll have to give in, in the end. How can you help it? They've got
the power. For the last two years haven't they had three foresters and
a horse-patrol, all as active as ants, and a field-keeper who is a
terror? Besides, the gendarmerie is ready to do their dirty work at
any time. They'll crush you--"
"Bah!" said Tonsard, "we are too flat. That which can't be crushed
isn't the trees, it's ground."
"Don't you trust to that," said Fourchon to his son-in-law; "you own
property."
"Those rich folks must love you," continued Vermichel, "for they think
of nothing else from morning till night! They are saying to themselves
now like this: 'Their cattle eat up our pastures; we'll seize their
cattle; they can't eat grass themselves.' You've all been condemned,
the warrants are out, and they have told our ape to take your cows. We
are to begin this morning at Conches by seizing old mother
Bonnebault's cow and Godin's cow and Mitant's cow."
The moment the name of Bonnebault was mentioned, Marie, who was in
love with the old woman's grandson, sprang into the vineyard with a
nod to her father and mother. She slipped like an eel through a break
in the hedge, and was off on the way to Conches with the speed of a
hunted hare.
"They'll do so much," remarked Tonsard, tranquilly, "that they'll get
their bones broken; and that will be a pity, for their mothers can't
make them any new ones."
"Well, perhaps so," said old Fourchon, "but see here, Vermichel, I
can't go with you for an hour or more, for I have important business
at the chateau."
"More important than serving three warrants at five sous each? 'You
shouldn't spit into the vintage,' as Father Noah says."
"I tell you, Vermichel, that my business requires me to go to the
chateau des Aigues," repeated the old man, with an air of laughable
self-importance.
"And anyhow," said Mam Tonsard, "my father had better keep out of the
way. Do you really mean to find the cows?"
"Monsieur Brunet, who is a very good fellow, would much rather find
nothing but their dung," answered Vermichel. "A man who is obliged to
be out and about day and night had better be careful."
"If he is, he has good reason to be," said Tonsard, sententiously.
"So," continued Vermichel, "he said to Monsieur Michaud, 'I'll go as
soon as the court is up.' If he had wanted to find the cows he'd have
gone at seven o'clock in the morning. But that didn't suit Michaud,
and Brunet has had to be off. You can't take in Michaud, he's a
trained hound! Ha, the brigand!"
"Ought to have stayed in the army, a swaggerer like that," said
Tonsard; "he is only fit to deal with enemies. I wish he would come
and ask me my name. He may call himself a veteran of the young guard,
but I know very well that if I measured spurs with him, I'd keep my
feathers up longest."
"Look here!" said Mam Tonsard to Vermichel, "when are the notices for
the ball at Soulanges coming out? Here it is the eighth of August."
"I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at Ville-aux-Fayes, to be
printed," replied Vermichel; "they do talk of fireworks on the lake."
"What crowds of people we shall have!" cried Fourchon.
"Profits for Socquard!" said Tonsard, spitefully.
"If it doesn't rain," said his wife, by way of comfort.
At this moment the trot of a horse coming from the direction of
Soulanges was heard, and five minutes later the sheriff's officer
fastened his horse to a post placed for the purpose near the wicket
gate through which the cows were driven. Then he showed his head at
the door of the Grand-I-Vert.
"Come, my boys, let's lose no time," he said, pretending to be in a
hurry.
"Hey!" said Vermichel. "Here's a refractory, Monsieur Brunet; Pere
Fourchon wants to drop off."
"He has had too many drops already," said the sheriff; "but the law in
this case does not require that he shall be sober."
"Please excuse me, Monsieur Brunet," said Fourchon, "I am expected at
Les Aigues on business; they are in treaty for an otter."
Brunet, a withered little man dressed from head to foot in black
cloth, with a bilious skin, a furtive eye, curly hair, lips tightdrawn,
pinched nose, anxious expression, and gruff in speech,
exhibited the phenomenon of a character and bearing in perfect harmony
with his profession. He was so well-informed as to the law, or, to
speak more correctly, the quibbles of the law, that he had come to be
both the terror and the counsellor of the whole canton. He was not
without a certain popularity among the peasantry, from whom he usually
took his pay in kind. The compound of his active and negative
qualities and his knowledge of how to manage matters got him the
custom of the canton, to the exclusion of his coadjutor Plissoud,
about whom we shall have something to say later. This chance
combination of a sheriff's officer who does everything and a sheriff's
officer who does nothing is not at all uncommon in the country justice
courts.
"So matters are getting warm, are they?" said Tonsard to little
Brunet.
"What can you expect? you pilfer the man too much, and he's going to
protect himself," replied the officer. "It will be a bad business for
you in the end; government will interfere."
"Then we, poor unfortunates, must give up the ghost!" said Mam
Tonsard, offering him a glass of brandy on a saucer.
"The unfortunate may all die, yet they'll never be lacking in the
land," said Fourchon, sententiously.
"You do great damage to the woods," retorted the sheriff.
"Now don't believe that, Monsieur Brunet," said Mam Tonsard; "they
make such a fuss about a few miserable fagots!"
"We didn't crush the rich low enough during the Revolution, that's
what's the trouble," said Tonsard.
Just then a horrible, and quite incomprehensible noise was heard. It
seemed to be a rush of hurried feet, accompanied with a rattle of
arms, half-drowned by the rustling of leaves, the dragging of
branches, and the sound of still more hasty feet. Two voices, as
different as the two footsteps, were venting noisy exclamations.
Everybody inside the inn guessed at once that a man was pursuing a
woman; but why? The uncertainty did not last long.
"It is mother!" said Tonsard, jumping up; "I know her shriek."
Then suddenly, rushing up the broken steps of the Grand-I-Vert by a
last effort that can be made only by the sinews of smugglers, old
Mother Tonsard fell flat on the floor in the middle of the room. The
immense mass of wood she carried on her head made a terrible noise as
it crashed against the top of the door and then upon the ground. Every
one had jumped out of the way. The table, the bottles, the chairs were
knocked over and scattered. The noise was as great as if the cottage
itself had come tumbling down.
"I'm dead! The scoundrel has killed me!"
The words and the flight of the old woman were explained by the
apparition on the threshold of a keeper, dressed in green livery,
wearing a hat edged with silver cord, a sabre at his side, a leathern
shoulder-belt bearing the arms of Montcornet charged with those of the
Troisvilles, the regulation red waistcoat, and buckskin gaiters which
came above the knee.
After a moment's hesitation the keeper said, looking at Brunet and
Vermichel, "Here are witnesses."
"Witnesses of what?" said Tonsard.
"That woman has a ten-year-old oak, cut into logs, inside those
fagots; it is a regular crime!"
The moment the word "witness" was uttered Vermichel thought best to
breathe the fresh air of the vineyard.
"Of what? witnesses of what?" cried Tonsard, standing in front of the
keeper while his wife helped up the old woman. "Do you mean to show
your claws, Vatel? Accuse persons and arrest them on the highway,
brigand,--that's your domain; but get out of here! A man's house is
his castle."
"I caught her in the act, and your mother must come with me."
"Arrest my mother in my house? You have no right to do it. My house is
inviolable,--all the world knows that, at least. Have you got a
warrant from Monsieur Guerbet, the magistrate? Ha! you must have the
law behind you before you come in here. You are not the law, though
you have sworn an oath to starve us to death, you miserable forestgauger,
you!"
The fury of the keeper waxed so hot that he was on the point of
seizing hold of the wood, when the old woman, a frightful bit of black
parchment endowed with motion, the like of which can be seen only in
David's picture of "The Sabines," screamed at him, "Don't touch it, or
I'll fly at your eyes!"
"Well, then, undo that pile in presence of Monsieur Brunet," said the
keeper.
Though the sheriff's officer had assumed the indifference that the
routine of business does really give to officials of his class, he
threw a glance at Tonsard and his wife which said plainly, "A bad
business!" Old Fourchon looked at his daughter, and slyly pointed at a
pile of ashes in the chimney. Mam Tonsard, who understood in a moment
from that significant gesture both the danger of her mother-in-law and
the advice of her father, seized a handful of ashes and flung them in
the keeper's eyes. Vatel roared with pain; Tonsard pushed him roughly
upon the broken door-steps where the blinded man stumbled and fell,
and then rolled nearly down to the gate, dropping his gun on the way.
In an instant the load of sticks was unfastened, and the oak logs
pulled out and hidden with a rapidity no words can describe. Brunet,
anxious not to witness this manoeuvre, which he readily foresaw,
rushed after the keeper to help him up; then he placed him on the bank
and wet his handkerchief in water to wash the eyes of the poor fellow,
who, in spite of his agony, was trying to reach the brook.
"You are in the wrong, Vatel," said Brunet; "you have no right to
enter houses, don't you see?"
The old woman, a little hump-backed creature, stood on the sill of the
door, with her hands on her hips, darting flashes from her eyes and
curses from her foaming lips shrill enough to be heard at Blangy.
"Ha! the villain, 'twas well done! May hell get you! To suspect me of
cutting trees!--ME, the most honest woman in the village. To hunt me
like vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes, for then we'd
have peace. You are birds of ill-omen, the whole of you; you invent
shameful stories to stir up strife between your master and us."
The keeper allowed the sheriff to bathe his eyes and all the while the
latter kept telling him that he was legally wrong.
"The old thief! she has tired us out," said Vatel at last. "She has
been at work in the woods all night."
As the whole family had taken an active hand in hiding the live wood
and putting things straight in the cottage, Tonsard presently appeared
at the door with an insolent air. "Vatel, my man, if you ever again
dare to force your way into my domain, my gun shall answer you," he
said. "To-day you have had the ashes; the next time you shall have the
fire. You don't know your own business. That's enough. Now if you feel
hot after this affair take some wine, I offer it to you; and you may
come in and see that my old mother's bundle of fagots hadn't a scrap
of live wood in it; it is every bit brushwood."
"Scoundrel!" said the keeper to the sheriff, in a low voice, more
enraged by this speech than by the smart of his eyes.
Just then Charles, the groom, appeared at the gate of the Grand-IVert.
"What is the matter, Vatel?" he said.
"Ah!" said the keeper, wiping his eyes, which he had plunged wide open
into the rivulet to give them a final cleansing. "I have some debtors
in there that I'll cause to rue the day they saw the light."
"If you take it that way, Monsieur Vatel," said Tonsard, coldly, "you
will find we don't want for courage in Burgundy."
Vatel departed. Not feeling much curiosity to know what the trouble
was, Charles went up the steps and looked into the house.
"Come to the chateau, you and your otter,--if you really have one," he
said to Pere Fourchon.
The old man rose hurriedly and followed him.
"Well, where is it,--that otter of yours?" said Charles, smiling
doubtfully.
"This way," said the old fellow, going toward the Thune.
The name is that of a brook formed by the overflow of the mill-race
and of certain springs in the park of Les Aigues. It runs by the side
of the county road as far as the lakelet of Soulanges, which it
crosses, and then falls into the Avonne, after feeding the mills and
ponds on the Soulanges estate.
"Here it is; I hid it in the brook, with a stone around its neck."
As he stooped and rose again the old man missed the coin out of his
pocket, where metal was so uncommon that he was likely to notice its
presence or its absence immediately.
"Ah, the sharks!" he cried. "If I hunt otters they hunt fathers-inlaw!
They get out of me all I earn, and tell me it is for my good! If
it were not for my poor Mouche, who is the comfort of my old age, I'd
drown myself. Children! they are the ruin of their fathers. You
haven't married, have you, Monsieur Charles? Then don't; never get
married, and then you can't reproach yourself for spreading bad blood.
I, who expected to buy my tow with that money, and there it is
filched, stolen! That monsieur up at Les Aigues, a fine young fellow,
gave me ten francs; ha! well! it'll put up the price of my otter now."
Charles distrusted the old man so profoundly that he took his
grievances (this time very sincere) for the preliminary of what he
called, in servant's slang, "varnish," and he made the great mistake
of letting his opinion appear in a satirical grin, which the spiteful
old fellow detected.
"Come, come! Pere Fourchon, now behave yourself; you are going to see
Madame," said Charles, noticing how the rubies flashed on the nose and
cheeks of the old drunkard.
"I know how to attend to business, Charles; and the proof is that if
you will get me out of the kitchen the remains of the breakfast and a
bottle or two of Spanish wine, I'll tell you something which will save
you from a 'foul.'"
"Tell me, and Francois shall get Monsieur's own order to give you a
glass of wine," said the groom.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"Well then, I know you meet my granddaughter Catherine under the
bridge of the Avonne. Godain is in love with her; he saw you, and he
is fool enough to be jealous,--I say fool, for a peasant oughtn't to
have feelings which belong only to rich folks. If you go to the ball
of Soulanges at Tivoli and dance with her, you'll dance higher than
you'll like. Godain is rich and dangerous; he is capable of breaking
your arm without your getting a chance to arrest him."
"That would be too dear; Catherine is a fine girl, but she is not
worth all that," replied Charles. "Why should Godain be so angry?
others are not."
"He loves her enough to marry her."
"If he does, he'll beat her," said Charles.
"I don't know about that," said the old man. "She takes after her
mother, against whom Tonsard never raised a finger,--he's too afraid
she'll be off, hot foot. A woman who knows how to hold her own is
mighty useful. Besides, if it came to fisticuffs with Catherine,
Godain, though he's pretty strong, wouldn't give the last blow."
"Well, thank you, Pere Fourchon; here's forty sous to drink my health
in case I can't get you the sherry."
Pere Fourchon turned his head aside as he pocketed the money lest
Charles should see the expression of amusement and sarcasm which he
was unable to repress.
"Catherine," he resumed, "is a proud minx; she likes sherry. You had
better tell her to go and get it at Les Aigues."
Charles looked at Pere Fourchon with naive admiration, not suspecting
the eager interest the general's enemies took in slipping one more spy
into the chateau.
"The general ought to feel happy now," continued Fourchon; "the
peasants are all quiet. What does he say? Is he satisfied with
Sibilet?"
"It is only Monsieur Michaud who finds fault with Sibilet. They say
he'll get him sent away."
"Professional jealousy!" exclaimed Fourchon. "I'll bet you would like
to get rid of Francois and take his place."
"Hang it! he has twelve hundred francs wages," said Charles; "but they
can't send him off,--he knows the general's secrets."
"Just as Madame Michaud knows the countess's," remarked Fourchon,
watching the other carefully. "Look here, my boy, do you know whether
Monsieur and Madame have separate rooms?"
"Of course; if they didn't, Monsieur wouldn't be so fond of Madame."
"Is that all you know?" said Fourchon.
As they were now before the kitchen windows nothing more was said.
CHAPTER V
ENEMIES FACE TO FACE
While breakfast was in progress at the chateau, Francois, the head
footman, whispered to Blondet, but loud enough for the general to
overhear him,--
"Monsieur, Pere Fourchon's boy is here; he says they have caught the
otter, and wants to know if you would like it, or whether they shall
take it to the sub-prefect at Ville-aux-Fayes."
Emile Blondet, though himself a past-master of hoaxing, could not keep
his cheeks from blushing like those of a virgin who hears an
indecorous story of which she knows the meaning.
"Ha! ha! so you have hunted the otter this morning with Pere
Fourchon?" cried the general, with a roar of laughter.
"What is it?" asked the countess, uneasy at her husband's laugh.
"When a man of wit and intelligence is taken in by old Fourchon,"
continued the general, "a retired cuirassier need not blush for having
hunted that otter; which bears an enormous resemblance to the third
posthorse we are made to pay for and never see." With that he went off
into further explosions of laughter, in the midst of which he
contrived to say: "I am not surprised you had to change your boots--
and your trousers; I have no doubt you have been wading! The joke
didn't go as far as that with me,--I stayed on the bank; but then, you
know, you are so much more intelligent than I--"
"But you forget," interrupted Madame de Montcornet, "that I do not
know what you are talking of."
At these words, said with some pique, the general grew serious, and
Blondet told the story of his fishing for the otter.
"But if they really have an otter," said the countess, "those poor
people are not to blame."
"Oh, but it is ten years since an otter has been seen about here,"
said the pitiless general.
"Monsieur le comte," said Francois, "the boy swears by all that's
sacred that he has got one."
"If they have one I'll buy it," said the general.
"I don't suppose," remarked the Abbe Brossette, "that God has
condemned Les Aigues to never have otters."
"Ah, Monsieur le cure!" cried Blondet, "if you bring the Almighty
against me--"
"But what is all this? Who is here?" said the countess, hastily.
"Mouche, madame,--the boy who goes about with old Fourchon," said the
footman.
"Bring him in--that is, if Madame will allow it?" said the general;
"he may amuse you."
Mouche presently appeared, in his usual state of comparative nudity.
Beholding this personification of poverty in the middle of this
luxurious dining-room, the cost of one panel of which would have been
a fortune to the bare-legged, bare-breasted, and bare-headed child, it
was impossible not to be moved by an impulse of charity. The boy's
eyes, like blazing coals, gazed first at the luxuries of the room, and
then at those on the table.
"Have you no mother?" asked Madame de Montcornet, unable otherwise to
explain the child's nakedness.
"No, ma'am; m'ma died of grief for losing p'pa, who went to the army
in 1812 without marrying her with papers, and got frozen, saving your
presence. But I've my Grandpa Fourchon, who is a good man,--though he
does beat me bad sometimes."
"How is it, my dear, that such wretched people can be found on your
estate?" said the countess, looking at the general.
"Madame la comtesse," said the abbe, "in this district we have none
but voluntary paupers. Monsieur le comte does all he can; but we have
to do with a class of persons who are without religion and who have
but one idea, that of living at your expense."
"But, my dear abbe," said Blondet, "you are here to improve their
morals."
"Monsieur," replied the abbe, "my bishop sent me here as if on a
mission to savages; but, as I had the honor of telling him, the
savages of France cannot be reached. They make it a law unto
themselves not to listen to us; whereas the church does get some hold
on the savages of America."
"M'sieur le cure, they do help me a bit now," remarked Mouche; "but if
I went to your church they WOULDN'T, and the other folks would make
game of my breeches."
"Religion ought to begin by giving him trousers, my dear abbe," said
Blondet. "In your foreign missions don't you begin by coaxing the
savages?"
"He would soon sell them," answered the abbe, in a low tone; "besides,
my salary does not enable me to begin on that line."
"Monsieur le cure is right," said the general, looking at Mouche.
The policy of the little scamp was to appear not to hear what they
were saying when it was against himself.
"The boy is intelligent enough to know good from evil," continued the
count, "and he is old enough to work; yet he thinks of nothing but how
to commit evil without being found out. All the keepers know him. He
is very well aware that the master of an estate may witness a trespass
on his property and yet have no right to arrest the trespasser. I have
known him keep his cows boldly in my meadows, though he knew I saw
him; but now, ever since I have been mayor, he runs away fast enough."
"Oh, that is very wrong," said the countess; "you should not take
other people's things, my little man."
"Madame, we must eat. My grandpa gives me more slaps than food, and
they don't fill my stomach, slaps don't. When the cows come in I milk
'em just a little and I live on that. Monseigneur isn't so poor but
what he'll let me drink a drop o' milk the cows get from his grass?"
"Perhaps he hasn't eaten anything to-day," said the countess, touched
by his misery. "Give him some bread and the rest of that chicken; let
him have his breakfast," she added, looking at the footman. "Where do
you sleep, my child?"
"Anywhere, madame; under the stars in summer, and wherever they'll let
us in winter."
"How old are you?"
"Twelve."
"There is still time to bring him up to better ways," said the
countess to her husband.
"He will make a good soldier," said the general, gruffly; "he is well
toughened. I went through that kind of thing myself, and here I am."
"Excuse me, general, I don't belong to nobody," said the boy. "I can't
be drafted. My poor mother wasn't married, and I was born in a field.
I'm a son of the 'airth,' as grandpa says. M'ma saved me from the
army, that she did! My name ain't no more Mouche than nothing at all.
Grandpa keeps telling me all my advantages. I'm not on the register,
and when I'm old enough to be drafted I can go all over France and
they can't take me."
"Are you fond of your grandfather?" said the countess, trying to look
into the child's heart.
"My! doesn't he box my ears when he feels like it! but then, after
all, he's such fun; he's such good company! He says he pays himself
that way for having taught me to read and write."
"Can you read?" asked the count.
"Yah, I should think so, Monsieur le comte, and fine writing too--just
as true as we've got that otter."
"Read that," said the count, giving him a newspaper.
"The Qu-o-ti-dienne," read Mouche, hesitating only three times.
Every one, even the abbe, laughed.
"Why do you make me read that newspaper?" cried Mouche, angrily. "My
grandpa says it is made up to please the rich, and everybody knows
later just what's in it."
"The child is right, general," said Blondet; "and he makes me long to
see my hoaxing friend again."
Mouche understood perfectly that he was posing for the amusement of
the company; the pupil of Pere Fourchon was worthy of his master, and
he forthwith began to cry.
"How can you tease a child with bare feet?" said the countess.
"And who thinks it quite natural that his grandfather should recoup
himself for his education by boxing his ears," said Blondet.
"Tell me, my poor little fellow, have you really caught an otter?"
"Yes, madame; as true as that you are the prettiest lady I have seen,
or ever shall see," said the child, wiping his eyes.
"Then show me the otter," said the general.
"Oh M'sieur le comte, my grandpa has hidden it; but it was kicking
still when we were at work at the rope-walk. Send for my grandpa,
please; he wants to sell it to you himself."
"Take him into the kitchen," said the countess to Francois, "and give
him his breakfast, and send Charles to fetch Pere Fourchon. Find some
shoes, and a pair of trousers and a waistcoat for the poor child;
those who come here naked must go away clothed."
"May God bless you, my beautiful lady," said Mouche, departing.
"M'sieur le cure may feel quite sure that I'll keep the things and
wear 'em fete-days, because you give 'em to me."
Emile and Madame Montcornet looked at each other with some surprise,
and seemed to say to the abbe, "The boy is not a fool!"
"It is quite true, madame," said the abbe after the child had gone,
"that we cannot reckon with Poverty. I believe it has hidden excuses
of which God alone can judge,--physical excuses, often congenital;
moral excuses, born in the character, produced by an order of things
that are often the result of qualities which, unhappily for society,
have no vent. Deeds of heroism performed upon the battle-field ought
to teach us that the worst scoundrels may become heroes. But here in
this place you are living under exceptional circumstances; and if your
benevolence is not controlled by reflection and judgment you run the
risk of supporting your enemies."
"Our enemies?" exclaimed the countess.
"Cruel enemies," said the general, gravely.
"Pere Fourchon and his son-in-law Tonsard," said the abbe, "are the
strength and the intelligence of the lower classes of this valley, who
consult them on all occasions. The Machiavelism of these people is
beyond belief. Ten peasants meeting in a tavern are the small change
of great political questions."
Just then Francois announced Monsieur Sibilet.
"He is my minister of finance," said the general, smiling; "ask him
in. He will explain to you the gravity of the situation," he added,
looking at his wife and Blondet.
"Because he has reasons of his own for not concealing it," said the
cure, in a low tone.
Blondet then beheld a personage of whom he had heard much ever since
his arrival, and whom he desired to know, the land-steward of Les
Aigues. He saw a man of medium height, about thirty years of age, with
a sulky look and a discontented face, on which a smile sat ill.
Beneath an anxious brow a pair of greenish eyes evaded the eyes of
others, and so disguised their thought. Sibilet was dressed in a brown
surtout coat, black trousers and waistcoat, and wore his hair long and
flat to the head, which gave him a clerical look. His trousers barely
concealed that he was knock-kneed. Though his pallid complexion and
flabby flesh gave the impression of an unhealthy constitution, Sibilet
was really robust. The tones of his voice, which were a little thick,
harmonized with this unflattering exterior.
Blondet gave a hasty look at the abbe, and the glance with which the
young priest answered it showed the journalist that his own suspicions
about the steward were certainties to the curate.
"Did you not tell me, my dear Sibilet," said the general, "that you
estimate the value of what the peasants steal from us at a quarter of
the whole revenue?"
"Much more than that, Monsieur le comte," replied the steward. "The
poor about here get more from your property than the State exacts in
taxes. A little scamp like Mouche can glean his two bushels a day. Old
women, whom you would really think at their last gasp, become at the
harvest and vintage times as active and healthy as girls. You can
witness that phenomenon very soon," said Sibilet, addressing Blondet,
"for the harvest, which was put back by the rains in July will begin
next week, when they cut the rye. The gleaners must have a certificate
of pauperism from the mayor of the district, and no district should
allow any one to glean except the paupers; but the districts of one
canton do glean in those of another without certificate. If we have
sixty real paupers in our district, there are at least forty others
who could support themselves if they were not so idle. Even persons
who have a business leave it to glean in the fields and in the
vineyards. All these people, taken together, gather in this
neighborhood something like three hundred bushels a day; the harvest
lasts two weeks, and that makes four thousand five hundred bushels in
this district alone. The gleaning takes more from an estate than the
taxes. As to the abuse of pasturage, it robs us of fully one-sixth the
produce of the meadows; and as to that of the woods, it is
incalculable,--they have actually come to cutting down six-year-old
trees. The loss to you, Monsieur le comte, amounts to fully twenty-odd
thousand francs a year."
"Do you hear that, madame?" said the general to his wife.
"Is it not exaggerated?" asked Madame de Montcornet.
"No, madame, unfortunately not," said the abbe. "Poor Niseron, that
old fellow with the white head, who combines the functions of bellringer,
beadle, grave-digger, sexton, and clerk, in defiance of his
republican opinions,--I mean the grandfather of the little Genevieve
whom you placed with Madame Michaud--"
"La Pechina," said Sibilet, interrupting the abbe.
"Pechina!" said the countess, "whom do you mean?"
"Madame la comtesse, when you met little Genevieve on the road in a
miserable condition, you cried out in Italian, 'Piccina!' The word
became a nickname, and is now corrupted all through the district into
Pechina," said the abbe. "The poor girl comes to church with Madame
Michaud and Madame Sibilet."
"And she is none the better for it," said Sibilet, "for the others
ill-treat her on account of her religion."
"Well, that poor old man of seventy gleans, honestly, about a bushel
and a half a day," continued the priest; "but his natural uprightness
prevents him from selling his gleanings as others do,--he keeps them
for his own consumption. Monsieur Langlume, your miller, grinds his
flour gratis at my request, and my servant bakes his bread with mine."
"I had quite forgotten my little protegee," said the countess,
troubled at Sibilet's remark. "Your arrival," she added to Blondet,
"has quite turned my head. But after breakfast I will take you to the
gate of the Avonne and show you the living image of those women whom
the painters of the fifteenth century delighted to perpetuate."
The sound of Pere Fourchon's broken sabots was now heard; after
depositing them in the antechamber, he was brought to the door of the
dining-room by Francois. At a sign from the countess, Francois allowed
him to pass in, followed by Mouche with his mouth full and carrying
the otter, hanging by a string tied to its yellow paws, webbed like
those of a palmiped. He cast upon his four superiors sitting at table,
and also upon Sibilet, that look of mingled distrust and servility
which serves as a veil to the thoughts of the peasantry; then he
brandished his amphibian with a triumphant air.
"Here it is!" he cried, addressing Blondet.
"My otter!" returned the Parisian, "and well paid for."
"Oh, my dear gentleman," replied Pere Fourchon, "yours got away; she
is now in her burrow, and she won't come out, for she's a female,--
this is a male; Mouche saw him coming just as you went away. As true
as you live, as true as that Monsieur le comte covered himself and his
cuirassiers with glory at Waterloo, the otter is mine, just as much as
Les Aigues belongs to Monseigneur the general. But the otter is YOURS
for twenty francs; if not I'll take it to the sub-prefect. If Monsieur
Gourdon thinks it too dear, then I'll give you the preference; that's
only fair, as we hunted together this morning!"
"Twenty francs!" said Blondet. "In good French you can't call that
GIVING the preference."
"Hey, my dear gentleman," cried the old fellow. "Perhaps I don't know
French, and I'll ask it in good Burgundian; as long as I get the
money, I don't care, I'll talk Latin: 'latinus, latina, latinum'!
Besides, twenty francs is what you promised me this morning. My
children have already stolen the silver you gave me; I wept about it,
coming along,--ask Charles if I didn't. Not that I'd arrest 'em for
the value of ten francs and have 'em up before the judge, no! But just
as soon as I earn a few pennies, they make me drink and get 'em out of
me. Ah! it is hard, hard to be reduced to go and get my wine
elsewhere. But just see what children are these days! That's what we
got by the Revolution; it is all for the children now-a-days, and
parents are suppressed. I'm bringing up Mouche on another tack; he
loves me, the little scamp,"--giving his grandson a poke.
"It seems to me you are making him a little thief, like all the rest,"
said Sibilet; "he never lies down at night without some sin on his
conscience."
"Ha! Monsieur Sibilet, his conscience is as clean as yours any day!
Poor child! what can he steal? A little grass! that's better than
throttling a man! He don't know mathematics like you, nor subtraction,
nor addition, nor multiplication,--you are very unjust to us, that you
are! You call us a nest of brigands, but you are the cause of the
misunderstandings between our good landlord here, who is a worthy man,
and the rest of us, who are all worthy men,--there ain't an honester
part of the country than this. Come, what do you mean? do I own
property? don't I go half-naked, and Mouche too? Fine sheets we slept
in, washed by the dew every morning! and unless you want the air we
breathe and the sunshine we drink, I should like to know what we have
that you can take away from us! The rich folks rob as they sit in
their chimney-corners,--and more profitably, too, than by picking up a
few sticks in the woods. I don't see no game-keepers or patrols after
Monsieur Gaubertin, who came here as naked as a worm and is now worth
his millions. It's easy said, 'Robbers!' Here's fifteen years that old
Guerbet, the tax-gatherer at Soulanges, carries his money along the
roads by the dead of night, and nobody ever took a farthing from him;
is that like a land of robbers? has robbery made us rich? Show me
which of us two, your class or mine, live the idlest lives and have
the most to live on without earning it."
"If you were to work," said the abbe, "you would have property. God
blesses labor."
"I don't want to contradict you, M'sieur l'abbe, for you are wiser
than I, and perhaps you'll know how to explain something that puzzles
me. Now see, here I am, ain't I?--that drunken, lazy, idle, good-fornothing
old Fourchon, who had an education and was a farmer, and got
down in the mud and never got up again,--well, what difference is
there between me and that honest and worthy old Niseron, seventy years
old (and that's my age) who has dug the soil for sixty years and got
up every day before it was light to go to his work, and has made
himself an iron body and a fine soul? Well, isn't he as bad off as I
am? His little granddaughter, Pechina, is at service with Madame
Michaud, whereas my little Mouche is as free as air. So that poor good
man gets rewarded for his virtues in exactly the same way that I get
punished for my vices. He don't know what a glass of good wine is,
he's as sober as an apostle, he buries the dead, and I--I play for the
living to dance. He is always in a peck o' troubles, while I slip
along in a devil-may-care way. We have come along about even in life;
we've got the same snow on our heads, the same funds in our pockets,
and I supply him with rope to ring his bell. He's a republican and I'm
not even a publican,--that's all the difference as far as I can see. A
peasant may do good or do evil (according to your ideas) and he'll go
out of the world just as he came into it, in rags; while you wear the
fine clothes."
No one interrupted Pere Fourchon, who seemed to owe his eloquence to
his potations. At first Sibilet tried to cut him short, but desisted
at a sign from Blondet. The abbe, the general, and the countess, all
understood from the expression of the writer's eye that he wanted to
study the question of pauperism from life, and perhaps take his
revenge on Pere Fourchon.
"What sort of education are you giving Mouche?" asked Blondet. "Do you
expect to make him any better than your daughters?"
"Does he ever speak to him of God?" said the priest.
"Oh, no, no! Monsieur le cure, I don't tell him to fear God, but men.
God is good; he has promised us poor folks, so you say, the kingdom of
heaven, because the rich people keep the earth to themselves. I tell
him: 'Mouche! fear the prison, and keep out of it,--for that's the way
to the scaffold. Don't steal anything, make people give it to you.
Theft leads to murder, and murder brings down the justice of men. The
razor of justice,--THAT'S what you've got to fear; it lets the rich
sleep easy and keeps the poor awake. Learn to read. Education will
teach you ways to grab money under cover of the law, like that fine
Monsieur Gaubertin; why, you can even be a land-steward like Monsieur
Sibilet here, who gets his rations out of Monsieur le comte. The thing
to do is to keep well with the rich, and pick up the crumbs that fall
from their tables.' That's what I call giving him a good, solid
education; and you'll always find the little rascal on the side of the
law,--he'll be a good citizen and take care of me."
"What do you mean to make of him?" asked Blondet.
"A servant, to begin with," returned Fourchon, "because then he'll see
his masters close by, and learn something; he'll complete his
education, I'll warrant you. Good example will be a fortune to him,
with the law on his side like the rest of you. If M'sieur le comte
would only take him in his stables and let him learn to groom the
horses, the boy will be mighty pleased, for though I've taught him to
fear men, he don't fear animals."
"You are a clever fellow, Pere Fourchon," said Blondet; "you know what
you are talking about, and there's sense in what you say."
"Oh, sense? no; I left my sense at the Grand-I-Vert when I lost those
silver pieces."
"How is it that a man of your capacity should have dropped so low? As
things are now, a peasant can only blame himself for his poverty; he
is a free man, and he can become a rich one. It is not as it used to
be. If a peasant lays by his money, he can always buy a bit of land
and become his own master."
"I've seen the olden time and I've seen the new, my dear wise
gentleman," said Fourchon; "the sign over the door has changed, that's
true, but the wine is the same,--to-day is the younger brother of
yesterday, that's all. Put that in your newspaper! Are we poor folks
free? We still belong to the same parish, and its lord is always
there,--I call him Toil. The hoe, our sole property, has never left
our hands. Let it be the old lords or the present taxes which take the
best of our earnings, the fact remains that we sweat our lives out in
toil."
"But you could undertake a business, and try to make your fortune,"
said Blondet.
"Try to make my fortune! And where shall I try? If I wish to leave my
own province, I must get a passport, and that costs forty sous. Here's
forty years that I've never had a slut of a forty-sous piece jingling
against another in my pocket. If you want to travel you need as many
crowns as there are villages, and there are mighty few Fourchons who
have enough to get to six of 'em. It is only the draft that gives us a
chance to get away. And what good does the army do us? The colonels
live by the solider, just as the rich folks live by the peasant; and
out of every hundred of 'em you won't find more than one of our breed.
It is just as it is the world over, one rolling in riches, for a
hundred down in the mud. Why are we in the mud? Ask God and the
usurers. The best we can do is to stay in our own parts, where we are
penned like sheep by the force of circumstances, as our fathers were
by the rule of the lords. As for me, what do I care what shackles they
are that keep me here? let it be the law of public necessity or the
tyranny of the old lords, it is all the same; we are condemned to dig
the soil forever. There, where we are born, there we dig it, that
earth! and spade it, and manure it, and delve in it, for you who are
born rich just as we are born poor. The masses will always be what
they are, and stay what they are. The number of us who manage to rise
is nothing like the number of you who topple down! We know that well
enough, if we have no education! You mustn't be after us with your
sheriff all the time,--not if you're wise. We let you alone, and you
must let us alone. If not, and things get worse, you'll have to feed
us in your prisons, where we'd be much better off than in our homes.
You want to remain our masters, and we shall always be enemies, just
as we were thirty years ago. You have everything, we have nothing; you
can't expect we should ever be friends."
"That's what I call a declaration of war," said the general.
"Monseigneur," retorted Fourchon, "when Les Aigues belonged to that
poor Madame (God keep her soul and forgive her the sins of her youth!)
we were happy. SHE let us get our food from the fields and our fuel
from the forest; and was she any the poorer for it? And you, who are
at least as rich as she, you hunt us like wild beasts, neither more
nor less, and drag the poor before the courts. Well, evil will come of
it! you'll be the cause of some great calamity. Haven't I just seen
your keeper, that shuffling Vatel, half kill a poor old woman for a
stick of wood? It is such fellows as that who make you an enemy to the
poor; and the talk is very bitter against you. They curse you every
bit as hard as they used to bless the late Madame. The curse of the
poor, monseigneur, is a seed that grows,--grows taller than your tall
oaks, and oak-wood builds the scaffold. Nobody here tells you the
truth; and here it is, yes, the truth! I expect to die before long,
and I risk very little in telling it to you, the TRUTH! I, who play
for the peasants to dance at the great fetes at Soulanges, I heed what
the people say. Well, they're all against you; and they'll make it
impossible for you to stay here. If that damned Michaud of yours
doesn't change, they'll force you to change him. There! that
information AND the otter are worth twenty francs, and more too."
As the old fellow uttered the last words a man's step was heard, and
the individual just threatened by Fourchon entered unannounced. It was
easy to see from the glance he threw at the old man that the threat
had reached his ears, and all Fourchon's insolence sank in a moment.
The look produced precisely the same effect upon him that the eye of a
policeman produces on a thief. Fourchon knew he was wrong, and that
Michaud might very well accuse him of saying these things merely to
terrify the inhabitants of Les Aigues.
"This is the minister of war," said the general to Blondet, nodding at
Michaud.
"Pardon me, madame, for having entered without asking if you were
willing to receive me," said the newcomer to the countess; "but I have
urgent reasons for speaking to the general at once."
Michaud, as he said this, took notice of Sibilet, whose expression of
keen delight in Fourchon's daring words was not seen by the four
persons seated at the table, because they were so preoccupied by the
old man; whereas Michaud, who for secret reasons watched Sibilet
constantly, was struck with his air and manner.
"He has earned his twenty francs, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet;
"the otter is fully worth it."
"Give him twenty francs," said the general to the footman.
"Do you mean to take my otter away from me?" said Blondet to the
general.
"I shall have it stuffed," replied the latter.
"Ah! but that good gentleman said I might keep the skin," cried
Fourchon.
"Well, then," exclaimed the countess, hastily, "you shall have five
francs more for the skin; but go away now."
The powerful odor emitted by the pair made the dining-room so horribly
offensive that Madame de Montcornet, whose senses were very delicate,
would have been forced to leave the room if Fourchon and Mouche had
remained. To this circumstance the old man was indebted for his
twenty-five francs. He left the room with a timid glance at Michaud,
making him an interminable series of bows.
"What I was saying to monseigneur, Monsieur Michaud," he added, "was
really for your good."
"Or for that of those who pay you," replied Michaud, with a searching
look.
"When you have served the coffee, leave the room," said the general to
the servants, "and see that the doors are shut."
Blondet, who had not yet seen the bailiff of Les Aigues, was
conscious, as he now saw him, of a totally different impression from
that conveyed by Sibilet. Just as the steward inspired distrust and
repulsion, so Michaud commanded respect and confidence. The first
attraction of his presence was a happy face, of a fine oval, pure in
outline, in which the nose bore part,--a regularity which is lacking
in the majority of French faces. Though the features were correct in
drawing, they were not without expression, due, perhaps, to the
harmonious coloring of the warm brown and ochre tints, indicative of
physical health and strength. The clear brown eyes, which were bright
and piercing, kept no reserves in the expression of his thought; they
looked straight into the eyes of others. The broad white forehead was
thrown still further into relief by his abundant black hair. Honesty,
decision, and a saintly serenity were the animating points of this
noble face, where a few deep lines upon the brow were the result of
the man's military career. Doubt and suspicion could there be read the
moment they had entered his mind. His figure, like that of all men
selected for the elite of the cavalry service, though shapely and
elegant, was vigorously built. Michaud, who wore moustachios,
whiskers, and a chin beard, recalled that martial type of face which a
deluge of patriotic paintings and engravings came very near to making
ridiculous. This type had the defect of being common in the French
army; perhaps the continuance of the same emotions, the same camp
sufferings from which none were exempt, neither high nor low, and more
especially the same efforts of officers and men upon the battlefields,
may have contributed to produce this uniformity of
countenance. Michaud, who was dressed in dark blue cloth, still wore
the black satin stock and high boots of a soldier, which increased the
slight stiffness and rigidity of his bearing. The shoulders sloped,
the chest expanded, as though the man were still under arms. The red
ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. In short, to give
a last touch in one word about the moral qualities beneath this purely
physical presentment, it may be said that while the steward, from the
time he first entered upon his functions, never failed to call his
master "Monsieur le comte," Michaud never addressed him otherwise than
as "General."
Blondet exchanged another look with the Abbe Brossette, which meant,
"What a contrast!" as he signed to him to observe the two men. Then,
as if to know whether the character and mind and speech of the bailiff
harmonized with his form and countenance, he turned to Michaud and
said:--
"I was out early this morning, and found your under-keepers still
sleeping."
"At what hour?" said the late soldier, anxiously.
"Half-past seven."
Michaud gave a half-roguish glance at the general.
"By what gate did monsieur leave the park?" he asked.
"By the gate of Conches. The keeper, in his night-shirt, looked at me
through the window," replied Blondet.
"Gaillard had probably just gone to bed," answered Michaud. "You said
you were out early, and I thought you meant day-break. If my man were
at home at that time, he must have been ill; but at half-past seven he
was sure to be in bed. We are up all night," added Michaud, after a
slight pause, replying to a surprised look on the countess's face,
"but our watchfulness is often wasted. You have just given twenty-five
francs to a man who, not an hour ago, was quietly helping to hide the
traces of a robbery committed upon you this very morning. I came to
speak to you about it, general, when you have finished breakfast; for
something will have to be done."
"You are always for maintaining the right, my dear Michaud, and
'summum jus, summum injuria.' If you are not more tolerant, you will
get into trouble, so Sibilet here tells me. I wish you could have
heard Pere Fourchon just now; the wine he had been drinking made him
speak out."
"He frightened me," said the countess.
"He said nothing I did not know long ago," replied the general.
"Oh! the rascal wasn't drunk; he was playing a part; for whose benefit
I leave you to guess. Perhaps you know?" returned Michaud, fixing an
eye on Sibilet which caused the latter to turn red.
"O rus!" cried Blondet, with another look at the abbe.
"But these poor creatures suffer," said the countess, "and there is a
great deal of truth in what old Fourchon has just screamed at us,--for
I cannot call it speaking."
"Madame," replied Michaud, "do you suppose that for fourteen years the
soldiers of the Emperor slept on a bed of roses? My general is a
count, he is a grand officer of the Legion of honor, he has had
perquisites and endowments given to him; am I jealous of him, I who
fought as he did? Do I wish to cheat him of his glory, to steal his
perquisites, to deny him the honor due to his rank? The peasant should
obey as the soldier obeys; he should feel the loyalty of a soldier,
his respect for acquired rights, and strive to become an officer
himself, honorably, by labor and not by theft. The sabre and the
plough are twins; though the soldier has something more than the
peasant,--he has death hanging over him at any minute."
"I want to say that from the pulpit," cried the abbe.
"Tolerant!" continued the keeper, replying to the general's remark
about Sibilet, "I would tolerate a loss of ten per cent upon the gross
returns of Les Aigues; but as things are now thirty per cent is what
you lose, general; and, if Monsieur Sibilet's accounts show it, I
don't understand his tolerance, for he benevolently gives up a
thousand or twelve hundred francs a year."
"My dear Monsieur Michaud," replied Sibilet, in a snappish tone, "I
have told Monsieur le comte that I would rather lose twelve hundred
francs a year than my life. Think of it seriously; I have warned you
often enough."
"Life!" exclaimed the countess; "you can't mean that anybody's life is
in danger?"
"Don't let us argue about state affairs here," said the general,
laughing. "All this, my dear, merely means that Sibilet, in his
capacity of financier, is timid and cowardly, while the minister of
war is brave and, like his general, fears nothing."
"Call me prudent, Monsieur le comte," interposed Sibilet.
"Well, well!" cried Blondet, laughing, "so here we are, like Cooper's
heroes in the forests of America, in the midst of sieges and savages."
"Come, gentlemen, it is your business to govern without letting me
hear the wheels of the administration," said Madame de Montcornet.
"Ah! madame," said the cure, "but it may be right that you should know
the toil from which those pretty caps you wear are derived."
"Well, then, I can go without them," replied the countess, laughing.
"I will be very respectful to a twenty-franc piece, and grow as
miserly as the country people themselves. Come, my dear abbe, give me
your arm. Leave the general with his two ministers, and let us go to
the gate of the Avonne to see Madame Michaud, for I have not had time
since my arrival to pay her a visit, and I want to inquire about my
little protegee."
And the pretty woman, already forgetting the rags and tatters of
Mouche and Fourchon, and their eyes full of hatred, and Sibilet's
warnings, went to have herself made ready for the walk.
The abbe and Blondet obeyed the behest of the mistress of the house
and followed her from the dining-room, waiting till she was ready on
the terrace before the chateau.
"What do you think of all this?" said Blondet to the abbe.
"I am a pariah; they dog me as they would a common enemy. I am forced
to keep my eyes and ears perpetually open to escape the traps they are
constantly laying to get me out of the place," replied the abbe. "I am
even doubtful, between ourselves, as to whether they will not shoot
me."
"Why do you stay?" said Blondet.
"We can't desert God's cause any more than that of an emperor,"
replied the priest, with a simplicity that affected Blondet. He took
the abbe's hand and shook it cordially.
"You see how it is, therefore, that I know very little of the plots
that are going on," continued the abbe. "Still, I know enough to feel
sure that the general is under what in Artois and in Belgium is called
an 'evil grudge.'"
A few words are here necessary about the curate of Blangy.
This priest, the fourth son of a worthy middle-class family of Autun,
was an intelligent man carrying his head high in his collar. Small and
slight, he redeemed his rather puny appearance by the precise and
carefully dressed air that belongs to Burgundians. He accepted the
second-rate post of Blangy out of pure devotion, for his religious
convictions were joined to political opinions that were equally
strong. There was something of the priest of the olden time about him;
he held to the Church and to the clergy passionately; saw the bearings
of things, and no selfishness marred his one ambition, which was TO
SERVE. That was his motto,--to serve the Church and the monarchy
wherever it was most threatened; to serve in the lowest rank like a
soldier who feels that he is destined, sooner or later, to attain
command through courage and the resolve to do his duty. He made no
compromises with his vows of chastity, and poverty, and obedience; he
fulfilled them, as he did the other duties of his position, with that
simplicity and cheerful good-humor which are the sure indications of
an honest heart, constrained to do right by natural impulses as much
as by the power and consistency of religious convictions.
The priest had seen at first sight Blondet's attachment to the
countess; he saw that between a Troisville and a monarchical
journalist he could safely show himself to be a man of broad
intelligence, because his calling was certain to be respected. He
usually came to the chateau very evening to make the fourth at a game
of whist. The journalist, able to recognize the abbe's real merits,
showed him so much deference that the pair grew into sympathy with
each other; as usually happens when men of intelligence meet their
equals, or, if you prefer it, the ears that are able to hear them.
Swords are fond of their scabbards.
"But to what do you attribute this state of things, Monsieur l'abbe,
you who are able, through your disinterestedness, to look over the
heads of things?"
"I shall not talk platitudes after such a flattering speech as that,"
said the abbe, smiling. "What is going on in this valley is spreading
more or less throughout France; it is the outcome of the hopes which
the upheaval of 1789 caused to infiltrate, if I may use that
expression, the minds of the peasantry, the sons of the soil. The
Revolution affected certain localities more than others. This side of
Burgundy, nearest to Paris, is one of those places where the
revolutionary ideas spread like the overrunning of the Franks by the
Gauls. Historically, the peasants are still on the morrow of the
Jacquerie; that defeat is burnt in upon their brain. They have long
forgotten the facts which have now passed into the condition of an
instinctive idea. That idea is bred in the peasant blood, just as the
idea of superiority was once bred in noble blood. The revolution of
1789 was the retaliation of the vanquished. The peasants then set foot
in possession of the soil which the feudal law had denied them for
over twelve hundred years. Hence their desire for land, which they now
cut up among themselves until actually they divide a furrow into two
parts; which, by the bye, often hinders or prevents the collection of
taxes, for the value of such fractions of property is not sufficient
to pay the legal costs of recovering them."
"Very true, for the obstinacy of the small owners--their
aggressiveness, if you choose--on this point is so great that in at
least one thousand cantons of the three thousand of French territory,
it is impossible for a rich man to buy an inch of land from a
peasant," said Blondet, interrupting the abbe. "The peasants who are
willing to divide up their scraps of land among themselves would not
sell a fraction on any condition or at any price to the middle
classes. The more money the rich man offers, the more the vague
uneasiness of the peasant increases. Legal dispossession alone is able
to bring the landed property of the peasant into the market. Many
persons have noticed this fact without being able to find a reason for
it."
"This is the reason," said the abbe, rightly believing that a pause
with Blondet was equivalent to a question: "twelve centuries have done
nothing for a caste whom the historic spectacle of civilization has
never yet diverted from its one predominating thought,--a caste which
still wears proudly the broad-brimmed hat of its masters, ever since
an abandoned fashion placed it upon their heads. That all-pervading
thought, the roots of which are in the bowels of the people, and which
attached them so vehemently to Napoleon (who was personally less to
them than he thought he was) and which explains the miracle of his
return in 1815,--that desire for land is the sole motive power of the
peasant's being. In the eyes of the masses Napoleon, ever one with
them through his million of soldiers, is still the king born of the
Revolution; the man who gave them possession of the soil and sold to
them the national domains. His anointing was saturated with that
idea."
"An idea to which 1814 dealt a blow, an idea which monarchy should
hold sacred," said Blondet, quickly; "for the people may some day find
on the steps of the throne a prince whose father bequeathed to him the
head of Louis XVI. as an heirloom."
"Here is madame; don't say any more," said the abbe, in a low voice.
"Fourchon has frightened her; and it is very desirable to keep her
here in the interests of religion and of the throne, and, indeed, in
those of the people themselves."
Michaud, the bailiff of Les Aigues, had come to the chateau in
consequence of the assault on Vatel's eyes. But before we relate the
consultation which then and there took place, the chain of events
requires a succinct account of the circumstances under which the
general purchased Les Aigues, the serious causes which led to the
appointment of Sibilet as steward of that magnificent property, and
the reasons why Michaud was made bailiff, with all the other
antecedents to which were due the tension of the minds of all, and the
fears expressed by Sibilet.
This rapid summary will have the merit of introducing some of the
principal actors in this drama, and of exhibiting their individual
interests; we shall thus be enabled to show the dangers which
surrounded the General comte de Montcornet at the moment when this
history opens.
CHAPTER VI
A TALE OF THIEVES
When Mademoiselle Laguerre first visited her estate, in 1791, she took
as steward the son of the ex-bailiff of Soulanges, named Gaubertin.
The little town of Soulanges, at present nothing more than the chief
town of a canton, was once the capital of a considerable county, in
the days when the House of Burgundy made war upon France. Ville-aux-
Fayes, now the seat of the sub-prefecture, then a mere fief, was a
dependency of Soulanges, like Les Aigues, Ronquerolles, Cerneux,
Conches, and a score of other parishes. The Soulanges have remained
counts, whereas the Ronquerolles are now marquises by the will of that
power, called the Court, which made the son of Captain du Plessis duke
over the heads of the first families of the Conquest. All of which
serves to prove that towns, like families, are variable in their
destiny.
Gaubertin, a young man without property of any kind, succeeded a
steward enriched by a management of thirty years, who preferred to
become a partner in the famous firm of Minoret rather than continue to
administer Les Aigues. In his own interests he introduced into his
place as land-steward Francois Gaubertin, his accountant for five
years, whom he now relied on to cover his retreat, and who, out of
gratitude for his instructions, promised to obtain for him a release
in full of all claims from Madame Laguerre, who by this time was
terrified at the Revolution. Gaubertin's father, the attorney-general
of the department, henceforth protected the timid woman. This
provincial Fouquier-Tinville raised a false alarm of danger in the
mind of the opera-divinity on the ground of her former relations to
the aristocracy, so as to give his son the equally false credit of
saving her life; on the strength of which Gaubertin the younger
obtained very easily the release of his predecessor. Mademoiselle
Laguerre then made Francois Gaubertin her prime minister, as much
through policy as from gratitude. The late steward had not spoiled
her. He sent her, every year, about thirty thousand francs, though Les
Aigues brought in at that time at least forty thousand. The
unsuspecting opera-singer was therefore much delighted when the new
steward Gaubertin promised her thirty-six thousand.
To explain the present fortune of the land-steward of Les Aigues
before the judgment-seat of probability, it is necessary to state its
beginnings. Pushed by his father's influence, he became mayor of
Blangy. Thus he was able, contrary to law, to make the debtors pay in
coin, by "terrorizing" (a phrase of the day) such of them as might, in
his opinion, be subjected to the crushing demands of the Republic. He
himself paid the citizens in assignats as long as the system of paper
money lasted,--a system which, if it did not make the nation
prosperous, at least made the fortunes of private individuals. From
1793 to 1795, that is, for three years, Francois Gaubertin wrung one
hundred and fifty thousand francs out of Les Aigues, with which he
speculated on the stock-market in Paris. With her purse full of
assignats Mademoiselle was actually obliged to obtain ready money from
her diamonds, now useless to her. She gave them to Gaubertin, who sold
them, and faithfully returned to her their full price. This proof of
honesty touched her heart; henceforth she believed in Gaubertin as she
did in Piccini.
In 1796, at the time of his marriage with the citoyenne Isaure
Mouchon, daughter of an old "conventional," a friend of his father,
Gaubertin possessed about three hundred and fifty thousand francs in
money. As the Directory seemed to him likely to last, he determined,
before marrying, to have the accounts of his five years' stewardship
ratified by Mademoiselle, under pretext of a new departure.
"I am to be the head of a family," he said to her; "you know the
reputation of land-stewards; my father-in-law is a republican of Roman
austerity, and a man of influence as well; I want to prove to him that
I am as upright as he."
Mademoiselle Laguerre accepted his accounts at once in very flattering
terms.
In those earlier days the steward had endeavored, in order to win the
confidence of Madame des Aigues (as Mademoiselle was then called) to
repress the depredations of the peasantry; fearing, and not without
reason, that the revenues would suffer too severely, and that his
private bonus from the buyers of the timber would sensibly diminish.
But in those days the sovereign people felt the soil was their own
everywhere; Madame was afraid of the surrounding kings and told her
Richelieu that the first desire of her soul was to die in peace. The
revenues of the late singer were so far in excess of her expenses that
she allowed all the worst, and, as it proved, fatal precedents to be
established. To avoid a lawsuit, she allowed the neighbors to encroach
upon her land. Knowing that the park walls were sufficient protection,
she did not fear any interruption of her personal comfort, and cared
for nothing but her peaceful existence, true philosopher that she was!
A few thousand a year more or less, the indemnities exacted by the
wood-merchants for the damages committed by the peasants,--what were
they to a careless and extravagant Opera-girl, who had gained her
hundred thousand francs a year at the cost of pleasure only, and who
had just submitted, without a word of remonstrance, to a reduction of
two thirds of an income of sixty thousand francs?
"Dear me!" she said, in the easy tone of the wantons of the old time,
"people must live, even if they are republicans."
The terrible Mademoiselle Cochet, her maid and female vizier, had
tried to enlighten her mistress when she saw the ascendency Gaubertin
was obtaining over one whom he began by calling "Madame" in defiance
of the revolutionary laws about equality; but Gaubertin, in his turn,
enlightened Mademoiselle Cochet by showing her a so-called
denunciation sent to his father, the prosecuting attorney, in which
she was vehemently accused of corresponding with Pitt and Coburg. From
that time forward the two powers went on shares--shares a la
Montgomery. Cochet praised Gaubertin to Madame, and Gaubertin praised
Cochet. The waiting-maid had already made her own bed, and knew she
was down for sixty thousand francs in the will. Madame could not do
without Cochet, to whom she was accustomed. The woman knew the secrets
of dear mistress's toilet; she alone could put dear mistress to sleep
at night with her gossip, and get her up in the morning with her
flattery; to the day of dear mistress's death the maid never could see
the slightest change in her, and when dear mistress lay in her coffin,
she doubtless thought she had never seen her looking so well.
The annual pickings of Gaubertin and Mademoiselle Cochet, their wages
and perquisites, became so large that the most affectionate relative
could not possibly have been more devoted than they to their kindly
mistress. There is really no describing how a swindler cossets his
dupe. A mother is not so tender nor so solicitous for a beloved
daughter as the practitioner of tartuferie for his milch cow. What
brilliant success attends the performance of Tartufe behind the closed
doors of a home! It is worth more than friendship. Moliere died too
soon; he would otherwise have shown us the misery of Orgon, wearied by
his family, harassed by his children, regretting the blandishments of
Tartufe, and thinking to himself, "Ah, those were the good times!"
During the last eight years of her life the mistress of Les Aigues
received only thirty thousand francs of the fifty thousand really
yielded by the estate. Gaubertin had reached the same administrative
results as his predecessor, though farm rents and territorial products
were notably increased between 1791 and 1815,--not to speak of
Madame's continual purchases. But Gaubertin's fixed idea of acquiring
Les Aigues at the old lady's death led him to depreciate the value of
the magnificent estate in the matter of its ostensible revenues.
Mademoiselle Cochet, a sharer in the scheme, was also to share the
profits. As the ex-divinity in her declining years received an income
of twenty thousand francs from the Funds called consolidated (how
readily the tongue of politics can jest!), and with difficulty spent
the said sum yearly, she was much surprised at the annual purchases
made by her steward to use up the accumulating revenues, remembering
how in former times she had always drawn them in advance. The result
of having few wants in her old age seemed, to her mind, a proof of the
honesty and uprightness of Gaubertin and Mademoiselle Cochet.
"Two pearls!" she said to the persons who came to see her.
Gaubertin kept his accounts with apparent honesty. He entered all
rentals duly. Everything that could strike the feeble mind of the late
singer, so far as arithmetic went, was clear and precise. The steward
took his commission on all disbursements,--on the costs of working the
estate, on rentals made, on suits brought, on work done, on repairs of
every kind,--details which Madame never dreamed of verifying, and for
which he sometimes charged twice over by collusion with the
contractors, whose silence was bought by permission to charge the
highest prices. These methods of dealing conciliated public opinion in
favor of Gaubertin, while Madame's praise was on every lip; for
besides the payments she disbursed for work, she gave away large sums
of money in alms.
"May God preserve her, the dear lady!" was heard on all sides.
The truth was, everybody got something out of her, either indirectly
or as a downright gift. In reprisals, as it were, of her youth the old
actress was pillaged; so discreetly pillaged, however, that those who
throve upon her kept their depredations within certain limits lest
even her eyes might be opened and she should sell Les Aigues and
return to Paris.
This system of "pickings" was, alas! the cause of Paul-Louis Carter's
assassination; he committed the mistake of advertising the sale of his
estate and allowing it to be known that he should take away his wife,
on whom a number of the Tonsards of Lorraine were battening. Fearing
to lose Madame des Aigues, the marauders on the estate forbore to cut
the young trees, unless pushed to extremities by finding no branches
within reach of shears fastened to long poles. In the interests of
robbery, they did as little harm as they could; although, during the
last years of Madame's life, the habit of cutting wood became more and
more barefaced. On certain clear nights not less than two hundred
bundles were taken. As to the gleaning of fields and vineyards, Les
Aigues lost, as Sibilet had pointed out, not less than one quarter of
its products.
Madame des Aigues had forbidden Cochet to marry during her lifetime,
with the selfishness often shown in all countries by a mistress to a
maid; which is not more irrational than the mania for keeping
possession, until our last gasp, of property that is utterly useless
to our material comfort, at the risk of being poisoned by impatient
heirs. Twenty days after the old lady's burial Mademoiselle Cochet
married the brigadier of the gendarmerie of Soulanges, named Soudry, a
handsome man, forty-two years of age, who, ever since 1800 (in which
year the gendarmerie was formed) had come every day to Les Aigues to
see the waiting-maid, and dined with her at least three times a week
at the Gaubertins'.
During Madame's lifetime dinner was served to her and to her company
by themselves. Neither Cochet nor Gaubertin, in spite of their great
familiarity with the mistress, was ever admitted to her table; the
leading lady of the Academie Royale retained, to her last hour, her
sense of etiquette, her style of dress, her rouge and her heeled
slippers, her carriage, her servants, and the majesty of her
deportment. A divinity at the Opera, a divinity within her range of
Parisian social life, she continued a divinity in the country
solitudes, where her memory is still worshipped, and still holds its
own against that of the old monarchy in the minds of the "best
society" of Soulanges.
Soudry, who had paid his addresses to Mademoiselle Cochet from the
time he first came into the neighborhood, owned the finest house in
Soulanges, an income of six thousand francs, and the prospect of a
retiring pension whenever he should quit the service. As soon as
Cochet became Madame Soudry she was treated with great consideration
in the town. Though she kept the strictest secrecy as to the amount of
her savings,--which were intrusted, like those of Gaubertin, to the
commissary of wine-merchants of the department in Paris, a certain
Leclercq, a native of Soulanges, to whom Gaubertin supplied funds as
sleeping partner in his business,--public opinion credited the former
waiting-maid with one of the largest fortunes in the little town of
twelve hundred inhabitants.
To the great astonishment of every one, Monsieur and Madame Soudry
acknowledged as legitimate, in their marriage contract, a natural son
of the gendarme, to whom, in future, Madame Soudry's fortune was to
descend. At the time when this son was legally supplied with a mother,
he had just ended his law studies in Paris and was about to enter into
practice, with the intention of fitting himself for the magistracy.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a mutual understanding of
twenty years had produced the closest intimacy between the families of
Gaubertin and Soudry. Both reciprocally declared themselves, to the
end of their days, "urbi et orbi," to be the most upright and
honorable persons in all France. Such community of interests, based on
the mutual knowledge of the secret spots on the white garment of
conscience, is one of the ties least recognized and hardest to untie
in this low world. You who read this social drama, have you never felt
a conviction as to two persons which has led you to say to yourself,
in order to explain the continuance of a faithful devotion which made
your own egotism blush, "They must surely have committed some crime
together"?
After an administration of twenty-five years, Gaubertin, the landsteward,
found himself in possession of six hundred thousand francs in
money, and Cochet had accumulated nearly two hundred and fifty
thousand. The rapid and constant turning over and over of their funds
in the hands of Leclercq and Company (on the quai Bethume, Ile Saint
Louis, rivals of the famous house of Grandet) was a great assistance
to the fortunes of all parties. On the death of Mademoiselle Laguerre,
Jenny, the steward's eldest daughter was asked in marriage by
Leclercq. Gaubertin expected at that time to become owner of Les
Aigues by means of a plot laid in the private office of Lupin, the
notary, whom the steward had set up and maintained in business within
the last twelve years.
Lupin, a son of the former steward of the estate of Soulanges, had
lent himself to various slight peculations,--investments at fifty per
cent below par, notices published surreptitiously, and all the other
manoeuvres, unhappily common in the provinces, to wrap a mantle, as
the saying is, over the clandestine manipulations of property. Lately
a company has been formed in Paris, so they say, to levy contributions
upon such plotters under a threat of outbidding them. But in 1816
France was not, as it is now, lighted by a flaming publicity; the
accomplices might safely count on dividing Les Aigues among them, that
is, between Cochet, the notary, and Gaubertin, the latter of whom
reserved to himself, "in petto," the intention of buying the others
out for a sum down, as soon as the property fairly stood in his own
name. The lawyer employed by the notary to manage the sale of the
estate was under personal obligations to Gaubertin, so that he favored
the spoliation of the heirs, unless any of the eleven farmers of
Picardy should take it into their heads to think they were cheated,
and inquire into the real value of the property.
Just as those interested expected to find their fortunes made, a
lawyer came from Paris on the evening before the final settlement, and
employed a notary at Ville-aux-Fayes, who happened to be one of his
former clerks, to buy the estate of Les Aigues, which he did for
eleven hundred thousand francs. None of the conspirators dared outbid
an offer of eleven hundred thousand francs. Gaubertin suspected some
treachery on Soudry's part, and Soudry and Lupin thought they were
tricked by Gaubertin. But a statement on the part of the purchasing
agent, the notary of Ville-aux-Fayes, disabused them of these
suspicions. The latter, though suspecting the plan formed by
Gaubertin, Lupin, and Soudry, refrained from informing the lawyer in
Paris, for the reason that if the new owners indiscreetly repeated his
words, he would have too many enemies at his heels to be able to stay
where he was. This reticence, peculiar to provincials, was in this
particular case amply justified by succeeding events. If the dwellers
in the provinces are dissemblers, they are forced to be so; their
excuse lies in the danger expressed in the old proverb, "We must howl
with the wolves," a meaning which underlies the character of
Phillinte.
When General Montcornet took possession of Les Aigues, Gaubertin was
no longer rich enough to give up his place. In order to marry his
daughter to a rich banker he was obliged to give her a dowry of two
hundred thousand francs; he had to pay thirty thousand for his son's
practice; and all that remained of his accumulations was three hundred
and seventy thousand, out of which he would be forced, sooner or
later, to pay the dowry of his remaining daughter, Elise, for whom he
hoped to arrange a marriage at least as good as that of her sister.
The steward determined to study the general, in order to find out if
he could disgust him with the place,--hoping still to be able to carry
out his defeated plan in his own interests.
With the peculiar instinct which characterizes those who make their
fortunes by craft, Gaubertin believed in a resemblance of nature
(which was not improbable) between an old soldier and an Opera-singer.
An actress, and a general of the Empire,--surely they would have the
same extravagant habits, the same careless prodigality? To the one as
to the other, riches came capriciously and by lucky chances. If some
soldiers are wily and astute and clever politicians, they are
exceptions; a soldier is, usually, especially an accomplished cavalry
officer like Montcornet, guileless, confident, a novice in business,
and little fitted to understand details in the management of an
estate. Gaubertin flattered himself that he could catch and hold the
general with the same net in which Mademoiselle Laguerre had finished
her days. But it so happened that the Emperor had once, intentionally,
allowed Montcornet to play the same game in Pomerania that Gaubertin
was playing at Les Aigues; consequently, the general fully understood
a system of plundering.
In planting cabbages, to use the expression of the first Duc de Biron,
the old cuirassier sought to divert his mind, by occupation, from
dwelling on his fall. Though he had yielded his "corps d'armee" to the
Bourbons, that duty (performed by other generals and termed the
disbanding of the army of the Loire) could not atone for the crime of
having followed the man of the Hundred-Days to his last battle-field.
In presence of the allied army it was impossible for the peer of 1815
to remain in the service, still less at the Luxembourg. Accordingly,
Montcornet betook himself to the country by advice of a dismissed
marshal, to plunder Nature herself. The general was not deficient in
the special cunning of an old military fox; and after he had spent a
few days in examining his new property, he saw that Gaubertin was a
steward of the old system,--a swindler, such as the dukes and marshals
of the Empire, those mushrooms bred from the common earth, were well
acquainted with.
The wily general, soon aware of Gaubertin's great experience in rural
administration, felt it was politic to keep well with him until he had
himself learned the secrets of it; accordingly, he passed himself off
as another Mademoiselle Laguerre, a course which lulled the steward
into false security. This apparent simple-mindedness lasted all the
time it took the general to learn the strength and weakness of Les
Aigues, to master the details of its revenues and the manner of
collecting them, and to ascertain how and where the robberies
occurred, together with the betterments and economies which ought to
be undertaken. Then, one fine morning, having caught Gaubertin with
his hand in the bag, as the saying is, the general flew into one of
those rages peculiar to the imperial conquerors of many lands. In
doing so he committed a capital blunder,--one that would have ruined
the whole life of a man of less wealth and less consistency than
himself, and from which came the evils, both small and great, with
which the present history teems. Brought up in the imperial school,
accustomed to deal with men as a dictator, and full of contempt for
"civilians," Montcornet did not trouble himself to wear gloves when it
came to putting a rascal of a land-steward out of doors. Civil life
and its precautions were things unknown to the soldier already
embittered by his loss of rank. He humiliated Gaubertin ruthlessly,
though the latter drew the harsh treatment upon himself by a cynical
reply which roused Montcornet's anger.
"You are living off my land," said the general, with jesting severity.
"Do you think I can live off the sky?" returned Gaubertin, with a
sneer.
"Out of my sight, blackguard! I dismiss you!" cried the general,
striking him with his whip,--blows which the steward always denied
having received, for they were given behind closed doors.
"I shall not go without my release in full," said Gaubertin, coldly,
keeping at a distance from the enraged soldier.
"We will see what is thought of you in a police court," replied
Montcornet, shrugging his shoulders.
Hearing the threat, Gaubertin looked at the general and smiled. The
smile had the effect of relaxing Montcornet's arms as though the
sinews had been cut. We must explain that smile.
For the last two years, Gaubertin's brother-in-law, a man named
Gendrin, long a justice of the municipal court of Ville-aux-Fayes, had
become the president of that court through the influence of the Comte
de Soulanges. The latter was made peer of France in 1814, and remained
faithful to the Bourbons during the Hundred-Days, therefore the Keeper
of the Seals readily granted an appointment at his request. This
relationship gave Gaubertin a certain importance in the country. The
president of the court of a little town is, relatively, a greater
personage than the president of one of the royal courts of a great
city, who has various equals, such as generals, bishops, and prefects;
whereas the judge of the court of a small town has none,--the
attorney-general and the sub-prefect being removable at will. Young
Soudry, a companion of Gaubertin's son in Paris as well as at Les
Aigues, had just been appointed assistant attorney in the capital of
the department. Before the elder Soudry, a quartermaster in the
artillery, became a brigadier of gendarmes, he had been wounded in a
skirmish while defending Monsieur de Soulanges, then adjutant-general.
At the time of the creation of the gendarmerie, the Comte de
Soulanges, who by that time had become a colonel, asked for a brigade
for his former protector, and later still he solicited the post we
have named for the younger Soudry. Besides all these influences, the
marriage of Mademoiselle Gaubertin with a wealthy banker of the quai
Bethume made the unjust steward feel that he was far stronger in the
community than a lieutenant-general driven into retirement.
If this history provided no other instruction that that offered by the
quarrel between the general and his steward, it would still be useful
to many persons as a lesson for their conduct in life. He who reads
Machiavelli profitably, knows that human prudence consists in never
threatening; in doing but not saying; in promoting the retreat of an
enemy and never stepping, as the saying is, on the tail of the
serpent; and in avoiding, as one would murder, the infliction of a
blow to the self-love of any one lower than one's self. An injury done
to a person's interest, no matter how great it may be at the time, is
forgiven or explained in the long run; but self-love, vanity, never
ceases to bleed from a wound given, and never forgives it. The moral
being is actually more sensitive, more living as it were, than the
physical being. The heart and the blood are less impressible than the
nerves. In short, our inward being rules us, no matter what we do. You
may reconcile two families who have half-killed each other, as in
Brittany and in La Vendee during the civil wars, but you can no more
reconcile the calumniators and the calumniated than you can the
spoilers and the despoiled. It is only in epic poems that men curse
each other before they kill. The savage, and the peasant who is much
like a savage, seldom speak unless to deceive an enemy. Ever since
1789 France has been trying to make man believe, against all evidence,
that they are equal. To say to a man, "You are a swindler," may be
taken as a joke; but to catch him in the act and prove it to him with
a cane on his back, to threaten him with a police-court and not follow
up the threat, is to remind him of the inequality of conditions. If
the masses will not brook any species of superiority, is it likely
that a swindler will forgive that of an honest man?
Montcornet might have dismissed his steward under pretext of paying
off a military obligation by putting some old soldier in his place;
Gaubertin and the general would have understood the matter, and the
latter, by sparing the steward's self-love would have given him a
chance to withdraw quietly. Gaubertin, in that case, would have left
his late employer in peace, and possibly he might have taken himself
and his savings to Paris for investment. But being, as he was,
ignominiously dismissed, the man conceived against his late master one
of those bitter hatreds which are literally a part of existence in
provincial life, the persistency, duration, and plots of which would
astonish diplomatists who are trained to let nothing astonish them. A
burning desire for vengeance led him to settle at Ville-aux-Fayes, and
to take a position where he could injure Montcornet and stir up
sufficient enmity against to force him to sell Les Aigues.
The general was deceived by appearances; for Gaubertin's external
behavior was not of a nature to warn or to alarm him. The late steward
followed his old custom of pretending, not exactly poverty, but
limited means. For years he had talked of his wife and three children,
and the heavy expenses of a large family. Mademoiselle Laguerre, to
whom he had declared himself too poor to educate his son in Paris,
paid the costs herself, and allowed her dear godson (for she was
Claude Gaubertin's sponsor) two thousand francs a year.
The day after the quarrel, Gaubertin came, with a keeper named
Courtecuisse, and demanded with much insolence his release in full of
all claims, showing the general the one he had obtained from his late
mistress in such flattering terms, and asking, ironically, that a
search should be made for the property, real and otherwise, which he
was supposed to have stolen. If he had received fees from the woodmerchants
on their purchases and from the farmers on their leases,
Mademoiselle Laguerre, he said, had always allowed it; not only did
she gain by the bargains he made, but everything went on smoothly
without troubling her. The country-people would have died, he
remarked, for Mademoiselle, whereas the general was laying up for
himself a store of difficulties.
Gaubertin--and this trait is frequently to be seen in the majority of
those professions in which the property of others can be taken by
means not foreseen by the Code--considered himself a perfectly honest
man. In the first place, he had so long had possession of the money
extorted from Mademoiselle Laguerre's farmers through fear, and paid
in assignats, that he regarded it as legitimately acquired. It was a
mere matter of exchange. He thought that in the end he should have
quite as much risk with coin as with paper. Besides, legally,
Mademoiselle had no right to receive any payment except in assignats.
"Legally" is a fine, robust adverb, which bolsters up many a fortune!
Moreover, he reflected that ever since great estates and land-agents
had existed, that is, ever since the origin of society, the said
agents had set up, for their own use, an argument such as we find our
cooks using in this present day. Here it is, in its simplicity:--
"If my mistress," says the cook, "went to market herself, she would
have to pay more for her provisions than I charge her; she is the
gainer, and the profits I make do more good in my hands than in those
of the dealers."
"If Mademoiselle," thought Gaubertin, "were to manage Les Aigues
herself, she would never get thirty thousand francs a year out of it;
the peasants, the dealers, the workmen would rob her of the rest. It
is much better that I should have it, and so enable her to live in
peace."
The Catholic religion, and it alone, is able to prevent these
capitulations of conscience. But, ever since 1789 religion has no
influence on two thirds of the French people. The peasants, whose
minds are keen and whose poverty drives them to imitation, had
reached, specially in the valley of Les Aigues, a frightful state of
demoralization. They went to mass on Sundays, but only at the outside
of the church, where it was their custom to meet and transact business
and make their weekly bargains.
We can now estimate the extent of the evil done by the careless
indifference of the great singer to the management of her property.
Mademoiselle Laguerre betrayed, through mere selfishness, the
interests of those who owned property, who are held in perpetual
hatred by those who own none. Since 1792 the land-owners of Paris have
become of necessity a combined body. If, alas, the feudal families,
less numerous than the middle-class families, did not perceive the
necessity of combining in 1400 under Louis XI., nor in 1600 under
Richelieu, can we expect that in this nineteenth century of progress
the middle classes will prove to be more permanently and solidly
combined that the old nobility? An oligarchy of a hundred thousand
rich men presents all the dangers of a democracy with none of its
advantages. The principle of "every man for himself and for his own,"
the selfishness of individual interests, will kill the oligarchical
selfishness so necessary to the existence of modern society, and which
England has practised with such success for the last three centuries.
Whatever may be said or done, land-owners will never understand the
necessity of the sort of internal discipline which made the Church
such an admirable model of government, until, too late, they find
themselves in danger from one another. The audacity with which
communism, that living and acting logic of democracy, attacks society
from the moral side, shows plainly that the Samson of to-day, grown
prudent, is undermining the foundations of the cellar, instead of
shaking the pillars of the hall.
CHAPTER VII
CERTAIN LOST SOCIAL SPECIES
The estate of Les Aigues could not do without a steward; for the
general had no intention of renouncing his winter pleasures in Paris,
where he owned a fine house in the rue Neuve-des-Mathurines. He
therefore looked about for a successor to Gaubertin; but it is very
certain that his search was not as eager as that of Gaubertin himself,
who was seeking for the right person to put in his way.
Of all confidential positions there is none that requires more trained
knowledge of its kind, or more activity, than that of land-steward to
a great estate. The difficulty of finding the right man is only fully
known to those wealthy landlords whose property lies beyond a certain
circle around Paris, beginning at a distance of about one hundred and
fifty miles. At that point agricultural productions for the markets of
Paris, which warrant rentals on long leases (collected often by other
tenants who are rich themselves), cease to be cultivated. The farmers
who raise them drive to the city in their own cabriolets to pay their
rents in good bank-bills, unless they send the money through their
agents in the markets. For this reason, the farms of the Seine-et-
Oise, Seine-et-Marne, the Oise, the Eure-et-Loir, the Lower Seine, and
the Loiret are so desirable that capital cannot always be invested
there at one and a half per cent. Compared to the returns on estates
in Holland, England, and Belgium, this result is enormous. But at one
hundred miles from Paris an estate requires such variety of working,
its products are so different in kind, that it becomes a business,
with all the risks attendant on manufacturing. The wealthy owner is
really a merchant, forced to look for a market for his products, like
the owner of ironworks or cotton factories. He does not even escape
competition; the peasant, the small proprietor, is at his heels with
an avidity which leads to transactions to which well-bred persons
cannot condescend.
A land-steward must understand surveying, the customs of the locality,
the methods of sale and of labor, together with a little quibbling in
the interests of those he serves; he must also understand book-keeping
and commercial matters, and be in perfect health, with a liking for
active life and horse exercise. His duty being to represent his master
and to be always in communication with him, the steward ought not to
be a man of the people. As the salary of his office seldom exceeds
three thousand francs, the problem seems insoluble. How is it possible
to obtain so many qualifications for such a very moderate price,--in a
region, moreover, where the men who are provided with them are
admissible to all other employments? Bring down a stranger to fill the
place, and you will pay dear for the experience he must acquire. Train
a young man on the spot, and you are more than likely to get a thorn
of ingratitude in your side. It therefore becomes necessary to choose
between incompetent honesty, which injures your property through its
blindness and inertia, and the cleverness which looks out for itself.
Hence the social nomenclature and natural history of land-stewards as
defined by a great Polish noble.
"There are," he said, "two kinds of stewards: he who thinks only of
himself, and he who thinks of himself and of us; happy the land-owner
who lays his hands on the latter! As for the steward who would think
only of us, he is not to be met with."
Elsewhere can be found a steward who thought of this master's
interests as well as of his own. ("Un Debut dans la vie," "Scenes de
la vie privee.") Gaubertin is the steward who thinks of himself only.
To represent the third figure of the problem would be to hold up to
public admiration a very unlikely personage, yet one that was not
unknown to the old nobility, though he has, alas! disappeared with
them. (See "Le Cabinet des Antiques," "Scenes de la vie de province.")
Through the endless subdivision of fortunes aristocratic habits and
customs are inevitably changed. If there be not now in France twenty
great fortunes managed by intendants, in fifty years from now there
will not be a hundred estates in the hands of stewards, unless a great
change is made in the law. Every land-owner will be brought by that
time to look after his own interests.
This transformation, already begun, suggested the following answer of
a clever woman when asked why, since 1830, she stayed in Paris during
the summer. "Because," she said, "I do not care to visit chateaux
which are now turned into farms." What is to be the future of this
question, getting daily more and more imperative,--that of man to man,
the poor man and the rich man? This book is written to throw some
light upon that terrible social question.
It is easy to understand the perplexities which assailed the general
after he had dismissed Gaubertin. While saying to himself, vaguely,
like other persons free to do or not to do a thing, "I'll dismiss that
scamp"; he had overlooked the risk and forgotten the explosion of his
boiling anger,--the anger of a choleric fire-eater at the moment when
a flagrant imposition forced him to raise the lids of his wilfully
blind eyes.
Montcornet, a land-owner for the first time and a denizen of Paris,
had not provided himself with a steward before coming to Les Aigues;
but after studying the neighborhood carefully he saw it was
indispensable to a man like himself to have an intermediary to manage
so many persons of low degree.
Gaubertin, who discovered during the excitement of the scene (which
lasted more than two hours) the difficulties in which the general
would soon be involved, jumped on his pony after leaving the room
where the quarrel took place, and galloped to Soulanges to consult the
Soudrys. At his first words, "The general and I have parted; whom can
we put in my place without his suspecting it?" the Soudrys understood
their friend's wishes. Do not forget that Soudry, for the last
seventeen years chief of police of the canton, was doubly shrewd
through his wife, an adept in the particular wiliness of a waitingmaid
of an Opera divinity.
"We may go far," said Madame Soudry, "before we find any one to suit
the place as well as our poor Sibilet."
"Made to order!" exclaimed Gaubertin, still scarlet with
mortification. "Lupin," he added, turning to the notary, who was
present, "go to Ville-aux-Fayes and whisper it to Marechal, in case
that big fire-eater asks his advice."
Marechal was the lawyer whom his former patron, when buying Les Aigues
for the general, had recommended to Monsieur de Montcornet as legal
adviser.
Sibilet, eldest son of the clerk of the court at Ville-aux-Fayes, a
notary's clerk, without a penny of his own, and twenty-five years old,
had fallen in love with the daughter of the chief-magistrate of
Soulanges. The latter, named Sarcus, had a salary of fifteen hundred
francs, and was married to a woman without fortune, the eldest sister
of Monsieur Vermut, the apothecary of Soulanges. Though an only
daughter, Mademoiselle Sarcus, whose beauty was her only dowry, could
scarcely have lived on the salary paid to a notary's clerk in the
provinces. Young Sibilet, a relative of Gaubertin, by a connection
rather difficult to trace through family ramifications which make
members of the middle classes in all the smaller towns cousins to each
other, owed a modest position in a government office to the assistance
of his father and Gaubertin. The unlucky fellow had the terrible
happiness of being the father of two children in three years. His own
father, blessed with five, was unable to assist him. His wife's father
owned nothing beside his house at Soulanges and an income of two
thousand francs. Madame Sibilet the younger spent most of her time at
her father's home with her two children, where Adolphe Sibilet, whose
official duty obliged him to travel through the department, came to
see her from time to time.
Gaubertin's exclamation, though easy to understand from this summary
of young Sibilet's life, needs a few more explanatory details.
Adolphe Sibilet, supremely unlucky, as we have shown by the foregoing
sketch of him, was one of those men who cannot reach the heart of a
woman except by way of the altar and the mayor's office. Endowed with
the suppleness of a steel-spring, he yielded to pressure, certain to
revert to his first thought. This treacherous habit is prompted by
cowardice; but the business training which Sibilet underwent in the
office of a provincial notary had taught him the art of concealing
this defect under a gruff manner which simulated a strength he did not
possess. Many false natures mask their hollowness in this way; be
rough with them in return and the effect produced is that of a balloon
collapsed by a prick. Such was Sibilet. But as most men are not
observers, and as among observers three fourths observe only after a
thing has taken place, Adolphe Sibilet's grumbling manner was
considered the result of an honest frankness, of a capacity much
praised by his master, and of a stubborn uprightness which no
temptation could shake. Some men are as much benefited by their
defects as others by their good qualities.
Adeline Sarcus, a pretty young woman, brought up by a mother (who died
three years before her marriage) as well as a mother can educate an
only daughter in a remote country town, was in love with the handsome
son of Lupin, the Soulanges notary. At the first signs of this
romance, old Lupin, who intended to marry his son to Mademoiselle
Elise Gaubertin, lost no time in sending young Amaury Lupin to Paris,
to the care of his friend and correspondent Crottat, the notary,
where, under pretext of drawing deeds and contracts, Amaury committed
a variety of foolish acts, and made debts, being led thereto by a
certain Georges Marest, a clerk in the same office, but a rich young
man, who revealed to him the mysteries of Parisian life. By the time
Lupin the elder went to Paris to bring back his son, Adeline Sarcus
had become Madame Sibilet. In fact, when the adoring Adolphe offered
himself, her father, the old magistrate, prompted by young Lupin's
father, hastened the marriage, to which Adeline yielded in sheer
despair.
The situation of clerk in a government registration office is not a
career. It is, like other such places which admit of no rise, one of
the many holes of the government sieve. Those who start in life in
these holes (the topographical, the professorial, the highway-andcanal
departments) are apt to discover, invariably too late, that
cleverer men then they, seated beside them, are fed, as the Opposition
writers say, on the sweat of the people, every time the sieve dips
down into the taxation-pot by means of a machine called the budget.
Adolphe, working early and late and earning little, soon found out the
barren depths of his hole; and his thoughts busied themselves, as he
trotted from township to township, spending his salary in shoe-leather
and costs of travelling, with how to find a permanent and more
profitable place.
No one can imagine, unless he happens to squint and to have two
legitimate children, what ambitions three years of misery and love had
developed in this young man, who squinted both in mind and vision, and
whose happiness halted, as it were, on one leg. The chief cause of
secret evil deeds and hidden meanness is, perhaps, an incompleted
happiness. Man can better bear a state of hopeless misery than those
terrible alternations of love and sunshine with continual rain. If the
body contracts disease, the mind contracts the leprosy of envy. In
petty minds that leprosy becomes a base and brutal cupidity, both
insolent and shrinking; in cultivated minds it fosters anti-social
doctrines, which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above his
superiors. May we not dignify with the title of proverb the pregnant
saying, "Tell me what thou hast, and I will tell thee of what thou art
thinking"?
Though Adolphe loved his wife, his hourly thought was: "I have made a
mistake; I have three balls and chains, but I have only two legs. I
ought to have made my fortune before I married. I could have found an
Adeline any day; but Adeline stands in the way of my getting a fortune
now."
Adolphe had been to see his relation Gaubertin three times in three
years. A few words exchanged between them let Gaubertin see the muck
of a soul ready to ferment under the hot temptations of legal robbery.
He warily sounded a nature that could be warped to the exigencies of
any plan, provided it was profitable. At each of the three visits
Sibilet grumbled at his fate.
"Employ me, cousin," he said; "take me as a clerk and make me your
successor. You shall see how I work. I am capable of overthrowing
mountains to give my Adeline, I won't say luxury, but a modest
competence. You made Monsieur Leclercq's fortune; why won't you put me
in a bank in Paris?"
"Some day, later on, I'll find you a place," Gaubertin would say;
"meantime make friends and acquaintance; such things help."
Under these circumstances the letter which Madame Soudry hastily
dispatched brought Sibilet to Soulanges through a region of castles in
the air. His father-in-law, Sarcus, whom the Soudrys advised to take
steps in the interest of his daughter, had gone in the morning to see
the general and to propose Adolphe for the vacant post. By advice of
Madame Soudry, who was the oracle of the little town, the worthy man
had taken his daughter with him; and the sight of her had had a
favorable effect upon the Comte de Montcornet.
"I shall not decide," he answered, "without thoroughly informing
myself about all applicants; but I will not look elsewhere until I
have examined whether or not your son-in-law possesses the
requirements for the place." Then, turning to Madame Sibilet he added,
"The satisfaction of settling so charming a person at Les Aigues--"
"The mother of two children, general," said Adeline, adroitly, to
evade the gallantry of the old cuirassier.
All the general's inquiries were cleverly anticipated by the Soudrys,
Gaubertin, and Lupin, who quietly obtained for their candidate the
influence of the leading lawyers in the capital of the department,
where a royal court held sessions,--such as Counsellor Gendrin, a
distant relative of the judge at Ville-aux-Fayes; Baron Bourlac,
attorney-general; and another counsellor named Sarcus, a cousin thrice
removed of the candidate. The verdict of every one to whom the general
applies was favorable to the poor clerk,--"so interesting," as they
called him. His marriage had made Sibilet as irreproachable as a novel
of Miss Edgeworth's, and presented him, moreover, in the light of a
disinterested man.
The time which the dismissed steward remained at Les Aigues until his
successor could be appointed was employed in creating troubles and
annoyances for his late master; one of the little scenes which he thus
played off will give an idea of several others.
The morning of his final departure he contrived to meet, as it were
accidentally, Courtecuisse, the only keeper then employed at Les
Aigues, the great extent of which really needed at least three.
"Well, Monsieur Gaubertin," said Courtecuisse, "so you have had
trouble with the count?"
"Who told you that?" answered Gaubertin. "Well, yes; the general
expected to order us about as he did his cavalry; he didn't know
Burgundians. The count is not satisfied with my services, and as I am
not satisfied with his ways, we have dismissed each other, almost with
fisticuffs, for he raged like a whirlwind. Take care of yourself,
Courtecuisse! Ah! my dear fellow, I expected to give you a better
master."
"I know that," said the keeper, "and I'd have served you well. Hang
it, when friends have known each other for twenty years, you know! You
put me here in the days of the poor dear sainted Madame. Ah, what a
good woman she was! none like her now! The place has lost a mother."
"Look here, Courtecuisse, if you are willing, you might help us to a
fine stroke."
"Then you are going to stay here? I heard you were off to Paris."
"No; I shall wait to see how things turn out; meantime I shall do
business at Ville-aux-Fayes. The general doesn't know what he is
dealing with in these parts; he'll make himself hated, don't you see?
I shall wait for what turns up. Do your work here gently; he'll tell
you to manage the people with a high hand, for he begins to see where
his crops and his woods are running to; but you'll not be such a fool
as to let the country-folk maul you, and perhaps worse, for the sake
of his timber."
"But he would send me away, dear Monsieur Gaubertin, he would get rid
of me! and you know how happy I am living there at the gate of the
Avonne."
"The general will soon get sick of the whole place," replied
Gaubertin; "you wouldn't be long out even if he did happen to send you
away. Besides, you know those woods," he added, waving his hand at the
landscape; "I am stronger there than the masters."
This conversation took place in an open field.
"Those 'Arminac' Parisian fellows ought to stay in their own mud,"
said the keeper.
Ever since the quarrels of the fifteenth century the word 'Arminac'
(Armagnacs, Parisians, enemies of the Dukes of Burgundy) has continued
to be an insulting term along the borders of Upper Burgundy, where it
is differently corrupted according to locality.
"He'll go back to it when beaten," said Gaubertin, "and we'll plough
up the park; for it is robbing the people to allow a man to keep nine
hundred acres of the best land in the valley for his own pleasure."
"Four hundred families could get their living from it," said
Courtecuisse.
"If you want two acres for yourself you must help us to drive that cur
out," remarked Gaubertin.
At the very moment that Gaubertin was fulminating this sentence of
excommunication, the worthy Sarcus was presenting his son-in-law
Sibilet to the Comte de Montcornet. They had come with Adeline and the
children in a wicker carryall, lent by Sarcus's clerk, a Monsieur
Gourdon, brother of the Soulanges doctor, who was richer than the
magistrate himself. The general, pleased with the candor and dignity
of the justice of the peace, and with the graceful bearing of Adeline
(both giving pledges in good faith, for they were totally ignorant of
the plans of Gaubertin), at once granted all requests and gave such
advantages to the family of the new land-steward as to make the
position equal to that of a sub-prefect of the first class.
A lodge, built by Bouret as an object in the landscape and also as a
home for the steward, an elegant little building, the architecture of
which was sufficiently shown in the description of the gate of Blangy,
was promised to the Sibilets for their residence. The general also
conceded the horse which Mademoiselle Laguerre had provided for
Gaubertin, in consideration of the size of the estate and the distance
he had to go to the markets where the business of the property was
transacted. He allowed two hundred bushels of wheat, three hogsheads
of wine, wood in sufficient quantity, oats and barley in abundance,
and three per cent on all receipts of income. Where the latter in
Mademoiselle Laguerre's time had amounted to forty thousand francs,
the general now, in 1818, in view of the purchases of land which
Gaubertin had made for her, expected to receive at least sixty
thousand. The new land-steward might therefore receive before long
some two thousand francs in money. Lodged, fed, warmed, relieved of
taxes, the costs of a horse and a poultry-yard defrayed for him, and
allowed to plant a kitchen-garden, with no questions asked as to the
day's work of the gardener, certainly such advantages represented much
more than another two thousand francs; for a man who was earning a
miserable salary of twelve hundred francs in a government office to
step into the stewardship of Les Aigues was a change from poverty to
opulence.
"Be faithful to my interests," said the general, "and I shall have
more to say to you. Doubtless I could get the collection of the rents
of Conches, Blangy, and Cerneux taken away from the collection of
those of Soulanges and given to you. In short, when you bring me in a
clear sixty thousand a year from Les Aigues you shall be still further
rewarded."
Unfortunately, the worthy justice and his daughter, in the flush of
their joy, told Madame Soudry the promise the general had made about
these collections, without reflecting that the present collector of
Soulanges, a man named Guerbet, brother of the postmaster of Conches,
was closely allied, as we shall see later, with Gaubertin and the
Gendrins.
"It won't be so easy to do it, my dear," said Madame Soudry; "but
don't prevent the general from making the attempt; it is wonderful how
easily difficult things are done in Paris. I have seen the Chevalier
Gluck at dear Madame's feet to get her to sing his music, and she did,
--she who so adored Piccini, one of the finest men of his day; never
did HE come into Madame's room without catching me round the waist and
calling me a dear rogue."
"Ha!" cried Soudry, when his wife reported this news, "does he think
he is going to lead the notary by the nose, and upset everything to
please himself and make the whole valley march in line, as he did his
cuirassiers? These military fellows have a habit of command!--but
let's have patience; Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur de
Ronquerolles will be on our side. Poor Guerbet! he little suspects who
is trying to pluck the best roses out of his garland!"
Pere Guerbet, the collector of Soulanges, was the wit, that is to say,
the jovial companion of the little town, and a hero in Madame Soudry's
salon. Soudry's speech gives a fair idea of the opinion which now grew
up against the master of Les Aigues from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes,
and wherever else the public mind could be reached and poisoned by
Gaubertin.
The installation of Sibilet took place in the autumn of 1817. The year
1818 went by without the general being able to set foot at Les Aigues,
for his approaching marriage with Mademoiselle de Troisville, which
was celebrated in January, 1819, kept him the greater part of the
summer near Alencon, in the country-house of his prospective fatherin-
law. General Montcornet possessed, besides Les Aigues and a
magnificent house in Paris, some sixty thousand francs a year in the
Funds and the salary of a retired lieutenant-general. Though Napoleon
had made him a count of the Empire and given him the following arms, a
field quarterly, the first, azure, bordure or, three pyramids argent;
the second, vert, three hunting horns argent; the third, gules, a
cannon or on a gun-carriage sable, and, in chief, a crescent or; the
fourth, or, a crown vert, with the motto (eminently of the middle
ages!), "Sound the charge,"--Montcornet knew very well that he was the
son of a cabinet-maker in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, though he was
quite ready to forget it. He was eaten up with the desire to be a peer
of France, and dreamed of his grand cordon of the Legion of honor, his
Saint-Louis cross, and his income of one hundred and forty thousand
francs. Bitten by the demon of aristocracy, the sight of the blue
ribbon put him beside himself. The gallant cuirassier of Essling would
have licked up the mud on the Pont-Royal to be invited to the house of
a Navarreins, a Lenoncourt, a Grandlieu, a Maufrigneuse, a d'Espard, a
Vandenesse, a Verneuil, a Herouville, or a Chaulieu.
From 1818, when the impossibility of a change in favor of the
Bonaparte family was made clear to him, Montcornet had himself
trumpeted in the faubourg Saint-Germain by the wives of some of his
friends, who offered his hand and heart, his mansion and his fortune
in return for an alliance with some great family.
After several attempts, the Duchesse de Carigliano found a match for
the general in one of the three branches of the Troisville family,--
that of the viscount in the service of Russia ever since 1789, who had
returned to France in 1815. The viscount, poor as a younger son, had
married a Princess Scherbellof, worth about a million, but the arrival
of two sons and three daughters kept him poor. His family, ancient and
formerly powerful, now consisted of the Marquis de Troisville, peer of
France, head of the house and scutcheon, and two deputies, with
numerous offspring, who were busy, for their part, with the budget and
the ministries and the court, like fishes round bits of bread.
Therefore, when Montcornet was presented by Madame de Carigliano,--the
Napoleonic duchess, who was now a most devoted adherent of the
Bourbons, he was favorably received. The general asked, in return for
his fortune and tender indulgence to his wife, to be appointed to the
Royal Guard, with the rank of marquis and peer of France; but the
branches of the Troisville family would do no more than promise him
their support.
"You know what that means," said the duchess to her old friend, who
complained of the vagueness of the promise. "They cannot oblige the
king to do as they wish; they can only influence him."
Montcornet made Virginie de Troisville his heir in the marriage
settlements. Completely under the control of his wife, as Blondet's
letter has already shown, he was still without children, but Louis
XVIII. had received him, and given him the cordon of Saint-Louis,
allowing him to quarter his ridiculous arms with those of the
Troisvilles, and promising him the title of marquis as soon as he had
deserved the peerage by his services.
A few days after the audience at which this promise had been given,
the Duc de Barry was assassinated; the Marsan clique carried the day;
the Villele ministry came into power, and all the wires laid by the
Troisvilles were snapped; it became necessary to find new ways of
fastening them upon the ministry.
"We must bide our time," said the Troisvilles to Montcornet, who was
always overwhelmed with politeness in the faubourg Saint-Germain.
This will explain how it was that the general did not return to Les
Aigues until May, 1820.
The ineffable happiness of the son of a shop-keeper of the faubourg
Saint-Antoine in possessing a young, elegant, intelligent, and gentle
wife, a Troisville, who had given him an entrance into all the salons
of the faubourg Saint-Germain, and the delight of making her enjoy the
pleasures of Paris, had kept him from Les Aigues and made him forget
about Gaubertin, even to his very name. In 1820 he took the countess
to Burgundy to show her the estate, and he accepted Sibilet's accounts
and leases without looking closely into them; happiness never cavils.
The countess, well pleased to find the steward's wife a charming young
woman, made presents to her and to the children, with whom she
occasionally amused herself. She ordered a few changes at Les Aigues,
having sent to Paris for an architect; proposing, to the general's
great delight, to spend six months of every year on this magnificent
estate. Montcornet's savings were soon spent on the architectural work
and the exquisite new furniture sent from Paris. Les Aigues thus
received the last touch which made it a choice example of all the
diverse elegancies of four centuries.
In 1821 the general was almost peremptorily urged by Sibilet to be at
Les Aigues before the month of May. Important matters had to be
decided. A lease of nine years, to the amount of thirty thousand
francs, granted by Gaubertin in 1812 to a wood-merchant, fell in on
the 15th of May of the current year. Sibilet, anxious to prove his
rectitude, was unwilling to be responsible for the renewal of the
lease. "You know, Monsieur le comte," he wrote, "that I do not choose
to profit by such matters." The wood-merchant claimed an indemnity,
extorted from Madame Laguerre, through her hatred of litigation, and
shared by him with Gaubertin. This indemnity was based on the injury
done to the woods by the peasants, who treated the forest of Les
Aigues as if they had a right to cut the timber. Messrs. Gravelot
Brothers, wood-merchants in Paris, refused to pay their last quarter
dues, offering to prove by an expert that the woods were reduced onefifth
in value, through, they said, the injurious precedent
established by Madame Laguerre.
"I have already," wrote Sibilet, "sued these men in the courts at
Ville-aux-Fayes, for they have taken legal residence there, on account
of this lease, with my old employer, Maitre Corbinet. I fear we shall
lose the suit."
"It is a question of income, my dear," said the general, showing the
letter to his wife. "Will you go down to Les Aigues a little earlier
this year than last?"
"Go yourself, and I will follow you when the weather is warmer," said
the countess, not sorry to remain in Paris alone.
The general, who knew very well the canker that was eating into his
revenues, departed without his wife, resolved to take vigorous
measures. In so doing he reckoned, as we shall see, without his
Gaubertin.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT REVOLUTIONS OF A LITTLE VALLEY
"Well, Maitre Sibilet," said the general to his steward, the morning
after his arrival, giving him a familiar title which showed how much
he appreciated his services, "so we are, to use a ministerial phrase,
at a crisis?"
"Yes, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, following the general.
The fortunate possessor of Les Aigues was walking up and down in front
of the steward's house, along a little terrace where Madame Sibilet
grew flowers, at the end of which was a wide stretch of meadow-land
watered by the canal which Blondet has described. From this point the
chateau of Les Aigues was seen in the distance, and in like manner the
profile, as it were, of the steward's lodge was seen from Les Aigues.
"But," resumed the general, "what's the difficulty? If I do lose the
suit against the Gravelots, a money wound is not mortal, and I'll have
the leasing of my forest so well advertised that there will be
competition, and I shall sell the timber at its true value."
"Business is not done in that way, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet.
"Suppose you get no lessees, what will you do?"
"Cut the timber myself and sell it--"
"You, a wood merchant?" said Sibilet. "Well, without looking at
matters here, how would it be in Paris? You would have to hire a woodyard,
pay for a license and the taxes, also for the right of
navigation, and duties, and the costs of unloading; besides the salary
of a trustworthy agent--"
"Yes, it is impracticable," said the general hastily, alarmed at the
prospect. "But why can't I find persons to lease the right of cutting
timber as before?"
"Monsieur le comte has enemies."
"Who are they?"
"Well, in the first place, Monsieur Gaubertin."
"Do you mean the scoundrel whose place you took?"
"Not so loud, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, showing fear; "I beg
of you, not so loud,--my cook might hear us."
"Do you mean to tell me that I am not to speak on my own estate of a
villain who robbed me?" cried the general.
"For the sake of your own peace and comfort, come further away,
Monsieur le comte. Monsieur Gaubertin is mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes."
"Ha! I congratulate Ville-aux-Fayes. Thunder! what a nobly governed
town!--"
"Do me the honor to listen, Monsieur le comte, and to believe that I
am talking of serious matters which may affect your future life in
this place."
"I am listening; let us sit down on this bench here."
"Monsieur le comte, when you dismissed Gaubertin, he had to find some
employment, for he was not rich--"
"Not rich! when he stole twenty thousand francs a year from this
estate?"
"Monsieur le comte, I don't pretend to excuse him," replied Sibilet.
"I want to see Les Aigues prosperous, if it were only to prove
Gaubertin's dishonest; but we ought not to abuse him openly for he is
one of the most dangerous scoundrels to be found in all Burgundy, and
he is now in a position to injure you."
"In what way?" asked the general, sobering down.
"Gaubertin has control of nearly one third of the supplies sent to
Paris. As general agent of the timber business, he orders all the work
of the forests,--the felling, chopping, floating, and sending to
market. Being in close relations with the workmen, he is the arbiter
of prices. It has taken him three years to create this position, but
he holds it now like a fortress. He is essential to all dealers, never
favoring one more than another; he regulates the whole business in
their interests, and their affairs are better and more cheaply looked
after by him than they were in the old time by separate agents for
each firm. For instance, he has so completely put a stop to
competition that he has absolute control of the auction sales; the
crown and the State are both dependent on him. Their timber is sold
under the hammer and falls invariably to Gaubertin's dealers; in fact,
no others attempt now to bid against them. Last year Monsieur
Mariotte, of Auxerre, urged by the commissioner of domains, did
attempt to compete with Gaubertin. At first, Gaubertin let him buy the
standing wood at the usual prices; but when it came to cutting it, the
Avonnais workmen asked such enormous prices that Monsieur Mariotte was
obliged to bring laborers from Auxerre, whom the Ville-aux-Fayes
workmen attacked and drove away. The head of the coalition, and the
ringleader of the brawl were brought before the police court, and the
suits cost Monsieur Mariotte a great deal of money; for, besides the
odium of having convicted and punished poor men, he was forced to pay
all costs, because the losing side had not a farthing to do it with. A
suit against laboring men is sure to result in hatred to those who
live among them. Let me warn you of this; for if you follow the course
you propose, you will have to fight against the poor of this district
at least. But that's not all. Counting it over, Monsieur Mariotte, a
worthy man, found he was the loser by his original lease. Forced to
pay ready money, he was nevertheless obliged to sell on time;
Gaubertin delivered his timber at long credits for the purpose of
ruining his competitor. He undersold him by at least five per cent,
and the end of it is that poor Mariotte's credit is badly shaken.
Gaubertin is now pressing and harassing the poor man so that he is
driven, they tell me, to leave not only Auxerre, but even Burgundy
itself; and he is right. In this way land-owners have long been
sacrificed to dealers who now set the market-prices, just as the
furniture-dealers in Paris dictate values to appraisers. But Gaubertin
saves the owners so much trouble and worry that they are really
gainers."
"How so?" asked the general.
"In the first place, because the less complicated a business is, the
greater the profits to the owners," answered Sibilet. "Besides which,
their income is more secure; and in all matters of rural improvement
and development that is the main thing, as you will find out. Then,
too, Monsieur Gaubertin is the friend and patron of working-men; he
pays them well and keeps them always at work; therefore, though their
families live on the estates, the woods leased to dealers and
belonging to the land-owners who trust the care of their property to
Gaubertin (such as MM. de Soulanges and de Ronquerolles) are not
devastated. The dead wood is gathered up, but that is all--"
"That rascal Gaubertin has lost no time!" cried the general.
"He is a bold man," said Sibilet. "He really is, as he calls himself,
the steward of the best half of the department, instead of being
merely the steward of Les Aigues. He makes a little out of everybody,
and that little on every two millions brings him in forty to fifty
thousand francs a year. He says himself, 'The fires on the Parisian
hearths pay it all.' He is your enemy, Monsieur le comte. My advice to
you is to capitulate and be reconciled with him. He is intimate, as
you know, with Soudry, the head of the gendarmerie at Soulanges; with
Monsieur Rigou, our mayor at Blangy; the patrols are under his
influence; therefore you will find it impossible to repress the
pilferings which are eating into your estate. During the last two
years your woods have been devastated. Consequently the Gravelots are
more than likely to win their suit. They say, very truly: 'According
to the terms of the lease, the care of the woods is left to the owner;
he does not protect them, and we are injured; the owner is bound to
pay us damages.' That's fair enough; but it doesn't follow that they
should win their case."
"We must be ready to defend this suit at all costs," said the general,
"and then we shall have no more of them."
"You shall gratify Gaubertin," remarked Sibilet.
"How so?"
"Suing the Gravelots is the same as a hand to hand fight with
Gaubertin, who is their agent," answered Sibilet. "He asks nothing
better than such a suit. He declares, so I hear, that he will bring
you if necessary before the Court of Appeals."
"The rascal! the--"
"If you attempt to work your own woods," continued Sibilet, turning
the knife in the wound, "you will find yourself at the mercy of
workmen who will force you to pay rich men's prices instead of marketprices.
In short, they'll put you, as they did that poor Mariotte, in
a position where you must sell at a loss. If you then try to lease the
woods you will get no tenants, for you cannot expect that any one
should take risks for himself which Mariotte only took for the crown
and the State. Suppose a man talks of his losses to the government!
The government is a gentleman who is, like your obedient servant when
he was in its employ, a worthy man with a frayed overcoat, who reads
the newspapers at a desk. Let his salary be twelve hundred or twelve
thousand francs, his disposition is the same, it is not a whit softer.
Talk of reductions and releases from the public treasury represented
by the said gentleman! He'll only pooh-pooh you as he mends his pen.
No, the law is the wrong road for you, Monsieur le comte."
"Then what's to be done?" cried the general, his blood boiling as he
tramped up and down before the bench.
"Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, abruptly, "what I say to you is not
for my own interests, certainly; but I advise you to sell Les Aigues
and leave the neighborhood."
On hearing these words the general sprang back as if a cannon-ball had
struck him; then he looked at Sibilet with a shrewd, diplomatic eye.
"A general of the Imperial Guard running away from the rascals, when
Madame la comtesse likes Les Aigues!" he said. "No, I'll sooner box
Gaubertin's ears on the market-place of Ville-aux-Fayes, and force him
to fight me that I may shoot him like a dog."
"Monsieur le comte, Gaubertin is not such a fool as to let himself be
brought into collision with you. Besides, you could not openly insult
the mayor of so important a place as Ville-aux-Fayes."
"I'll have him turned out; the Troisvilles can do that for me; it is a
question of income."
"You won't succeed, Monsieur le comte; Gaubertin's arms are long; you
will get yourself into difficulties from which you cannot escape."
"Let us think of the present," interrupted the general. "About that
suit?"
"That, Monsieur le comte, I can manage to win for you," replied
Sibilet, with a knowing glance.
"Bravo, Sibilet!" said the general, shaking his steward's hand; "how
are you going to do it?"
"You will win it on a writ of error," replied Sibilet. "In my opinion
the Gravelots have the right of it. But it is not enough to be in the
right, they must also be in order as to legal forms, and that they
have neglected. The Gravelots ought to have summoned you to have the
woods better watched. They can't ask for indemnity, at the close of a
lease, for damages which they know have been going on for nine years;
there is a clause in the lease as to this, on which we can file a bill
of exceptions. You will lose the suit at Ville-aux-Fayes, possibly in
the upper court as well, but we will carry it to Paris and you will
win at the Court of Appeals. The costs will be heavy and the expenses
ruinous. You will have to spend from twelve to fifteen thousand francs
merely to win the suit,--but you will win it, if you care to. The suit
will only increase the enmity of the Gravelots, for the expenses will
be even heavier on them. You will be their bugbear; you will be called
litigious and calumniated in every way; still, you can win--"
"Then, what's to be done?" repeated the general, on whom Sibilet's
arguments were beginning to produce the effect of a violent poison.
Just then the remembrance of the blows he had given Gaubertin with his
cane crossed his mind, and made him wish he had bestowed them on
himself. His flushed face was enough to show Sibilet the irritation
that he felt.
"You ask me what can be done, Monsieur le comte? Why, only one thing,
compromise; but of course you can't negotiate that yourself. I must be
thought to cheat you! We, poor devils, whose only fortune and comfort
is in our good name, it is hard on us to even seem to do a
questionable thing. We are always judged by appearances. Gaubertin
himself saved Mademoiselle Laguerre's life during the Revolution, but
it seemed to others that he was robbing her. She rewarded him in her
will with a diamond worth ten thousand francs, which Madame Gaubertin
now wears on her head."
The general gave Sibilet another glance still more diplomatic than the
first; but the steward seemed to take no notice of the challenge it
expressed.
"If I were to appear dishonest, Monsieur Gaubertin would be so
overjoyed that I could instantly obtain his help," continued Sibilet.
"He would listen with all his ears if I said to him: 'Suppose I were
to extort twenty thousand francs from Monsieur le comte for Messrs.
Gravelot, on condition that they shared them with me?' If your
adversaries consented to that, Monsieur le comte, I should return you
ten thousand francs; you lose only the other ten, you save
appearances, and the suit is quashed."
"You are a fine fellow, Sibilet," said the general, taking his hand
and shaking it. "If you can manage the future as well as you do the
present, I'll call you the prince of stewards."
"As to the future," said Sibilet, "you won't die of hunger if no
timber is cut for two or three years. Let us begin by putting proper
keepers in the woods. Between now and then things will flow as the
water does in the Avonne. Gaubertin may die, or get rich enough to
retire from business; at any rate, you will have sufficient time to
find him a competitor. The cake is too rich not to be shared. Look for
another Gaubertin to oppose the original."
"Sibilet," said the old soldier, delighted with this variety of
solutions. "I'll give you three thousand francs if you'll settle the
matter as you propose. For the rest, we'll think about it."
"Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, "first and foremost have the forest
properly watched. See for yourself the condition in which the
peasantry have put it during your two years' absence. What could I do?
I am steward; I am not a bailiff. To guard Les Aigues properly you
need a mounted patrol and three keepers."
"I certainly shall have the estate properly guarded. So it is to be
war, is it? Very good, then we shall make war. That doesn't frighten
me," said Montcornet, rubbing his hands.
"A war of francs," said Sibilet; "and you may find that more difficult
than the other kind; men can be killed but you can't kill selfinterest.
You will fight your enemy on the battle-field where all
landlords are compelled to fight,--I mean cash results. It is not
enough to produce, you must sell; and in order to sell, you must be on
good terms with everybody."
"I shall have the country people on my side."
"By what means?"
"By doing good among them."
"Doing good to the valley peasants! to the petty shopkeepers of
Soulanges!" exclaimed Sibilet, squinting horribly, by reason of the
irony which flamed brighter in one eye than in the other. "Monsieur le
comte doesn't know what he undertakes. Our Lord Jesus Christ would die
again upon the cross in this valley! If you wish an easy life, follow
the example of the late Mademoiselle Laguerre; let yourself be robbed,
or else make people afraid of you. Women, children, and the masses are
all governed by fear. That was the great secret of the Convention, and
of the Emperor, too."
"Good heavens! is this the forest of Bondy?" cried the general.
"My dear," said Sibilet's wife, appearing at this moment, "your
breakfast is ready. Pray excuse him, Monsieur le comte; he has eaten
nothing since morning for he was obliged to go to Ronquerolles to
deliver some barley."
"Go, go, Sibilet," said the general.
The next morning the count rose early, before daylight, and went to
the gate of the Avonne, intending to talk with the one forester whom
he employed and find out what the man's sentiments really were.
Some seven or eight hundred acres of the forest of Les Aigues lie
along the banks of the Avonne; and to preserve the majestic beauty of
the river the large trees that border it have been left untouched for
a distance of three leagues on both sides in an almost straight line.
The mistress of Henri IV., to whom Les Aigues formerly belonged, was
as fond of hunting as the king himself. In 1593 she ordered a bridge
to be built of a single arch with shelving roadway by which to ride
from the lower side of the forest to a much larger portion of it,
purchased by her, which lay upon the slopes of the hills. The gate of
the Avonne was built as a place of meeting for the huntsmen; and we
know the magnificence bestowed by the architects of that day upon all
buildings intended for the delight of the crown and the nobility. Six
avenues branched away from it, their place of meeting forming a halfmoon.
In the centre of the semi-circular space stood an obelisk
surmounted by a round shield, formerly gilded, bearing on one side the
arms of Navarre and on the other those of the Countess de Moret.
Another half-moon, on the side toward the river, communicated with the
first by a straight avenue, at the opposite end of which the steep
rise of the Venetian-shaped bridge could be seen. Between two elegant
iron railings of the same character as that of the magnificent railing
which formerly surrounded the garden of the Place Royale in Paris, now
so unfortunately destroyed, stood a brick pavilion, with stone courses
hewn in facets like those of the chateau, with a very pointed roof and
window-casings of stone cut in the same manner. This old style, which
gave the building a regal air, is suitable only to prisons when used
in cities; but standing in the heart of forests it derives from its
surroundings a splendor of its own. A group of trees formed a screen,
behind which the kennels, an old falconry, a pheasantry, and the
quarters of the huntsmen were falling into ruins, after being in their
day the wonder and admiration of Burgundy.
In 1595, the royal hunting-parties set forth from this magnificent
pavilion, preceded by those fine dogs so dear to Rubens and to Paul
Veronese; the huntsmen mounted on high-steeping steeds with stout and
blue-white satiny haunches, seen no longer except in Wouverman's
amazing work, followed by footmen in livery; the scene enlivened by
whippers-in, wearing the high top-boots with facings and the yellow
leathern breeches which have come down to the present day on the
canvas of Van der Meulen. The obelisk was erected in commemoration of
the visit of the Bearnais, and his hunt with the beautiful Comtesse de
Moret; the date is given below the arms of Navarre. That jealous
woman, whose son was afterwards legitimatized, would not allow the
arms of France to figure on the obelisk, regarding them as a rebuke.
At the time of which we write, when the general's eyes rested on this
splendid ruin, moss had gathered for centuries on the four faces of
the roof; the hewn-stone courses, mangled by time, seemed to cry with
yawning mouths against the profanation; disjointed leaden settings let
fall their octagonal panes, so that the windows seemed blind of an eye
here and there. Yellow wallflowers bloomed about the copings; ivy slid
its white rootlets into every crevice.
All things bespoke a shameful want of care,--the seal set by mere
life-possessors on the ancient glories that they possess. Two windows
on the first floor were stuffed with hay. Through another, on the
ground-floor, was seen a room filled with tools and logs of wood;
while a cow pushed her muzzle through a fourth, proving that
Courtecuisse, to avoid having to walk from the pavilion to the
pheasantry, had turned the large hall of the central building into a
stable,--a hall with panelled ceiling, and in the centre of each panel
the arms of all the various possessors of Les Aigues!
Black and dirty palings disgraced the approach to the pavilion, making
square inclosures with plank roofs for pigs, ducks, and hens, the
manure of which was taken away every six months. A few ragged garments
were hung to dry on the brambles which boldly grew unchecked here and
there. As the general came along the avenue from the bridge, Madame
Courtecuisse was scouring a saucepan in which she had just made her
coffee. The forester, sitting on a chair in the sun, considered his
wife as a savage considers his. When he heard a horse's hoofs he
turned round, saw the count, and seemed taken aback.
"Well, Courtecuisse, my man," said the general, "I'm not surprised
that the peasants cut my woods before Messrs. Gravelot can do so. So
you consider your place a sinecure?"
"Indeed, Monsieur le comte, I have watched the woods so many nights
that I'm ill from it. I've got a chill, and I suffer such pain this
morning that my wife has just made me a poultice in that saucepan."
"My good fellow," said the count, "I don't know of any pain that a
coffee poultice cures except that of hunger. Listen to me, you rascal!
I rode through my forest yesterday, and then through those of Monsieur
de Soulanges and Monsieur de Ronquerolles. Theirs are carefully
watched and preserved, while mine is in a shameful state."
"Ah, monsieur! but they are the old lords of the neighborhood;
everybody respects their property. How can you expect me to fight
against six districts? I care for my life more than for your woods. A
man who would undertake to watch your woods as they ought to be
watched would get a ball in his head for wages in some dark corner of
the forest--"
"Coward!" cried the general, trying to control the anger the man's
insolent reply provoked in him. "Last night was as clear as day, yet
it cost me three hundred francs in actual robbery and over a thousand
in future damages. You will leave my service unless you do better. All
wrong-doing deserves some mercy; therefore these are my conditions:
You may have the fines, and I will pay you three francs for every
indictment you bring against these depredators. If I don't get what I
expect, you know what you have to expect, and no pension either.
Whereas, if you serve me faithfully and contrive to stop these
depredations, I'll give you an annuity of three hundred francs for
life. You can think it over. Here are six ways," continued the count,
pointing to the branching roads; "there's only one for you to take,--
as for me also, who am not afraid of balls; try and find the right
one."
Courtecuisse, a small man about forty-six years of age, with a fullmoon
face, found his greatest happiness in doing nothing. He expected
to live and die in that pavilion, now considered by him HIS pavilion.
His two cows were pastured in the forest, from which he got his wood;
and he spent his time in looking after his garden instead of after the
delinquents. Such neglect of duty suited Gaubertin, and Courtecuisse
knew it did. The keeper chased only those depredators who were the
objects of his personal dislike,--young women who would not yield to
his wishes, or persons against whom he held a grudge; though for some
time past he had really felt no dislikes, for every one yielded to him
on account of his easy-going ways with them.
Courtecuisse had a place always kept for him at the table of the
Grand-I-Vert; the wood-pickers feared him no longer; indeed, his wife
and he received many gifts in kind from them; his wood was brought in;
his vineyard dug; in short, all delinquents at whom he blinked did him
service.
Counting on Gaubertin for the future, and feeling sure of two acres
whenever Les Aigues should be brought to the hammer, he was roughly
awakened by the curt speech of the general, who, after four quiescent
years, was now revealing his true character,--that of a bourgeois rich
man who was determined to be no longer deceived. Courtecuisse took his
cap, his game-bag, and his gun, put on his gaiters and his belt (which
bore the very recent arms of Montcornet), and started for Ville-aux-
Fayes, with the careless, indifferent air and manner under which
country-people often conceal very deep reflections, while he gazed at
the woods and whistled to the dogs to follow him.
"What! you complain of the Shopman when he proposes to make your
fortune?" said Gaubertin. "Doesn't the fool offer to give you three
francs for every arrest you make, and the fines to boot? Have an
understanding with your friends and you can bring as many indictments
as you please,--hundreds if you like! With one thousand francs you can
buy La Bachelerie from Rigou, become a property owner, live in your
own house, and work for yourself, or rather, make others work for you,
and take your ease. Only--now listen to me--you must manage to arrest
only such as haven't a penny in the world. You can't shear sheep
unless the wool is on their backs. Take the Shopman's offer and leave
him to collect the costs,--if he wants them; tastes differ. Didn't old
Mariotte prefer losses to profits, in spite of my advice?"
Courtecuisse, filled with admiration for these words of wisdom,
returned home burning with the desire to be a land-owner and a
bourgeois like the rest.
When the general reached Les Aigues he related his expedition to
Sibilet.
"Monsieur le comte did very right," said the steward, rubbing his
hands; "but he must not stop short half-way. The field-keeper of the
district who allows the country-people to prey upon the meadows and
rob the harvests ought to be changed. Monsieur le comte should have
himself chosen mayor, and appoint one of his old soldiers, who would
have the courage to carry out his orders, in place of Vaudoyer. A
great land-owner should be master in his own district. Just see what
difficulties we have with the present mayor!"
The mayor of the district of Blangy, formerly a Benedictine, named
Rigou, had married, in the first year of the Republic, the servantwoman
of the late priest of Blangy. In spite of the repugnance which a
married monk excited at the Prefecture, he had continued to be mayor
after 1815, for the reason that there was no-one else at Blangy who
was capable of filling the post. But in 1817, when the bishop sent the
Abbe Brossette to the parish of Blangy (which had then been vacant
over twenty-five years), a violent opposition not unnaturally broke
out between the old apostate and the young ecclesiastic, whose
character is already known to us. The war which was then and there
declared between the mayor's office and the parsonage increased the
popularity of the magistrate, who had hitherto been more or less
despised. Rigou, whom the peasants had disliked for usurious dealings,
now suddenly represented their political and financial interests,
supposed to be threatened by the Restoration, and more especially by
the clergy.
A copy of the "Constitutionnel," that great organ of liberalism, after
making the rounds of the Cafe de la Paix, came back to Rigou on the
seventh day,--the subscription, standing in the name of old Socquard
the keeper of the coffee-house, being shared by twenty persons. Rigou
passed the paper on to Langlume the miller, who, in turn, gave it in
shreds to any one who knew how to read. The "Paris items," and the
anti-religion jokes of the liberal sheet formed the public opinion of
the valley des Aigues. Rigou, like the VENERABLE Abbe Gregoire, became
a hero. For him, as for certain Parisian bankers, politics spread a
mantle of popularity over his shameful dishonesty.
At this particular time the perjured monk, like Francois Keller the
great orator, was looked upon as a defender of the rights of the
people,--he who, not so very long before, dared not walk in the fields
after dark, lest he should stumble into pitfalls where he would seem
to have been killed by accident! Persecute a man politically and you
not only magnify him, but you redeem his past and make it innocent.
The liberal party was a great worker of miracles in this respect. Its
dangerous journal, which had the wit to make itself as commonplace, as
calumniating, as credulous, and as sillily perfidious as every
audience made up the general masses, did in all probability as much
injury to private interests as it did to those of the Church.
Rigou flattered himself that he should find in a Bonapartist general
now laid on the shelf, in a son of the people raised from nothing by
the Revolution, a sound enemy to the Bourbons and the priests. But the
general, bearing in mind his private ambitions, so arranged matters as
to evade the visit of Monsieur and Madame Rigou when he first came to
Les Aigues.
When you have become better acquainted with the terrible character of
Rigou, the lynx of the valley, you will understand the full extent of
the second capital blunder which the general's aristocratic ambitions
led him to commit, and which the countess made all the greater by an
offence which will be described in the further history of Rigou.
If Montcornet had courted the mayor's good-will, if he had sought his
friendship, perhaps the influence of the renegade might have
neutralized that of Gaubertin. Far from that, three suits were now
pending in the courts of Ville-aux-Fayes between the general and the
ex-monk. Until the present time the general had been so absorbed in
his personal interests and in his marriage that he had never
remembered Rigou, but when Sibilet advised him to get himself made
mayor in Rigou's place, he took post-horses and went to see the
prefect.
The prefect, Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, had been a friend of the
general since 1804; and it was a word from him said to Montcornet in a
conversation in Paris, which brought about the purchase of Les Aigues.
Comte Martial, a prefect under Napoleon, remained a prefect under the
Bourbons, and courted the bishop to retain his place. Now it happened
that Monseigneur had several times requested him to get rid of Rigou.
Martial, to whom the condition of the district was perfectly well
known, was delighted with the general's request; so that in less than
a month the Comte de Montcornet was mayor of Blangy.
By one of those accidents which come about naturally, the general met,
while at the prefecture where his friend put him up, a noncommissioned
officer of the ex-Imperial guard, who had been cheated
out of his retiring pension. The general had already, under other
circumstances, done a service to the brave cavalryman, whose name was
Groison; the man, remembering it, now told him his troubles, admitting
that he was penniless. The general promised to get him his pension,
and proposed that he should take the place of field-keeper to the
district of Blangy, as a way of paying off his score of gratitude by
devotion to the new mayor's interests. The appointments of master and
man were made simultaneously, and the general gave, as may be
supposed, very firm instructions to his subordinate.
Vaudoyer, the displaced keeper, a peasant on the Ronquerolles estate,
was only fit, like most field-keepers, to stalk about, and gossip, and
let himself be petted by the poor of the district, who asked nothing
better than to corrupt at subaltern authority,--the advanced guard, as
it were, of the land-owners. He knew Soudry, the brigadier at
Soulanges, for brigadiers of gendarmerie, performing functions that
are semi-judicial in drawing up criminal indictments, have much to do
with the rural keepers, who are, in fact, their natural spies. Soudry,
being appealed to, sent Vaudoyer to Gaubertin, who received his old
acquaintance very cordially, and invited him to drink while listening
to the recital of his troubles.
"My dear friend," said the mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, who could talk to
every man in his own language, "what has happened to you is likely to
happen to us all. The nobles are back upon us. The men to whom the
Emperor gave titles make common cause with the old nobility. They all
want to crush the people, re-establish their former rights and take
our property from us. But we are Burgundians; we must resist, and
drive those Arminacs back to Paris. Return to Blangy; you shall be
agent for Monsieur Polissard, the wood-merchant, who is contractor for
the forest of Ronquerolles. Don't be uneasy, my lad; I'll find you
enough to do for the whole of the coming year. But remember one thing;
the wood is for ourselves! Not a single depredation, or the thing is
at an end. Send all interlopers to Les Aigues. If there's brush or
fagots to sell make people buy ours; don't let them buy of Les Aigues.
You'll get back to your place as field-keeper before long; this thing
can't last. The general will get sick of living among thieves. Did you
know that that Shopman called me a thief, me!--son of the stanchest
and most incorruptible of republicans; me!--the son in law of Mouchon,
that famous representative of the people, who died without leaving me
enough to bury him?"
The general raised the salary of the new field-keeper to three hundred
francs; and built a town-hall, in which he gave him a residence. Then
he married him to a daughter of one of his tenant-farmers, who had
lately died, leaving her an orphan with three acres of vineyard.
Groison attached himself to the general as a dog to his master. This
legitimate fidelity was admitted by the whole community. The keeper
was feared and respected, but like the captain of a vessel whose
ship's company hate him; the peasantry shunned him as they would a
leper. Met either in silence or with sarcasms veiled under a show of
good-humor, the new keeper was a sentinel watched by other sentinels.
He could do nothing against such numbers. The delinquents took delight
in plotting depredations which it was impossible for him to prove, and
the old soldier grew furious at his helplessness. Groison found the
excitement of a war of factions in his duties, and all the pleasures
of the chase,--a chase after petty delinquents. Trained in real war to
a loyalty which consists in part of playing a fair game, this enemy of
traitors came at last to hate these people, so treacherous in their
conspiracies, and so clever in their thefts that they mortified his
self-esteem. He soon observed that the depredations were committed
only at Les Aigues; all the other estates were respected. At first he
despised a peasantry ungrateful enough to pillage a general of the
Empire, an essentially kind and generous man; presently, however, he
added hatred to contempt. But multiply himself as he would, he could
not be everywhere, and the enemy pillaged everywhere that he was not.
Groison made the general understand that it was necessary to organize
the defence on a war footing, and proved to him the insufficiency of
his own devoted efforts and the evil disposition of the inhabitants of
the valley.
"There is something behind it all, general," he said; "these people
are so bold they fear nothing; they seem to rely on the favor of the
good God."
"We shall see," replied the count.
Fatal word! The verb "to see" has no future tense for politicians.
At the moment, Montcornet was considering another difficulty, which
seemed to him more pressing. he needed an alter ego to do his work in
the mayor's office during the months he lived in Paris. Obliged to
find some man who knew how to read and write for the position of
assistant mayor, he knew of none and could hear of none throughout the
district but Langlume, the tenant of his own flour-mill. The choice
was disastrous. Not only were the interests of mayor and miller
diametrically opposed, but Langlume had long hatched swindling
projects with Rigou, who lent him money to carry on his business, or
to acquire property. The miller had bought the right to the hay of
certain fields for his horses, and Sibilet could not sell it except to
him. The hay of all the fields in the district was sold at better
prices than that of Les Aigues, though the yield of the latter was the
best.
Langlume, then, became the provisional mayor; but in France the
provisional is eternal,--though Frenchmen are suspected of loving
change. Acting by Rigou's advice, he played a part of great devotion
to the general; and he was still assistant-mayor at the moment when,
by the omnipotence of the historian, this drama begins.
In the absence of the mayor, Rigou, necessarily a member of the
district council, reigned supreme, and brought forward resolutions all
injuriously affecting the general. At one time he caused money to be
spent for purposes that were profitable to the peasants only,--the
greater part of the expenses falling upon Les Aigues, which, by reason
of its great extent, paid two thirds of the taxes; at other times the
council refused, under his influence, certain useful and necessary
allowances, such as an increase in salary for the abbe, repairs or
improvements to the parsonage, or "wages" to the school-master.
"If the peasants once know how to read and write, what will become of
us?" said Langlume, naively, to the general, to excuse this antiliberal
action taken against a brother of the Christian Doctrine whom
the Abbe Brossette wished to establish as a public school-master in
Blangy.
The general, delighted with his old Groison, returned to Paris and
immediately looked about him for other old soldiers of the late
imperial guard, with whom to organize the defence of Les Aigues on a
formidable footing. By dint of searching out and questioning his
friends and many officers on half-pay, he unearthed Michaud, a former
quartermaster at headquarters of the cuirassiers of the guard; one of
those men whom troopers call "hard-to-cook," a nickname derived from
the mess kitchen where refractory beans are not uncommon. Michaud
picked out from among his friends and acquaintances, three other men
fit to be his helpers, and able to guard the estate without fear and
without reproach.
The first, named Steingel, a pure-blooded Alsacian, was a natural son
of the general of that name, who fell in one of Bonaparte's first
victories with the army of Italy. Tall and strong, he belonged to the
class of soldiers accustomed, like the Russians, to obey, passively
and absolutely. Nothing hindered him in the performance of his duty;
he would have collared an emperor or a pope if such were his orders.
He ignored danger. Perfectly fearless, he had never received the
smallest scratch during his sixteen years' campaigning. He slept in
the open air or in his bed with stoical indifference. At any increased
labor or discomfort, he merely remarked, "It seems to be the order of
the day."
The second man, Vatel, son of the regiment, corporal of voltigeurs,
gay as a lark, rather free and easy with the fair sex, brave to
foolhardiness, was capable of shooting a comrade with a laugh if
ordered to execute him. With no future before him and not knowing how
to employ himself, the prospect of finding an amusing little war in
the functions of keeper, attracted him; and as the grand army and the
Emperor had hitherto stood him in place of a religion, so now he swore
to serve the brave Montcornet against and through all and everything.
His nature was of that essentially wrangling quality to which a life
without enemies seems dull and objectless,--the nature, in short, of a
litigant, or a policeman. If it had not been for the presence of the
sheriff's officer, he would have seized Tonsard and the bundle of wood
at the Grand-I-Vert, snapping his fingers at the law on the
inviolability of a man's domicile.
The third man, Gaillard, also an old soldier, risen to the rank of
sub-lieutenant, and covered with wounds, belonged to the class of
mechanical soldiers. The fate of the Emperor never left his mind and
he became indifferent to everything else. With the care of a natural
daughter on his hands, he accepted the place that was now offered to
him as a means of subsistence, taking it as he would have taken
service in a regiment.
When the general reached Les Aigues, whither he had gone in advance of
his troopers, intending to send away Courtecuisse, he was amazed at
discovering the impudent audacity with which the keeper had fulfilled
his commands. There is a method of obeying which makes the obedience
of the servant a cutting sarcasm on the master's order. But all things
in this world can be reduced to absurdity, and Courtecuisse in this
instance went beyond its limits.
One hundred and twenty-six indictments against depredators (most of
whom were in collusion with Courtecuisse) and sworn to before the
justice court of Soulanges, had resulted in sixty-nine commitments for
trial, in virtue of which Brunet, the sheriff's officer, delighted at
such a windfall of fees, had rigorously enforced the warrants in such
a way as to bring about what is called, in legal language, a
declaration of insolvency; a condition of pauperism where the law
becomes of course powerless. By this declaration the sheriff proves
that the defendant possesses no property of any kind, and is therefore
a pauper. Where there is absolutely nothing, the creditor, like the
king, loses his right to sue. The paupers in this case, carefully
selected by Courtecuisse, were scattered through five neighboring
districts, whither Brunet betook himself duly attended by his
satellites, Vermichel and Fourchon, to serve the writs. Later he
transmitted the papers to Sibilet with a bill of costs for five
thousand francs, requesting him to obtain the further orders of
Monsieur le comte de Montcornet.
Just as Sibilet, armed with these papers, was calmly explaining to the
count the result of the rash orders he had given to Courtecuisse, and
witnessing, as calmly, a burst of the most violent anger a general of
the French cavalry was ever known to indulge in, Courtecuisse entered
to pay his respects to his master and to bring his own account of
eleven hundred francs, the sum to which his promised commission now
amounted. The natural man took the bit in his teeth and ran off with
the general, who totally forgot his coronet and his field rank; he was
a trooper once more, vomiting curses of which he probably was ashamed
when he thought of them later.
"Ha! eleven hundred francs!" he shouted, "eleven hundred slaps in your
face! eleven hundred kicks!--Do you think I can't see straight through
your lies? Out of my sight, or I'll strike you flat!"
At the mere look of the general's purple face and before that warrior
could get out the last words, Courtecuisse was off like a swallow.
"Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, gently, "you are wrong."
"Wrong! I, wrong?"
"Yes, Monsieur le comte, take care, you will have trouble with that
rascal; he will sue you."
"What do I care for that? Tell the scoundrel to leave the place
instantly! See that he takes nothing of mine, and pay him his wages."
Four hours later the whole country-side was gossiping about this
scene. The general, they said, had assaulted the unfortunate
Courtecuisse, and refused to pay his wages and two thousand francs
besides, which he owed him. Extraordinary stories went the rounds, and
the master of Les Aigues was declared insane. The next day Brunet, who
had served all the warrants for the general, now brought him on behalf
of Courtecuisse a summon to appear before the police court. The lion
was stung by gnats; but his misery was only just beginning.
The installation of a keeper is not done without a few formalities; he
must, for instance, file an oath in the civil court. Some days
therefore elapsed before the three keepers really entered upon their
functions. Though the general had written to Michaud to bring his wife
without waiting until the lodge at the gate of the Avonne was ready
for them, the future head-keeper, or rather bailiff, was detained in
Paris by his marriage and his wife's family, and did not reach Les
Aigues until a fortnight later. During those two weeks, and during the
time still further required for certain formalities which were carried
out with very ill grace by the authorities at Ville-aux-Fayes, the
forest of Les Aigues was shamefully devastated by the peasantry, who
took advantage of the fact that there was practically no watch over
it.
The appearance of three keepers handsomely dressed in green cloth, the
Emperor's color, with faces denoting firmness, and each of them wellmade,
active, and capable of spending their nights in the woods, was a
great event in the valley, from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes.
Throughout the district Groison was the only man who welcomed these
veterans. Delighted to be thus reinforced, he let fall a few threats
against thieves, who before long, he said, would be watched so closely
that they could do no damage. Thus the usual proclamation of all great
commanders was not lacking to the present war; in this case it was
said aloud and also whispered in secret.
Sibilet called the general's attention to the fact that the
gendarmerie of Soulanges, and especially its brigadier, Soudry, were
thoroughly and hypocritically hostile to Les Aigues. He made him see
the importance of substituting another brigade, which might show a
better spirit.
"With a good brigadier and a company of gendarmes devoted to your
interests, you could manage the country," he said to him.
The general went to the Prefecture and obtained from the general in
command of the division the retirement of Soudry and the substitution
of a man named Viallet, an excellent gendarme at headquarters, who was
much praised by his general and the prefect. The company of gendarmes
at Soulanges were dispersed to other places in the department by the
colonel of the gendarmerie, an old friend of Montcornet, and chosen
men were put in their places with secret orders to keep watch over the
estate of the Comte de Montcornet, and prevent all future attempts to
injure it; they were also particularly enjoined not to allow
themselves to be gained over by the inhabitants of Soulanges.
This last revolutionary measure, carried out with such rapidity that
there was no possibility of countermining it created much astonishment
in Soulanges and in Ville-aux-Fayes. Soudry, who felt himself
dismissed, complained bitterly, and Gaubertin managed to get him
appointed mayor, which put the gendarmerie under his orders. An outcry
was made about tyranny. Montcornet became an object of general hatred.
Not only were five or six lives radically changed by him, but many
personal vanities were wounded. The peasants, taking their cue from
words dropped by the small tradesmen of Ville-aux-Fayes and Soulanges,
and by Rigou, Langlume, Guerbet, and the postmaster at Conches,
thought they were on the eve of losing what they called their rights.
The general stopped the suit brought by Courtecuisse by paying him all
he demanded. The man then purchased, nominally for two thousand
francs, a little property surrounded on all sides but one by the
estate of Les Aigues,--a sort of cover into which the game escaped.
Rigou, the owner, had never been willing to part with La Bachelerie,
as it was called, to the possessors of the estate, but he now took
malicious pleasure in selling it, at fifty per cent discount, to
Courtecuisse; which made the ex-keeper one of Rigou's numerous
henchmen, for all he actually paid for the property was one thousand
francs.
The three keepers, with Michaud the bailiff, and Groison the fieldkeeper
of Blangy, led henceforth the life of guerrillas. Living night
and day in the forest, they soon acquired that deep knowledge of
woodland things which becomes a science among foresters, saving them
much loss of time; they studied the tracks of animals, the species of
the trees, and their habits of growth, training their ears to every
sound and to every murmur of the woods. Still further, they observed
faces, watched and understood the different families in the various
villages of the district, and knew the individuals in each family,
their habits, characters, and means of living,--a far more difficult
matter than most persons suppose. When the peasants who obtained their
living from Les Aigues saw these well-planned measures of defence,
they met them with dumb resistance or sneering submission.
From the first, Michaud and Sibilet mutually disliked each other. The
frank and loyal soldier, with the sense of honor of a subaltern of the
young "garde," hated the servile brutality and the discontented spirit
of the steward. He soon took note of the objections with which Sibilet
opposed all measures that were really judicious, and the reasons he
gave for those that were questionable. Instead of calming the general,
Sibilet, as the reader has already seen, constantly excited him and
drove him to harsh measures, all the while trying to daunt him by
drawing his attention to countless annoyances, petty vexations, and
ever-recurring and unconquerable difficulties. Without suspecting the
role of spy and exasperator undertaken by Sibilet (who secretly
intended to eventually make choice in his own interests between
Gaubertin and the general) Michaud felt that the steward's nature was
bad and grasping, and he was unable to explain to himself its apparent
honesty. The enmity which separated the two functionaries was
satisfactory to the general. Michaud's hatred led him to watch the
steward, though he would not have condescended to play the part of spy
if the general had not required it. Sibilet fawned upon the bailiff
and flattered him, without being able to get anything from him beyond
an extreme politeness which the loyal soldier established between them
as a barrier.
Now, all preliminary details having been made known, the reader will
understand the conduct of the general's enemies and the meaning of the
conversation which he had with what he called his two ministers, after
Madame de Montcornet, the abbe, and Blondet left the breakfast-table.
CHAPTER IX
CONCERNING THE MEDIOCRACY
"Well, Michaud, what's the news?" asked the general as soon as his
wife had left the room.
"General, if you will permit me to say so, it would be better not to
talk over matters in this room. Walls have ears, and I should like to
be certain that what we say reaches none but our own."
"Very good," said the general, "then let us walk towards the steward's
lodge by the path through the fields; no one can overhear us there."
A few moments later the general, with Michaud and Sibilet, was
crossing the meadows, while Madame de Montcornet, with the abbe and
Blondet, was on her way to the gate of the Avonne.
Michaud related the scene that had just taken place at the Grand-IVert.
"Vatel did wrong," said Sibilet.
"They made that plain to him at once," replied Michaud, "by blinding
him; but that's nothing. General, you remember the plan we agreed
upon,--to seize the cattle of those depredators against whom judgment
was given? Well, we can't do it. Brunet, like his colleague Plissoud,
is not loyal in his support. They both warn the delinquents when they
are about to make a seizure. Vermichel, Brunet's assistant, went to
the Grand-I-Vert this morning, ostensibly after Pere Fourchon; and
Marie Tonsard, who is intimate with Bonnebault, ran off at once to
give the alarm at Conches. The depredations have begun again."
"A strong show of authority is becoming daily more and more
necessary," said Sibilet.
"What did I tell you?" cried the general. "We must demand the
enforcement of the judgment of the court, which carried with it
imprisonment; we must arrest for debt all those who do not pay the
damages I have won and the costs of the suits."
"These fellows imagine the law is powerless, and tell each other that
you dare not arrest them," said Sibilet. "They think they frighten
you! They have confederates at Ville-aux-Fayes; for even the
prosecuting attorney seems to have ignored the verdicts against them."
"I think," said Michaud, seeing that the general looked thoughtful,
"that if you are willing to spend a good deal of money you can still
protect the property."
"It is better to spend money than to act harshly," remarked Sibilet.
"What is your plan?" asked the general of his bailiff.
"It is very simple," said Michaud. "Inclose the whole forest with
walls, like those of the park, and you will be safe; the slightest
depredation then becomes a criminal offence and is taken to the
assizes."
"At a franc and a half the square foot for the material only, Monsieur
le comte would find his wall would cost him a third of the whole value
of Les Aigues," said Sibilet, with a laugh.
"Well, well," said Montcornet, "I shall go and see the attorneygeneral
at once."
"The attorney-general," remarked Sibilet, gently, "may perhaps share
the opinion of his subordinate; for the negligence shown by the latter
is probably the result of an agreement between them."
"Then I wish to know it!" cried Montcornet. "If I have to get the
whole of them turned out, judges, civil authorities, and the attorneygeneral
to boot, I'll do it; I'll go the Keeper of the Seals, or to
the king himself."
At a vehement sign made by Michaud the general stopped short and said
to Sibilet, as he turned to retrace his steps, "Good day, my dear
fellow,"--words which the steward understood.
"Does Monsieur le comte intend, as mayor, to enforce the necessary
measures to repress the abuse of gleaning?" he said, respectfully.
"The harvest is coming on, and if we are to publish the statutes about
certificates of pauperism and the prevention of paupers from other
districts gleaning our land, there is no time to be lost."
"Do it at once, and arrange with Groison," said the count. "With such
a class of people," he added, "we must follow out the law."
So, without a moment's reflection, Montcornet gave in to a measure
that Sibilet had been proposing to him for more than a fortnight, to
which he had hitherto refused to consent; but now, in the violence of
anger caused by Vatel's mishap, he instantly adopted it as the right
thing to do.
When Sibilet was at some distance the general said in a low voice to
his bailiff:--
"Well, my dear Michaud, what is it; why did you make me that sign?"
"You have an enemy within the walls, general, yet you tell him plans
which you ought not to confide even to the secret police."
"I share your suspicions, my dear friend," replied Montcornet, "but I
don't intend to commit the same fault twice over. I shall not part
with another steward till I'm sure of a better. I am waiting to get
rid of Sibilet, till you understand the business of steward well
enough to take his place, and till Vatel is fit to succeed you. And
yet, I have no ground of complaint against Sibilet. He is honest and
punctual in all his dealings; he hasn't kept back a hundred francs in
all these five years. He has a perfectly detestable nature, and that's
all one can say against him. If it were otherwise, what would be his
plan in acting as he does?"
"General," said Michaud, gravely, "I will find out, for undoubtedly he
has one; and if you would only allow it, a good bribe to that old
scoundrel Fourchon will enable me to get at the truth; though after
what he said just now I suspect the old fellow of having more secrets
than one in his pouch. That swindling old cordwainer told me himself
they want to drive you from Les Aigues. And let me tell you, for you
ought to know it, that from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes there is not a
peasant, a petty tradesman, a farmer, a tavern-keeper who isn't laying
by his money to buy a bit of the estate. Fourchon confided to me that
Tonsard has already put in his claim. The idea that you can be forced
to sell Les Aigues has gone from end to end of the valley like an
infection in the air. It may be that the steward's present house, with
some adjoining land, will be the price paid for Sibilet's spying.
Nothing is ever said among us that is not immediately known at Villeaux-
Fayes. Sibilet is a relative of your enemy Gaubertin. What you
have just said about the attorney-general and the others will probably
be reported before you have reached the Prefecture. You don't know
what the inhabitants of this district are."
"Don't I know them? I know they are the scum of the earth! Do you
suppose I am going to yield to such blackguards?" cried the general.
"Good heavens, I'd rather burn Les Aigues myself!"
"No need to burn it; let us adopt a line of conduct which will baffle
the schemes of these Lilliputians. Judging by threats, general, they
are resolved on war to the knife against you; and therefore since you
mention incendiarism, let me beg of you to insure all your buildings,
and all your farmhouses."
"Michaud, do you know whom they mean by 'Shopman'? Yesterday, as I was
riding along by the Thune, I heard some little rascals cry out, 'The
Shopman! here's the Shopman!' and then they ran away."
"Ask Sibilet; the answer is in his line, he likes to make you angry,"
said Michaud, with a pained look. "But--if you will have an answer--
well, that's a nickname these brigands have given you, general."
"What does it mean?"
"It means, general--well, it refers to your father."
"Ha! the curs!" cried the count, turning livid. "Yes, Michaud, my
father was a shopkeeper, an upholsterer; the countess doesn't know it.
Oh! that I should ever--well! after all, I have waltzed with queens
and empresses. I'll tell her this very night," he cried, after a
pause.
"They also call you a coward," continued Michaud.
"Ha!"
"They ask how you managed to save yourself at Essling when nearly all
your comrades perished."
The accusation brought a smile to the general's lips. "Michaud, I
shall go at once to the Prefecture!" he cried, with a sort of fury,
"if it is only to get the policies of insurance you ask for. Let
Madame la comtesse know that I have gone. Ha, ha! they want war, do
they? Well, they shall have it; I'll take my pleasure in thwarting
them,--every one of them, those bourgeois of Soulanges, and their
peasantry! We are in the enemy's country, therefore prudence! Tell the
foresters to keep within the limits of the law. Poor Vatel, take care
of him. The countess is inclined to be timid; she must know nothing of
all this; otherwise I could never get her to come back here."
Neither the general nor Michaud understood their real peril. Michaud
had been too short a time in this Burgundian valley to realize the
enemy's power, though he saw its action. The general, for his part,
believed in the supremacy of the law.
The law, such as the legislature of these days manufactures it, has
not the virtue we attribute to it. It strikes unequally; it is so
modified in many of its modes of application that it virtually refutes
its own principles. This fact may be noted more or less distinctly
throughout all ages. Is there any historian ignorant enough to assert
that the decrees of the most vigilant of powers were ever enforced
throughout France?--for instance, that the requisitions of the
Convention for men, commodities, and money were obeyed in Provence, in
the depths of Normandy, on the borders of Brittany, as they were at
the great centres of social life? What philosopher dares deny that a
head falls to-day in such or such department, while in a neighboring
department another head stays on its shoulders though guilty of a
crime identically the same, and often more horrible? We ask for
equality in life, and inequality reigns in law and in the death
penalty!
When the population of a town falls below a certain figure the
administrative system is no longer the same. There are perhaps a
hundred cities in France where the laws are vigorously enforced, and
there the intelligence of the citizens rises to the conception of the
problem of public welfare and future security which the law seeks to
solve; but throughout the rest of France nothing is comprehended
beyond immediate gratification; people rebel against all that lessens
it. Therefore in nearly one half of France we find a power of inertia
which defeats all legal action, both municipal and governmental. This
resistance, be it understood, does not affect the essential things of
public polity. The collection of taxes, recruiting, punishment of
great crimes, as a general thing do systematically go on; but outside
of such recognized necessities, all legislative decrees which affect
customs, morals, private interests, and certain abuses, are a dead
letter, owing to the sullen opposition of the people. At the very
moment when this book is going to press, this dumb resistance, which
opposed Louis XIV. in Brittany, may still be seen and felt. See the
unfortunate results of the game-laws, to which we are now sacrificing
yearly the lives of some twenty or thirty men for the sake of
preserving a few animals.
In France the law is, to at least twenty million of inhabitants,
nothing more than a bit of white paper posted on the doors of the
church and the town-hall. That gives rise to the term "papers," which
Mouche used to express legality. Many mayors of cantons (not to speak
of the district mayors) put up their bundles of seeds and herbs with
the printed statutes. As for the district mayors, the number of those
who do not know how to read and write is really alarming, and the
manner in which the civil records are kept is even more so. The danger
of this state of things, well-known to the governing powers, is
doubtless diminishing; but what centralization (against which every
one declaims, as it is the fashion in France to declaim against all
things good and useful and strong),--what centralization cannot touch,
the Power against which it will forever fling itself in vain, is that
which the general was now about to attack, and which we shall take
leave to call the Mediocracy.
A great outcry was made against the tyranny of the nobles; in these
days the cry is against that of capitalists, against abuses of power,
which may be merely the inevitable galling of the social yoke, called
Compact by Rousseau, Constitution by some, Charter by others; Czar
here, King there, Parliament in Great Britain; while in France the
general levelling begun in 1789 and continued in 1830 has paved the
way for the juggling dominion of the middle classes, and delivered the
nation into their hands without escape. The portrayal of one fact
alone, unfortunately only too common in these days, namely, the
subjection of a canton, a little town, a sub-prefecture, to the will
of a family clique,--in short, the power acquired by Gaubertin,--will
show this social danger better than all dogmatic statements put
together. Many oppressed communities will recognize the truth of this
picture; many persons secretly and silently crushed by this tyranny
will find in these words an obituary, as it were, which may half
console them for their hidden woes.
At the very moment when the general imagined himself to be renewing a
warfare in which there had really been no truce, his former steward
had just completed the last meshes of the net-work in which he now
held the whole arrondissement of Ville-aux-Fayes. To avoid too many
explanations it is necessary to state, once for all, succinctly, the
genealogical ramifications by means of which Gaubertin wound himself
about the country, as a boa-constrictor winds around a tree,--with
such art that a passing traveller thinks he beholds some natural
effect of the tropical vegetation.
In 1793 there were three brothers of the name of Mouchon in the valley
of the Avonne. After 1793 they changed the name of the valley to that
of the Valley des Aigues, out of hatred to the old nobility.
The eldest brother, steward of the property of the Ronquerolles
family, was elected deputy of the department to the Convention. Like
his friend, Gaubertin's father, the prosecutor of those days, who
saved the Soulanges family, he saved the property and the lives of the
Ronquerolles. He had two daughters; one married to Gendrin, the
lawyer, the other to Gaubertin. He died in 1804.
The second, through the influence of his elder brother, was made
postmaster at Conches. His only child was a daughter, married to a
rich farmer named Guerbet. He died in 1817.
The last of the Mouchons, who was a priest, and the curate of Villeaux-
Fayes before the Revolution, was again a priest after the reestablishment
of Catholic worship, and again the curate of the same
little town. He was not willing to take the oath, and was hidden for a
long time in the hermitage of Les Aigues, under the protection of the
Gaubertins, father and son. Now about sixty-seven years of age, he was
treated with universal respect and affection, owing to the harmony of
his nature with that of the inhabitants. Parsimonious to the verge of
avarice, he was thought to be rich, and the credit of being so
increased the respect that was shown to him. Monseigneur the bishop
paid the greatest attention to the Abbe Mouchon, who was always spoken
of as the venerable curate of Ville-aux-Fayes; and the fact that he
had several times refused to go and live in a splendid parsonage
attached to the Prefecture, where Monseigneur wished to settle him,
made him dearer still to his people.
Gaubertin, now mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, received steady support from
his brother-in-law Gendrin, who was judge of the municipal court.
Gaubertin the younger, the solicitor who had the most practice before
this court and much repute in the arrondissement, was already thinking
of selling his practice after five years' exercise of it. He wanted to
succeed his Uncle Gendrin as counsellor whenever the latter should
retire from the profession. Gendrin's only son was commissioner of
mortgages.
Soudry's son, who for the last two years had been prosecuting-attorney
at the prefecture, was Gaubertin's henchman. The clever Madame Soudry
had secured the future of her husband's son by marrying him to Rigou's
only daughter. The united fortunes of the Soudrys and the ex-monk,
which would come eventually to the attorney, made that young man one
of the most important personages of the department.
The sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes, Monsieur des Lupeaulx, nephew of
the general-secretary of one of the most important ministries in
Paris, was the prospective husband of Mademoiselle Elise Gaubertin,
the mayor's youngest daughter, whose dowry, like that of her elder
sister, was two hundred thousand francs, not to speak of
"expectations." This functionary showed much sense, though not aware
of it, in falling in love with Mademoiselle Elise when he first
arrived at Ville-aux-Fayes, in 1819. If it had not been for his social
position, which made him "eligible," he would long ago have been
forced to ask for his exchange. But Gaubertin in marrying him to his
daughter thought much more of the uncle, the general-secretary, than
of the nephew; and in return, the uncle, for the sake of his nephew,
gave all his influence to Gaubertin.
Thus the Church, the magistracy both removable and irremovable, the
municipality, and the prefecture, the four feet of power, walked as
the mayor pleased. Let us now see how that functionary strengthened
himself in the spheres above and below that in which he worked.
The department to which Ville-aux-Fayes belongs is one the number of
whose population gives it the right to elect six deputies. Ever since
the creation of the Left Centre of the Chamber, the arrondissement of
Ville-aux-Fayes had sent a deputy named Leclercq, formerly banking
agent of the wine department of the custom-house, a son-in-law of
Gaubertin, and now a governor of the Bank of France. The number of
electors which this rich valley sent to the electoral college was
sufficient to insure, if only through private dealing, the constant
appointment of Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the patron of the Mouchon
family. The voters of Ville-aux-Fayes lent their support to the
prefect, on condition that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was maintained
in the college. Thus Gaubertin, who was the first to broach the idea
of this arrangement, was favorably received at the Prefecture, which
he often, in return, saved from petty annoyances. The prefect always
selected three firm ministerialists, and two deputies of the Left
Centre. The latter, one of them being the Marquis de Ronquerolles,
brother-in-law of the Comte de Serisy, and the other a governor of the
Bank of France, gave little or no alarm to the cabinet, and the
elections in this department were rated excellent at the ministry of
the interior.
The Comte de Soulanges, peer of France, selected to be the next
marshal, and faithful to the Bourbons, knew that his forests and other
property were all well-managed by the notary Lupin, and well-watched
by Soudry. He was a patron of Gendrin's, having obtained his
appointment as judge partly by the help of Monsieur de Ronquerolles.
Messieurs Leclercq and de Ronquerolles sat in the Left Centre, but
nearer to the left than to the centre,--a political position which
offers great advantages to those who regard their political conscience
as a garment.
The brother of Monsieur Leclercq had obtained the situation of
collector at Ville-aux-Fayes, and Leclercq himself, Gaubertin's sonin-
law, had lately bought a fine estate beyond the valley of the
Avonne, which brought him in a rental of thirty thousand francs, with
park and chateau and a controlling influence in its own canton.
Thus, in the upper regions of the State, in both Chambers, and in the
chief ministerial department, Gaubertin could rely on an influence
that was powerful and also active, and which he was careful not to
weary with unimportant requests.
The counsellor Gendrin, appointed judge by the Chamber, was the
leading spirit of the Supreme Court; for the chief justice, one of the
three ministerial deputies, left the management of it to Gendrin
during half the year. The counsel for the Prefecture, a cousin of
Sarcus, called "Sarcus the rich," was the right-hand man of the
prefect, himself a deputy. Even without the family reasons which
allied Gaubertin and young des Lupeaulx, a brother of Madame Sarcus
would still have been desirable as sub-prefect to the arrondissement
of Ville-aux-Fayes. Madame Sarcus, the counsellor's wife, was a Vallat
of Soulanges, a family connected with the Gaubertins, and she was said
to have "distinguished" the notary Lupin in her youth. Though she was
now forty-five years old, with a son in the school of engineers, Lupin
never went to the Prefecture without paying his respects and dining
with her.
The nephew of Guerbet, the postmaster, whose father was, as we have
seen, collector of Soulanges, held the important situation of
examining judge in the municipal court of Ville-aux-Fayes. The third
judge, son of Corbinet, the notary, belonged body and soul to the allpowerful
mayor; and, finally, young Vigor, son of the lieutenant of
the gendarmerie, was the substitute judge.
Sibilet's father, sheriff of the court, had married his sister to
Monsieur Vigor the lieutenant, and that individual, father of six
children, was cousin of the father of Gaubertin through his wife, a
Gaubertin-Vallat. Eighteen months previously the united efforts of the
two deputies, Monsieur de Soulanges and Gaubertin, had created the
place of commissary of police for the sheriff's second son.
Sibilet's eldest daughter married Monsieur Herve, a school-master,
whose school was transformed into a college as a result of this
marriage, so that for the past year Soulanges had rejoiced in the
presence of a professor.
The sheriff's youngest son was employed on the government domains,
with the promise of succeeding the clerk of registrations so soon as
that officer had completed the term of service which enabled him to
retire on a pension.
The youngest Sibilet girl, now sixteen years old, was betrothed to
Corbinet, brother of the notary. And an old maid, Mademoiselle
Gaubertin-Vallat, sister of Madame Sibilet, the sheriff's wife, held
the office for the sale of stamped paper.
Thus, wherever we turn in Ville-aux-Fayes we meet some member of the
invisible coalition, whose avowed chief, recognized as such by every
one, great and small, was the mayor of the town, the general agent for
the entire timber business, Gaubertin!
If we turn to the other end of the valley of the Avonne we shall see
that Gaubertin ruled at Soulanges through the Soudrys, through Lupin
the assistant mayor and steward of the Soulanges estate, who was
necessarily in constant communication with the Comte de Soulanges,
through Sarcus, justice of the peace, through Guerbet, the collector,
through Gourdon, the doctor, who had married a Gendrin-Vatebled. He
governed Blangy through Rigou, Conches through the post-master, the
despotic ruler of his own district.
Gaubertin's influence was so great and powerful that even the
investments and the savings of Rigou, Soudry, Gendrin, Guerbet, Lupin,
even Sarcus the rich himself, were managed by his advice. The town of
Ville-aux-Fayes believed implicitly in its mayor. Gaubertin's ability
was not less extolled than his honesty and his kindness; he was the
servant of his relatives and constituents (always with an eye to a
return of benefits), and the whole municipality adored him. The town
never ceased to blame Monsieur Mariotte, of Auxerre, for having
opposed and thwarted that worthy Monsieur Gaubertin.
Not aware of their strength, no occasion for displaying it having
arisen, the bourgeoisie of Ville-aux-Fayes contented themselves with
boasting that no strangers intermeddled in their affairs and they
believed themselves excellent citizens and faithful public servants.
Nothing, however, escaped their despotic rule, which in itself was not
perceived, the result being considered a triumph of the locality.
The only stranger in this family community was the government engineer
in the highway department; and his dismissal in favor of the son of
Sarcus the rich was now being pressed, with a fair chance that this
one weak thread in the net would soon be strengthened. And yet this
powerful league, which monopolized all duties both public and private,
sucked the resources of the region, and fastened on power like limpets
to a ship, escaped all notice so completely that General Montcornet
had no suspicion of it. The prefect boasted of the prosperity of
Ville-aux-Fayes and its arrondissement; even the minister of the
interior was heard to remark: "There's a model sub-prefecture, which
runs on wheels; we should be lucky indeed if all were like it." Family
designs were so involved with local interests that here, as in many
other little towns and even prefectures, a functionary who did not
belong to the place would have been forced to resign within a year.
When this despotic middle-class cousinry seizes a victim, he is so
carefully gagged and bound that complaint is impossible; he is smeared
with slime and wax like a snail in a beehive. This invisible,
imperceptible tyranny is upheld by powerful reasons,--such as the wish
to be surrounded by their own family, to keep property in their own
hands, the mutual help they ought to lend each other, the guarantees
given to the administration by the fact that their agent is under the
eyes of his fellow-citizens and neighbors. What does all this lead to?
To the fact that local interests supersede all questions of public
interest; the centralized will of Paris is frequently overthrown in
the provinces, the truth of things is disguised, and country
communities snap their fingers at government. In short, after the main
public necessities have been attended to, it will be seen that the
laws, instead of acting upon the masses, receive their impulse from
them; the populations adapt the law to themselves and not themselves
to the law.
Whoever has travelled in the south or west of France, or in Alsace, in
any other way than from inn to inn to see buildings and landscapes,
will surely admit the truth of these remarks. The results of middleclass
nepotism may be, at present, merely isolated evils; but the
tendency of existing laws is to increase them. This low-level
despotism can and will cause great disasters, and the events of the
drama about to be played in the valley of Les Aigues will prove it.
The monarchical and imperial systems, more rashly overthrown than
people realize, remedied these abuses by means of certain consecrated
lives, by classifications and categories and by those particular
counterpoises since so absurdly defined as "privileges." There are no
privileges now, when every human being is free to climb the greased
pole of power. But surely it would be safer to allow open and avowed
privileges than those which are underhand, based on trickery,
subversive of what should be public spirit, and continuing the work of
despotism to a lower and baser level than heretofore. May we not have
overthrown noble tyrants devoted to their country's good, to create
the tyranny of selfish interests? Shall power lurk in secret places,
instead of radiating from its natural source? This is worth thinking
about. The spirit of local sectionalism, such as we have now depicted,
will soon be seen to invade the Chamber.
Montcornet's friend, the late prefect, Comte de la Roche-Hugon, had
lost his position just before the last arrival of the general at Les
Aigues. This dismissal drove him into the ranks of the Liberal
opposition, where he became one of the chorus of the Left, a position
he soon after abandoned for an embassy. His successor, luckily for
Montcornet, was a son-in-law of the Marquis de Troisville, uncle of
the countess, the Comte de Casteran. He welcomed Montcornet as a
relation and begged him to continue his intimacy at the Prefecture.
After listening to the general's complaints the Comte de Casteran
invited the bishop, the attorney-general, the colonel of the
gendarmerie, counsellor Sarcus, and the general commanding the
division to meet him the next day at breakfast.
The attorney-general, Baron Bourlac (so famous in the Chanterie and
Rifael suits), was one of those men well-known to all governments, who
attach themselves to power, no matter in whose hands it is, and who
make themselves invaluable by such devotion. Having owed his elevation
in the first place to his fanaticism for the Emperor, he now owed the
retention of his official rank to his inflexible character and the
conscientiousness with which he fulfilled his duties. He who once
implacably prosecuted the remnant of the Chouans now prosecuted the
Bonapartists as implacably. But years and turmoils had somewhat
subdued his energy and he had now become, like other old devils
incarnate, perfectly charming in manner and ways.
The general explained his position and the fears of his bailiff, and
spoke of the necessity of making an example and enforcing the rights
of property.
The high functionaries listened gravely, making, however, no reply
beyond mere platitudes, such as, "Undoubtedly, the laws must be
upheld"; "Your cause is that of all land-owners"; "We will consider
it; but, situated as we are, prudence is very necessary"; "A monarchy
could certainly do more for the people than the people would do for
itself, even if it were, as in 1793, the sovereign people"; "The
masses suffer, and we are bound to do as much for them as for
ourselves."
The relentless attorney-general expressed such kindly and benevolent
views respecting the condition of the lower classes that our future
Utopians, had they heard him, might have thought that the higher grade
of government officials were already aware of the difficulties of that
problem which modern society will be forced to solve.
It may be well to say here that at this period of the Restoration,
various bloody encounters had taken place in remote parts of the
kingdom, caused by this very question of the pillage of woods, and the
marauding rights which the peasants were everywhere arrogating to
themselves. Neither the government nor the court liked these
outbreaks, nor the shedding of blood which resulted from repression.
Though they felt the necessity of rigorous measures, they nevertheless
treated as blunderers the officials who were compelled to employ them,
and dismissed them on the first pretence. The prefects were therefore
anxious to shuffle out of such difficulties whenever possible.
At the very beginning of the conversation Sarcus (the rich) had made a
sign to the prefect and the attorney-general which Montcornet did not
see, but which set the tone of the discussion. The attorney-general
was well aware of the state of mind of the inhabitants of the valley
des Aigues through his subordinate, Soudry the young attorney.
"I foresee a terrible struggle," the latter had said to him. "They
mean to kill the gendarmes; my spies tell me so. It will be very hard
to convict them for it. The instant the jury feel they are incurring
the hatred of the friends of the twenty or thirty prisoners, they will
not sustain us,--we could not get them to convict for death, nor even
for the galleys. Possibly by prosecuting in person you might get a few
years' imprisonment for the actual murderers. Better shut our eyes
than open them, if by opening them we bring on a collision which costs
bloodshed and several thousand francs to the State,--not to speak of
the cost of keeping the guilty in prison. It is too high a price to
pay for a victory which will only reveal our judicial weakness to the
eyes of all."
Montcornet, who was wholly without suspicion of the strength and
influence of the Mediocracy in his happy valley, did not even mention
Gaubertin, whose hand kept these embers of opposition always alive,
though smouldering. After breakfast the attorney-general took
Montcornet by the arm and led him to the Prefect's study. When the
general left that room after their conference, he wrote to his wife
that he was starting for Paris and should be absent a week. We shall
see, after the execution of certain measures suggested by Baron
Bourlac, the attorney-general, whether the secret advice he gave to
Montcornet was wise, and whether in conforming to it the count and Les
Aigues were enabled to escape the "Evil grudge."
Some minds, eager for mere amusement, will complain that these various
explanations are far too long; but we once more call attention to the
fact that the historian of the manners, customs, and morals of his
time must obey a law far more stringent than that imposed on the
historian of mere facts. He must show the probability of everything,
even the truth; whereas, in the domain of history, properly so-called,
the impossible must be accepted for the sole reason that it did
happen. The vicissitudes of social or private life are brought about
by a crowd of little causes derived from a thousand conditions. The
man of science is forced to clear away the avalanche under which whole
villages lie buried, to show you the pebbles brought down from the
summit which alone can determine the formation of the mountain. If the
historian of human life were simply telling you of a suicide, five
hundred of which occur yearly in Paris, the melodrama is so
commonplace that brief reasons and explanations are all that need be
given; but how shall he make you see that the self-destruction of an
estate could happen in these days when property is reckoned of more
value than life? "De re vestra agitur," said a maker of fables; this
tale concerns the affairs and interests of all those, no matter who
they be, who possess anything.
Remember that this coalition of a whole canton and of a little town
against a general, who, in spite of his rash courage, had escaped the
dangers of actual war, is going on in other districts against other
men who seek only to do what is right by those districts. It is a
coalition which to-day threatens every man, the man of genius, the
statesman, the modern agriculturalist,--in short, all innovators.
This last explanation not only gives a true presentation of the
personages of this drama, and a serious meaning even to its petty
details, but it also throws a vivid light upon the scene where so many
social interests are now marshalling.
CHAPTER X
THE SADNESS OF A HAPPY WOMAN
At the moment when the general was getting into his caleche to go to
the Prefecture, the countess and the two gentlemen reached the gate of
the Avonne, where, for the last eighteen months, Michaud and his wife
Olympe had made their home.
Whose remembered the pavilion in the state in which we lately
described it would have supposed it had been rebuilt. The bricks
fallen or broken by time, and the cement lacking to their edges, were
replaced; the slate roof had been cleaned, and the effect of the white
balustrade against its bluish background restored the gay character of
the architecture. The approaches to the building, formerly choked up
and sandy, were now cared for by the man whose duty it was to keep the
park roadways in order. The poultry-yard, stables, and cow-shed,
relegated to the buildings near the pheasantry and hidden by clumps of
trees, instead of afflicting the eye with their foul details, now
blended those soft murmurs and cooings and the sound of flapping
wings, which are among the most delightful accompaniments of Nature's
eternal harmony, with the peculiar rustling sounds of the forest. The
whole scene possessed the double charm of a natural, untouched forest
and the elegance of an English park. The surroundings of the pavilion,
in keeping with its own exterior, presented a certain noble,
dignified, and cordial effect; while the hand of a young and happy
woman gave to its interior a very different look from what it wore
under the coarse neglect of Courtecuisse.
Just now the rich season of the year was putting forth its natural
splendors. The perfume of the flowerbeds blended with the wild odor of
the woods; and the meadows near by, where the grass had been lately
cut, sent up the fragrance of new-mown hay.
When the countess and her guests reached the end of one of the winding
paths which led to the pavilion, they saw Madame Michaud, sitting in
the open air before the door, employed in making a baby's garment. The
young woman thus placed, thus employed, added the human charm that was
needed to complete the scene,--a charm so touching in its actuality
that painters have committed the error of endeavoring to convey it in
their pictures. Such artists forget that the SOUL of a landscape, if
they represent it truly, is so grand that the human element is crushed
by it; whereas such a scene added to Nature limits her to the
proportions of the personality, like a frame to which the mind of the
spectator confines it. When Poussin, the Raffaelle of France, made a
landscape accessory to his Shepherds of Arcadia he perceived plainly
enough that man becomes diminutive and abject when Nature is made the
principal feature on a canvas. In that picture August is in its glory,
the harvest is ready, all simple and strong human interests are
represented. There we find realized in nature the dream of many men
whose uncertain life of mingled good and evil harshly mixed makes them
long for peace and rest.
Let us now relate, in few words, the romance of this home. Justin
Michaud did not reply very cordially to the advances made to him by
the illustrious colonel of cuirassiers when first offered the
situation of bailiff at Les Aigues. He was then thinking of reentering
the service. But while the negotiations, which naturally took
him to the Hotel Montcornet, were going on, he met the countess's head
waiting-maid. This young girl, who was entrusted to Madame de
Montcornet by her parents, worthy farmers in the neighborhood of
Alencon, had hopes of a little fortune, some twenty or thirty thousand
francs, when the heirs were all of age. Like other farmers who marry
young, and whose own parents are still living, the father and mother
of the girl, being pinched for immediate means, placed her with the
young countess. Madame de Montcornet had her taught to sew and to make
dresses, arranged that she should take her meals alone, and was
rewarded for the care she bestowed on Olympe Charel by one of those
unconditional attachments which are so precious to Parisians.
Olympe Charel, a pretty Norman girl, rather stout, with fair hair of a
golden tint, an animated face lighted by intelligent eyes, and
distinguished by a finely curved thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly
air in spite of a certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself,
possessed all the points that a young girl born just above the level
of the masses is likely to acquire from whatever close companionship a
mistress is willing to allow her. Always suitably dressed, with modest
bearing and manner, and able to express herself well, Michaud was soon
in love with her,--all the more when he found that his sweetheart's
dowry would one day be considerable. The obstacles came from the
countess, who could not bear to part with so invaluable a maid; but
when Montcornet explained to her the affairs at Les Aigues, she gave
way, and the marriage was no longer delayed, except to obtain the
consent of the parents, which, of course, was quickly given.
Michaud, like his general, looked upon his wife as a superior being,
to whom he owed military obedience without a single reservation. He
found in the peace of his home and his busy life out-of-doors the
elements of a happiness soldiers long for when they give up their
profession,--enough work to keep his body healthy, enough fatigue to
let him know the charms of rest. In spite of his well-known
intrepidity, Michaud had never been seriously wounded, and he had none
of those physical pains which often sour the temper of veterans. Like
all really strong men, his temper was even; his wife, therefore, loved
him utterly. From the time they took up their abode in the pavilion,
this happy home was the scene of a long honey-moon in harmony with
Nature and with the art whose creations surrounded them,--a
circumstance rare indeed! The things about us are seldom in keeping
with the condition of our souls!
The picture was so pretty that the countess stopped short and pointed
it out to Blondet and the abbe; for they could see Madame Michaud from
where they stood, without her seeing them.
"I always come this way when I walk in the park," said the countess,
softly. "I delight in looking at the pavilion and its two turtledoves,
as much as I delight in a fine view."
She leaned significantly on Blondet's arm, as if to make him share
sentiments too delicate for words but which all women feel.
"I wish I were a gate-keeper at Les Aigues," said Blondet, smiling.
"Why! what troubles you?" he added, noticing an expression of sadness
on the countess's face.
"Nothing," she replied.
Women are always hiding some important thought when they say,
hypocritically, "It is nothing."
"A woman may be the victim of ideas which would seem very flimsy to
you," she added, "but which, to us, are terrible. As for me, I envy
Olympe's lot."
"God hears you," said the abbe, smiling as though to soften the
sternness of his remark.
Madame de Montcornet grew seriously uneasy when she noticed an
expression of fear and anxiety in Olympe's face and attitude. By the
way a woman draws out her needle or sets her stitches another woman
understands her thoughts. In fact, though wearing a rose-colored
dress, with her hair carefully braided about her head, the bailiff's
wife was thinking of matters that were out of keeping with her pretty
dress, the glorious day, and the work her hands were engaged on. Her
beautiful brow, and the glance she turned sometimes on the ground at
her feet, sometimes on the foliage around, evidently seeing nothing,
betrayed some deep anxiety,--all the more unconsciously because she
supposed herself alone.
"Just as I was envying her! What can have saddened her?" whispered the
countess to the abbe.
"Madame," he replied in the same tone, "tell me why man is often
seized with vague and unaccountable presentiments of evil in the very
midst of some perfect happiness?"
"Abbe!" said Blondet, smiling, "you talk like a bishop. Napoleon said,
'Nothing is stolen, all is bought!'"
"Such a maxim, uttered by those imperial lips, takes the proportions
of society itself," replied the priest.
"Well, Olympe, my dear girl, what is the matter?" said the countess
going up to her former maid. "You seem sad and thoughtful; is it a
lover's quarrel?"
Madame Michaud's face, as she rose, changed completely.
"My dear," said Emile Blondet, in a fatherly tone, "I should like to
know what clouds that brow of yours, in this pavilion where you are
almost as well lodged as the Comte d'Artois at the Tuileries. It is
like a nest of nightingales in a grove! And what a husband we have!--
the bravest fellow of the young garde, and a handsome one, who loves
us to distraction! If I had known the advantages Montcornet has given
you here I should have left my diatribing business and made myself a
bailiff."
"It is not the place for a man of your talent, monsieur," replied
Olympe, smiling at Blondet as an old acquaintance.
"But what troubles you, dear?" said the countess.
"Madame, I'm afraid--"
"Afraid! of what?" said the countess, eagerly; for the word reminded
her of Mouche and Fourchon.
"Afraid of the wolves, is that it?" said Emile, making Madame Michaud
a sign, which she did not understand.
"No, monsieur,--afraid of the peasants. I was born in Le Perche, where
of course there are some bad people, but I had no idea how wicked
people could be until I came here. I try not to meddle in Michaud's
affairs, but I do know that he distrusts the peasants so much that he
goes armed, even in broad daylight, when he enters the forest. He
warns his men to be always on the alert. Every now and then things
happen about here that bode no good. The other day I was walking along
the wall, near the source of that little sandy rivulet which comes
from the forest and enters the park through a culvert about five
hundred feet from here,--you know it, madame? it is called Silver
Spring, because of the star-flowers Bouret is said to have sown there.
Well, I overheard the talk of two women who were washing their linen
just where the path to Conches crosses the brook; they did not know I
was there. Our house can be seen from that point, and one old woman
pointed it out to the other, saying: 'See what a lot of money they
have spent on the man who turned out Courtecuisse.' 'They ought to pay
a man well when they set him to harass poor people as that man does,'
answered the other. 'Well, it won't be for long,' said the first one;
'the thing is going to end soon. We have a right to our wood. The late
Madame allowed us to take it. That's thirty years ago, so the right is
ours.' 'We'll see what we shall see next winter,' replied the second.
'My man has sworn the great oath that all the gendarmerie in the world
sha'n't keep us from getting our wood; he says he means to get it
himself, and if the worst happens so much the worse for them!' 'Good
God!' cried the other; 'we can't die of cold, and we must bake bread
to eat! They want for nothing, THOSE OTHERS! the wife of that
scoundrel of a Michaud will be taken care of, I warrant you!' And
then, Madame, they said such horrible things of me and of you and of
Monsieur le comte; and they finally declared that the farms would all
be burned, and then the chateau."
"Bah!" said Emile, "idle talk! They have been robbing the general, and
they will not be allowed to rob him any longer. These people are
furious, that's the whole of it. You must remember that the law and
the government are always strongest everywhere, even in Burgundy. In
case of an outbreak the general could bring a regiment of cavalry
here, if necessary."
The abbe made a sign to Madame Michaud from behind the countess,
telling her to say no more about her fears, which were doubtless the
effect of that second sight which true passion bestows. The soul,
dwelling exclusively on one only being, grasps in the end the moral
elements that surround it, and sees in them the makings of the future.
The woman who loves feels the same presentiments that later illuminate
her motherhood. Hence a certain melancholy, a certain inexplicable
sadness which surprises men, who are one and all distracted from any
such concentration of their souls by the cares of life and the
continual necessity for action. All true love becomes to a woman an
active contemplation, which is more or less lucid, more or less
profound, according to her nature.
"Come, my dear, show your home to Monsieur Emile," said the countess,
whose mind was so pre-occupied that she forgot La Pechina, who was the
ostensible object of her visit.
The interior of the restored pavilion was in keeping with its
exterior. On the ground-floor the old divisions had been replaced, and
the architect, sent from Paris with his own workmen (a cause of bitter
complaint in the neighborhood against the master of Les Aigues), had
made four rooms out of the space. First, an ante-chamber, at the
farther end of which was a winding wooden staircase, behind which came
the kitchen; on either side of the antechamber was a dining-room and a
parlor panelled in oak now nearly black, with armorial bearings in the
divisions of the ceilings. The architect chosen by Madame de
Montcornet for the restoration of Les Aigues had taken care to put the
furniture of this room in keeping with its original decoration.
At the time of which we write fashion had not yet given an exaggerated
value to the relics of past ages. The carved settee, the high-backed
chairs covered with tapestry, the consoles, the clocks, the tall
embroidery frames, the tables, the lustres, hidden away in the secondhand
shops of Auxerre and Ville-aux-Fayes were fifty per-cent cheaper
than the modern, ready-made furniture of the faubourg Saint Antoine.
The architect had therefore bought two or three cartloads of wellchosen
old things, which, added to a few others discarded at the
chateau, made the little salon of the gate of the Avonne an artistic
creation. As to the dining-room, he painted it in browns and hung it
with what was called a Scotch paper, and Madame Michaud added white
cambric curtains with green borders at the windows, mahogany chairs
covered with green cloth, two large buffets and a table, also in
mahogany. This room, ornamented with engravings of military scenes,
was heated by a porcelain stove, on each side of which were sportingguns
suspended on the walls. These adornments, which cost but little,
were talked of throughout the whole valley as the last extreme of
oriental luxury. Singular to say, they, more than anything else,
excited the envy of Gaubertin, and whenever he thought of his fixed
determination to bring Les Aigues to the hammer and cut it in pieces,
he reserved for himself, "in petto," this beautiful pavilion.
On the next floor three chambers sufficed for the household. At the
windows were muslin curtains which reminded a Parisian of the
particular taste and fancy of bourgeois requirements. Left to herself
in the decoration of these rooms, Madame Michaud had chosen satin
papers; on the mantel-shelf of her bedroom--which was furnished in
that vulgar style of mahogany and Utrecht velvet which is seen
everywhere, with its high-backed bed and canopy to which embroidered
muslin curtains are fastened--stood an alabaster clock between two
candelabra covered with gauze and flanked by two vases filled with
artificial flowers protected by glass shades, a conjugal gift of the
former cavalry sergeant. Above, under the roof, the bedrooms of the
cook, the man-of-all-work, and La Pechina had benefited by the recent
restoration.
"Olympe, my dear, you did not tell me all," said the countess,
entering Madame Michaud's bedroom, and leaving Emile and the abbe on
the stairway, whence they descended when they heard her shut the door.
Madame Michaud, to whom the abbe had contrived to whisper a word, was
now anxious to say no more about her fears, which were really greater
than she had intimated, and she therefore began to talk of a matter
which reminded the countess of the object of her visit.
"I love Michaud, madame, as you know. Well, how would you like to
have, in your own house, a rival always beside you?"
"A rival?"
"Yes, madame; that swarthy girl you gave me to take care of loves
Michaud without knowing it, poor thing! The child's conduct, long a
mystery to me, has been cleared up in my mind for some days."
"Why, she is only thirteen years old!"
"I know that, madame. But you will admit that a woman who is three
months pregnant and means to nurse her child herself may have some
fears; but as I did not want to speak of this before those gentlemen,
I talked a great deal of nonsense when you questioned me," said the
generous creature, adroitly.
Madame Michaud was not really afraid of Genevieve Niseron, but for the
last three days she was in mortal terror of some disaster from the
peasantry.
"How did you discover this?" said the countess.
"From everything and from nothing," replied Olympe. "The poor little
thing moves with the slowness of a tortoise when she is obliged to
obey me, but she runs like a lizard when Justin asks for anything, she
trembles like a leaf at the sound of his voice; and her face is that
of a saint ascending to heaven when she looks at him. But she knows
nothing about love; she has no idea that she loves him."
"Poor child!" said the countess with a smile and tone that were full
of naivete.
"And so," continued Madame Michaud, answering with a smile the smile
of her late mistress, "Genevieve is gloomy when Justin is out of the
house; if I ask her what she is thinking of she replies that she is
afraid of Monsieur Rigou, or some such nonsense. She thinks people
envy her, though she is as black as the inside of a chimney. When
Justin is patrolling the woods at night the child is as anxious as I
am. If I open my window to listen for the trot of his horse, I see a
light in her room, which shows me that La Pechina (as they call here)
is watching and waiting too. She never goes to bed, any more than I
do, till he comes in."
"Thirteen!" exclaimed the countess; "unfortunate child!"
"Unfortunate? no. This passion will save her."
"From what?" asked Madame de Montcornet.
"From the fate which overtakes nearly all the girls of her age in
these parts. Since I have taught her cleanliness she is much less ugly
than she was; in fact, there is something odd and wild about her which
attracts men. She is so changed that you would hardly recognize her.
The son of that infamous innkeeper of the Grand-I-Vert, Nicolas, the
worst fellow in the whole district, wants her; he hunts her like game.
Though I can't believe that Monsieur Rigou, who changes his servantgirls
every year or two is persecuting such a little fright, it is
quite certain that Nicolas Tonsard is. Justin told me so. It would be
a dreadful fate, for the people of this valley actually live like
beasts; but Justin and our two servants and I watch her carefully.
Therefore don't be uneasy, madame; she never goes out alone except in
broad daylight, and then only as far as the gate of Conches. If by
chance she fell into an ambush, her feeling for Justin would give her
strength and wit to escape; for all women who have a preference in
their hearts can resist a man they hate."
"It was about her that I came," said the countess, "and I little
thought my visit could be so useful to you. That child, you know,
can't remain thirteen; and she will probably grow better-looking."
"Oh, madame," replied Olympe, smiling, "I am quite sure of Justin.
What a man! what a heart!-- If you only knew what a depth of gratitude
he feels for his general, to whom, he says, he owes his happiness. He
is only too devoted; he would risk his life for him here, as he would
on the field of battle, and he forgets sometimes that he will one day
be father of a family."
"Ah! I once regretted losing you," said the countess, with a glance
that made Olympe blush; "but I regret it no longer, for I see you
happy. What a sublime and noble thing is married love!" she added,
speaking out the thought she had not dared express before the abbe.
Virginie de Troisville dropped into a revery, and Madame Michaud kept
silence.
"Well, at least the girl is honest, is she not?" said the countess, as
if waking from a dream.
"As honest as I am myself, madame."
"Discreet?"
"As the grave."
"Grateful?"
"Ah! madame; she has moments of humility and gentleness towards me
which seem to show an angelic nature. She will kiss my hands and say
the most upsetting things. 'Can we die of love?' she asked me
yesterday. 'Why do you ask me that?' I said. 'I want to know if love
is a disease.'"
"Did she really say that?"
"If I could remember her exact words I would tell you a great deal
more," replied Olympe; "she appears to know much more than I do."
"Do you think, my dear, that she could take your place in my service.
I can't do without an Olympe," said the countess, smiling in a rather
sad way.
"Not yet, madame,--she is too young; but in two years' time, yes. If
it becomes necessary that she should go away from here I will let you
know. She ought to be educated, and she knows nothing of the world.
Her grandfather, Pere Niseron, is a man who would let his throat be
cut sooner than tell a lie; he would die of hunger in a baker's shop;
he has the strength of his opinions, and the girl was brought up to
all such principles. La Pechina would consider herself your equal; for
the old man has made her, as he says, a republican,--just as Pere
Fourchon has made Mouche a bohemian. As for me, I laugh at such ideas,
but you might be displeased. She would revere you as her benefactress,
but never as her superior. It can't be otherwise; she is wild and free
like the swallows--her mother's blood counts for a good deal in what
she is."
"Who was her mother?"
"Doesn't madame know the story?" said Olympe. "Well, the son of the
old sexton at Blangy, a splendid fellow, so the people about here tell
me, was drafted at the great conscription. In 1809 young Niseron was
still only an artilleryman, in a corps d'armee stationed in Illyria
and Dalmatia when it received sudden orders to advance through Hungary
and cut off the retreat of the Austrian army in case the Emperor won
the battle of Wagram. Michaud told me all about Dalmatia, for he was
there. Niseron, being so handsome a man, captivated a Montenegrin girl
of Zahara among the mountains, who was not averse to the French
garrison. This lost her the good-will of her compatriots, and life in
her own town became impossible after the departure of the French. Zena
Kropoli, called in derision the Frenchwoman, followed the artillery,
and came to France after the peace. Auguste Niseron asked permission
to marry her; but the poor woman died at Vincennes in January, 1810,
after giving birth to a daughter, our Genevieve. The papers necessary
to make the marriage legal arrived a few days later. Auguste Niseron
then wrote to his father to come and take the child, with a wetnurse
he had got from its own country; and it was lucky he did, for he was
killed soon after by the bursting of a shell at Montereau. Registered
by the name of Genevieve and baptized at Soulanges, the little
Dalmatian was taken under the protection of Mademoiselle Laguerre, who
was touched by her story. It seems as if it were the destiny of the
child to be taken care of by the owners of Les Aigues! Pere Niseron
obtained its clothes, and now and then some help in money from
Mademoiselle."
The countess and Olympe were just then standing before a window from
which they could see Michaud approaching the abbe and Blondet, who
were walking up and down the wide, semi-circular gravelled space which
repeated on the park side of the pavilion the exterior half-moon; they
were conversing earnestly.
"Where is she?" said the countess; "you make me anxious to see her."
"She is gone to carry milk to Mademoiselle Gaillard at the gate of
Conches; she will soon be back, for it is more than an hour since she
started."
"Well, I'll go and meet her with those gentlemen," said Madame de
Montcornet, going downstairs.
Just as the countess opened her parasol, Michaud came up and told her
that the general had left her a widow for probably two days.
"Monsieur Michaud," said the countess, eagerly, "don't deceive me,
there is something serious going on. Your wife is frightened, and if
there are many persons like Pere Fourchon, this part of the country
will be uninhabitable--"
"If it were so, madame," answered Michaud, laughing, "we should not be
in the land of the living, for nothing would be easier than to make
away with us. The peasant's grumble, that is all. But as to passing
from growls to blows, from pilfering to crime, they care too much for
life and the free air of the fields. Olympe has been saying something
that frightened you, but you know she is in state to be frightened at
nothing," he added, drawing his wife's hand under his arm and pressing
it to warn her to say no more.
"Cornevin! Juliette!" cried Madame Michaud, who soon saw the head of
her old cook at the window. "I am going for a little walk; take care
of the premises."
Two enormous dogs, who began to bark, proved that the effectiveness of
the garrison at the gate of the Avonne was not to be despised. Hearing
the dogs, Cornevin, an old Percheron, Olympe's foster-father, came
from behind the trees, showing a head such as no other region than La
Perche can manufacture. Cornevin was undoubtedly a Chouan in 1794 and
1799.
The whole party accompanied the countess along that one of the six
forest avenues which led directly to the gate of Conches, crossing the
Silver-spring rivulet. Madame de Montcornet walked in front with
Blondet. The abbe and Michaud and his wife talked in a low voice of
the revelation that had just been made to the countess of the state of
the country.
"Perhaps it is providential," said the abbe; "for if madame is
willing, we might, perhaps, by dint of benefits and constant
consideration of their wants, change the hearts of these people."
At about six hundred feet from the pavilion and below the brooke, the
countess caught sight of a broken red jug and some spilt milk.
"Something has happened to the poor child!" she cried, calling to
Michaud and his wife, who were returning to the pavilion.
"A misfortune like Perrette's," said Blondet, laughing.
"No; the poor child has been surprised and pursued, for the jug was
thrown outside the path," said the abbe, examining the ground.
"Yes, that is certainly La Pechina's step," said Michaud; "the print
of the feet, which have turned, you see, quickly, shows sudden terror.
The child must have darted in the direction of the pavilion, trying to
get back there."
Every one followed the traces which the bailiff pointed out as he
walked along examining them. Presently he stopped in the middle of the
path about a hundred feet from the broken jug, where the girl's footprints
ceased.
"Here," he said, "she turned towards the Avonne; perhaps she was
headed off from the direction of the pavilion."
"But she has been gone more than an hour," cried Madame Michaud.
Alarm was in all faces. The abbe ran towards the pavilion, examining
the state of the road, while Michaud, impelled by the same thought,
went up the path towards Conches.
"Good God! she fell here," said Michaud, returning from a place where
the footsteps stopped near the brook, to that where they had turned in
the road, and pointing to the ground, he added, "See!"
The marks were plainly seen of a body lying at full length on the
sandy path.
"The footprints which have entered the wood are those of some one who
wore knitted soles," said the abbe.
"A woman, then," said the countess.
"Down there, by the broken pitcher, are the footsteps of a man," added
Michaud.
"I don't see traces of any other foot," said the abbe, who was
tracking into the wood the prints of the woman's feet.
"She must have been lifted and carried into the wood," cried Michaud.
"That can't be, if it is really a woman's foot," said Blondet.
"It must be some trick of that wretch, Nicolas," said Michaud. "He has
been watching La Pechina for some time. Only this morning I stood two
hours under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was about. A woman
may have helped him."
"It is dreadful!" said the countess.
"They call it amusing themselves," added the priest, in a sad and
grieved tone.
"Oh! La Pechina would never let them keep her," said the bailiff; "she
is quite able to swim across the river. I shall look along the banks.
Go home, my dear Olympe; and you gentlemen and madame, please to
follow the avenue towards Conches."
"What a country!" exclaimed the countess.
"There are scoundrels everywhere," replied Blondet.
"Is it true, Monsieur l'abbe," asked Madame de Montcornet, "that I
saved the poor child from the clutches of Rigou?"
"Every young girl over fiften years of age whom you may protect at the
chateau is saved from that monster," said the abbe. "In trying to get
possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought
to satisfy both his lust and his vengeance. When I took Pere Niseron
as sexton I told him what Rigou's intentions were. That is one of the
causes of the late mayor's rancor against me; his hatred grew out of
it. Pere Niseron said to him solemnly that he would kill him if any
harm came to Genevieve, and he made him responsible for all attempts
upon the poor child's honor. I can't help thinking that this pursuit
of Nicolas is the result of some infernal collusion with Rigou, who
thinks he can do as he likes with these people."
"Doesn't he fear the law?"
"In the first place, he is father-in-law of the prosecuting-attorney,"
said the abbe, pausing to listen. "And then," he resumed, "you have no
conception of the utter indifference of the rural police to what is
done around them. So long as the peasants do not burn the farm-houses
and buildings, commit no murders, poison no one, and pay their taxes,
they let them do as they like; and as these people are not restrained
by any religious principle, horrible things happen every day. On the
other side of the Avonne helpless old men are afraid to stay in their
own homes, for they are allowed nothing to eat; they wander out into
the fields as far as their tottering legs can bear them, knowing well
that if they take to their beds they will die for want of food.
Monsieur Sarcus, the magistrate, tells me that if they arrested and
tried all criminals, the costs would ruin the municipality."
"Then he at least sees how things are?" said Blondet.
"Monseigneur thoroughly understands the condition of the valley, and
especially the state of this district," continued the abbe. "Religion
alone can cure such evils; the law seems to me powerless, modified as
it is now--"
The words were interrupted by loud cries from the woods, and the
countess, preceded by Emile and the abbe, sprang bravely into the
brushwood in the direction of the sounds.
CHAPTER XI
THE OARISTYS, EIGHTEENTH ECLOGUE OF THEOCRITUS;
LITTLE ADMIRED ON THE POLICE CALENDAR
The sagacity of a savage, which Michaud's new occupation had developed
among his faculties, joined to an acquaintance with the passions and
interests of Blangy, enabled him partially to understand a third idyll
in the Greek style, which poor villagers like Tonsard, and middle-aged
rich men like Rigou, translate FREELY--to use the classic word--in the
depths of their country solitudes.
Nicolas, Tonsard's second son, had drawn an unlucky number at a recent
conscription. Two years earlier his elder brother had been pronounced,
through the influence of Soudry, Gaubertin, and Sarcus the rich, unfit
for military service, on account of a pretended weakness in the
muscles of the right arm; but as Jean-Louis had since wielded
instruments of husbandry with remarkable force and skill, a good deal
of talk on the subject had gone through the district. Soudry, Rigou,
and Gaubertin, who were the special protectors of the family, had
warned Tonsard that he must not expect to save Nicolas, who was tall
and vigorous, from being recruited if he drew a fatal number.
Nevertheless Gaubertin and Rigou were so well aware of the importance
of conciliating bold men able and willing to do mischief, if properly
directed against Les Aigues, that Rigou held out certain hopes of
safety to Tonsard and his son. The late monk was occasionally visited
by Catherine Tonsard who was very devoted to her brother Nicolas; on
one such occasion Rigou advised her to appeal to the general and the
countess.
"They may be glad to do you this service to cajole you; in that case,
it is just so much gained from the enemy," he said. "If the Shopman
refuses, then we shall see what we shall see."
Rigou foresaw that the general's refusal would pass as one wrong the
more done by the land-owner to the peasantry, and would bind Tonsard
by an additional motive of gratitude to the coalition, in case the
crafty mind of the innkeeper could suggest to him some plausible way
of liberating Nicolas.
Nicolas, who was soon to appear before the examining board, had little
hope of the general's intervention because of the harm done to Les
Aigues by all the members of the Tonsard family. His passion, or to
speak more correctly, his caprice and obstinate pursuit of La Pechina,
were so aggravated by the prospect of his immediate departure, which
left him no time to seduce her, that he resolved on attempting
violence. The child's contempt for her prosecutor, plainly shown,
excited the Lovelace of the Grand-I-Vert to a hatred whose fury was
equalled only by his desires. For the last three days he had been
watching La Pechina, and the poor child knew she was watched. Between
Nicolas and his prey the same sort of understanding existed which
there is between the hunter and the game. When the girl was at some
little distance from the pavilion she saw Nicolas in one of the paths
which ran parallel to the walls of the park, leading to the bridge of
the Avonne. She could easily have escaped the man's pursuit had she
appealed to her grandfather; but all young girls, even the most
unsophisticated, have a strange fear, possibly instinctive, of
trusting to their natural protectors under the like circumstances.
Genevieve had heard Pere Niseron take an oath to kill any man, no
matter who he was, who should dare to TOUCH (that was his word) his
granddaughter. The old man thought the child amply protected by the
halo of white hair and honor which a spotless life of three-score
years and ten had laid upon his brow. The vision of bloody scenes
terrifies the imagination of young girls so that they need not dive to
the bottom of their hearts for other numerous and inquisitive reasons
which seal their lips.
When La Pechina started with the milk which Madame Michaud had sent to
the daughter of Gaillard, the keeper of the gate of Conches, whose cow
had just calved, she looked about her cautiously, like a cat when it
ventures out onto the street. She saw no signs of Nicolas; she
listened to the silence, as the poet says, and hearing nothing, she
concluded that the rascal had gone to his day's work. The peasants
were just beginning to cut the rye; for they were in the habit of
getting in their own harvests first, so as to benefit by the best
strength of the mowers. But Nicolas was not a man to mind losing a
day's work,--especially now that he expected to leave the country
after the fair at Soulanges and begin, as the country people say, the
new life of a soldier.
When La Pechina, with the jug on her head, was about half-way, Nicolas
slid like a wild-cat down the trunk of an elm, among the branches of
which he was hiding, and fell like a thunderbolt in front of the girl,
who flung away her pitcher and trusted to her fleet legs to regain the
pavilion. But a hundred feet farther on, Catherine Tonsard, who was on
the watch, rushed out of the wood and knocked so violently against the
flying girl that she was thrown down. The violence of the fall made
her unconscious. Catherine picked her up and carried her into the
woods to the middle of a tiny meadow where the Silver-spring brook
bubbled up.
Catherine Tonsard was tall and strong, and in every respect the type
of woman whom painters and sculptors take, as the Republic did in
former days, for their figures of Liberty. She charmed the young men
of the valley of the Avonne with her voluminous bosom, her muscular
legs, and a waist as robust as it was flexible; with her plump arms,
her eyes that could flash and sparkle, and her jaunty air; with the
masses of hair twisted in coils around her head, her masculine
forehead and her red lips curling with that same ferocious smile which
Eugene Delacroix and David (of Angers) caught and represented so
admirably. True image of the People, this fiery and swarthy creature
seemed to emit revolt through her piercing yellow eyes, blazing with
the insolence of a soldier. She inherited from her father so violent a
nature that the whole family, except Tonsard, and all who frequented
the tavern feared her.
"Well, how are you now?" she said to La Pechina as the latter
recovered consciousness.
Catherine had placed her victim on a little mound beside the brook and
was bringing her to her senses with dashes of cold water. "Where am
I?" said the child, opening her beautiful black eyes through which a
sun-ray seemed to glide.
"Ah!" said Catherine, "if it hadn't been for me you'd have been
killed."
"Thank you," said the girl, still bewildered; "what happened to me?"
"You stumbled over a root and fell flat in the road over there, as if
shot. Ha! how you did run!"
"It was your brother who made me," said La Pechina, remembering
Nicolas.
"My brother? I did not see him," said Catherine. "What did he do to
you, poor fellow, that should make you fly as if he were a wolf? Isn't
he handsomer than your Monsieur Michaud?"
"Oh!" said the girl, contemptuously.
"See here, little one; you are laying up a crop of evils for yourself
by loving those who persecute us. Why don't you keep to our side?"
"Why don't you come to church; and why do you steal things night and
day?" asked the child.
"So you let those people talk you over!" sneered Catherine. "They love
us, don't they?--just as they love their food which they get out of
us, and they want new dishes every day. Did you ever know one of them
to marry a peasant-girl? Not they! Does Sarcus the rich let his son
marry that handsome Gatienne Giboulard? Not he, though she is the
daughter of a rich upholsterer. You have never been at the Tivoli ball
at Soulanges in Socquard's tavern; you had better come. You'll see 'em
all there, these bourgeois fellows, and you'll find they are not worth
the money we shall get out of them when we've pulled them down. Come
to the fair this year!"
"They say it's fine, that Soulanges fair!" cried La Pechina,
artlessly.
"I'll tell you what it is in two words," said Catherine. "If you are
handsome, you are well ogled. What is the good of being as pretty as
you are if you are not admired by the men? Ha! when I heard one of
them say for the first time, 'What a fine sprig of a girl!' all my
blood was on fire. It was at Socquard's, in the middle of a dance; my
grandfather, Fourchon, who was playing the clarionet, heard it and
laughed. Tivoli seemed to me as grand and fine as heaven itself. It's
lighted up, my dear, with glass lamps, and you'll think you are in
paradise. All the gentlemen of Soulanges and Auxerre and Ville-aux-
Fayes will be there. Ever since that first night I've loved the place
where those words rang in my ears like military music. It's worthy
giving your eternity to hear such words said of you by a man you
love."
"Yes, perhaps," replied La Pechina, thoughtfully.
"Then come, and get the praise of men; you're sure of it!" cried
Catherine. "Ha! you'll have a fine chance, handsome as you are, to
pick up good luck. There's the son of Monsieur Lupin, Amaury, he might
marry you. But that's not all; if you only knew what comforts you can
find there against vexation and worry. Why, Socquard's boiled wine
will make you forget every trouble you ever had. Fancy! it can make
you dream, and feel as light as a bird. Didn't you ever drink boiled
wine? Then you don't know what life is."
The privilege enjoyed by older persons to wet their throats with
boiled wine excites the curiosity of the children of the peasantry
over twelve years of age to such a degree that Genevieve had once put
her lips to a glass of boiled wine ordered by the doctor for her
grandfather when ill. The taste had left a sort of magic influence in
the memory of the poor child, which may explain the interest with
which she listened, and on which the evil-minded Catherine counted to
carry out a plan already half-successful. No doubt she was trying to
bring her victim, giddy from the fall, to the moral intoxication so
dangerous to young women living in the wilds of nature, whose
imagination, deprived of other nourishment, is all the more ardent
when the occasion comes to exercise it. Boiled wine, which Catherine
had held in reserve, was to end the matter by intoxicating the victim.
"What do they put into it?" asked La Pechina.
"All sorts of things," replied Catherine, glancing back to see if her
brother were coming; "in the first place, those what d' ye call 'ems
that come from India, cinnamon, and herbs that change you by magic,--
you fancy you have everything you wish for; boiled wine makes you
happy! you can snap your fingers at all your troubles!"
"I should be afraid to drink boiled wine at a dance," said La Pechina.
"Afraid of what?" asked Catherine. "There's not the slightest danger.
Think what lots of people there will be. All the bourgeois will be
looking at us! Ah! it is one of those days that make up for all our
misery. See it and die,--for it's enough to satisfy any one."
"If Monsieur and Madame Michaud would only take me!" cried La Pechina,
her eyes blazing.
"Ask your grandfather Niseron; you have not given him up, poor dear
man, and he'd be pleased to see you admired like a little queen. Why
do you like those Arminacs the Michauds better than your grandfather
and the Burgundians. It's bad to neglect your own people. Besides, why
should the Michauds object if your grandfather takes you to the fair?
Oh! if you knew what it is to reign over a man and put him beside
himself, and say to him, as I say to Godain, 'Go there!' and he goes,
'Do that!' and he does it! You've got it in you, little one, to turn
the head of a bourgeois like that son of Monsieur Lupin. Monsieur
Amaury took a fancy to my sister Marie because she is fair and because
he is half-afraid of me; but he'd adore you, for ever since those
people at the pavilion have spruced you up a bit you've got the airs
of an empress."
Adroitly leading the innocent heart to forget Nicolas and so put it
off its guard, Catherine distilled into the girl the insidious nectar
of compliments. Unawares, she touched a secret wound. La Pechina,
without being other than a poor peasant girl, was a specimen of
alarming precocity, like many another creature doomed to die as
prematurely as it blooms. Strange product of Burgundian and
Montenegrin blood, conceived and born amid the toils of war, the girl
was doubtless in many ways the result of her congenital circumstances.
Thin, slender, brown as a tobacco leaf, and short in stature, she
nevertheless possessed extraordinary strength,--a strength unseen by
the eyes of peasants, to whom the mysteries of the nervous system are
unknown. Nerves are not admitted into the medical rural mind.
At thirteen years of age Genevieve had completed her growth, though
she was hardly as tall as an ordinary girl of her age. Did her face
owe its topaz skin, so dark and yet so brilliant, dark in tone and
brilliant in the quality of its tissue, giving a look of age to the
childish face, to her Montenegrin origin, or to the ardent sun of
Burgundy? Medical science may dismiss the inquiry. The premature old
age on the surface of the face was counterbalanced by the glow, the
fire, the wealth of light which made the eyes two stars. Like all eyes
which fill with sunlight and need, perhaps, some sheltering screen,
the eyelids were fringed with lashes of extraordinary length. The
hair, of a bluish black, long and fine and abundant, crowned a brow
moulded like that of the Farnese Juno. That magnificent diadem of
hair, those grand Armenian eyes, that celestial brow eclipsed the rest
of the face. The nose, though pure in form as it left the brow, and
graceful in curve, ended in flattened and flaring nostrils. Anger
increased this effect at times, and then the face wore an absolutely
furious expression. All the lower part of the face, like the lower
part of the nose, seemed unfinished, as if the clay in the hands of
the divine sculptor had proved insufficient. Between the lower lip and
the chin the space was so short that any one taking La Pechina by the
chin would have rubbed the lip; but the teeth prevented all notice of
this defect. One might almost believe those little bones had souls, so
brilliant were they, so polished, so transparent, so exquisitely
shaped, disclosed as they were by too wide a mouth, curved in lines
that bore resemblance to the fantastic shapes of coral. The shells of
the ears were so transparent to the light that in the sunshine they
were rose-colored. The complexion, though sun-burned, showed a
marvellous delicacy in the texture of the skin. If, as Buffon
declared, love lies in touch, the softness of the girl's skin must
have had the penetrating and inciting influence of the fragrance of
daturas. The chest and indeed the whole body was alarmingly thin; but
the feet and hands, of alluring delicacy, showed remarkable nervous
power, and a vigorous organism.
This mixture of diabolical imperfections and divine beauties,
harmonious in spite of discords, for they blended in a species of
savage dignity, also this triumph of a powerful soul over a feeble
body, as written in those eyes, made the child, when once seen,
unforgettable. Nature had wished to make that frail young being a
woman; the circumstances of her conception moulded her with the face
and body of a boy. A poet observing the strange creature would have
declared her native clime to be Arabia the Blest; she belonged to the
Afrite and Genii of Arabian tales. Her face told no lies. She had the
soul of that glance of fire, the intellect of those lips made
brilliant by the bewitching teeth, the thought enshrined within that
glorious brow, the passion of those nostrils ready at all moments to
snort flame. Therefore love, such as we imagine it on burning sands,
in lonely deserts, filled that heart of twenty in the breast of a
child, doomed, like the snowy heights of Montenegro, to wear no
flowers of the spring.
Observers ought now to understand how it was that La Pechina, from
whom passion issued by every pore, awakened in perverted natures the
feelings deadened by abuse; just as water fills the mouth at sight of
those twisted, blotched, and speckled fruits which gourmands know by
experience, and beneath whose skin nature has put the rarest flavors
and perfumes. Why did Nicolas, that vulgar laborer, pursue this being
who was worthy of a poet, while the eyes of the country-folk pitied
her as a sickly deformity? Why did Rigou, the old man, feel the
passion of a young one for this girl? Which of the two men was young,
and which was old? Was the young peasant as blase as the old usurer?
Why did these two extremes of life meet in one common and devilish
caprice? Does the vigor that draws to its close resemble the vigor
that is only dawning? The moral perversities of men are gulfs guarded
by sphinxes; they begin and end in questions to which there is no
answer.
The exclamation, formerly quoted, of the countess, "Piccina!" when she
first saw Genevieve by the roadside, open-mouthed at sight of the
carriage and the elegantly dressed woman within it, will be
understood. This girl, almost a dwarf, of Montenegrin vigor, loved the
handsome, noble bailiff, as children of her age love, when they do
love, that is to say, with childlike passion, with the strength of
youth, with the devotion which in truly virgin souls gives birth to
divinest poesy. Catherine had just swept her coarse hands across the
sensitive strings of that choice harp, strung to the breaking-point.
To dance before Michaud, to shine at the Soulanges ball and inscribe
herself on the memory of that adored master! What glorious thoughts!
To fling them into that volcanic head was like casting live coals upon
straw dried in the August sun.
"No, Catherine," replied La Pechina, "I am ugly and puny; my lot is to
sit in a corner and never to be married, but live alone in the world."
"Men like weaklings," said Catherine. "You see me, don't you?" she
added, showing her handsome, strong arms. "I please Godain, who is a
poor stick; I please that little Charles, the count's groom; but
Lupin's son is afraid of me. I tell you it is the small kind of men
who love me, and who say when they see me go by at Ville-aux-Fayes and
at Soulanges, 'Ha! what a fine girl!' Now YOU, that's another thing;
you'll please the fine men."
"Ah! Catherine, if it were true--that!" cried the bewitched child.
"It is true, it is so true that Nicolas, the handsomest man in the
canton, is mad about you; he dreams of you, he is losing his mind; and
yet all the other girls are in love with him. He is a fine lad! If
you'll put on a white dress and yellow ribbons, and come to Socquard's
for the midsummer ball, you'll be the handsomest girl there, and all
the fine people from Ville-aux-Fayes will see you. Come, won't you?--
See here, I've been cutting grass for the cows, and I brought some
boiled wine in my gourd; Socquard gave it me this morning," she added
quickly, seeing the half-delirious expression in La Pechina's eyes
which women understand so well. "We'll share it together, and you'll
fancy the men are in love with you."
During this conversation Nicolas, choosing the grassy spots to step
on, had noiselessly slipped behind the trunk of an old oak near which
his sister had seated La Pechina. Catherine, who had now and then cast
her eyes behind her, saw her brother as she turned to get the boiled
wine.
"Here, take some," she said, offering it.
"It burns me!" cried Genevieve, giving back the gourd, after taking
two or three swallows from it.
"Silly child!" replied Catherine; "see here!" and she emptied the
rustic bottle without taking breath. "See how it slips down; it goes
like a sunbeam into the stomach."
"But I ought to be carrying the milk to Mademoiselle Gaillard," cried
Genevieve; "and it is all spilt! Nicolas frightened me so!"
"Don't you like Nicolas?"
"No," answered Genevieve. "Why does he persecute me? He can get plenty
other girls, who are willing."
"But if he likes you better than all the other girls in the valley--"
"So much the worse for him."
"I see you don't know him," answered Catherine, as she seized the girl
rapidly by the waist and flung her on the grass, holding her down in
that position with her strong arms. At this moment Nicolas appeared.
Seeing her odious persecutor, the child screamed with all her might,
and drove him five feet away with a violent kick in the stomach; then
she twisted herself like an acrobat, with a dexterity for which
Catherine was not prepared, and rose to run away. Catherine, still on
the ground, caught her by one foot and threw her headlong on her face.
This frightful fall stopped the brave child's cries for a moment.
Nicolas attempted, furiously, to seize his victim, but she, though
giddy from the wine and the fall, caught him by the throat in a grip
of iron.
"Help! she's strangling me, Catherine," cried Nicolas, in a stifled
voice.
La Pechina uttered piercing screams, which Catherine tried to choke by
putting her hands over the girl's mouth, but she bit them and drew
blood. It was at this moment that Blondet, the countess, and the abbe
appeared at the edge of the wood.
"Here are those Aigues people!" exclaimed Catherine, helping Genevieve
to rise.
"Do you want to live?" hissed Nicolas in the child's ear.
"What then?" she asked.
"Tell them we were all playing, and I'll forgive you," said Nicolas,
in a threatening voice.
"Little wretch, mind you say it!" repeated Catherine, whose glance was
more terrifying than her brother's murderous threat.
"Yes, I will, if you let me alone," replied the child. "But anyhow I
will never go out again without my scissors."
"You are to hold your tongue, or I'll drown you in the Avonne," said
Catherine, ferociously.
"You are monsters," cried the abbe, coming up; "you ought to be
arrested and taken to the assizes."
"Ha! and pray what do you do in your drawing-rooms?" said Nicolas,
looking full at the countess and Blondet. "You play and amuse
yourselves, don't you? Well, so do we, in the fields which are ours.
We can't always work; we must play sometimes,--ask my sister and La
Pechina."
"How do you fight if you call that playing?" cried Blondet.
Nicolas gave him a murderous look.
"Speak!" said Catherine, gripping La Pechina by the forearm and
leaving a blue bracelet on the flesh. "Were not we amusing ourselves?"
"Yes, madame, we were amusing ourselves," said the child, exhausted by
her display of strength, and now breaking down as though she were
about to faint.
"You hear what she says, madame," said Catherine, boldly, giving the
countess one of those looks which women give each other like dagger
thrusts.
She took her brother's arm, and the pair walked off, not mistaking the
opinion they left behind them in the minds of the three persons who
had interrupted the scene. Nicolas twice looked back, and twice
encountered Blondet's gaze. The journalist continued to watch the tall
scoundrel, who was broad in the shoulders, healthy and vigorous in
complexion, with black hair curling tightly, and whose rather soft
face showed upon its lips and around the mouth certain lines which
reveal the peculiar cruelty that characterizes sluggards and
voluptaries. Catherine swung her petticoat, striped blue and white,
with an air of insolent coquetry.
"Cain and his wife!" said Blondet to the abbe.
"You are nearer the truth than you know," replied the priest.
"Ah! Monsieur le cure, what will they do to me?" said La Pechina, when
the brother and sister were out of sight.
The countess, as white as her handkerchief, was so overcome that she
heard neither Blondet nor the abbe nor La Pechina.
"It is enough to drive one from this terrestrial paradise," she said
at last. "But the first thing of all is to save that child from their
claws."
"You are right," said Blondet in a low voice. "That child is a poem, a
living poem."
Just then the Montenegrin girl was in a state where soul and body
smoke, as it were, after the conflagration of an anger which has
driven all forces, physical and intellectual, to their utmost tension.
It is an unspeakable and supreme splendor, which reveals itself only
under the pressure of some frenzy, be it resistance or victory, love
or martyrdom. She had left home in a dress with alternate lines of
brown and yellow, and a collarette which she pleated herself by rising
before daylight; and she had not yet noticed the condition of her gown
soiled by her struggle on the grass, and her collar torn in
Catherine's grasp. Feeling her hair hanging loose, she looked about
her for a comb. At this moment Michaud, also attracted by the screams,
came upon the scene. Seeing her god, La Pechina recovered her full
strength. "Monsieur Michaud," she cried, "he did not even touch me!"
The cry, the look, the action of the girl were an eloquent commentary,
and told more to Blondet and the abbe than Madame Michaud had told the
countess about the passion of that strange nature for the bailiff, who
was utterly unconscious of it.
"The scoundrel!" cried Michaud.
Then, with an involuntary and impotent gesture, such as mad men and
wise men can both be forced into giving, he shook his fist in the
direction in which he had caught sight of Nicolas disappearing with
his sister.
"Then you were not playing?" said the abbe with a searching look at La
Pechina.
"Don't fret her," interposed the countess; "let us return to the
pavilion."
Genevieve, though quite exhausted, found strength under Michaud's eyes
to walk. The countess followed the bailiff through one of the by-paths
known to keepers and poachers where only two can go abreast, and which
led to the gate of the Avonne.
"Michaud," said the countess when they reached the depth of the wood,
"We must find some way of ridding the neighborhood of such vile
people; that child is actually in danger of death."
"In the first place," replied Michaud, "Genevieve shall not leave the
pavilion. My wife will be glad to take the nephew of Vatel, who has
the care of the park roads, into the house. With Gounod (that is his
name) and old Cornevin, my wife's foster-father, always at hand, La
Pechina need never go out without a protector."
"I will tell Monsieur to make up this extra expense to you," said the
countess. "But this does not rid us of that Nicolas. How can we manage
that?"
"The means are easy and right at hand," answered Michaud. "Nicolas is
to appear very soon before the court of appeals on the draft. The
general, instead of asking for his release, as the Tonsards expect,
has only to advise his being sent to the army--"
"If necessary, I will go myself," said the countess, "and see my
cousin, de Casteran, the prefect. But until then, I tremble for that
child--"
The words were said at the end of the path close to the open space by
the bridge. As they reached the edge of the bank the countess gave a
cry; Michaud advanced to help her, thinking she had struck her foot
against a stone; but he shuddered at the sight that met his eyes.
Marie Tonsard and Bonnebault, seated below the bank, seemed to be
conversing, but were no doubt hiding there to hear what passed.
Evidently they had left the wood as the party advanced towards them.
Bonnebault, a tall, wiry fellow, had lately returned to Conches after
six years' service in the cavalry, with a permanent discharge due to
his evil conduct,--his example being likely to ruin better men. He
wore moustachios and a small chin-tuft; a peculiarity which, joined to
his military carriage, made him the reigning fancy of all the girls in
the valley. His hair, in common with that of other soldiers, was cut
very short behind, but he frizzed it on the top of his head, brushing
up the ends with a dandy air; on it his foraging cap was jauntily
tilted to one side. Compared to the peasants, who were mostly in rags,
like Mouche and Fourchon, he seemed gorgeous in his linen trousers,
boots, and short waistcoat. These articles, bought at the time of his
liberation, were, it is true, somewhat the worse for a life in the
fields; but this village cock-of-the-walk had others in reserve for
balls and holidays. He lived, it must be said, on the gifts of his
female friends, which, liberal as they were, hardly sufficed for the
libations, the dissipations, and the squanderings of all kinds which
resulted from his intimacy with the Cafe de la Paix.
Cowardice is like courage; of both there are various kinds. Bonnebault
would have fought like a brave soldier, but he was weak in presence of
his vices and his desires. Lazy as a lizard, that is to say, active
only when it suited him, without the slightest decency, arrogant and
base, able for much but neglectful of all, the sole pleasure of this
"breaker of hearts and plates," to use a barrack term, was to do evil
or inflict damage. Such a nature does as much harm in rural
communities as it does in a regiment. Bonnebault, like Tonsard and
like Fourchon, desired to live well and do nothing; and he had his
plans laid. Making the most of his gallant appearance with increasing
success, and of his talents for billiards with alternate loss and
gain, he flattered himself that the day would come when he could marry
Mademoiselle Aglae Socquard, only daughter of the proprietor of the
Cafe de la Paix, a resort which was to Soulanges what, relatively
speaking, Ranelagh is to the Bois de Boulogne. To get into the
business of tavern-keeping, to manage the public balls, what a fine
career for the marshal's baton of a ne'er-do-well! These morals, this
life, this nature, were so plainly stamped upon the face of the lowlived
profligate that the countess was betrayed into an exclamation
when she beheld the pair, for they gave her the sensation of beholding
snakes.
Marie, desperately in love with Bonnebault, would have robbed for his
benefit. Those moustachios, the swaggering gait of a trooper, the
fellow's smart clothes, all went to her heart as the manners and
charms of a de Marsay touch that of a pretty Parisian. Each social
sphere has its own standard of distinction. The jealous Marie rebuffed
Amaury Lupin, the other dandy of the little town, her mind being made
up to become Madame Bonnebault.
"Hey! you there, hi! come on!" cried Nicolas and Catherine from afar,
catching sight of Marie and Bonnebault.
The sharp call echoed through the woods like the cry of savages.
Seeing the pair at his feet, Michaud shuddered and deeply repented
having spoken. If Bonnebault and Marie Tonsard had overheard the
conversation, nothing but harm could come of it. This event,
insignificant as it seems, was destined, in the irritated state of
feeling then existing between Les Aigues and the peasantry, to have a
decisive influence on the fate of all,--just as victory or defeat in
battle sometimes depends upon a brook which shepherds jump while
cannon are unable to pass it.
Gallantly bowing to the countess, Bonnebault passed Marie's arm
through his own with a conquering air and took himself off
triumphantly.
"The King of Hearts of the valley," muttered Michaud to the countess.
"A dangerous man. When he loses twenty francs at billiards he would
murder Rigou to get them back. He loves a crime as he does a
pleasure."
"I have seen enough for to-day; take me home, gentlemen," murmured the
countess, putting her hand on Emile's arm.
She bowed sadly to Madame Michaud, after watching La Pechina safely
back to the pavilion. Olympe's depression was transferred to her
mistress.
"Ah, madame," said the abbe, as they continued their way, "can it be
that the difficulty of doing good is about to deter you? For the last
five years I have slept on a pallet in a parsonage which has no
furniture; I say mass in a church without believers; I preach to no
hearers; I minister without fees or salary; I live on the six hundred
francs the law allows me, asking nothing of my bishop, and I give the
third of that in charity. Still, I am not hopeless. If you knew what
my winters are in this place you would understand the strength of
those words,--I am not hopeless. I keep myself warm with the belief
that we can save this valley and bring it back to God. No matter for
ourselves, madame; think of the future! If it is our duty to say to
the poor, 'Learn how to be poor; that is, how to work, to endure, to
strive,' it is equally our duty to say to the rich, 'Learn your duty
as prosperous men,'--that is to say, 'Be wise, be intelligent in your
benevolence; pious and virtuous in the place to which God has called
you.' Ah! madame, you are only the steward of Him who grants you
wealth; if you do not obey His behests you will never transmit to your
children the prosperity He gives you. You will rob your posterity. If
you follow in the steps of that poor singer's selfishness, which
caused the evils that now terrify us, you will bring back the
scaffolds on which your fathers died for the faults of their fathers.
To do good humbly, in obscurity, in country solitudes, as Rigou now
does evil,--ah! that indeed is prayer in action and dear to God. If in
every district three souls only would work for good, France, our
country, might be saved from the abyss that yawns; into which we are
rushing headlong, through spiritual indifference to all that is not
our own self-interest. Change! you must change your morals, change
your ethics, and that will change your laws."
Though deeply moved as she listened to this grand utterance of true
catholic charity, the countess answered in the fatal words, "We will
consider it,"--words of the rich, which contain that promise to the
ear which saves their purses and enables them to stand with arms
crossed in presence of all disaster, under pretext that they were
powerless.
Hearing those words, the abbe bowed to Madame de Montcornet and turned
off into a path which led him direct to the gate of Blangy.
"Belshazzar's feast is the everlasting symbol of the dying days of a
caste, of an oligarchy, of a power!" he thought as he walked away. "My
God! if it be Thy will to loose the poor like a torrent to reform
society, I know, I comprehend, why it is that Thou hast abandoned the
wealthy to their blindness!"
CHAPTER XII
SHOWETH HOW THE TAVERN IS THE PEOPLE'S PARLIAMENT
Old Mother Tonsard's screams brought a number of people from Blangy to
know what was happening at the Grand-I-Vert, the distance from the
village to the inn not being greater than that from the inn to the
gate of Blangy. One of these inquiring visitors was old Niseron, La
Pechina's grandfather, who was on his way, after ringing the second
Angelus, to dig the vine-rows in his last little bit of ground.
Bent by toil, with pallid face and silvery hair, the old vinedresser,
now the sole representative of civic virtue in the community, had
been, during the Revolution, president of the Jacobin club at Villeaux-
Fayes, and a juror in the revolutionary tribunal of the district.
Jean-Francois Niseron, carved out of the wood that the apostles were
made of, was of the type of Saint Peter; whom painters and sculptors
have united in representing with the square brow of the people, the
thick, naturally curling hair of the laborer, the muscles of the man
of toil, the complexion of a fisherman; with the large nose, the
shrewd, half-mocking lips that scoff at fate, the neck and shoulders
of the strong man who cuts his wood to cook his dinner while the
doctrinaires of his opinions talk.
Such, at forty years of age on the breaking out of the Revolution, was
this man, strong as iron, pure as gold. Advocate of the people, he
believed in a republic through the very roll of that name, more
formidable in sound perhaps than in reality. He believed in the
republic of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the brotherhood of man, in the
exchange of noble sentiments, in the proclamation of virtue, in the
choice of merit without intrigue,--in short, in all that the narrow
limits of one arrondissement like Sparta made possible, and which the
vast proportions of an empire make chimerical. He signed his beliefs
with his blood,--his only son went to war; he did more, he signed them
with the prosperity of his life,--last sacrifice of self. Nephew and
sole heir of the curate of Blangy, the then all-powerful tribune might
have enforced his rights and recovered the property left by the priest
to his pretty servant-girl, Arsene; but he respected his uncle's
wishes and accepted poverty, which came upon him as rapidly as the
fall of his cherished republic came upon France.
Never a farthing's worth, never so much as the branch of a tree
belonging to another passed into the hands of this notable republican,
who would have made the republic acceptable to the world if he and
such as he could have guided it. He refused to buy the national
domains; he denied the right of the Republic to confiscate property.
In reply to all demands of the committee of public safety he asserted
that the virtue of citizens would do for their sacred country what low
political intriguers did for money. This patriot of antiquity publicly
reproved Gaubertin's father for his secret treachery, his underhand
bargaining, his malversations. He reprimanded the virtuous Mouchon,
that representative of the people whose virtue was nothing more nor
less than incapacity,--as it is with so many other legislators who,
gorged with the greatest political resources that any nation ever
gave, armed with the whole force of a people, are still unable to
bring forth from them the grandeur which Richelieu wrung for France
out of the weakness of a king. Consequently, citizen Niseron became a
living reproach to the people about him. They endeavored to put him
out of sight and mind with the reproachful remark, "Nothing satisfies
that man."
The patriot peasant returned to his cot at Blangy and watched the
destruction, one by one, of his illusions; he saw his republic come to
an end at the heels of an emperor, while he himself fell into utter
poverty, to which Rigou stealthily managed to reduce him. And why?
Because Niseron had never been willing to accept anything from him.
Reiterated refusals showed the ex-priest in what profound contempt the
nephew of the curate held him; and now that icy scorn was revenged by
the terrible threat as to his little granddaughter, about which the
Abbe Brossette spoke to the countess.
The old man had composed in his own mind a history of the French
republic, filled with the glorious features which gave immortality to
that heroic period to the exclusion of all else. The infamous deeds,
the massacres, the spoliations, his virtuous soul ignored; he admired,
with a single mind, the devotedness of the people, the "Vengeur," the
gifts to the nation, the uprising of the country to defend its
frontier; and he still pursued his dream that he might sleep in peace.
The Revolution produced many poets like old Niseron, who sang their
poems in the country solitudes, in the army, openly or secretly, by
deeds buried beneath the whirlwind of that storm, just as the wounded
left behind to die in the great wars of the empire cried out, "Long
live the Emperor!" This sublimity of soul belongs especially to
France. The Abbe Brossette respected the convictions of the old man,
who became simply but deeply attached to the priest from hearing him
say, "The true republic is in the Gospel." The stanch republican
carried the cross, and wore the sexton's robe, half-red, half-black,
and was grave and dignified in church,--supporting himself by the
triple functions with which he was invested by the abbe, who was able
to give the fine old man, not, to be sure, enough to live on, but
enough to keep him from dying of hunger.
Niseron, the Aristides of Blangy, spoke little, like all noble dupes
who wrap themselves in the mantle of resignation; but he was never
silent against evil, and the peasants feared him as thieves fear the
police. He seldom came more than six times a year to the Grand-I-Vert,
though he was always warmly welcomed there. The old man cursed the
want of charity of the rich,--their selfishness disgusted him; and
through this fiber of his mind he seemed to the peasants to belong to
them; they were in the habit of saying, "Pere Niseron doesn't like the
rich; he's one of us."
The civic crown won by this noble life throughout the valley lay in
these words: "That good old Niseron! there's not a more honest man."
Often taken as umpire in certain kinds of disputes, he embodied the
meaning of that archaic term,--the village elder. Always extremely
clean, though threadbare, he wore breeches, coarse woollen stockings,
hob-nailed shoes, the distinctively French coat with large buttons and
the broad-brimmed felt hat to which all old peasants cling; but for
daily wear he kept a blue jacket so patched and darned that it looked
like a bit of tapestry. The pride of a man who feels he is free, and
knows he is worthy of freedom, gave to his countenance and his whole
bearing a SOMETHING that was inexpressibly noble; you would have felt
he wore a robe, not rags.
"Hey! what's happening so unusual?" he said, "I heard the noise down
here from the belfry."
They told him of Vatel's attack on the old woman, talking all at once
after the fashion of country-people.
"If she didn't cut the tree, Vatel was wrong; but if she did cut it,
you have done two bad actions," said Pere Niseron.
"Take some wine," said Tonsard, offering a full glass to the old man.
"Shall we start?" said Vermichel to the sheriff's officer.
"Yes," replied Brunet, "we must do without Pere Fourchon and take the
assistant at Conches. Go on before me; I have a paper to carry to the
chateau. Rigou has gained his second suit, and I've got to deliver the
verdict."
So saying, Monsieur Brunet, all the livelier for a couple of glasses
of brandy, mounted his gray mare after saying good-bye to Pere
Niseron; for the whole valley were desirous in their hearts of the
good man's esteem.
No science, not even that of statistics, can explain the rapidity with
which news flies in the country, nor how it spreads over those
ignorant and untaught regions which are, in France, a standing
reproach to the government and to capitalists. Contemporaneous history
can show that a famous banker, after driving post-horses to death
between Waterloo and Paris (everybody knows why--he gained what the
Emperor had lost, a commission!) carried the fatal news only three
hours in advance of rumor. So, not an hour after the encounter between
old mother Tonsard and Vatel, a number of the customers of the Grand-
I-Vert assembled there to hear the tale.
The first to come was Courtecuisse, in whom you would scarcely have
recognized the once jovial forester, the rubicund do-nothing, whose
wife made his morning coffee as we have before seen. Aged, and thin,
and haggard, he presented to all eyes a lesson that no one learned.
"He tried to climb higher than the ladder," was what his neighbors
said when others pitied him and blamed Rigou. "He wanted to be a
bourgeois himself."
In fact, Courtecuisse did intend to pass for a bourgeois in buying the
Bachelerie, and he even boasted of it; though his wife went about the
roads gathering up the horse-droppings. She and Courtecuisse got up
before daylight, dug their garden, which was richly manured, and
obtained several yearly crops from it, without being able to do more
than pay the interest due to Rigou for the rest of the purchase-money.
Their daughter, who was living at service in Auxerre, sent them her
wages; but in spite of all their efforts, in spite of this help, the
last day for the final payment was approaching, and not a penny in
hand with which to meet it. Madame Courtecuisse, who in former times
occasionally allowed herself a bottle of boiled wine or a bit of roast
meat, now drank nothing but water. Courtecuisse was afraid to go to
the Grand-I-Vert lest he should have to leave three sous behind him.
Deprived of power, he had lost his privilege of free drinks, and he
bitterly complained, like all other fools, of man's ingratitude. In
short, he found, according to the experience of all peasants bitten
with the demon of proprietorship, that toil had increased and food
decreased.
"Courtecuisse has done too much to the property," the people said,
secretly envying his position. "He ought to have waited till he had
paid the money down and was master before he put up those fruit
palings."
With the help of his wife he had managed to manure and cultivate the
three acres of land sold to him by Rigou, together with the garden
adjoining the house, which was beginning to be productive; and he was
in danger of being turned out of it all. Clothed in rags like
Fourchon, poor Courtecuisse, who lately wore the boots and gaiters of
a huntsman, now thrust his feet into sabots and accused "the rich" of
Les Aigues of having caused his destitution. These wearing anxieties
had given to the fat little man and his once smiling and rosy face a
gloomy and dazed expression, as though he were ill from the effects of
poison or with some chronic malady.
"What's the matter with you, Monsieur Courtecuisse; is your tongue
tied?" asked Tonsard, as the man continued silent after he had told
him about the battle which had just taken place.
"No, no!" cried Madame Tonsard; "he needn't complain of the midwife
who cut his string,--she made a good job of it."
"It is enough to make a man dumb, thinking from morning till night of
some way to escape Rigou," said the premature old man, gloomily.
"Bah!" said old Mother Tonsard, "you've got a pretty daughter,
seventeen years old. If she's a good girl you can easily manage
matters with that old jail bird--"
"We sent her to Auxerre two years ago to Madame Mariotte the elder, to
keep her out of harm's way; I'd rather die than--"
"What a fool you are!" said Tonsard, "look at my girls,--are they any
the worse? He who dares to say they are not as virtuous as marble
images will have to do with my gun."
"It'll be hard to have to come to that," said Courtecuisse, shaking
his head. "I'd rather earn the money by shooting one of those
Arminacs."
"Well, I call it better for a girl to save a father than to wrap up
her virtue and let it mildew," retorted the innkeeper.
Tonsard felt a sharp tap on his shoulder, delivered by Pere Niseron.
"That is not a right thing to say!" cried the old man. "A father is
the guardian of the honor of his family. It is by behaving as you do
that scorn and contempt are brought upon us; it is because of such
conduct that the People are accused of being unfit for liberty. The
People should set an example of civic virtue and honor to the rich.
You all sell yourselves to Rigou for gold; and if you don't sell him
your daughters, at any rate you sell him your honor,--and it's wrong."
"Just see what a position Courtecuisse is in," said Tonsard.
"See what a position I am in," replied Pere Niseron; "but I sleep in
peace; there are no thorns in my pillow."
"Let him talk, Tonsard," whispered his wife, "you know they're just
HIS NOTIONS, poor dear man."
Bonnebault and Marie, Catherine and her brother came in at this moment
in a state of exasperation, which had begun with Nicolas's failure,
and was raised to the highest pitch by Michaud's advice to the
countess about Bonnebault. As Nicolas entered the tavern he was
uttering frightful threats against the Michaud family and Les Aigues.
"The harvest's coming; well, I vow I'll not go before I've lighted my
pipe at their wheat-stacks," he cried, striking his fist on the table
as he sat down.
"Mustn't yelp like that before people," said Godain, showing him Pere
Niseron.
"If the old fellow tells, I'll wring his neck," said Catherine. "He's
had his day, that old peddler of foolish reasons! They call him
virtuous; it's his temperament that keeps him so, that's all."
Strange and noteworthy sight!--that of those lifted heads, that group
of persons gathered in the reeking hovel, while old Mother Tonsard
stood sentinel at the door as security for the secret words of the
drinkers.
Of all those faces, that of Godain, Catherine's suitor, was perhaps
the most alarming, though the least pronounced. Godain,--a miser
without money,--the cruelest of misers, for he who seeks money surely
takes precedence of him who hoards it, one turning his eagerness
within himself, the other looking outside with terrible intentness,--
Godain represented the type of the majority of peasant faces.
He was a journeyman, small in frame, and saved from the draft by not
attaining the required military height; naturally lean and made more
so by hard work and the enforced sobriety under which reluctant
workers like Courtecuisse succumb. His face was no bigger than a man's
fist, and was lighted by a pair of yellow eyes with greenish strips
and brown spots, in which a thirst for the possession of property was
mingled with a concupiscence which had no heat,--for desire, once at
the boiling-point, had now stiffened like lava. His skin, brown as
that of a mummy, was glued to his temples. His scanty beard bristled
among his wrinkles like stubble in the furrows. Godain never
perspired, he reabsorbed his substance. His hairy hands, formed like
claws, nervous, never still, seemed to be made of old wood. Though
scarcely twenty-seven years of age, white lines were beginning to show
in his rusty black hair. He wore a blouse, through the breast opening
of which could be seen a shirt of coarse linen, so black that he must
have worn it a month and washed it himself in the Thune. His sabots
were mended with old iron. The original stuff of his trousers was
unrecognizable from the darns and the infinite number of patches. On
his head was a horrible cap, evidently cast off and picked up in the
doorway of some bourgeois house in Ville-aux-Fayes.
Clear-sighted enough to estimate the elements of good fortune that
centred in Catherine Tonsard, his ambition was to succeed her father
at the Grand-I-Vert. He made use of all his craftiness and all his
actual powers to capture her; he promised her wealth, he also promised
her the license her mother had enjoyed; besides this, he offered his
prospective father-in-law an enormous rental, five hundred francs a
year, for his inn, until he could buy him out, trusting to an
agreement he had made with Monsieur Brunet to pay these costs by notes
on stamped paper. By trade a journeyman tool-maker, this gnome worked
for the wheelwrights when work was plentiful, but he also hired
himself out for any extra labor which was well paid. Though he
possessed, unknown to the whole neighborhood, eighteen hundred francs
now in Gaubertin's hands, he lived like a beggar, slept in a barn, and
gleaned at the harvests. He wore Gaubertin's receipt for his money
sewn into the waist-belt of his trousers,--having it renewed every
year with its own added interest and the amount of his savings.
"Hey! what do I care," cried Nicolas, replying to Godain's prudent
advice not to talk before Niseron. "If I'm doomed to be a soldier I'd
rather the sawdust of the basket sucked up my blood than have it
dribbled out drop by drop in the battles. I'll deliver this country of
at least one of those Arminacs that the devil has launched upon us."
And he related what he called Michaud's plot against him, which Marie
and Bonnebault had overheard.
"Where do you expect France to find soldiers?" said the white-haired
old man, rising and standing before Nicolas during the silence which
followed the utterance of this threat.
"We serve our time and come home again," remarked Bonnebault, twirling
his moustache.
Observing that all the worst characters of the neighborhood were
collecting, Pere Niseron shook his head and left the tavern, after
offering a farthing to Madame Tonsard in payment for his glass of
wine. When the worthy man had gone down the steps a movement of relief
and satisfaction passed through the assembled drinkers which would
have told whoever watched them that each man in that company felt he
was rid of the living image of his own conscience.
"Well, what do you say to all that, hey, Courtecuisse?" asked
Vaudoyer, who had just come in, and to whom Tonsard had related
Vatel's attempt.
Courtecuisse clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and set
his glass on the table.
"Vatel put himself in the wrong," he said. "If I were Mother Tonsard,
I'd give myself a few wounds and go to bed and say I was ill, and have
that Shopman and his keeper up before the assizes and get twenty
crowns damages. Monsieur Sarcus would give them."
"In any case the Shopman would give them to stop the talk it would
make," said Godain.
Vaudoyer, the former field-keeper, a man five feet six inches tall,
with a face pitted with the small-pox and furrowed like a nut-cracker,
kept silence with a hesitating air.
"Well, you old ninny, does that ruffle you?" asked Tonsard, attracted
by the idea of damages. "If they had broken twenty crowns' worth of my
mother's bones we could turn it into good account; we might make a
fine fuss for three hundred francs; Monsieur Gourdon would go to Les
Aigues and tell them that the mother had got a broken hip--"
"And break it, too," interrupted Madame Tonsard; "they do that in
Paris."
"It would cost too much," remarked Godain.
"I have been too long among the people who rule us to believe that
matters will go as you want them," said Vaudoyer at last, remembering
his past official intercourse with the courts and the gendarmerie. "If
it were at Soulanges, now, it might be done; Monsieur Soudry
represents the government there, and he doesn't wish well to the
Shopman; but if you attack the Shopman and Vatel they'll defend
themselves viciously; they'll say, 'The woman was to blame; she had a
tree, otherwise she would have let her bundle be examined on the
highroad; she wouldn't have run away; if an accident happened to her
it was through her own fault.' No, you can't trust to that plan."
"The Shopman didn't resist when I sued him," said Courtecuisse; "he
paid me at once."
"I'll go to Soulanges, if you like," said Bonnebault, "and consult
Monsieur Gourdon, the clerk of the court, and you shall know to-night
if THERE'S MONEY IN IT."
"You are only making an excuse to be after that big goose of a girl,
Socquard's daughter," said Marie Tonsard, giving Bonnebault a slap on
the shoulder that made his lungs hum.
Just then a verse of an old Burgundian Christmas carol was heard:--
"One fine moment of his life
Was at the wedding feast;
He changed the water into wine,--
Madeira of the best."
Every one recognized the vinous voice of old Fourchon, to whom the
verse must have been peculiarly agreeable; Mouche accompanied in his
treble tones.
"Ha! they're full!" cried old Mother Tonsard to her daughter-in-law;
"your father is as red as a grid-iron, and that chip o' the block as
pink as vine-shoot."
"Your healths!" cried the old man, "and a fine lot of scoundrels you
are! All hail!" he said to his granddaughter, whom he spied kissing
Bonnebault, "hail, Marie, full of vice! Satan is with three; cursed
art thou among women, etcetera. All hail, the company present! you are
done for, every one of you! you may just say good-bye to your sheaves.
I being news. I always told you the rich would crush us; well now, the
Shopman is going to have the law of you! Ha! see what it is to
struggle against those bourgeois fellows, who have made so many laws
since they got into power that they've a law to enforce every trick
they play--"
A violent hiccough gave a sudden turn to the ideas of the
distinguished orator.
"If Vermichel were only here I'd blow in his gullet, and he'd get an
idea of sherry wine. Hey! what a wine it is! If I wasn't a Burgundian
I'd be a Spaniard! It's God's own wine! the pope says mass with it--
Hey! I'm young again! Say, Courtecuisse! if your wife were only here
we'd be young together. Don't tell me! Spanish wine is worth a dozen
of boiled wine. Let's have a revolution if it's only to empty the
cellars!"
"But what's your news, papa?" said Tonsard.
"There'll be no harvest for you; the Shopman has given orders to stop
the gleaning."
"Stop the gleaning!" cried the whole tavern, with one voice, in which
the shrill tones of the four women predominated.
"Yes," said Mouche, "he is going to issue an order, and Groison is to
take it round, and post it up all over the canton. No one is to glean
except those who have pauper certificates."
"And what's more," said Fourchon, "the folks from the other districts
won't be allowed here at all."
"What's that?" cried Bonnebault, "do you mean to tell me that neither
my grandmother nor I, nor your mother, Godain, can come here and
glean? Here's tomfoolery for you; a pretty show of authority! Why, the
fellow is a devil let loose from hell,--that scoundrel of a mayor!"
"Shall you glean whether or no, Godain?" said Tonsard to the
journeyman wheelwright, who was saying a few words to Catherine.
"I? I've no property; I'm a pauper," he replied; "I shall ask for a
certificate."
"What did they give my father for his otter, bibi?" said Madame
Tonsard to Mouche.
Though nearly at his last gasp from an over-taxed digestion and two
bottles of wine, Mouche, sitting on Madame Tonsard's lap, laid his
head on his aunt's neck and whispered slyly in her ear:--
"I don't know, but he has got gold. If you'll feed me high for a
month, perhaps I can find out his hiding-place; he has one, I know
that."
"Father's got gold!" whispered La Tonsard to her husband, whose voice
was loudest in the uproar of the excited discussion, in which all
present took part.
"Hush! here's Groison," cried the old sentinel.
Perfect silence reigned in the tavern. When Groison had got to a safe
distance, Mother Tonsard made a sign, and the discussion began again
on the question as to whether they should persist in gleaning, as
before, without a certificate.
"You'll have to give in," said Pere Fourchon; "for the Shopman has
gone to see the prefect and get troops to enforce the order. They'll
shoot you like dogs,--and that's what we are!" cried the old man,
trying to conquer the thickening of his speech produced by his
potations of sherry.
This fresh announcement, absurd as it was, made all the drinkers
thoughtful; they really believed the government capable of
slaughtering them without pity.
"I remember just such troubles near Toulouse, when I was stationed
there," said Bonnebault. "We were marched out, and the peasants were
cut and slashed and arrested. Everybody laughed to see them try to
resist cavalry. Ten were sent to the galleys, and eleven put in
prison; the whole thing was crushed. Hey! what? why, soldiers are
soldiers, and you are nothing but civilian beggars; they've a right,
they think, to sabre peasants, the devil take you!"
"Well, well," said Tonsard, "what is there in all that to frighten you
like kids? What can they get out of my mother and daughters? Put 'em
in prison? well, then they must feed them; and the Shopman can't
imprison the whole country. Besides, prisoners are better fed at the
king's expense than they are at their own; and they're kept warmer,
too."
"You are a pack of fools!" roared Fourchon. "Better gnaw at the
bourgeois than attack him in front; otherwise, you'll get your backs
broke. If you like the galleys, so be it,--that's another thing! You
don't work as hard there as you do in the fields, true enough; but you
don't have your liberty."
"Perhaps it would be well," said Vaudoyer, who was among the more
valiant in counsel, "if some of us risked our skins to deliver the
neighborhood of that Languedoc fellow who has planted himself at the
gate of the Avonne."
"Do Michaud's business for him?" said Nicolas; "I'm good for that."
"Things are not ripe for it," said old Fourchon. "We should risk too
much, my children. The best way is to make ourselves look miserable
and cry famine; then the Shopman and his wife will want to help us,
and you'll get more out of them that way than you will by gleaning."
"You are all blind moles," shouted Tonsard, "let 'em pick a quarrel
with their law and their troops, they can't put the whole country in
irons, and we've plenty of friends at Ville-aux-Fayes and among the
old lords who'll sustain us."
"That's true," said Courtecuisse; "none of the other land-owners
complain, it is only the Shopman; Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur
de Ronquerolles and others, they are satisfied. When I think that if
that cuirassier had only had the courage to let himself be killed like
the rest I should still be happy at the gate of the Avonne, and that
it was he that turned my life topsy-turvy, it just puts me beside
myself."
"They won't call out the troops for a Shopman who has set every one in
the district against him," said Godain. "The fault's his own; he tried
to ride over everybody here, and upset everything; and the government
will just say to him, 'Hush up.'"
"The government never says anything else; it can't, poor government!"
said Fourchon, seized with a sudden tenderness for the government.
"Yes, I pity it, that good government; it is very unlucky,--it hasn't
a penny, like us; but that's very stupid of a government that makes
the money itself, very stupid! Ah! if I were the government--"
"But," cried Courtecuisse, "they tell me in Ville-aux-Fayes that
Monsieur de Ronquerolles talked about our rights in the Assembly."
"That's in Monsieur Rigou's newspaper," said Vaudoyer, who in his
capacity of ex-field-keeper knew how to read and write; "I read it--"
In spite of his vinous tenderness, old Fourchon, like many of the
lower classes whose faculties are stimulated by drunkenness, was
following, with an intelligent eye and a keen ear, this curious
discussion which a variety of asides rendered still more curious.
Suddenly, he stood up in the middle of the room.
"Listen to the old one, he's drunk!" said Tonsard, "and when he is, he
is twice as full of deviltry; he has his own and that of the wine--"
"Spanish wine, and that trebles it!" cried Fourchon, laughing like a
satyr. "My sons, don't butt your head straight at the thing,--you're
too weak; go at it sideways. Lay low, play dead; the little woman is
scared. I tell you, the thing'll come to an end before long; she'll
leave the place, and if she does the Shopman will follow her, for
she's his passion. That's your plan. Only, to make 'em go faster, my
advice is to get rid of their counsellor, their support, our spy, our
ape--"
"Who's that?"
"The damned abbe, of course," said Tonsard; "that hunter after sins,
who thinks the host is food enough for us."
"That's true," cried Vaudoyer; "we were happy enough till he came. We
ought to get rid of that eater of the good God,--he's the real enemy."
"Finikin," added Fourchon, using a nickname which the abbe owed to his
prim and rather puny appearance, "might be led into temptation and
fall into the power of some sly girl, for he fasts so much. Then if we
could catch him in the act and drum him up with a good charivari, the
bishop would be obliged to send him elsewhere. It would please old
Rigou devilish well. Now if your daughter, Courtecuisse, would leave
Auxerre--she's a pretty girl, and if she'd take to piety, she might
save us all. Hey! ran tan plan!--"
"Why don't YOU do it?" said Godain to Catherine, in a low voice;
"there'd be scuttles full of money to hush up the talk; and for the
time being you'd be mistress here--"
"Shall we glean, or shall we not glean? that's the point," said
Bonnebault. "I don't care two straws for your abbe, not I; I belong to
Conches, where we haven't a black-coat to poke up our consciences."
"Look here," said Vaudoyer, "we had better go and ask Rigou, who knows
the law, whether the Shopman can forbid gleaning, and he'll tell us if
we've got the right of it. If the Shopman has the law on his side,
well, then we must do as the old one says,--see about taking things
sideways."
"Blood will be spilt," said Nicolas, darkly, as he rose after drinking
a whole bottle of wine, which Catherine drew for him in order to keep
him silent. "If you'd only listen to me you'd down Michaud; but you
are miserable weaklings,--nothing but poor trash!"
"I'm not," said Bonnebault. "If you are all safe friends who'll keep
your tongues between your teeth, I'll aim at the Shopman-- Hey! how
I'd like to put a plum through his bottle; wouldn't it avenge me on
those cursed officers?"
"Tut! tut!" cried Jean-Louis Tonsard, who was supposed to be, more or
less, Gaubertin's son, and who had just entered the tavern. This
fellow, who was courting Rigou's pretty servant-girl, had succeeded
his nominal father as clipper of hedges and shrubberies and other
Tonsardial occupations. Going about among the well-to-do houses, he
talked with masters and servants and picked up ideas which made him
the man of the world of the family, the shrewd head. We shall
presently see that in making love to Rigou's servant-girl, Jean-Louis
deserved his reputation for shrewdness.
"Well, what have you to say, prophet?" said the innkeeper to his son.
"I say that you are playing into the hands of the rich folk," replied
Jean-Louis. "Frighten the Aigues people to maintain your rights if you
choose; but if you drive them out of the place and make them sell the
estate, you are doing just what the bourgeois of the valley want, and
it's against your own interest. If you help the bourgeois to divide
the great estates among them, where's the national domain to be bought
for nothing at the next Revolution? Wait till then, and you'll get
your land without paying for it, as Rigou got his; whereas if you go
and thrust this estate into the jaws of the rich folk of the valley,
the rich folk will dribble it back to you impoverished and at twice
the price they paid for it. You are working for their interests, I
tell you; so does everybody who works for Rigou,--look at
Courtecuisse."
The policy contained in this allocution was too deep for the drunken
heads of those present, who were all, except Courtecuisse, laying by
their money to buy a slice of the Aigues cake. So they let Jean-Louis
harangue, and continued, as in the Chamber of Deputies, their private
confabs with one another.
"Yes, that's so; you'll be Rigou's cats-paw!" cried Fourchon, who
alone understood his grandson.
Just then Langlume, the miller of Les Aigues, passed the tavern.
Madame Tonsard hailed him.
"Is it true," she said, "that gleaning is to be forbidden?"
Langlume, a jovial white man, white with flour and dressed in grayishwhite
clothes, came up the steps and looked in. Instantly all the
peasants became as sober as judges.
"Well, my children, I am forced to answer yes, and no. None but the
poor are to glean; but the measures they are going to take will turn
out to your advantage."
"How so?" asked Godain.
"Why, they can prevent any but paupers from gleaning here," said the
miller, winking in true Norman fashion; "but that doesn't prevent you
from gleaning elsewhere,--unless all the mayors do as the Blangy mayor
is doing."
"Then it is true," said Tonsard, in a threatening voice.
"As for me," said Bonnebault, putting his foraging-cap over one ear
and making his hazel stick whiz in the air, "I'm off to Conches to
warn the friends."
And the Lovelace of the valley departed, whistling the tune of the
martial song,--
"You who know the hussars of the Guard,
Don't you know the trombone of the regiment?"
"I say, Marie! he's going a queer way to get to Conches, that friend
of yours," cried old Mother Tonsard to her granddaughter.
"He's after Aglae!" said Marie, who made one bound to the door. "I'll
have to thrash her once for all, that baggage!" she cried, viciously.
"Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, "go and see Rigou, and then we shall
know what to do; he's our oracle, and his spittle doesn't cost
anything."
"Another folly!" said Jean-Louis, in a low voice, "Rigou betrays
everybody; Annette tells me so; she says he's more dangerous when he
listens to you than other folks are when they bluster."
"I advise you to be cautious," said Langlume. "The general has gone to
the prefecture about your misdeeds, and Sibilet tells me he has sworn
an oath to go to Paris and see the Chancellor of France and the King
himself, and the whole pack of them if necessary, to get the better of
his peasantry."
"His peasantry!" shouted every one.
"Ha, ha! so we don't belong to ourselves any longer?"
As Tonsard asked the question, Vaudoyer left the house to see Rigou.
Langlume, who had already gone out, turned on the door-step, and
answered:--
"Crowd of do-nothings! are you so rich that you think you are your own
masters?"
Though said with a laugh, the meaning contained in those words was
understood by all present, as horses understand the cut of a whip.
"Ran tan plan! masters indeed!" shouted old Fourchon. "I say, my lad,"
he added to Nicolas, "after your performance this morning it's not my
clarionet that you'll get between your thumb and four fingers!"
"Don't plague him, or he'll make you throw up your wine by a punch in
the stomach," said Catherine, roughly.
CHAPTER XIII
A TYPE OF THE COUNTRY USURER
Strategically, Rigou's position at Blangy was that of a picket
sentinel. He watched Les Aigues, and watched it well. The police have
no spies comparable to those that serve hatred.
When the general first came to Les Aigues Rigou apparently formed some
plans about him which Montcornet's marriage with a Troisville put an
end to; he seemed to have wished to patronize the new land-owner. In
fact his intentions were so patent that Gaubertin thought best to let
him into the secrets of the coalition against Les Aigues. Before
accepting any part in the affair, Rigou determined, as he said, to put
the general between two stools.
One day, after the countess was fairly installed, a little wicker
carriage painted green entered the grand courtyard of the chateau. The
mayor, who was flanked by his mayoress, got out and came round to the
portico on the garden side. As he did so Rigou saw Madame le comtesse
at a window. She, however, devoted to the bishop and to religion and
to the Abbe Brossette, sent word by Francois that "Madame was out."
This act of incivility, worthy of a woman born in Russia, turned the
face of the ex-Benedictine yellow. If the countess had seen the man
whom the abbe told her was "a soul in hell who plunged into iniquity
as into a bath in his efforts to cool himself," if she had seen his
face then she might have refrained from exciting the cold, deliberate
hatred felt by the liberals against the royalists, increased as it was
in country-places by the jealousies of neighborhood, where the
recollections of wounded vanity are kept constantly alive.
A few details about this man and his morals will not only throw light
on his share of the plot, called "the great affair" by his two
associates, but it will have the merit of picturing an extremely
curious type of man,--one of those rural existences which are peculiar
to France, and which no writer has hitherto sought to depict. Nothing
about this man is without significance,--neither his house, nor his
manner of blowing the fire, nor his ways of eating; his habits,
morals, and opinions will vividly illustrate the history of the
valley. This renegade serves to show the utility of democracy; he is
at once its theory and its practice, its alpha and its omega, in
short, its "summum."
Perhaps you will remember certain masters of avarice pictured in
former scenes of this comedy of human life: in the first place the
provincial minister, Pere Grandet of Saumur, miserly as a tiger is
cruel; next Gobseck, the usurer, that Jesuit of gold, delighting only
in its power, and relishing the tears of the unfortunate because gold
produced them; then Baron Nucingen, lifting base and fraudulent money
transactions to the level of State policy. Then, too, you may remember
that portrait of domestic parsimony, old Hochon of Issoudun, and that
other miser in behalf of family interests, little la Baudraye of
Sancerre. Well, human emotions--above all, those of avarice--take on
so many and diverse shades in the diverse centres of social existence
that there still remains upon the stage of our comedy another miser to
be studied, namely, Rigou,--Rigou, the miser-egoist; full of
tenderness for his own gratifications, cold and hard to others; the
ecclesiastical miser; the monk still a monk so far as he can squeeze
the juice of the fruit called good-living, and becoming secular only
to put a paw upon the public money. In the first place, let us explain
the continual pleasure that he took in sleeping under his own roof.
Blangy--by that we mean the sixty houses described by Blondet in his
letter to Nathan--stands on a rise of land to the left of the Thune.
As all the houses are surrounded by gardens, the village is a very
pretty one. Some houses are built on the banks of the stream. At the
upper end of the long rise stands the church, formerly flanked by a
parsonage, its apse surrounded, as in many other villages, by a
graveyard. The sacrilegious old Rigou had bought the parsonage, which
was originally built by an excellent Catholic, Mademoiselle Choin, on
land which she had bought for the purpose. A terraced garden, from
which the eye looked down upon Blangy, Cerneux, and Soulanges standing
between the two great seignorial parks, separated the late parsonage
from the church. On its opposite side lay a meadow, bought by the last
curate of the parish not long before his death, which the distrustful
Rigou had since surrounded with a wall.
The ex-monk and mayor having refused to sell back the parsonage for
its original purpose, the parish was obliged to buy a house belonging
to a peasant, which adjoined the church. It was necessary to spend
five thousand francs to repair and enlarge it and to enclose it in a
little garden, one wall of which was that of the sacristy, so that
communication between the parsonage and the church was still as close
as it ever was.
These two houses, built on a line with the church, and seeming to
belong to it by their gardens, faced a piece of open ground planted by
trees, which might be called the square of Blangy,--all the more
because the count had lately built, directly opposite to the new
parsonage, a communal building intended for the mayor's office, the
home of the field-keeper, and the quarters of that school of the
Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, for which the Abbe Brossette had
hitherto begged in vain. Thus, not only were the houses of the ex-monk
and the young priest connected and yet separated by the church, but
they were in a position to watch each other. Indeed, the whole village
spied upon the abbe. The main street, which began at the Thune, crept
tortuously up the hill to the church. Vineyards, the cottages of the
peasantry, and a small grove crowned the heights.
Rigou's house, the handsomest in the village, was built of the large
rubble-stone peculiar to Burgundy, imbedded in yellow mortar smoothed
by the trowel, which produced an uneven surface, still further broken
here and there by projecting points of the stone, which was mostly
black. A band of cement, in which no stones were allowed to show,
surrounded each window with a sort of frame, where time had made some
slight, capricious cracks, such as appear on plastered ceilings. The
outer blinds, of a clumsy pattern, were noticeable for their color,
which was dragon-green. A few mosses grew among the slates of the
roof. The type is that of Burgundian homesteads; the traveller will
see thousands like it when visiting this part of France.
A double door opened upon a passage, half-way down which was the well
of the staircase. By the entrance was the door of a large room with
three windows looking out upon the square. The kitchen, built behind
and beneath the staircase, was lighted from the courtyard, which was
neatly paved with cobble-stones and entered by a porte-cochere. Such
was the ground-floor. The first floor contained three bedrooms, above
them a small attic chamber.
A wood-shed, a coach-house, and a stable adjoined the kitchen, and
formed two sides of a square around the courtyard. Above these rather
flimsy buildings were lofts containing hay and grain, a fruit-room,
and one servant's-chamber.
A poultry-yard, the stable, and a pigsty faced the house across the
courtyard.
The garden, about an acre in size and enclosed by walls, was a true
priest's garden; that is, it was full of wall-fruit and fruit-trees,
grape-arbors, gravel-paths, closely trimmed box-trees, and square
vegetable patches, made rich with the manure from the stable.
Within, the large room, panelled in wainscot, was hung with old
tapestry. The walnut furniture, brown with age and covered with stuffs
embroidered in needle-work, was in keeping with the wainscot and with
the ceiling, which was also panelled. The latter had three projecting
beams, but these were painted, and between them the space was
plastered. The mantel, also in walnut, surmounted by a mirror in the
most grotesque frame, had no other ornament than two brass eggs
standing on a marble base, each of which opened in the middle; the
upper half when turned over showed a socket for a candle. These
candlesticks for two lights, festooned with chains (an invention of
the reign of Louis XV.), were becoming rare. On a green and gold
bracket fastened to the wall opposite to the window was a common but
excellent clock. The curtains, which squeaked upon their rods, were at
least fifty years old; their material, of cotton in a square pattern
like that of mattresses, alternately pink and white, came from the
Indies. A sideboard and dinner-table completed the equipment of the
room, which was kept with extreme nicety.
At the corner of the fireplace was an immense sofa, Rigou's especial
seat. In the angle, above a little "bonheur du jour," which served him
as a desk, and hanging to a common screw, was a pair of bellows, the
origin of Rigou's fortune.
From this succinct description, in style like that of an auction sale,
it will be easy to imagine that the bedrooms of Monsieur and Madame
Rigou were limited to mere necessaries; yet it would be a mistake to
suppose that such parsimony affected the essential excellence of those
necessaries. For instance, the most fastidious of women would have
slept well in Rigou's bed, with fine linen sheets, excellent
mattresses, made luxurious by a feather-bed (doubtless bought for some
abbe by a pious female parishioner) and protected from draughts by
thick curtains. All the rest of Rigou's belongings were made
comfortable for his use, as we shall see.
In the first place, he had reduced his wife, who could neither read,
write, nor cipher, to absolute obedience. After having ruled her
deceased master, the poor creature was now the servant of her husband;
she cooked and did the washing, with very little help from a pretty
girl named Annette, who was nineteen years old and as much a slave to
Rigou as her mistress, and whose wages were thirty francs a year.
Tall, thin, and withered, Madame Rigou, a woman with a yellow face red
about the cheek-bones, her head always wrapped in a colored
handkerchief, and wearing the same dress all the year round, did not
leave the house for two hours in a month's time, but kept herself in
exercise by doing the hard work of a devoted servant. The keenest
observer could not have found a trace of the fine figure, the Rubens
coloring, the splendid lines, the superb teeth, the virginal eyes
which first drew the attention of the Abbe Niseron to the young girl.
The birth of her only daughter, Madame Soudry, Jr., had blighted her
complexion, decayed her teeth, dimmed her eyes, and even caused the
dropping of their lashes. It almost seemed as if the finger of God had
fallen upon the wife of the priest. Like all well-to-do country housewives,
she liked to see her closets full of silk gowns, made and
unmade, and jewels and laces which did her no good and only excited
the sin of envy and a desire for her death in the minds of all the
young women who served Rigou. She was one of those beings, half-woman,
half-animal, who are born to live by instinct. This ex-beautiful
Arsene was disinterested; and the bequest left to her by the late Abbe
Niseron would be inexplicable were it not for the curious circumstance
which prompted it, and which we give here for the edification of the
vast tribe of expectant heirs.
Madame Niseron, the wife of the old republican sexton, always paid the
greatest attention to her husband's uncle, the priest of Blangy; the
forty or fifty thousand francs soon to be inherited from the old man
of seventy would put the family of his only nephew into a condition of
affluence which she impatiently awaited, for besides her only son (the
father of La Pechina) Madame Niseron had a charming little daughter,
lively and innocent,--one of those beings that seem perfected only
because they are to die, which she did at the age of fourteen from
"pale color," the popular name for chlorosis among the peasantry. The
darling of the parsonage, where the child fluttered about her great
uncle the abbe as she did in her home, bringing clouds and sunshine
with her, she grew to love Mademoiselle Arsene, the pretty servant
whom the old abbe engaged in 1789. Arsene was the niece of his
housekeeper, whose place the girl took by request of the latter on her
deathbed.
In 1791, just about the time that the Abbe Niseron offered his house
as an asylum to Rigou and his brother Jean, the little girl played one
of her mischievous but innocent tricks. She was playing with Arsene
and some other children at a game which consists in hiding an object
which the rest seek, and crying out, "You burn!" or "You freeze!"
according as the searchers approach or leave the hidden article.
Little Genevieve took it into her head to hide the bellows in Arsene's
bed. The bellows could not be found, and the game came to an end;
Genevieve was taken home by her mother and forgot to put the bellows
back on the nail. Arsene and her aunt searched more than a week for
them; then they stopped searching and managed to do without them, the
old abbe blowing his fire with an air-cane made in the days when aircanes
were the fashion,--a fashion which was no doubt introduced by
some courtier of the reign of Henri III. At last, about a month before
her death, the housekeeper, after a dinner at which the Abbe Mouchon,
the Niseron family, and the curate of Soulanges were present, returned
to her jeremiades about the loss of the bellows.
"Why! they've been these two weeks in Arsene's bed!" cried the little
one, with a peal of laughter. "Great lazy thing! if she had taken the
trouble to make her bed she would have found them."
As it was 1791 everybody laughed; but a dead silence succeeded the
laugh.
"There is nothing laughable in that," said the housekeeper; "since I
have been ill Arsene sleeps in my room."
In spite of this explanation the Abbe Niseron looked thunderbolts at
Madame Niseron and his nephew, thinking they were plotting mischief
against him. The housekeeper died. Rigou contrived to work up the
abbe's resentment to such a pitch that he made a will disinheriting
Jean-Francois Niseron in favor of Arsene Pichard.
In 1823 Rigou, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude, still blew the
fire with an air-cane, and left the bellows hanging to the screw.
Madame Niseron, idolizing her daughter, did not long survive her.
Mother and child died in 1794. The old abbe, too, was dead, and
citizen Rigou took charge of Arsene's affairs by marrying her. A
former convert in the monastery, attached to Rigou as a dog is to his
master, became the groom, gardener, herdsman, valet, and steward of
the sensual Harpagon. Arsene Rigou, the daughter, married in 1821
without dowry to the prosecuting-attorney, inheriting something of her
mother's rather vulgar beauty, together with the crafty mind of her
father.
Now about sixty-seven years of age, Rigou had never been ill in his
life, and nothing seemed able to lessen his aggressively good health.
Tall, lean, with brown circles round his eyes, the lids of which were
nearly black, any one who saw him of a morning, when as he dressed he
exposed the wrinkled, red, and granulated skin of his neck, would have
compared him to a condor,--all the more because his long nose, sharp
at the tip, increased the likeness by its sanguineous color. His head,
partly bald, would have frightened phrenologists by the shape of its
skull, which was like an ass's backbone, an indication of despotic
will. His grayish eyes, half-covered by filmy, red-veined lids, were
predestined to aid hypocrisy. Two scanty locks of hair of an undecided
color overhung the large ears, which were long and without rim, a sure
sign of cruelty, but cruelty of the moral nature only, unless where it
means actual insanity. The mouth, very broad, with thin lips,
indicated a sturdy eater and a determined drinker by the drop of its
corners, which turned downward like two commas, from which drooled
gravy when he ate and saliva when he talked. Heliogabalus must have
been like this.
His dress, which never varied, consisted of a long blue surtout with a
military collar, a black cravat, with waistcoat and trousers of black
cloth. His shoes, very thick soled, had iron nails outside, and inside
woollen linings knit by his wife in the winter evenings. Annette and
her mistress also knit the master's stockings. Rigou's name was
Gregoire.
Though this sketch gives some idea of the man's character, no one can
imagine the point to which, in his private and unthwarted life, the
ex-Benedictine had pushed the science of selfishness, good living, and
sensuality. In the first place, he dined alone, waited upon by his
wife and Annette, who themselves dined with Jean in the kitchen, while
the master digested his meal and disposed of his wine as he read "the
news."
In the country the special names of journals are never mentioned; they
are all called by the general name of "the news."
Rigou's dinner, like his breakfast and supper, was always of choice
delicacies, cooked with the art which distinguishes a priest's
housekeeper from all other cooks. Madame Rigou made the butter herself
twice a week. Cream was a concomitant of many sauces. The vegetables
came at a jump, as it were, from their frames to the saucepan.
Parisians, who are accustomed to eat the fruits of the earth after
they have had a second ripening in the sun of a city, infected by the
air of the streets, fermenting in close shops, and watered from time
to time by the market-women to give them a deceitful freshness, have
little idea of the exquisite flavors of really fresh produce, to which
nature has lent fugitive but powerful charms when eaten as it were
alive.
The butcher of Soulanges brought his best meat under fear of losing
Rigou's custom. The poultry, raised on the premises, was of the finest
quality.
This system of secret pampering embraced everything in which Rigou was
personally concerned. Though the slippers of the knowing Thelemist
were of stout leather they were lined with lamb's wool. Though his
coat was of rough cloth it did not touch his skin, for his shirt,
washed and ironed at home, was of the finest Frisian linen. His wife,
Annette, and Jean drank the common wine of the country, the wine he
reserved from his own vineyards; but in his private cellar, as well
stocked as the cellars of Belgium, the finest vintages of Burgundy
rubbed sides with those of Bordeaux, Champagne, Roussillon, not to
speak of Spanish and Rhine wines, all bought ten years in advance of
use and bottled by Brother Jean. The liqueurs in that cellar were
those of the Isles, and came originally from Madame Amphoux. Rigou had
laid in a supply to last him the rest of his days, at the national
sale of a chateau in Burgundy.
The ex-monk ate and drank like Louis XIV. (one of the greatest
consumers of food and drink ever known), which reveals the costs of a
life that was more than voluptuous. Careful and very shrewd in
managing his secret prodigalities, he disputed all purchases as only
churchmen can dispute. Instead of taking infinite precautions against
being cheated, the sly monk kept patterns and samples, had the
agreements reduced to writing, and warned those who forwarded his
wines or his provisions that if they fell short of the mark in any way
he should refuse to accept their consignments.
Jean, who had charge of the fruit-room, was trained to keep fresh the
finest fruits grown in the department; so that Rigou ate pears and
apples and sometimes grapes, at Easter.
No prophet regarded as a God was ever more blindly obeyed than was
Rigou in his own home. A mere motion of his black eyelashes could
plunge his wife, Annette, and Jean into the deepest anxiety. He held
his three slaves by the multiplicity of their many duties, which were
like a chain in his hands. These poor creatures were under the
perpetual yoke of some ordered duty, with an eye always on them; but
they had come to take a sort of pleasure in accomplishing these tasks,
and did not suffer under them. All three had the comfort and wellbeing
of that one man before their minds as the sole end and object of
all their thoughts.
Annette was (since 1795) the tenth pretty girl in Rigou's service, and
he expected to go down to his grave with relays of such servants.
Brought to him at sixteen, she would be sent away at nineteen. All
these girls, carefully chosen at Auxerre, Clamecy, or in the Morvan,
were enticed by the promise of future prosperity; but Madame Rigou
persisted in living. So at the end of every three years some quarrel,
usually brought about by the insolence of the servant to the poor
mistress, caused their dismissal.
Annette, who was a picture of delicate beauty, ingenuous and
sparkling, deserved to be a duchess. Rigou knew nothing of the love
affair between her and Jean-Louis Tonsard, which proves that he had
let himself be fooled by the girl,--the only one of his many servants
whose ambition had taught her to flatter the lynx as the only way to
blind him.
This uncrowned Louis XV. did not keep himself wholly to his pretty
Annette. Being the mortgagee of lands bought by peasants who were
unable to pay for them, he kept a harem in the valley, from Soulanges
to five miles beyond Conches on the road to La Brie, without making
other payments than "extension of time," for those fugitive pleasures
which eat into the fortunes of so many old men.
This luxurious life, a life like that of Bouret, cost Rigou almost
nothing. Thanks to his white slaves, he could cut and mow down and
gather in his wood, hay, and grain. To the peasant manual labor is a
small matter, especially if it serves to postpone the payment of
interest due. And so Rigou, while requiring little premiums on each
month's delay, squeezed a great deal of manual labor out of his
debtors,--positive drudgery, to which they submitted thinking they
gave little because nothing left their pockets. Rigou sometimes
obtained in this way more than the principal of a debt.
Deep as a monk, silent as a Benedictine in the throes of writing
history, sly as a priest, deceitful as all misers, carefully keeping
within the limits of the law, the man might have been Tiberius in
Rome, Richelieu under Louis XIII., or Fouche, had the ambition seized
him to go to the Convention; but, instead of all that, Rigou had the
common sense to remain a Lucullus without ostentation, in other words,
a parsimonious voluptuary. To occupy his mind he indulged a hatred
manufactured out of the whole cloth. He harassed the Comte de
Montcornet. He worked the peasants like puppets by hidden wires, the
handling of which amused him as though it were a game of chess where
the pawns were alive, the knights caracoled, the bishops, like
Fourchon, gabbled, the feudal castles shone in the sun, and the queen
maliciously checkmated the king. Every day, when he got out of bed and
saw from his window the proud towers of Les Aigues, the chimneys of
the pavilions, and the noble gates, he said to himself: "They shall
fall! I'll dry up the brooks, I'll chop down the woods." But he had
two victims in mind, a chief one and a lesser one. Though he meditated
the dismemberment of the chateau, the apostate also intended to make
an end of the Abbe Brossette by pin-pricks.
To complete the portrait of the ex-priest it will suffice to add that
he went to mass regretting that his wife still lived, and expressed
the desire to be reconciled with the Church as soon as he became a
widower. He bowed deferentially to the Abbe Brossette whenever he met
him, and spoke to him courteously and without heat. As a general thing
all men who belong to the Church, or who have come out of it, have the
patience of insects; they owe this to the obligation they have been
under, ecclesiastically, to preserve decorum,--a training which has
been lacking for the last twenty years to the vast majority of the
French nation, even those who think themselves well-bred. All the
monks which the Revolution brought out of their monasteries and forced
into business, public or private, showed in their coldness and reserve
the great advantage which ecclesiastical discipline gives to the sons
of the Church, even those who desert her.
Gaubertin had understood Rigou from the days when the Abbe Niseron
made his will and the ex-monk married the heiress; he fathomed the
craft hidden behind the jaundiced face of that accomplished hypocrite;
and he made himself the man's fellow-worshipper before the altar of
the Golden Calf. When the banking-house of Leclercq was first started
he advised Rigou to put fifty thousand francs into it, guaranteeing
their security himself. Rigou was all the more desirable as an
investor, or sleeping partner, because he drew no interest but allowed
his capital to accumulate. At the period of which we write it amounted
to over a hundred thousand francs, although in 1816 he had taken out
one hundred and eighty thousand for investment in the Public Funds,
from which he derived an income of seventeen thousand francs. Lupin
the notary had cognizance of at least one hundred thousand francs
which Rigou had lent on small mortgages upon good estates. Ostensibly,
Rigou derived about fourteen thousand francs a year from landed
property actually owned by him. But as to his amassed hoard, it was
represented by an "x" which no rule of equations could evolve, just as
the devil alone knew the secret schemes he plotted with Langlume.
This dangerous usurer, who proposed to live a score of years longer,
had established fixed rules to work upon. He lent nothing to a peasant
who bought less than seven acres, and who could not pay one-half of
the purchase-money down. Rigou well understood the defects of the law
of dispossession when applied to small holdings, and the danger both
to the Public Treasury and to land-owners of the minute parcelling out
of the soil. How can you sue a peasant for the value of one row of
vines when he owns only five? The bird's-eye view of self-interest is
always twenty-five years ahead of the perceptions of a legislative
body. What a lesson for a nation! Law will ever emanate from one
brain, that of a man of genius, and not from the nine hundred
legislative heads, which, great as they may be in themselves, are
belittled and lost in a crowd. Rigou's law contains the essential
element which has yet to be found and introduced into public law to
put an end to the absurd spectacle of landed property reduced to
halves, quarters, tenths, hundredths,--as in the district of
Argenteuil, where there are thirty thousand plots of land.
Such operations as those Rigou was concerned in require extensive
collusion, like those we have seen existing in this arrondissement.
Lupin, the notary, whom Rigou employed to draw at least one third of
the deeds annually entrusted to his notarial office, was devoted to
him. This shark could thus include in the mortgage note (signed always
in presence of the wife, when the borrower was married) the amount of
the illegal interest. The peasant, delighted to feel he had to pay
only his five per cent interest annually, always imagined he should be
able to meet the payment by working doubly hard or by improving the
land and getting double returns upon it.
Hence the deceitful hopes excited by what imbecile economists call
"small farming,"--a political blunder to which we owe such mistakes as
sending French money to Germany to buy horses which our own land had
ceased to breed; a blunder which before long will reduce the raising
of cattle until meat will be unattainable not only by the people, but
by the lower middle classes (see "Le Cure de Village.")
So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between Conches and Villeaux-
Fayes to Rigou's profit, all being willing to give it; whereas the
labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend money
in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were showered
upon him simply because he was rich. How could such facts be
understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the
Mediocracy. Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the
position of the former lords. The small land-owners, of whom
Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the
valley of the Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the
peasantry of the banking system.
Soudry followed Rigou's example from Soulanges to a distance of
fifteen miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes. These two usurers shared the
district between them.
Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere, not only did not
compete against that of his associates, but he prevented all other
capital in Ville-aux-Fayes from being employed in the same fruitful
manner. It is easy to imagine what immense influence this triumvirate
--Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin--wielded in election periods over
electors whose fortunes depended on their good-will.
Hate, intelligence, and means at command, such were the three sides of
the terrible triangle which describes the general's closest enemy, the
spy ever watching Les Aigues,--a shark having constant dealings with
sixty to eighty small land-owners, relations or connections of the
peasantry, who feared him as such men always fear their creditor.
Rigou was in his way another Tonsard. The one throve on thefts from
nature, the other waxed fat on legal plunder. Both liked to live well.
It was the same nature in two species,--the one natural, the other
whetted by his training in a cloister.
It was about four o'clock when Vaudoyer left the tavern of the Grand-
I-Vert to consult the former mayor. Rigou was at dinner. Finding the
front door locked, Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and called
out:--
"Monsieur Rigou, it is I,--Vaudoyer."
Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to Vaudoyer:--
"Come into the garden; Monsieur has company."
The company was Sibilet, who, under pretext of discussing the verdict
Brunet had just handed in, was talking to Rigou of quite other
matters. He had found the usurer finishing his dessert. On a square
dinner-table covered with a dazzling white cloth--for, regardless of
his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou exacted clean tablelinen
every day--the steward noted strawberries, apricots, peaches,
figs, and almonds, all the fruits of the season in profusion, served
in white porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les Aigues.
Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside doubledoors,
which were added to the other doors as much to stifle sounds as
to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing business brought
him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to confer
together at night.
"The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the Keeper of the Seals;
he is capable of doing you a great deal of harm; he may ask for the
dismissal of your son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at Villeaux-
Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered in your
favor. He has turned at bay; he is shrewd, and he has an adviser in
that abbe, who is quite able to tilt with you and Gaubertin. Priests
are powerful. Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe
Brossette. Madame la comtesse talks of going herself to her cousin the
prefect, the Comte de Casteran, about Nicolas. Michaud begins to see
into our game."
"You are frightened," said Rigou, softly, casting a look on Sibilet
which suspicion made less impassive than usual, and which was
therefore terrific. "You are debating whether it would not be better
on the whole to side with the Comte de Montcornet."
"I don't see where I am to get the four thousand francs I save
honestly and invest every year, after you have cut up and sold Les
Aigues," said Sibilet, shortly. "Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many
fine promises; but the crisis is coming on; there will be fighting,
surely. Promising before victory and keeping a promise after it are
two very different things."
"I will talk to him about it," replied Rigou, imperturbably. "Meantime
this is what I should say to you if I were in his place: 'For the last
five years you have taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a year,
and that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent; which makes
your property in his hands at this moment over twenty-seven thousand
francs, as you have not drawn the interest. But there exists a private
signed agreement between you and Rigou, and the Shopman will dismiss
his steward whenever the Abbe Brossette lays that document before his
eyes; the abbe will be able to do so after receiving an anonymous
letter which will inform him of your double-dealing. You would
therefore do better for yourself by keeping well with us instead of
clamoring for your pay in advance,--all the more because Monsieur
Rigou, who is not legally bound to give you seven and a half per cent
and the interest on your interest, will make you in court a legal
tender of your twenty thousand francs, and you will not be able to
touch that money until your suit, prolonged by legal trickery, shall
be decided by the court at Ville-aux-Fayes. But if you act wisely you
will find that when Monsieur Rigou gets possession of your pavilion at
Les Aigues, you will have very nearly thirty thousand francs in his
hands and thirty thousand more which the said Rigou may entrust to
you,--which will be all the more advantageous to you then because the
peasantry will have flung them themselves upon the estate of Les
Aigues, divided into small lots like the poverty of the world.' That's
what Monsieur Gaubertin might say to you. As for me, I have nothing to
say, for it is none of my business. Gaubertin and I have our own
quarrel with that son of the people who is ashamed of his own father,
and we follow our own course. If my friend Gaubertin feels the need of
using you, I don't; I need no one, for everybody is at my command. As
to the Keeper of the Seals, that functionary is often changed; whereas
we--WE are always here, and can bide our time."
"Well, I've warned you," returned Sibilet, feeling like a donkey under
a pack-saddle.
"Warned me of what?" said Rigou, artfully.
"Of what the Shopman is going to do," answered the steward, humbly.
"He started for the Prefecture in a rage."
"Let him go! If the Montcornets and their kind didn't use wheels, what
would become of the carriage-makers?"
"I shall bring you three thousand francs to-night," said Sibilet, "but
you ought to make over some of your maturing mortgages to me,--say,
one or two that would secure to me good lots of land."
"Well, there's that of Courtecuisse. I myself want to be easy on him
because he is the best shot in the canton; but if I make over his
mortgage to you, you will seem to be harassing him on the Shopman's
account, and that will be killing two birds with one stone; when
Courtecuisse finds himself a beggar, like Fourchon, he'll be capable
of anything. Courtecuisse has ruined himself on the Bachelerie; he has
cultivated all the land, and trained fruit on the walls. The little
property is now worth four thousand francs, and the count will gladly
pay you that to get possession of the three acres that jut right into
his land. If Courtecuisse were not such an idle hound he could have
paid his interest with the game he might have killed there."
"Well, transfer the mortgage to me, and I'll make my butter out of it;
the count shall buy the three acres, and I shall get the house and
garden for nothing."
"What are you going to give me out of it?"
"Good heavens! you'd milk an ox!" exclaimed Sibilet,--"when I have
just done you such a service, too. I have at last got the Shopman to
enforce the laws about gleaning--"
"Have you, my dear fellow?" said Rigou, who a few days earlier had
suggested this means of exasperating the peasantry to Sibilet, telling
him to advise the general to try it. "Then we've got him; he's lost!
But it isn't enough to hold him with one string; we must wind it round
and round him like a roll of tobacco. Slip the bolts of the door, my
lad; tell my wife to bring my coffee and the liqueurs, and tell Jean
to harness up. I'm off to Soulanges; will see you to-night!--Ah!
Vaudoyer, good afternoon," said the late mayor as his former fieldkeeper
entered the room. "What's the news?"
Vaudoyer related the talk which had just taken place at the tavern,
and asked Rigou's opinion as to the legality of the rules which the
general thought of enforcing.
"He has the law with him," said Rigou, curtly. "We have a hard
landlord; the Abbe Brossette is a malignant priest; he advises all
such measures because you don't go to mass, you miserable unbelievers.
I go; there's a God, I tell you. You peasants will have to bear
everything, for the Shopman will always get the better of you--"
"We shall glean," said Vaudoyer, in that determined tone which
characterizes Burgundians.
"Without a certificate of pauperism?" asked the usurer. "They say the
Shopman has gone to the Prefecture to ask for troops so as to force
you to keep the law."
"We shall glean as we have always gleaned," repeated Vaudoyer.
"Well, glean then! Monsieur Sarcus will decide whether you have the
right to," said Rigou, seeming to promise the help of the justice of
the peace.
"We shall glean, and we shall do it in force, or Burgundy won't be
Burgundy any longer," said Vaudoyer. "If the gendarmes have sabres we
have scythes, and we'll see what comes of it!"
At half-past four o'clock the great green gate of the former parsonage
turned on its hinges, and the bay horse, led by Jean, was brought
round to the front door. Madame Rigou and Annette came out on the
steps and looked at the little wicker carriage, painted green, with a
leathern hood, where their lord and master was comfortably seated on
good cushions.
"Don't be late home, monsieur," said Annette, with a little pout.
The village folk, already informed of the measures the general
proposed to take, were at their doors or standing in the main street
as Rigou drove by, believing that he was going to Soulanges in their
defence.
"Well, Madame Courtecuisse, so our mayor is on his way to protect us,"
remarked an old woman as she knitted; the question of depredating in
the forest was of great interest to her, for her husband sold the
stolen wood at Soulanges.
"Ah! the good man, his heart bleeds to see the way we are treated; he
is as unhappy as we are about it," replied the poor woman, who
trembled at the very name of her husband's creditor, and praised him
out of fear.
"And he himself, too,--they've shamefully ill-used him! Good-day,
Monsieur Rigou," said the old knitter to the usurer, who bowed to her
and to his debtor's wife.
As Rigou crossed the Thune, fordable at all seasons, Tonsard came out
of the tavern and met him on the high-road.
"Well, Pere Rigou," he said, "so the Shopman means to make dogs of
us?"
"We'll see about that," said the usurer, whipping up his horse.
"He'll protect us," said Tonsard, turning to a group of women and
children who were near him.
"Rigou is thinking as much about you as a cook thinks of the gudgeons
he is frying in his pan," called out Fourchon.
"Take the clapper out of your throat when you are drunk," said Mouche,
pulling his grandfather by the blouse, and tumbling him down on a bank
under a poplar tree. "If that hound of a mayor heard you say that,
he'd never buy any more of your tales."
The truth was that Rigou was hurrying to Soulanges in consequence of
the warning given him by the steward of Les Aigues, which, in his
heart, he regarded as threatening the secret coalition of the valley.
PART II
CHAPTER I
THE LEADING SOCIETY OF SOULANGES
About six kilometres (speaking legally) from Blangy, and at the same
distance from Ville-aux-Fayes, on an elevation radiating from the long
hillside at the foot of which flows the Avonne, stands the little town
of Soulanges, surnamed La Jolie, with, perhaps, more right to that
title than Mantes.
At the foot of the hill, the Thune broadens over a clay bottom to a
space of some seventy acres, at the end of which the Soulanges mills,
placed on numerous little islets, present as graceful a group of
buildings as any landscape architect could devise. After watering the
park of Soulanges, where it feeds various other streams and artificial
lakes, the Thune falls into the Avonne through a fine broad channel.
The chateau of Soulanges, rebuilt under Louis XIV. from designs of
Jules Mansart, and one of the finest in Burgundy, stands facing the
town; so that Soulanges and its chateau mutually present to each other
a charming and even elegant vista. The main road winds between the
town and the pond, called by the country people, rather pompously, the
lake of Soulanges.
The little town is one of those natural compositions which are
extremely rare in France, where PRETTINESS of its own kind is
absolutely wanting. Here you would indeed find, as Blondet said in his
letter, the charm of Switzerland, the prettiness of the environs of
Neuf-chatel; while the bright vineyards which encircle Soulanges
complete the resemblance,--leaving out, be it said, the Alps and the
Jura. The streets, placed one above another on the slope of the hill,
have but few houses; for each house stands in its own garden, which
produces a mass of greenery rarely seen in a town. The roofs, red or
blue, rising among flower-gardens, trees, and trellised terraces,
present an harmonious variety of aspects.
The church, an old Middle-Age structure, built of stone, thanks to the
munificence of the lords of Soulanges, who reserved for themselves
first a chapel near the chancel, then a crypt as their necropolis,
has, by way of portal, an immense arcade, like that of the church at
Lonjumeau, and is bordered by flower-beds adorned with statues, and
flanked on either side by columns with niches, which terminate in
spires. This portal, often seen in churches of the same period when
chance has saved them from the ravages of Calvinism, is surmounted by
a triglyph, above which stands a statue of the Virgin holding the
infant Jesus. The sides of the structure are externally of five
arches, defined by stone ribs and lighted by windows with small panes.
The apse rests on arched abutments that are worthy of a cathedral. The
clock-tower, placed in a transept of the cross, is square and
surmounted by a belfry. The church can be seen from a great distance,
for it stands at the top of the great square, at the lower end of
which the high-road passes through the town.
This square, large for the size of the town, is surrounded by very
original buildings, all of different epochs. Many, half-wood, halfbrick,
with their timbers faced with slate, date back to the Middle
Ages. Others, of stone, with balconies, show the form of gable so dear
to our ancestors, which belongs to the twelfth century. Several charm
the eye with those old projecting beams, carved with grotesque faces,
which form the roof of a sort of shed, and recall the days when the
middle classes were exclusively commercial. The finest house among
them was that of the chief magistrate of former days,--a house with a
sculptured front on a line with the church, to which it forms a fine
accompaniment. Sold as national property, it was bought in by the
commune, which turned it into a town-hall and court-house, where
Monsieur Sarcus had presided ever since the establishment of municipal
judges.
This slight sketch will give an idea of the square of Soulanges,
adorned in the centre with a charming fountain brought from Italy in
1520 by the Marechal de Soulanges, which was not unworthy of a great
capital. An unfailing jet of water, coming from a spring higher up the
hill, was shed by four Cupids in white marble, bearing shells in their
arms and baskets of grapes upon their heads.
Literary travellers who may pass this way (should any such follow
Emile Blondet) might imagine the spot to have inspired Moliere and the
Spanish drama, which held its footing so long on French boards,
showing that comedy is native to warm countries where so much of life
is passed in the public streets. The square of Soulanges is all the
more a reminder of that classic stage because the two principal
streets, opening just on a line with the fountain, afford the exit and
entrances so necessary for the dramatic masters and valets whose
business it is either to meet or to avoid each other. At the corner of
one of these streets, called the rue de la Fontaine, shone the
notarial escutcheon of Maitre Lupin. The houses of Messieurs Sarcus,
Guerbet the collector, Brunet, Gourdon, clerk of the court, and that
of his brother the doctor, also that of old Monsieur Gendrin-Vatebled,
the keeper of the forests and streams,--all these houses, kept with
extreme neatness by their owners, who held firmly to the flattering
surname of their native town, stand in the neighborhood of the square
and form the aristocratic quarter of Soulanges.
The house of Madame Soudry--for the powerful individuality of
Mademoiselle Laguerre's former waiting-maid took the lead of her
husband in the community--was modern, having been built by a rich
wine-merchant, born in Soulanges, who, after making his money in
Paris, returned there in 1793 to buy wheat for his native town. He was
slain as an "accapareur," a monopolist, by the populace, instigated by
a mason, the uncle of Godain, with whom he had had some quarrel about
the building of his ambitious house. The settlement of his estate,
sharply contested by collateral heirs, dragged slowly along until, in
1798, Soudry, who had then returned to Soulanges, was able to buy the
wine-merchant's palace for three thousand francs in specie. He then
let it, in the first instance, to the government for the headquarters
of the gendarmerie. In 1811 Mademoiselle Cochet, whom Soudry consulted
about all his affairs, strongly objected to the renewal of the lease,
making the house uninhabitable, she declared, with barracks. The town
of Soulanges, assisted by the department, then erected a building for
the gendarmerie in a street running at right angles from the townhall.
Thereupon Soudry cleaned up his house and restored its primitive
lustre, not a little dimmed by the stabling of horses and the
occupancy of gendarmes.
The house, only one story high, with projecting windows in the roof,
has a view on three sides; one to the square, another to a lake, the
third to a garden. The fourth side looks on a courtyard which
separates the Soudrys from the adjoining house occupied by a grocer
named Wattebled, a man of the SECOND-CLASS society of Soulanges,
father of the beautiful Madame Plissoud, of whom we shall presently
have occasion to speak.
All little towns have a renowned beauty, just as they have a Socquard
and a Cafe de la Paix.
It will be apparent to every one that the frontage of the Soudry
mansion on the lake must have a terraced garden confined by a stone
balustrade which overlooks both the lake and the main road. A flight
of steps leads down from the terrace to the road, and on it an orangetree,
a pomegranate, a myrtle, and other ornamental shrubs are placed,
necessitating a greenhouse. On the side toward the square the house is
entered from a portico raised several steps above the level of the
street. According to the custom of small towns the gate of the
courtyard, used only for the service of the house or for any unusual
arrival, was seldom opened. Visitors, who mostly came on foot, entered
by the portico.
The style of the Hotel Soudry is plain. The courses are indicated by
projecting lines; the windows are framed by mouldings alternately
broad and slender, like those of the Gabriel and Perronnet pavilion in
the place Louis XV. These ornaments in so small a town give a certain
solid and monumental air to the building which has become celebrated.
Opposite to this house, in another angle of the square stands the
famous Cafe de la Paix, the characteristics of which, together with
the fascinations of its Tivoli, will require, somewhat later, a less
succinct description than that we have given of the Soudry mansion.
Rigou very seldom came to Soulanges; everybody was in the habit of
going to him,--Lupin and Gaubertin, Soudry and Gendrin,--so much were
they afraid of him. But we shall presently understand why any educated
man, such as the ex-Benedictine, would have done as Rigou did, and
kept away from the little town, after reading the following sketch of
the personages who composed what was called in those parts "the
leading society of Soulanges."
Of its principal figures, the most original, as you have already
suspected, was that of Madame Soudry, whose personality, to be duly
rendered, needs a minute and careful brush.
Madame Soudry, respectfully imitating Mademoiselle Laguerre, began by
allowing herself a "mere touch of rouge"; but this delicate tint had
changed through force of habit to those vermilion patches
picturesquely described by our ancestors as "carriage-wheels." The
wrinkles growing deeper and deeper, it occurred to the ex-lady's-maid
to fill them up with paint. Her forehead becoming unduly yellow, and
the temples too shiny, she "laid on" a little white, and renewed the
veins of her youth with a tracery of blue. All this color gave an
exaggerated liveliness to her eyes which were already tricksy enough,
so that the mask of her face would seem to a stranger even more than
fantastic, though her friends and acquaintances, accustomed to this
fictitious brilliancy, actually declared her handsome.
This ungainly creature, always decolletee, showed a bosom and a pair
of shoulders that were whitened and polished by the same process
employed upon her face; happily, for the sake of exhibiting her
magnificent laces, she partially veiled the charms of these chemical
products. She always wore the body of her dress stiffened with
whalebone and made in a long point and garnished with knots of ribbon,
even on the point! Her petticoats gave forth a creaking noise,--so
much did the silk and the furbelows abound.
This attire, which deserves the name of apparel (a word that before
long will be inexplicable), was, on the evening in question, of costly
brocade,--for Madame Soudry possessed over a hundred dresses, each
richer than the others, the remains of Mademoiselle Laguerre's
enormous and splendid wardrobe, made over to fit Madame Soudry in the
last fashion of the year 1808. Her blond wig, frizzed and powdered,
sustained a superb cap with knots of cherry satin ribbon matching
those on her dress. If you will kindly imagine beneath this ultracoquettish
cap the face of a monkey of extreme ugliness, on which a
flat nose, fleshless as that of Death, is separated by a strong hairy
line from a mouth filled with false teeth, whence issue sounds like
the confused clacking of hunting-horns, you will have some difficulty
in understanding why the leading society of Soulanges (all the town,
in fact) thought this quasi-queen a beauty,--unless, indeed, you
remember the succinct statement recently made "ex professo," by one of
the cleverest women of our time, on the art of making her sex
beautiful by surrounding accessories.
As to accessories, in the first place, Madame Soudry was surrounded by
the magnificent gifts accumulated by her late mistress, which the ex-
Benedictine called "fructus belli." Then she made the most of her
ugliness by exaggerating it, and by assuming that indescribable air
and manner which belongs only to Parisian women, the secret of which
is known even to the most vulgar among them,--who are always more or
less mimics. She laced tight, wore an enormous bustle, also diamond
earrings, and her fingers were covered with rings. At the top of her
corsage, between two mounds of flesh well plastered with pearl-white,
shone a beetle made of topaz with a diamond head, the gift of dear
mistress,--a jewel renowned throughout the department. Like the late
dear mistress, she wore short sleeves and bare arms, and flirted an
ivory fan, painted by Boucher with two little rose-diamonds in the
handle.
When she went out Madame Soudry carried a parasol of the true
eighteenth-century style; that is to say, a tall cane at the end of
which opened a green sun-shade with a green fringe. When she walked
about the terrace a stranger on the high-road, seeing her from afar,
might have thought her one of Watteau's dames.
In her salon, hung with red damask, with curtains of the same lined
with silk, a fire on the hearth, a mantel-shelf adorned with bibelots
of the good time of Louis XV., and bearing candelabra in the form of
lilies upheld by Cupids--in this salon, filled with furniture in
gilded wood of the "pied de biche" pattern, it is not impossible to
understand why the people of Soulanges called the mistress of the
house, "The beautiful Madame Soulanges." The mansion had actually
become the civic pride of this capital of a canton.
If the leading society of the little town believed in its queen, the
queen as surely believed in herself. By a phenomenon not in the least
rare, which the vanity of mothers and authors carries on at all
moments under our very eyes in behalf of their literary works or their
marriageable daughters, the late Mademoiselle Cochet was, at the end
of seven years, so completely buried under Madame Soudry, the
mayoress, that she not only did not remember her past, but she
actually believed herself a well-bred woman. She had studied the airs
and graces, the dulcet tones, the gestures, the ways of her mistress,
so long that when she found herself in the midst of an opulence of her
own she was able to practice the natural insolence of it. She knew her
eighteenth century, and the tales of its great lords and all their
belongings, by heart. This back-stairs erudition gave to her
conversation a flavor of "oeil-de-boeuf"; her soubrette gossip passed
muster for courtly wit. Morally, the mayoress was, if you wish to say
so, tinsel; but to savages paste diamonds are as good as real ones.
The woman found herself courted and worshipped by the society in which
she lived, just as her mistress had been worshipped in former days.
She gave weekly dinners, with coffee and liqueurs to those who came in
after the dessert. No female head could have resisted the exhilarating
force of such continual adulation. In winter the warm salon, always
well-lighted with wax candles, was well-filled with the richest people
of Soulanges, who paid for the good liqueurs and the fine wines which
came from dear mistress's cellars, with flatteries to their hostess.
These visitors and their wives had a life-interest, as it were, in
this luxury; which was to them a saving of lights and fuel. Thus it
came to pass that in a circuit of fifteen miles and even as far as
Ville-aux-Fayes, every voice was ready to declare: "Madame Soudry does
the honors admirably. She keeps open house; every one enjoys her
salon; she knows how to carry herself and her fortune; she always says
the witty thing, she makes you laugh. And what splendid silver! There
is not another house like it short of Paris--"
The silver had been given to Mademoiselle Laguerre by Bouret. It was a
magnificent service made by the famous Germain, and Madame Soudry had
literally stolen it. At Mademoiselle Laguerre's death she merely took
it into her own room, and the heirs, who knew nothing of the value of
their inheritance, never claimed it.
For some time past the twelve or fifteen personages who composed the
leading society of Soulanges spoke of Madame Soudry as the INTIMATE
FRIEND of Mademoiselle Laguerre, recoiling at the term "waitingwoman,"
and making believe that she had sacrificed herself to the
singer as her friend and companion.
Strange yet true! all these illusions became realities, and spread
even to the actual regions of the heart; Madame Soudry reigned
supreme, in a way, over her husband.
The gendarme, required to love a woman ten years older than himself
who kept the management of her fortune in her own hands, behaved to
her in the spirit of the ideas she had ended by adopting about her
beauty. But sometimes, when persons envied him or talked to him of his
happiness, he wished they were in his place, for, to hide his
peccadilloes, he was forced to take as many precautions as the husband
of a young and adoring wife; and it was not until very recently that
he had been able to introduce into the family a pretty servant-girl.
This portrait of the Queen of Soulanges may seem a little grotesque,
but many specimens of the same kind could be found in the provinces at
that period,--some more or less noble in blood, others belonging to
the higher banking-circles, like the widow of a receiver-general in
Touraine who still puts slices of veal upon her cheeks. This portrait,
drawn from nature, would be incomplete without the diamonds in which
it is set; without the surrounding courtiers, a sketch of whom is
necessary, if only to explain how formidable such Lilliputians are,
and who are the makers of public opinion in remote little towns. Let
no one mistake me, however; there are many localities which, like
Soulanges, are neither hamlets, villages, nor little towns, which
have, nevertheless, the characteristics of all. The inhabitants are
very different from those of the large and busy and vicious provincial
cities. Country life influences the manners and morals of the smaller
places, and this mixture of tints will be found to produce some truly
original characters.
The most important personage after Madame Soudry was Lupin, the
notary. Though forty-five springs had bloomed for Lupin, he was still
fresh and rosy, thanks to the plumpness which fills out the skin of
sedentary persons; and he still sang ballads. Also, he retained the
elegant evening dress of society warblers. He looked almost Parisian
in his carefully-varnished boots, his sulphur-yellow waistcoats, his
tight-fitting coats, his handsome silk cravats, his fashionable
trousers. His hair was curled by the barber of Soulanges (the gossip
of the town), and he maintained the attitude of a man "a bonne
fortunes" by his liaison with Madame Sarcus, wife of Sarcus the rich,
who was to his life, without too close a comparison, what the
campaigns of Italy were to Napoleon. He alone of the leading society
of Soulanges went to Paris, where he was received by the Soulanges
family. It was enough to hear him talk to imagine the supremacy he
wielded in his capacity as dandy and judge of elegance. He passed
judgment on all things by the use of three terms: "out of date,"
"antiquated," "superannuated."[*] A man, a woman, or a piece of
furniture might be "out of date"; next, by a greater degree of
imperfection, "antiquated"; but as to the last term, it was the
superlative of contempt. The first might be remedied, the second was
hopeless, but the third,--oh, better far never to have left the void
of nothingness! As to praise, a single word sufficed him, doubly and
trebly uttered: "Charming!" was the positive of his admiration.
"Charming, charming!" made you feel you were safe; but after
"Charming, charming, charming!" the ladder might be discarded, for the
heaven of perfection was attained.
[*] "Croute," "crouton," and "croute-au-pot," untranslatable, and
without equivalent in English. A "croute" is the slang term for a
man behind the age.--Tr.
The tabellion,--he called himself "tabellion," petty notary, and
keeper of notes (making fun of his calling in order to seem above it),
--the tabellion was on terms of spoken gallantry with Madame Soudry,
who had a weakness for Lupin, though he was blond and wore spectacles.
Hitherto the late Cochet had loved none but dark men, with moustachios
and hairy hands, of the Alcides type. But she made an exception in
favor of Lupin on account of his elegance, and, moreover, because she
thought her glory at Soulanges was not complete without an adorer;
but, to Soudry's despair, the queen's adorers never carried their
adoration so far as to threaten his rights.
Lupin had married an heiress in wooden shoes and blue woollen
stockings, the only daughter of a salt-dealer, who made his money
during the Revolution,--a period when contraband salt-traders made
enormous profits by reason of the reaction that set in against the
gabelle. He prudently left his wife at home, where Bebelle, as he
called her, was supported under his absence by a platonic passion for
a handsome clerk who had no other means than his salary,--a young man
named Bonnac, belonging to the second-class society, where he played
the same role that his master, the notary, played in the first.
Madame Lupin, a woman without any education whatever, appeared on
great occasions only, under the form of an enormous Burgundian barrel
dressed in velvet and surmounted by a little head sunken in shoulders
of a questionable color. No efforts could retain her waist-belt in its
natural place. "Bebelle" candidly admitted that prudence forbade her
wearing corsets. The imagination of a poet or, better still, that of
an inventor, could not have found on Bebelle's back the slightest
trace of that seductive sinuosity which the vertebrae of all women who
are women usually produce. Bebelle, round as a tortoise, belonged to
the genus of invertebrate females. This alarming development of
cellular tissue no doubt reassured Lupin on the subject of the
platonic passion of his fat wife, whom he boldly called Bebelle
without raising a laugh.
"Your wife, what is she?" said Sarcus the rich, one day, when unable
to digest the fatal word "superannuated," applied to a piece of
furniture he had just bought at a bargain.
"My wife is not like yours," replied Lupin; "she is not defined as
yet."
Beneath his rosy exterior the notary possessed a subtle mind, and he
had the sense to say nothing about his property, which was fully as
large as that of Rigou.
Monsieur Lupin's son, Amaury, was a great trouble to his father. An
only son, and one of the Don Juans of the valley, he utterly refused
to follow the paternal profession. He took advantage of his position
as only son to bleed the strong-box cruelly, without, however,
exhausting the patience of his father, who would say after every
escapade, "Well, I was like that in my young days." Amaury never came
to Madame Soudry's; he said she bored him; for, with a recollection of
her early days, she attempted to "educate" him, as she called it,
whereas he much preferred the pleasures and billiards of the Cafe de
la Paix. He frequented the worst company of Soulanges, even down to
Bonnebault. He continued sowing his wild oats, as Madame Soudry
remarked, and replied to all his father's remonstrances with one
perpetual request: "Send me back to Paris, for I am bored to death
here."
Lupin ended, alas! like other gallants, by an attachment that was
semi-conjugal. His known passion, in spite of his former liaison with
Madame Sarcus, was for the wife of the under-sheriff of the municipal
court,--Madame Euphemie Plissoud, daughter of Wattebled the grocer,
who reigned in the second-class society as Madame Soudry did in the
first. Monsieur Plissoud, a competitor of Brunet, belonged to the
under-world of Soulanges on account of his wife's conduct, which it
was said he authorized,--a report that drew upon him the contempt of
the leading society.
If Lupin was the musician of the leading society, Monsieur Gourdon,
the doctor, was its man of science. The town said of him, "We have
here in our midst a scientific man of the first order." Madame Soudry
(who believed she understood music because she had ushered in Piccini
and Gluck and had dressed Mademoiselle Laguerre for the Opera)
persuaded society, and even Lupin himself, that he might have made his
fortune by his voice, and, in like manner, she was always regretting
that the doctor did not publish his scientific ideas.
Monsieur Gourdon merely repeated the ideas of Cuvier and Buffon, which
might not have enabled him to pose as a scientist before the Soulanges
world; but besides this he was making a collection of shells, and he
possessed an herbarium, and he knew how to stuff birds. He lived upon
the glory of having bequeathed his cabinet of natural history to the
town of Soulanges. After this was known he was considered throughout
the department as a great naturalist and the successor of Buffon. Like
a certain Genevese banker, whose pedantry, coldness, and puritan
propriety he copied, without possessing either his money or his
shrewdness, Monsieur Gourdon exhibited with great complacency the
famous collection, consisting of a bear and a monkey (both of which
had died on their way to Soulanges), all the rodents of the
department, mice and field-mice and dormice, rats, muskrats, and
moles, etc.; all the interesting birds ever shot in Burgundy, and an
Alpine eagle caught in the Jura. Gourdon also possessed a collection
of lepidoptera,--a word which led society to hope for monstrosities,
and to say, when it saw them, "Why, they are only butterflies!"
Besides these things he had a fine array of fossil shells, mostly the
collections of his friends which they bequeathed to him, and all the
minerals of Burgundy and the Jura.
These treasures, laid out on shelves with glass doors (the drawers
beneath containing the insects), occupied the whole of the first floor
of the doctor's house, and produced a certain effect through the
oddity of the names on the tickets, the magic effect of the colors,
and the gathering together of so many things which no one pays the
slightest attention to when seen in nature, though much admired under
glass. Society took a regular day to go and look at Monsieur Gourdon's
collection.
"I have," he said to all inquirers, "five hundred ornithological
objects, two hundred mammifers, five thousand insects, three thousand
shells, and seven thousand specimens of minerals."
"What patience you have had!" said the ladies.
"One must do something for one's country," replied the collector.
He drew an enormous profit from his carcasses by the mere repetition
of the words, "I have bequeathed everything to the town by my will."
Visitors lauded his philanthropy; the authorities talked of devoting
the second floor of the town hall to the "Gourdon Museum," after the
collector's death.
"I rely upon the gratitude of my fellow-citizens to attach my name to
the gift," he replied; "for I dare not hope they would place a marble
bust of me--"
"It would be the very least we could do for you," they rejoined; "are
you not the glory of our town?"
Thus the man actually came to consider himself one of the celebrities
of Burgundy. The surest incomes are not from consols after all; those
our vanity obtains for us have better security. This man of science
was, to employ Lupin's superlatives, happy! happy!! happy!!!
Gourdon, the clerk of the court, brother of the doctor, was a pitiful
little creature, whose features all gathered about his nose, so that
the nose seemed the point of departure for the forehead, the cheeks,
and the mouth, all of which were connected with it just as the ravines
of a mountain begin at the summit. This pinched little man was thought
to be one of the greatest poets in Burgundy,--a Piron, it was the
fashion to say. The dual merits of the two brothers gave rise to the
remark: "We have the brothers Gourdon at Soulanges--two very
distinguished men; men who could hold their own in Paris."
Devoted to the game of cup-and-ball, the clerk of the court became
possessed by another mania,--that of composing an ode in honor of an
amusement which amounted to a passion in the eighteenth century.
Manias among mediocrats often run in couples. Gourdon junior gave
birth to his poem during the reign of Napoleon. That fact is
sufficient to show the sound and healthy school of poesy to which he
belonged; Luce de Lancival, Parny, Saint-Lambert, Rouche, Vigee,
Andrieux, Berchoux were his heroes. Delille was his god, until the day
when the leading society of Soulanges raised the question as to
whether Gourdon were not superior to Delille; after which the clerk of
the court always called his competitor "Monsieur l'Abbe Delille," with
exaggerated politeness.
The poems manufactured between 1780 and 1814 were all of one pattern,
and the one which Gourdon composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an
idea of them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in the art.
"The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abortive generation of jocular
poems, all in four cantos or thereabouts, for it was generally
admitted that six would wear the subject threadbare.
Gourdon's poem entitled "Ode to the Cup-and-Ball" obeyed the poetic
rules which governed these works, rules that were invariable in their
application. Each poem contained in the first canto a description of
the "object sung," preceded (as in the case of Gourdon) by a species
of invocation, of which the following is a model:--
I sing the good game that belongeth to all,
The game, be it known, of the Cup and the Ball;
Dear to little and great, to the fools and the wise;
Charming game! where the cure of all tedium lies;
When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick
Palamedus himself might have envied the trick;
O Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games,
Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims,
I have ruled off this paper in syllable squares.
Come, help me--
After explaining the game and describing the handsomest cup-and-balls
recorded in history, after relating what fabulous custom it had
formerly brought to the Singe-Vert and to all dealers in toys and
turned ivories, and finally, after proving that the game attained to
the dignity of statics, Gourdon ended the first canto with the
following conclusion, which will remind the erudite reader of all the
conclusions of the first cantos of all these poems:--
'Tis thus that the arts and the sciences, too,
Find wisdom in things that seemed silly to you.
The second canto, invariably employed to depict the manner of using
"the object," explaining how to exhibit it in society and before
women, and the benefit to be derived therefrom, will be readily
conceived by the friends of this virtuous literature from the
following quotation, which depicts the player going through his
performance under the eyes of his chosen lady:--
Now look at the player who sits in your midst,
On that ivory ball how his sharp eye is fixt;
He waits and he watches with keenest attention,
Its least little movement in all its precision;
The ball its parabola thrice has gone round,
At the end of the string to which it is bound.
Up it goes! but the player his triumph has missed,
For the disc has come down on his maladroit wrist;
But little he cares for the sting of the ball,
A smile from his mistress consoles for it all.
It was this delineation, worthy of Virgil, which first raised a doubt
as to Delille's superiority over Gourdon. The word "disc," contested
by the opinionated Brunet, gave matter for discussions which lasted
eleven months; in fact, until Gourdon the scientist, one evening when
all present were on the point of getting seriously angry, annihilated
the anti-discers by observing:--
"The moon, called a DISC by poets, is undoubtedly a ball."
"How do you know that?" retorted Brunet. "We have never seen but one
side."
The third canto told the regulation story,--in this instance, the
famous anecdote of the cup-and-ball which all the world knows by
heart, concerning a celebrated minister of Louis XVI. According to the
sacred formula delivered by the "Debats" from 1810 to 1814, in praise
of these glorious words, Gourdon's ode "borrowed fresh charms from
poesy to embellish the tale."
The fourth canto summed up the whole, and concluded with these daring
words,--not published, be it remarked, from 1810 to 1814; in fact,
they did not see the light till 1824, after Napoleon's death.
'Twas thus that I sang in the time of alarms.
Oh, if kings would consent to bear no other arms,
And people enjoyed what was best for them all,
The sweet little game of the Cup and the Ball,
Our Burgundy then might be free of all fear,
And return to the good days of Saturn and Rhea.
These fine verses were published in a first and only edition from the
press of Bournier, printer of Ville-aux-Fayes. One hundred
subscribers, in the sum of three francs, guaranteed the dangerous
precedent of immortality to the poem,--a liberality that was all the
greater because these hundred persons had heard the poem from
beginning to end a hundred times over.
Madame Soudry had lately suppressed the cup-and-ball, which usually
lay on a pier-table in the salon and for the last seven years had
given rise to endless quotations, for she finally discovered in the
toy a rival to her own attractions.
As to the author, who boasted of future poems in his desk, it is
enough to quote the terms in which he mentioned to the leading society
of Soulanges a rival candidate for literary honors.
"Have you heard a curious piece of news?" he had said, two years
earlier. "There is another poet in Burgundy! Yes," he added, remarking
the astonishment on all faces, "he comes from Macon. But you could
never imagine the subjects he takes up,--a perfect jumble, absolutely
unintelligible,--lakes, stars, waves, billows! not a single
philosophical image, not even a didactic effort! he is ignorant of the
very meaning of poetry. He calls the sky by its name. He says 'moon,'
bluntly, instead of naming it 'the planet of night.' That's what the
desire to be thought original brings men to," added Gourdon,
mournfully. "Poor young man! A Burgundian, and sing such stuff as
that!--the pity of it! If he had only consulted me, I would have
pointed out to him the noblest of all themes, wine,--a poem to be
called the Baccheide; for which, alas! I now feel myself too old."
This great poet is still ignorant of his finest triumph (though he
owes it to the fact of being a Burgundian), namely, that of living in
the town of Soulanges, so rounded and perfected within itself that it
knows nothing of the modern Pleiades, not even their names.
A hundred Gourdons made poetry under the Empire, and yet they tell us
it was a period that neglected literature! Examine the "Journal de la
Libraire" and you will find poems on the game of draughts, on
backgammon, on tricks with cards, on geography, typography, comedy,
etc.,--not to mention the vaunted masterpieces of Delille on Piety,
Imagination, Conversation; and those of Berchoux on Gastromania and
Dansomania, etc. Who can foresee the chances and changes of taste, the
caprices of fashion, the transformations of the human mind? The
generations as they pass along sweep out of sight the last fragments
of the idols they found on their path and set up other gods,--to be
overthrown like the rest.
Sarcus, a handsome little man with a dapple-gray head, devoted himself
in turn to Themis and to Flora,--in other words, to legislation and a
greenhouse. For the last twelve years he had been meditating a book on
the History of the Institution of Justices of the Peace, "whose
political and judiciary role," he said, "had already passed through
several phases, all derived from the Code of Brumaire, year IV.; and
to-day that institution, so precious to the nation, had lost its power
because the salaries were not in keeping with the importance of its
functions, which ought to be performed by irremovable officials."
Rated in the community as an able man, Sarcus was the accepted
statesman of Madame Soudry's salon; you can readily imagine that he
was the leading bore. They said he talked like a book. Gaubertin
prophesied he would receive the cross of the Legion of honor, but not
until the day when, as Leclercq's successor, he should take his seat
on the benches of the Left Centre.
Guerbet, the collector, a man of parts, a heavy, fat, individual with
a buttery face, a toupet on his bald spot, gold earrings, which were
always in difficulty with his shirt-collar, had the hobby of pomology.
Proud of possessing the finest fruit-garden in the arrondissement, he
gathered his first crops a month later than those of Paris; his hotbeds
supplied him with pine-apples, nectarines, and peas, out of
season. He brought bunches of strawberries to Madame Soudry with pride
when the fruit could be bought for ten sous a basket in Paris.
Soulanges possessed a pharmaceutist named Vermut, a chemist, who was
more of a chemist than Sarcus was a statesman, or Lupin a singer, or
Gourdon the elder a scientist, or his brother a poet. Nevertheless,
the leading society of Soulanges did not take much notice of Vermut,
and the second-class society took none at all. The instinct of the
first may have led them to perceive the real superiority of this
thinker, who said little but smiled at their absurdities so
satirically that they first doubted his capacity and then whispered
tales against it; as for the other class they took no notice of him
one way or the other.
Vermut was the butt of Madame Soudry's salon. No society is complete
without a victim,--without an object to pity, ridicule, despise, and
protect. Vermut, full of his scientific problems, often came with his
cravat untied, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his little green surtout
spotted.
The little man, gifted with the patience of a chemist, could not enjoy
(that is the term employed in the provinces to express the abolition
of domestic rule) Madame Vermut,--a charming woman, a lively woman,
capital company (for she could lose forty sous at cards and say
nothing), a woman who railed at her husband, annoyed him with
epigrams, and declared him to be an imbecile unable to distil anything
but dulness. Madame Vermut was one of those women who in the society
of a small town are the life and soul of amusement and who set things
going. She supplied the salt of her little world, kitchen-salt, it is
true; her jokes were somewhat broad, but society forgave them; though
she was capable of saying to the cure Taupin, a man of seventy years
of age, with white hair, "Hold your tongue, my lad."
The miller of Soulanges, possessing an income of fifty thousand
francs, had an only daughter whom Lupin desired for his son Amaury,
since he had lost the hope of marrying him to Gaubertin's daughter.
This miller, a Sarcus-Taupin, was the Nucingen of the little town. He
was supposed to be thrice a millionaire; but he never transacted
business with others, and thought only of grinding his wheat and
keeping a monopoly of it; his most noticeable point was a total
absence of politeness and good manners.
The elder Guerbet, brother of the post-master at Conches, possessed an
income of ten thousand francs, besides his salary as collector. The
Gourdons were rich; the doctor had married the only daughter of old
Monsieur Gendrin-Vatebled, keeper of the forests and streams, whom the
family were now EXPECTING TO DIE, while the poet had married the niece
and sole heiress of the Abbe Taupin, the curate of Soulanges, a stout
priest who lived in his cure like a rat in his cheese.
This clever ecclesiastic, devoted to the leading society, kind and
obliging to the second, apostolic to the poor and unfortunate, made
himself beloved by the whole town. He was cousin of the miller and
cousin of the Sarcuses, and belonged therefore to the neighborhood and
to its mediocracy. He always dined out and saved expenses; he went to
weddings but came away before the ball; he paid the costs of public
worship, saying, "It is my business." And the parish let him do it,
with the remark, "We have an excellent priest." The bishop, who knew
the Soulanges people and was not at all misled as to the true value of
the abbe, was glad enough to keep in such a town a man who made
religion acceptable, and who knew how to fill his church and preach to
sleepy heads.
It is unnecessary to remark that not only each of these worthy
burghers possessed some one of the special qualifications which are
necessary to existence in the provinces, but also that each cultivated
his field in the domain of vanity without a rival. Pere Guerbet
understood finance, Soudry might have been minister of war; if Cuvier
had passed that way incognito, the leading society of Soulanges would
have proved to him that he knew nothing in comparison with Monsieur
Gourdon the doctor. "Adolphe Nourrit with his thread of a voice,"
remarked the notary with patronizing indulgence, "was scarcely worthy
to accompany the nightingale of Soulanges." As to the author of the
"Cup-and-Ball" (which was then being printed at Bournier's), society
was satisfied that a poet of his force could not be met with in Paris,
for Delille was now dead.
This provincial bourgeoisie, so comfortably satisfied with itself,
took the lead through the various superiorities of its members.
Therefore the imagination of those who ever resided, even for a short
time, in a little town of this kind can conceive the air of profound
satisfaction upon the faces of these people, who believed themselves
the solar plexus of France, all of them armed with incredible
dexterity and shrewdness to do mischief,--all, in their wisdom,
declaring that the hero of Essling was a coward, Madame de Montcornet
a manoeuvring Parisian, and the Abbe Brossette an ambitious little
priest.
If Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin had lived at Ville-aux-Fayes, they
would have quarrelled; their various pretensions would have clashed;
but fate ordained that the Lucullus of Blangy felt too strongly the
need of solitude, in which to wallow at his ease in usury and
sensuality, to live anywhere but at Blangy; that Madame Soudry had
sense enough to see that she could reign nowhere else except at
Soulanges; and that Ville-aux-Fayes was Gaubertin's place of business.
Those who enjoy studying social nature will admit that General
Montcornet was pursued by special ill-luck in this accidental
separation of his dangerous enemies, who thus accomplished the
evolutions of their individual power and vanity at such distances from
each other that neither star interfered with the orbit of the other,--
a fact which doubled and trebled their powers of mischief.
Nevertheless, though all these worthy bourgeois, proud of their
accomplishments, considered their society as far superior in
attractions to that of Ville-aux-Fayes, and repeated with comic
pomposity the local dictum, "Soulanges is a town of society and social
pleasures," it must not be supposed that Ville-aux-Fayes accepted this
supremacy. The Gaubertin salon ridiculed ("in petto") the salon
Soudry. By the manner in which Gaubertin remarked, "We are a financial
community, engaged in actual business; we have the folly to fatigue
ourselves in making fortunes," it was easy to perceive a latent
antagonism between the earth and the moon. The moon believed herself
useful to the earth, and the earth governed the moon. Earth and moon,
however, lived in the closest intimacy. At the carnival the leading
society of Soulanges went in a body to four balls given by Gaubertin,
Gendrin, Leclercq, and Soudry, junior. Every Sunday the latter, his
wife, Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Elise Gaubertin dined with
the Soudrys at Soulanges. When the sub-prefect was invited, and when
the postmaster of Conches arrived to take pot-luck, Soulanges enjoyed
the sight of four official equipages drawn up at the door of the
Soudry mansion.
CHAPTER II
THE CONSPIRATORS IN THE QUEEN'S SALON
Reaching Soulanges about half-past five o'clock, Rigou was sure of
finding the usual party assembled at the Soudrys'. There, as
everywhere else in town, the dinner-hour was three o'clock, according
to the custom of the last century. From five to nine the notables of
Soulanges met in Madame Soudry's salon to exchange the news, make
their political speeches, comment upon the private lives of every one
in the valley, and talk about Les Aigues, which latter topic kept the
conversation going for at least an hour every day. It was everybody's
business to learn at least something of what was going on, and also to
pay their court to the mistress of the house.
After this preliminary talk they played at boston, the only game the
queen understood. When the fat old Guerbet had mimicked Madame Isaure,
Gaubertin's wife, laughed at her languishing airs, imitated her thin
voice, her pinched mouth, and her juvenile ways; when the Abbe Taupin
had related one of the tales of his repertory; when Lupin had told of
some event at Ville-aux-Fayes, and Madame Soudry had been deluged with
compliments ad nauseum, the company would say: "We have had a charming
game of boston."
Too self-indulgent to be at the trouble of driving over to the
Soudrys' merely to hear the vapid talk of its visitors and to see a
Parisian monkey in the guise of an old woman, Rigou, far superior in
intelligence and education to this petty society, never made his
appearance unless business brought him over to meet the notary. He
excused himself from visiting on the ground of his occupations, his
habits, and his health, which latter did not allow him, he said, to
return at night along a road which led by the foggy banks of the
Thune.
The tall, stiff usurer always had an imposing effect upon Madame
Soudry's company, who instinctively recognized in his nature the
cruelty of the tiger with steel claws, the craft of a savage, the
wisdom of one born in a cloister and ripened by the sun of gold,--a
man to whom Gaubertin had never yet been willing to fully commit
himself.
The moment the little green carriole and the bay horse passed the Cafe
de la Paix, Urbain, Soudry's man-servant, who was seated on a bench
under the dining-room windows, and was gossipping with the tavernkeeper,
shades his eyes with his hand to see who was coming.
"It's Pere Rigou," he said. "I must go round and open the door. Take
his horse, Socquard." And Urbain, a former trooper, who could not get
into the gendarmerie and had therefore taken service with Soudry, went
round the house to open the gates of the courtyard.
Socquard, a famous personage throughout the valley, was treated, as
you see, with very little ceremony by the valet. But so it is with
many illustrious people who are so kind as to walk and to sneeze and
to sleep and to eat precisely like common mortals.
Socquard, born a Hercules, could carry a weight of eleven hundred
pounds; a blow of his fist applied on a man's back would break the
vertebral column in two; he could bend an iron bar, or hold back a
carriage drawn by one horse. A Milo of Crotona in the valley, his fame
had spread throughout the department, where all sorts of foolish
stories were current about him, as about all celebrities. It was told
how he had once carried a poor woman and her donkey and her basket on
his back to market; how he had been known to eat a whole ox and drink
the fourth of a hogshead of wine in one day, etc. Gentle as a
marriageable girl, Socquard, who was a stout, short man, with a placid
face, broad shoulders, and a deep chest, where his lungs played like
the bellows of a forge, possessed a flute-like voice, the limpid tones
of which surprised all those who heard them for the first time.
Like Tonsard, whose renown released him from the necessity of giving
proofs of his ferocity, in fact, like all other men who are backed by
public opinion of one kind or another, Socquard never displayed his
extraordinary muscular force unless asked to do so by friends. He now
took the horse as the usurer drew up at the steps of the portico.
"Are you all well at home, Monsieur Rigou?" said the illustrious
innkeeper.
"Pretty well, my good friend," replied Rigou. "Do Plissoud and
Bonnebault and Viollet and Amaury still continue good customers?"
This question, uttered in a tone of good-natured interest, was by no
means one of those empty speeches which superiors are apt to bestow
upon inferiors. In his leisure moments Rigou thought over the smallest
details of "the affair," and Fourchon had already warned him that
there was something suspicious in the intimacy between Plissoud,
Bonnebault, and the brigadier, Viollet.
Bonnebault, in payment of a few francs lost at cards, might very
likely tell the secrets he heard at Tonsard's to Viollet; or he might
let them out over his punch without realizing the importance of such
gossip. But as the information of the old otter man might be
instigated by thirst, Rigou paid no attention except so far as it
concerned Plissoud, whose situation was likely to inspire him with a
desire to counteract the coalition against Les Aigues, if only to get
his paws greased by one or the other of the two parties.
Plissoud combined with his duties of under-sheriff other occupations
which were poorly remunerated, that of agent of insurance (a new form
of enterprise just beginning to show itself in France), agent, also,
of a society providing against the chances of recruitment. His
insufficient pay and a love of billiards and boiled wine made his
future doubtful. Like Fourchon, he cultivated the art of doing
nothing, and expected his fortune through some lucky but problematic
chance. He hated the leading society, but he had measured its power.
He alone knew the middle-class coalition organized by Gaubertin to its
depths; and he continued to sneer at the rich men of Soulanges and
Ville-aux-Fayes, as if he alone represented the opposition. Without
money and not respected, he did not seem a person to be feared
professionally, and so Brunet, glad to have a despised competitor,
protected him and helped him along, to prevent him selling his
business to some eager young man, like Bonnac for instance, who might
force him, Brunet, to divide the patronage of the canton between them.
"Thanks to those fellows, we keep the ball a-rolling," said Socquard.
"But folks are trying to imitate my boiled wine."
"Sue them," said Rigou, sententiously.
"That would lead too far," replied the innkeeper.
"Do your clients get on well together?"
"Tolerably, yes; sometimes they'll have a row, but that's only natural
for players."
All heads were at the window of the Soudry salon which looked to the
square. Recognizing the father of his daughter-in-law, Soudry came to
the portico to receive him.
"Well, comrade," said the mayor of Soulanges, "is Annette ill, that
you give us your company of an evening?"
Through an old habit acquired in the gendarmerie Soudry always went
direct to the point.
"No,-- There's trouble brewing," replied Rigou, touching his right
fore-finger to the hand which Soudry held out to him. "I came to talk
about it, for it concerns our children in a way--"
Soudry, a handsome man dressed in blue, as though he were still a
gendarme, with a black collar, and spurs at his heels, took Rigou by
the arm and led him up to his imposing better-half. The glass door to
the terrace was open, and the guests were walking about enjoying the
summer evening, which brought out the full beauty of the glorious
landscape which we have already described.
"It is a long time since we have seen you, my dear Rigou," said Madame
Soudry, taking the arm of the ex-Benedictine and leading him out upon
the terrace.
"My digestion is so troublesome!" he replied; "see! my color is almost
as high as yours."
Rigou's appearance on the terrace was the sign for an explosion of
jovial greetings on the part of the assembled company.
"And how may the lord of Blangy be?" said little Sarcus, justice of
the peace.
"Lord!" replied Rigou, bitterly, "I am not even cock of my own village
now."
"The hens don't say so, scamp!" exclaimed Madame Soudry, tapping her
fan on his arm.
"All well, my dear master?" said the notary, bowing to his chief
client.
"Pretty well," replied Rigou, again putting his fore-finger into his
interlocutor's hand.
This gesture, by which Rigou kept down the process of hand-shaking to
the coldest and stiffest of demonstrations would have revealed the
whole man to any observer who did not already know him.
"Let us find a corner where we can talk quietly," said the ex-monk,
looking at Lupin and at Madame Soudry.
"Let us return to the salon," replied the queen.
"What has the Shopman done now?" asked Soudry, sitting down beside his
wife and putting his arm about her waist.
Madame Soudry, like other old women, forgave a great deal in return
for such public marks of tenderness.
"Why," said Rigou, in a low voice, to set an example of caution, "he
has gone to the Prefecture to demand the enforcement of the penalties;
he wants the help of the authorities."
"Then he's lost," said Lupin, rubbing his hands; "the peasants will
fight."
"Fight!" cried Soudry, "that depends. If the prefect and the general,
who are friends, send a squadron of cavalry the peasants can't fight.
They might at a pinch get the better of the gendarmes, but as for
resisting a charge of cavalry!--"
"Sibilet heard him say something much more dangerous than that," said
Rigou; "and that's what brings me here."
"Oh, my poor Sophie!" cried Madame Soudry, sentimentally, alluding to
her FRIEND, Mademoiselle Laguerre, "into what hands Les Aigues has
fallen! This is what we have gained by the Revolution!--a parcel of
swaggering epaulets! We might have foreseen that whenever the bottle
was turned upside down the dregs would spoil the wine!"
"He means to go to Paris and cabal with the Keeper of the Seals and
others to get the whole judiciary changed down here," said Rigou.
"Ha!" cried Lupin, "then he sees his danger."
"If they appoint my son-in-law attorney-general we can't help
ourselves; the general will get him replaced by some Parisian devoted
to his interests," continued Rigou. "If he gets a place in Paris for
Gendrin and makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre, he'll
knock down our skittles! The gendarmerie is on his side now, and if he
gets the courts as well, and keeps such advisers as the abbe and
Michaud we sha'n't dance at the wedding; he'll play us some scurvy
trick or other."
"How is it that in all these five years you have never managed to get
rid of that abbe?" said Lupin.
"You don't know him; he's as suspicious as a blackbird," replied
Rigou. "He is not a man at all, that priest; he doesn't care for
women; I can't find out that he has any passion; there's no point at
which one can attack him. The general lays himself open by his temper.
A man with a vice is the servant of his enemies if they know how to
pull its string. There are no strong men but those who lead their
vices instead of being led by them. The peasants are all right; their
hatred against the abbe keeps up; but we can do nothing as yet. He's
like Michaud, in his way; such men are too good for this world,--God
ought to call them to himself."
"It would be a good plan to find some pretty servant-girl to scrub his
staircase," remarked Madame Soudry. The words caused Rigou to give the
little jump with which crafty natures recognize the craft of others.
"The Shopman has another vice," he said; "he loves his wife; we might
get hold of him that way."
"We ought to find out how far she really influences him," said Madame
Soudry.
"There's the rub!" said Lupin.
"As for you, Lupin," said Rigou, in a tone of authority, "be off to
the Prefecture and see the beautiful Madame Sarcus at once! You must
get her to tell you all the Shopman says and does at the Prefecture."
"Then I shall have to stay all night," replied Lupin.
"So much the better for Sarcus the rich; he'll be the gainer," said
Rigou. "She is not yet out of date, Madame Sarcus--"
"Oh! Monsieur Rigou," said Madame Soudry, in a mincing tone, "are
women ever out of date?"
"You may be right about Madame Sarcus; she doesn't paint before the
glass," retorted Rigou, who was always disgusted by the exhibition of
the Cochet's ancient charms.
Madame Soudry, who thought she used only a "suspicion" of rouge, did
not perceive the sarcasm and hastened to say:--
"Is it possible that women paint?"
"Now, Lupin," said Rigou, without replying to this naivete, "go over
to Gaubertin's to-morrow morning. Tell him that my fellow-mayor and I"
(striking Soudry on the thigh) "will break bread with him at breakfast
somewhere about midday. Tell him everything, so that we may all have
thought it over before we meet, for now's the time to make an end of
that damned Shopman. As I drove over here I came to the conclusion it
would be best to get up a quarrel between the courts and him, so that
the Keeper of the Seals would be wary of making the changes he may ask
in their members."
"Bravo for the son of the Church!" cried Lupin, slapping Rigou on the
shoulder.
Madame Soudry was here struck by an idea which could come only to a
former waiting-maid of an Opera divinity.
"If," she said, "one could only get the Shopman to the fete at
Soulanges, and throw some fine girl in his way who would turn his
head, we could easily set his wife against him by letting her know
that the son of an upholsterer has gone back to the style of his early
loves."
"Ah, my beauty!" said Soudry, "you have more sense in your head than
the Prefecture of police in Paris."
"That's an idea which proves that Madame reigns by mind as well as by
beauty," said Lupin, who was rewarded by a grimace which the leading
society of Soulanges were in the habit of accepting without protest
for a smile.
"One might do better still," said Rigou, after some thought; "if we
could only turn it into a downright scandal."
"Complaint and indictment! affair in the police court!" cried Lupin.
"Oh! that would be grand!"
"Glorious!" said Soudry, candidly. "What happiness to see the Comte de
Montcornet, grand cross of the Legion of honor, commander of the Order
of Saint Louis, and lieutenant-general, accused of having attempted,
in a public resort, the virtue--just think of it!"
"He loves his wife too well," said Lupin, reflectively. "He couldn't
be got to that."
"That's no obstacle," remarked Rigou; "but I don't know a single girl
in the whole arrondissement who is capable of making a sinner of a
saint. I have been looking out for one for the abbe."
"What do you say to that handsome Gatienne Giboulard, of Auxerre, whom
Sarcus, junior, is mad after?" asked Lupin.
"That's the only one," answered Rigou, "but she is not suitable; she
thinks she has only to be seen to be admired; she's not complying
enough; we want a witch and a sly-boots, too. Never mind, the right
one will turn up sooner or later."
"Yes," said Lupin, "the more pretty girls he sees the greater the
chances are."
"But perhaps you can't get the Shopman to the fair," said the exgendarme.
"And if he does come, will he go to the Tivoli ball?"
"The reason that has always kept him away from the fair doesn't exist
this year, my love," said Madame Soudry.
"What reason, dearest?" asked Soudry.
"The Shopman wanted to marry Mademoiselle de Soulanges," said the
notary. "The family replied that she was too young, and that mortified
him. That is why Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur de Montcornet, two
old friends who both served in the Imperial Guard, are so cool to each
other that they never speak. The Shopman doesn't want to meet the
Soulanges at the fair; but this year the family are not coming."
Usually the Soulanges party stayed at the chateau from July to
October, but the general was then in command of the artillery in
Spain, under the Duc d'Angouleme, and the countess had accompanied
him. At the siege of Cadiz the Comte de Soulanges obtained, as every
one knows, the marshal's baton, which he kept till 1826.
"Very true," cried Lupin. "Well, it is for you, papa," he added,
addressing Rigou, "to manoeuvre the matter so that we can get him to
the fair; once there, we ought to be able to entrap him."
The fair of Soulanges, which takes place on the 15th of August, is one
of the features of the town, and carries the palm over all other fairs
in a circuit of sixty miles, even those of the capital of the
department. Ville-aux-Fayes has no fair, for its fete-day, the Saint-
Sylvestre, happens in winter.
From the 12th to the 15th of August all sorts of merchants abounded at
Soulanges, and set up their booths in two parallel lines, two rows of
the well-known gray linen huts, which gave a lively appearance to the
usually deserted streets. The two weeks of the fair brought in a sort
of harvest to the little town, for the festival has the authority and
prestige of tradition. The peasants, as old Fourchon said, flocked in
from the districts to which labor bound them for the rest of the year.
The wonderful show on the counters of the improvised shops, the
collection of all sorts of merchandise, the coveted objects of the
wants or the vanities of these sons of the soil, who have no other
shows or exhibitions to enjoy exercise a periodical seduction over the
minds of all, especially the women and children. So, after the first
of August the authorities posted advertisements signed by Soudry,
throughout the whole arrondissement, offering protection to merchants,
jugglers, mountebanks, prodigies of all kinds, and stating how long
the fair would last, and what would be its principal attractions.
On these posters, about which it will be remembered Madame Tonsard
inquired of Vermichel, there was always, on the last line, the
following announcement:
"Tivoli will be illuminated with colored-glass lamps."
The town had adopted as the place for public a dance-ground created by
Socquard out of a stony garden (stony, like the rest of the hill on
which Soulanges is built, where the gardens are of made land), and
called by him a Tivoli. This character of the soil explains the
peculiar flavor of the Soulanges wine,--a white wine, dry and
spirituous, very like Madeira or the Vouvray wine, or Johannisberger,
--three vintages which resemble one another.
The powerful effect produced by the Socquard ball upon the
imaginations of the whole country-side made the inhabitants thereof
very proud of their Tivoli. Such as had ventured as far as Paris
declared that the Parisian Tivoli was superior to that of Soulanges
only in size. Gaubertin boldly declared that, for his part, he
preferred the Socquard ball to the Parisian ball.
"Well, we'll think it all over," continued Rigou. "That Parisian
fellow, the editor of a newspaper, will soon get tired of his present
amusement and be glad of a change; perhaps we could through the
servants give him the idea of coming to the fair, and he'd bring the
others; I'll consider it. Sibilet might--although, to be sure, his
influence is devilishly decreased of late--but he might get the
general to think he could curry popularity by coming."
"Find out if the beautiful countess keeps the general at arm's
length," said Lupin; "that's the point if you want him to fall into
the farce at Tivoli."
"That little woman," cried Madame Soudry, "is too much of a Parisian
not to know how to run with the hare and hold with the hounds."
"Fourchon has got his granddaughter Catherine on good terms, he tells
me, with Charles, the Shopman's groom. That gives us one ear more in
Les Aigues--Are you sure of the Abbe Taupin," he added, as the priest
entered the room from the terrace.
"We hold him and the Abbe Mouchon, too, just as I hold Soudry," said
the queen, stroking her husband's chin; "you are not unhappy, dearest,
are you?" she said to Soudry.
"If I can plan a scandal against that Tartufe of a Brossette we can
win," said Rigou, in a low voice. "But I am not sure if the local
spirit can succeed against the Church spirit. You don't realize what
that is. I, myself, who am no fool, I can't say what I'll do when I
fall ill. I believe I shall try to be reconciled with the Church."
"Suffer me to hope it," said the Abbe Taupin, for whose benefit Rigou
had raised his voice on the last words.
"Alas! the wrong I did in marrying prevents it," replied Rigou. "I
cannot kill off Madame Rigou."
"Meantime, let us think of Les Aigues," said Madame Soudry.
"Yes," said the ex-monk. "Do you know, I begin to think that our
associate at Ville-aux-Fayes may be cleverer than the rest of us. I
fancy that Gaubertin wants Les Aigues for himself, and that he means
to trick us in the end."
"But Les Aigues will not belong to any one of us; it will have to come
down, from roof to cellar," said Soudry.
"I shouldn't be surprised if there were treasure buried in those
cellars," observed Rigou, cleverly.
"Nonsense!"
"Well, in the wars of the olden time the great lords, who were often
besieged and surprised, did bury their gold until they should be able
to recover it; and you know that the Marquis de Soulanges-Hautemer (in
whom the younger branch came to an end) was one of the victims of the
Biron conspiracy. The Comtesse de Moret received the property from
Henri IV. when it was confiscated."
"See what it is to know the history of France!" said Soudry. "You are
right. It is time to come to an understanding with Gaubertin."
"If he shirks," said Rigou, "we must smoke him out."
"He is rich enough now," said Lupin, "to be an honest man."
"I'll answer for him as I would for myself," said Madame Soudry; "he's
the most loyal man in the kingdom."
"We all believe in his loyalty," said Rigou, "but nevertheless nothing
should be neglected, even among friends-- By the bye, I think there is
some one in Soulanges who is hindering matters."
"Who's that?" asked Soudry.
"Plissoud," replied Rigou.
"Plissoud!" exclaimed Soudry. "Poor fool! Brunet holds him by the
halter, and his wife by the gullet; ask Lupin."
"What can he do?" said Lupin.
"He means to warn Montcornet," replied Rigou, "and get his influence
and a place--"
"It wouldn't bring him more than his wife earns for him at Soulanges,"
said Madame Soudry.
"He tells everything to his wife when he is drunk," remarked Lupin.
"We shall know it all in good time."
"The beautiful Madame Plissoud has no secrets from you," said Rigou;
"we may be easy about that."
"Besides, she's as stupid as she is beautiful," said Madame Soudry. "I
wouldn't change with her; for if I were a man I'd prefer an ugly woman
who has some mind, to a beauty who can't say two words."
"Ah!" said the notary, biting his lips, "but she can make others say
three."
"Puppy!" cried Rigou, as he made for the door.
"Well, then," said Soudry, following him to the portico, "to-morrow,
early."
"I'll come and fetch you-- Ha! Lupin," he said to the notary, who came
out with him to order his horse, "try to make sure that Madame Sarcus
hears all the Shopman says and does against us at the Prefecture."
"If she doesn't hear it, who will?" replied Lupin.
"Excuse me," said Rigou, smiling blandly, "but there are such a lot of
ninnies in there that I forgot there was one clever man."
"The wonder is that I don't grow rusty among them," replied Lupin,
naively.
"Is it true that Soudry has hired a pretty servant?"
"Yes," replied Lupin; "for the last week our worthy mayor has set the
charms of his wife in full relief by comparing her with a little
peasant-girl about the age of an old ox; and we can't yet imagine how
he settles it with Madame Soudry, for, would you believe it, he has
the audacity to go to bed early."
"I'll find out to-morrow," said the village Sardanapalus, trying to
smile.
The two plotters shook hands as they parted.
Rigou, who did not like to be on the road after dark for,
notwithstanding his present popularity, he was cautious, called to his
horse, "Get up, Citizen,"--a joke this son of 1793 was fond of letting
fly at the Revolution. Popular revolutions have no more bitter enemies
than those they have trained themselves.
"Pere Rigou's visits are pretty short," said Gourdon the poet to
Madame Soudry.
"They are pleasant, if they are short," she answered.
"Like his own life," said the doctor; "his abuse of pleasures will cut
that short."
"So much the better," remarked Soudry, "my son will step into the
property."
"Did he bring you any news about Les Aigues?" asked the Abbe Taupin.
"Yes, my dear abbe," said Madame Soudry. "Those people are the scourge
of the neighborhood. I can't comprehend how it is that Madame de
Montcornet, who is certainly a well-bred woman, doesn't understand
their interests better."
"And yet she has a model before her eyes," said the abbe.
"Who is that?" asked Madame Soudry, smirking.
"The Soulanges."
"Ah, yes!" replied the queen after a pause.
"Here I am!" cried Madame Vermut, coming into the room; "and without
my re-active,--for Vermut is so inactive in all that concerns me that
I can't call him an active of any kind."
"What the devil is that cursed old Rigou doing there?" said Soudry to
Guerbet, as they saw the green chaise stop before the gate of the
Tivoli. "He is one of those tiger-cats whose every step has an
object."
"You may well say cursed," replied the fat little collector.
"He has gone into the Cafe de la Paix," remarked Gourdon, the doctor.
"And there's some trouble there," added Gourdon the poet; "I can hear
them yelping from here."
"That cafe," said the abbe, "is like the temple of Janus; it was
called the Cafe de la Guerre under the Empire, and then it was peace
itself; the most respectable of the bourgeoisie met there for
conversation--"
"Conversation!" interrupted the justice of the peace. "What kind of
conversation was it which produced all the little Bourniers?"
"--but ever since it has been called, in honor of the Bourbons, the
Cafe de la Paix, fights take place there every day," said Abbe Taupin,
finishing the sentence which the magistrate had taken the liberty of
interrupting.
This idea of the abbe was, like the quotations from "The Cup-and-
Ball," of frequent recurrence.
"Do you mean that Burgundy will always be the land of fisticuffs?"
asked Pere Guerbet.
"That's not ill said," remarked the abbe; "not at all; in fact it's
almost an exact history of our country."
"I don't know anything about the history of France," blurted Soudry;
"and before I try to learn it, it is more important to me to know why
old Rigou has gone into the Cafe de la Paix with Socquard."
"Oh!" returned the abbe, "wherever he goes and wherever he stays, you
may be quite certain it is for no charitable purpose."
"That man gives me goose-flesh whenever I see him," said Madame
Vermut.
"He is so much to be feared," remarked the doctor, "that if he had a
spite against me I should have no peace till he was dead and buried;
he would get out of his coffin to do you an ill-turn."
"If any one can force the Shopman to come to the fair, and manage to
catch him in a trap, it'll be Rigou," said Soudry to his wife, in a
low tone.
"Especially," she replied, in a loud one, "if Gaubertin and you, my
love, help him."
"There! didn't I tell you so?" cried Guerbet, poking the justice of
the peace. "I knew he would find some pretty girl at Socquard's,--
there he is, putting her into his carriage."
"You are quite wrong, gentlemen," said Madame Soudry; "Monsieur Rigou
is thinking of nothing but the great affair; and if I'm not mistaken,
that girl is only Tonsard's daughter."
"He is like the chemist who lays in a stock of vipers," said old
Guerbet.
"One would think you were intimate with Monsieur Vermut to hear you
talk," said the doctor, pointing to the little apothecary, who was
then crossing the square.
"Poor fellow!" said the poet, who was suspected of occasionally
sharpening his wit with Madame Vermut; "just look at that waddle of
his! and they say he is learned!"
"Without him," said the justice of the peace, "we should be hard put
to it about post-mortems; he found poison in poor Pigeron's stomach so
cleverly that the chemists of Paris testified in the court at Auxerre
that they couldn't have done better--"
"He didn't find anything at all," said Soudry; "but, as President
Gendrin says, it is a good thing to let people suppose that poison
will always be found--"
"Madame Pigeron was very wise to leave Auxerre," said Madame Vermut;
"she was silly and wicked both. As if it were necessary to have
recourse to drugs to annul a husband! Are not there other ways quite
as sure, but innocent, to rid ourselves of that incumbrance? I would
like to have a man dare to question my conduct! The worthy Monsieur
Vermut doesn't hamper me in the least,--but he has never been ill yet.
As for Madame de Montcornet, just see how she walks about the woods
and the hermitage with that journalist whom she brought from Paris at
her own expense, and how she pets him under the very eyes of the
general!"
"At her own expense!" cried Madame Soudry. "Are you sure? If we could
only get proof of it, what a fine subject for an anonymous letter to
the general!"
"The general!" cried Madame Vermut, "he won't interfere with things;
he plays his part."
"What part, my dear?" asked Madame Soudry.
"Oh! the paternal part."
"If poor little Pigeron had had the wisdom to play it, instead of
harassing his wife, he'd be alive now," said the poet.
Madame Soudry leaned over to her neighbor, Monsieur Guerbet, and made
one of those apish grimaces which she had inherited from dear
mistress, together with her silver, by right of conquest, and twisting
her face into a series of them she made him look at Madame Vermut, who
was coquetting with the author of "The Cup-and-Ball."
"What shocking style that woman has! what talk, what manners!" she
said. "I really don't think I can admit her any longer into OUR
SOCIETY,--especially," she added, "when Monsieur Gourdon, the poet, is
present."
"There's social morality!" said the abbe, who had heard and observed
all without saying a word.
After this epigram, or rather, this satire on the company, so true and
so concise that it hit every one, the usual game of boston was
proposed.
Is not this a picture of life as it is at all stages of what we agree
to call society? Change the style, and you will find that nothing more
and nothing less is said in the gilded salons of Paris.
CHAPTER III
THE CAFE DE LA PAIX
It was about seven o'clock when Rigou drove by the Cafe de la Paix.
The setting sun, slanting its beams across the little town, was
diffusing its ruddy tints, and the clear mirror of the lake contrasted
with the flashing of the resplendent window-panes, which originated
the strangest and most improbable colors.
The deep schemer, who had grown pensive as he revolved his plots, let
his horse proceed so slowly that in passing the Cafe de la Paix he
heard his own name banded about in one of those noisy disputes which,
according to the Abbe Taupin, made the name of the establishment a
gain-saying of its customary condition.
For a clear understanding of the following scene we must explain the
topography of this region of plenty and of misrule, which began with
the cafe on the square, and ended on the country road with the famous
Tivoli where the conspirators proposed to entrap the general. The
ground-floor of the cafe, which stood at the angle of the square and
the road, and was built in the style of Rigou's house, had three
windows on the road and two on the square, the latter being separated
by a glass door through which the house was entered. The cafe had,
moreover, a double door which opened on a side alley that separated it
from the neighboring house (that of Vallet the Soulanges mercer),
which led to an inside courtyard.
The house, which was painted wholly in yellow, except the blinds,
which were green, is one of the few houses in the little town which
has two stories and an attic. And this is why: Before the astonishing
rise in the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes the first floor of this
house, which had four chambers, each containing a bed and the meagre
furniture thought necessary to justify the term "furnished lodgings,"
was let to strangers who were obliged to come to Soulanges on matters
connected with the courts, or to visitors who did not sleep at the
chateau; but for the last twenty-five years these rooms had had no
other occupants than the mountebanks, the merchants, the vendors of
quack medicines who came to the fair, or else commercial travellers.
During the fair-time they were let for four francs a day; and brought
Socquard about two hundred and fifty francs, not to speak of the
profits on the consumption of food which the guests took in his cafe.
The front of the house on the square was adorned with painted signs;
on the spaces that separated the windows from the glass door billiardcues
were represented, lovingly tied together with ribbons, and above
these bows were depicted smoking bowls of punch, the bowls being in
the form of Greek vases. The words "Cafe de la Paix" were over the
door, brilliantly painted in yellow on a green ground, at each end of
which rose pyramids of tricolored billiard-balls. The window-sashes,
painted green, had small panes of the commonest glass.
A dozen arbor-vitae, which ought to be called cafe-trees, stood to the
left and right in pots, and presented their usual pretensions and
sickly appearance. Awnings, with which shopkeepers of the large cities
protect their windows from the head of the sun, were as yet an unknown
luxury in Soulanges. The beneficent liquids in the bottles which stood
on boards just behind the window-panes went through a periodic
cooking. When the sun concentrated its rays through the lenticular
knobs in the glass it boiled the Madeira, the syrups, the liqueurs,
the preserved plums, and the cherry-brandy set out for show; for the
heat was so great that Aglae, her father, and the waiter were forced
to sit outside on benches poorly shaded by the wilted shrubs,--which
Mademoiselle kept alive with water that was almost hot. All three,
father, daughter, and servant, might be seen at certain hours of the
day stretched out there, fast asleep, like domestic animals.
In 1804, the period when "Paul and Virginia" was the rage, the inside
of the cafe was hung with a paper which represented the chief scenes
of that romance. There could be seen Negroes gathering the coffeecrop,
though coffee was seldom seen in the establishment, not twenty
cups of that beverage being served in the month. Colonial products
were of so little account in the consumption of the place that if a
stranger had asked for a cup of chocolate Socquard would have been
hard put to it to serve him. Still, he would have done so with a
nauseous brown broth made from tablets in which there were more flour,
crushed almonds, and brown sugar than pure sugar and cacao,
concoctions which were sold at two sous a cake by village grocers, and
manufactured for the purpose of ruining the sale of the Spanish
commodity.
As for coffee, Pere Socquard simply boiled it in a utensil known to
all such households as the "big brown pot"; he let the dregs (that
were half chicory) settle, and served the decoction, with a coolness
worthy of a Parisian waiter, in a china cup which, if flung to the
ground, would not have cracked.
At this period the sacred respect felt for sugar under the Emperor was
not yet dispelled in the town of Soulanges, and Aglae Socquard boldly
served three bits of it of the size of hazel-nuts to a foreign
merchant who had rashly asked for the literary beverage.
The wall decoration of the cafe, relieved by mirrors in gilt frames
and brackets on which the hats were hung, had not been changed since
the days when all Soulanges came to admire the romantic paper, also a
counter painted like mahogany with a Saint-Anne marble top, on which
shone vessels of plated metal and lamps with double-burners, which
were, rumor said, given to the beautiful Madame Socquard by Gaubertin.
A sticky coating of dirt covered everything, like that found on old
pictures put away and long forgotten in a garret. The tables painted
to resemble marble, the benches covered in red Utrecht velvet, the
hanging glass lamp full of oil, which fed two lights, fastened by a
chain to the ceiling and adorned with glass pendants, were the
beginning of the celebrity of the then Cafe de la Guerre.
There, from 1802 to 1804, all the bourgeois of Soulanges played at
dominoes and a game of cards called "brelan," drank tiny glasses of
liqueur or boiled wine, and ate brandied fruits and biscuits; for the
dearness of colonial products had banished coffee, sugar, and
chocolate. Punch was a great luxury; so was "bavaroise." These
infusions were made with a sugary substance resembling molasses, the
name of which is now lost, but which, at the time, made the fortune of
its inventor.
These succinct details will recall to the memory of all travellers
many others that are analogous; and those persons who have never left
Paris can imagine the ceiling blackened with smoke and the mirrors
specked with millions of spots, showing in what freedom and
independence the whole order of diptera lived in the Cafe de la Paix.
The beautiful Madame Socquard, whose gallant adventures surpassed
those of the mistress of the Grand-I-Vert, sat there, enthroned,
dressed in the last fashion. She affected the style of a sultana, and
wore a turban. Sultanas, under the Empire, enjoyed a vogue equal to
that of the "angel" of to-day. The whole valley took pattern from the
turbans, the poke-bonnets, the fur caps, the Chinese head-gear of the
handsome Socquard, to whose luxury the big-wigs of Soulanges
contributed. With a waist beneath her arm-pits, after the fashion of
our mothers, who were proud of their imperial graces, Junie (she was
named Junie!) made the fortune of the house of Socquard. Her husband
owed to her the ownership of a vineyard, of the house they lived in,
and also the Tivoli. The father of Monsieur Lupin was said to have
committed some follies for the handsome Madame Socquard; and
Gaubertin, who had taken her from him, certainly owed him the little
Bournier.
These details, together with the deep mystery with which Socquard
manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name
and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other
reasons for their renown. Nothing better than wine could be got at
Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley; from Conches to Villeaux-
Fayes, in a circumference of twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard was
the only place where the guests could play billiards and drink the
punch so admirably concocted by the proprietor. There alone could be
found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs, and brandied fruits.
Its name resounded daily throughout the valley, accompanied by ideas
of superfine sensual pleasures such as men whose stomachs are more
sensitive than their hearts dream about. To all these causes of
popularity was added that of being an integral part of the great
festival of Soulanges. The Cafe de la Paix was to the town, in a
superior degree, what the tavern of the Grand-I-Vert was to the
peasantry,--a centre of venom; it was the point of contact and
transmission between the gossip of Ville-aux-Fayes and that of the
valley. The Grand-I-Vert supplied the milk and the Cafe de la Paix the
cream, and Tonsard's two daughters were in daily communication between
the two.
To Socquard's mind the square of Soulanges was merely an appendage to
his cafe. Hercules went from door to door, talking with this one and
that one, and wearing in summer no other garment than a pair of
trousers and a half-buttoned waistcoat. If any one entered the tavern,
the people with whom he gossiped warned him, and he slowly and
reluctantly returned.
Rigou stopped his horse, and getting out of the chaise, fastened the
bridle to one of the posts near the gate of the Tivoli. Then he made a
pretext to listen to what was going on without being noticed, and
placed himself between two windows through one of which he could, by
advancing his head, see the persons in the room, watch their gestures,
and catch the louder tones which came through the glass of the windows
and which the quiet of the street enabled him to hear.
"If I were to tell old Rigou that your brother Nicolas is after La
Pechina," cried an angry voice, "and that he waylays her, he'd rip the
entrails out of every one of you,--pack of scoundrels that you are at
the Grand-I-Vert!"
"If you play me such a trick as that, Aglae," said the shrill voice of
Marie Tonsard, "you sha'n't tell anything more except to the worms in
your coffin. Don't meddle with my brother's business or with mine and
Bonnebault's either."
Marie, instigated by her grandmother, had, as we see, followed
Bonnebault; she had watched him through the very window where Rigou
was now standing, and had seen him displaying his graces and paying
compliments so agreeable to Mademoiselle Socquard that she was forced
to smile upon him. That smile had brought about the scene in the midst
of which the revelation that interested Rigou came out.
"Well, well, Pere Rigou, what are you doing here?" said Socquard,
slapping the usurer on the shoulder; he was coming from a barn at the
end of the garden, where he kept various contrivances for the public
games, such as weighing-machines, merry-go-rounds, see-saws, all in
readiness for the Tivoli when opened. Socquard stepped noiselessly,
for he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost
so little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the
provinces.
"If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said
Rigou; "it is a warm evening."
"Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window
and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.
"They are quarrelling for Bonnebault," said Rigou, sardonically.
The anger of the father was at once controlled by the interest of the
tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper judged it prudent to listen outside,
as Rigou was doing; the father was inclined to enter and declare that
Bonnebault, possessed of admirable qualities in the eyes of a tavernkeeper,
had none at all as son-in-law to one of the notables of
Soulanges. And yet Pere Socquard had received but few offers for his
daughter. At twenty-two Aglae already rivalled in size and weight
Madame Vermichel, whose agility seemed phenomenal. Sitting behind a
counter increased the adipose tendency which she derived from her
father.
"What devil is it that gets into girls?" said Socquard to Rigou.
"Ha!" replied the ex-Benedictine, "of all the devils, that's the one
the Church has most to do with."
Just then Bonnebault came out of the billiard-room with a cue in his
hand, and struck Marie sharply, saying:--
"You've made me miss my stroke; but I'll not miss you, and I'll give
it to you till you muffle that clapper of yours."
Socquard and Rigou, who now thought it wise to interfere, entered the
cafe by the front door, raising such a crowd of flies that the light
from the windows was obscured; the sound was like that of the distant
practising of a drum-corps. After their first excitement was over, the
big flies with the bluish bellies, accompanied by the stinging little
ones, returned to their quarters in the windows, where on three tiers
of planks, the paint of which was indistinguishable under the flyspecks,
were rows of viscous bottles ranged like soldiers.
Marie was crying. To be struck before a rival by the man she loves is
one of those humiliations that no woman can endure, no matter what her
place on the social ladder may be; and the lower that place is, the
more violent is the expression of her wrath. The Tonsard girl took no
notice of Rigou or of Socquard; she flung herself on a bench, in
gloomy and sullen silence, which the ex-monk carefully watched.
"Get a fresh lemon, Aglae," said Pere Socquard, "and go and rinse that
glass yourself."
"You did right to send her away," whispered Rigou, "or she might have
been hurt"; and he glanced significantly at the hand with which Marie
grasped a stool she had caught up to throw at Aglae's head.
"Now, Marie," said Socquard, standing before her, "people don't come
here to fling stools; if you were to break one of my mirrors, the milk
of your cows wouldn't pay for the damage."
"Pere Socquard, your daughter is a reptile; I'm worth a dozen of her,
I'd have you know. If you don't want Bonnebault for a son-in-law, it
is high time for you to tell him to go and play billiards somewhere
else; he's losing a hundred sous every minute."
In the middle of this flux of words, screamed rather than said,
Socquard took Marie round the waist and flung her out of the door, in
spite of her cries and resistance. It was none too soon; for
Bonnebault rushed out of the billiard-room, his eyes blazing.
"It sha'n't end so!" cried Marie Tonsard.
"Begone!" shouted Bonnebault, whom Viollet held back round the body
lest he should do the girl some hurt. "Go to the devil, or I will
never speak to you or look at you again!"
"You!" said Marie, flinging him a furious glance. "Give me back my
money, and I'll leave you to Mademoiselle Socquard if she is rich
enough to keep you."
Thereupon Marie, frightened when she saw that even Socquard-Alcides
could scarcely hold Bonnebault, who sprang after her like a tiger,
took to flight along the road.
Rigou followed, and told her to get into his carriole to escape
Bonnebault, whose shouts reached the hotel Soudry; then, after hiding
Marie under the leather curtains, he came back to the cafe to drink
his lemonade and examine the group it now contained, composed of
Plissoud, Amaury, Viollet, and the waiter, who were all trying to
pacify Bonnebault.
"Come, hussar, it's your turn to play," said Amaury, a small, fair
young man, with a dull eye.
"Besides, she's taken herself off," said Viollet.
If any one ever betrayed astonishment it was Plissoud when he beheld
the usurer of Blangy sitting at one of the tables, and more occupied
in watching him, Plissoud, than in noticing the quarrel that was going
on. In spite of himself, the sheriff allowed his face to show the
species of bewilderment which a man feels at an unexpected meeting
with a person whom he hates and is plotting against, and he speedily
withdrew into the billiard-room.
"Adieu, Pere Socquard," said Rigou.
"I'll get your carriage," said the innkeeper; "take your time."
"How shall I find out what those fellows have been saying over their
pool?" Rigou was asking himself, when he happened to see the waiter's
face in the mirror beside him.
The waiter was a jack at all trades; he cultivated Socquard's vines,
swept out the cafe and the billiard-room, kept the garden in order,
and watered the Tivoli, all for fifty francs a year. He was always
without a jacket, except on grand occasions; usually his sole garments
were a pair of blue linen trousers, heavy shoes, and a striped velvet
waistcoat, over which he wore an apron of homespun linen when at work
in the cafe or billiard-room. This apron, with strings, was the badge
of his functions. The fellow had been hired by Socquard at the last
annual fair; for in this valley, as throughout Burgundy, servants are
hired in the market-place by the year, exactly as one buys horses.
"What's your name?" said Rigou.
"Michel, at your service," replied the waiter.
"Doesn't old Fourchon come here sometimes?"
"Two or three times a week, with Monsieur Vermichel, who gives me a
couple of sous to warn him if his wife's after them."
"He's a fine old fellow, Pere Fourchon; knows a great deal and is full
of good sense," said Rigou, paying for his lemonade and leaving the
evil-smelling place when he saw Pere Socquard leading his horse round.
Just as he was about to get into the carriage, Rigou noticed the
chemist crossing the square and hailed him with a "Ho, there, Monsieur
Vermut!" Recognizing the rich man, Vermut hurried up. Rigou joined
him, and said in a low voice:--
"Are there any drugs that can eat into the tissue of the skin so as to
produce a real disease, like a whitlow on the finger, for instance?"
"If Monsieur Gourdon would help, yes," answered the little chemist.
"Vermut, not a word of all this, or you and I will quarrel; but speak
of the matter to Monsieur Gourdon, and tell him to come and see me the
day after to-morrow. I may be able to procure him the delicate
operation of cutting off a forefinger."
Then, leaving the little man thoroughly bewildered, Rigou got into the
carriole beside Marie Tonsard.
"Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had
fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which
closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think
you can keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence? If you were a
wise girl you would promote his marriage with that hogshead of
stupidity and take your revenge afterwards."
Marie could not help smiling as she answered:--
"Ah, how bad you are! you are the master of us all in wickedness."
"Listen to me, Marie; I like the peasants, but it won't do for any one
of you to come between my teeth and a mouthful of game. Your brother
Nicolas, as Aglae said, is after La Pechina. That must not be; I
protect her, that girl. She is to be my heiress for thirty thousand
francs, and I intend to marry her well. I know that Nicolas, helped by
your sister Catherine, came near killing the little thing this
morning. You are to see your brother and sister at once, and say to
them: 'If you let La Pechina alone, Pere Rigou will save Nicolas from
the conscription.'"
"You are the devil incarnate!" cried Marie. "They do say you've signed
a compact with him. Is that true?"
"Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.
"I heard it, but I didn't believe it."
"He has guaranteed that no attacks aimed at me shall hurt me; that I
shall never be robbed; that I shall live a hundred years and succeed
in everything I undertake, and be as young to the day of my death as a
two-year old cockerel--"
"Well, if that's so," said Marie, "it must be DEVILISHLY easy for you
to save my brother from the conscription--"
"If he chooses, that's to say. He'll have to lose a finger," returned
Rigou. "I'll tell him how."
"Look out, you are taking the upper road!" exclaimed Marie.
"I never go by the lower at night," said the ex-monk.
"On account of the cross?" said Marie, naively.
"That's it, sly-boots," replied her diabolical companion.
They had reached a spot where the high-road cuts through a slight
elevation of ground, making on each side of it a rather steep slope,
such as we often see on the mail-roads of France. At the end of this
little gorge, which is about a hundred feet long, the roads to
Ronquerolles and to Cerneux meet and form an open space, in the centre
of which stands a cross. From either slope a man could aim at a victim
and kill him at close quarters, with all the more ease because the
little hill is covered with vines, and the evil-doer could lie in
ambush among the briers and brambles that overgrow them. We can
readily imagine why the usurer did not take that road after dark. The
Thune flows round the little hill; and the place is called the Close
of the Cross. No spot was ever more adapted for revenge or murder, for
the road to Ronquerolles continues to the bridge over the Avonne in
front of the pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux leads
off above the mail-road; so that between the four roads,--to Les
Aigues, Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles, and Cerneux,--a murderer could
choose his line of retreat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.
"I shall drop you at the entrance of the village," said Rigou when
they neared the first houses of Blangy.
"Because you are afraid of Annette, old coward!" cried Marie. "When
are you going to send her away? you have had her now three years. What
amuses me is that your old woman still lives; the good God knows how
to revenge himself."
CHAPTER IV
THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-AUX-FAYES
The cautious usurer compelled his wife and Jean to go to bed and to
rise by daylight; assuring them that the house would never be attacked
if he sat up till midnight, and he never himself rose till late. Not
only had he thus secured himself from interruption between seven at
night and five the next morning but he had accustomed his wife and
Jean to respect his morning sleep and that of Hagar, whose room was
directly behind his.
So, on the following morning, about half past six, Madame Rigou, who
herself took care of the poultry-yard with some assistance from Jean,
knocked timidly at her husband's door.
"Monsieur Rigou," she said, "you told me to wake you."
The tones of that voice, the attitude of the woman, her frightened air
as she obeyed an order the execution of which might be ill-received,
showed the utter self-abnegation in which the poor creature lived, and
the affection she still bore to her petty tyrant.
"Very good," replied Rigou.
"Shall I wake Annette?" she asked.
"No, let her sleep; she has been up half the night," he replied,
gravely.
The man was always grave, even when he allowed himself to jest.
Annette had in fact opened the door secretly to Sibilet, Fourchon, and
Catherine Tonsard, who all came at different hours between eleven and
two o'clock.
Ten minutes later Rigou, dressed with more care than usual, came
downstairs and greeted his wife with a "Good-morning, my old woman,"
which made her happier than if counts had knelt at her feet.
"Jean," he said to the ex-lay-brother, "don't leave the house; if any
one robs me it will be worse for you than for me."
By thus mingling mildness and severity, hopes and rebuffs, the clever
egoist kept his three slaves faithful and close at his heels, like
dogs.
Taking the upper-road, so-called, to avoid the Close of the Cross,
Rigou reached the square of Soulanges about eight o'clock.
Just as he was fastening his rein to the post nearest the little door
with three steps, a blind opened and Soudry showed his face, pitted
with the small-pox, which the expression of his small black eyes
rendered crafty.
"Let's begin by taking a crust here before we start," he said; "we
sha'n't get breakfast at Ville-aux-Fayes before one o'clock."
Then he softly called a servant-girl, as young and pretty as Annette,
who came down noiselessly, and received his order for ham and bread;
after which he went himself to the cellar and fetched some wine.
Rigou contemplated for the hundredth time the well-known dining-room,
floored in oak, with stuccoed ceiling and cornice, its high wainscot
and handsome cupboards finely painted, its porcelain stone and
magnificent tall clock,--all the property of Mademoiselle Laguerre.
The chair-backs were in the form of lyres, painted white and highly
varnished; the seats were of green morocco with gilt nails. A massive
mahogany table was covered with green oilcloth, with large squares of
a deeper shade of green, and a plain border of the lighter. The floor,
laid in Hungarian point, was carefully waxed by Urbain and showed the
care which ex-waiting-women know how to exact out of their servants.
"Bah! it cost too much," thought Rigou for the hundredth time. "I can
eat as good a dinner in my room as here, and I have the income of the
money this useless splendor would have wasted. Where is Madame
Soudry?" he asked, as the mayor returned armed with a venerable
bottle.
"Asleep."
"And you no longer disturb her slumbers?" said Rigou.
The ex-gendarme winked with a knowing air, and pointed to the ham
which Jeannette, the pretty maid, was just bringing in.
"That will pick you up, a pretty bit like that," he said. "It was
cured in the house; we cut into it only yesterday."
"Where did you find her?" said the ex-Benedictine in Soudry's ear.
"She is like the ham," replied the ex-gendarme, winking again; "I have
had her only a week."
Jeannette, still in her night-cap, with a short petticoat and her bare
feet in slippers, had slipped on a bodice made with straps over the
arms in true peasant fashion, over which she had crossed a neckerchief
which did not entirely hide her fresh and youthful attractions, which
were at least as appetizing as the ham she carried. Short and plump,
with bare arms mottled red, ending in large, dimpled hands with short
but well-made fingers, she was a picture of health. The face was that
of a true Burgundian,--ruddy, but white about the temples, throat, and
ears; the hair was chestnut; the corners of the eyes turned up towards
the top of the ears; the nostrils were wide, the mouth sensual, and a
little down lay along the cheeks; all this, together with a jaunty
expression, tempered however by a deceitfully modest attitude, made
her the model of a roguish servant-girl.
"On my honor, Jeannette is as good as the ham," said Rigou. "If I
hadn't an Annette I should want a Jeannette."
"One is as good as the other," said the ex-gendarme, "for your Annette
is fair and delicate. How is Madame Rigou,--is she asleep?" added
Soudry, roughly, to let Rigou see he understood his joke.
"She wakes with the cock, but she goes to roost with the hens,"
replied Rigou. "As for me, I sit up and read the 'Constitutionnel.' My
wife lets me sleep at night and in the morning too; she wouldn't come
into my room for all the world."
"It's just the other way here," replied Jeanette. "Madame sits up with
the company playing cards; sometimes there are sixteen of them in the
salon; Monsieur goes to bed at eight o'clock, and we get up at
daylight--"
"You think that's different," said Rigou, "but it comes to the same
thing in the end. Well, my dear, you come to me and I'll send Annette
here, and that will be the same thing and different too."
"Old scamp, you'll make her ashamed," said Soudry.
"Ha! gendarme; you want your field to yourself! Well, we all get our
happiness where we can find it."
Jeanette, by her master's order, disappeared to lay out his clothes.
"You must have promised to marry her when your wife dies," said Rigou.
"At your age and mine," replied Soudry, "there's no other way."
"With girls of any ambition it would be one way to become a widower,"
added Rigou; "especially if Madame Soudry found fault with Jeannette
for her way of scrubbing the staircase."
The remark made the two husbands pensive. When Jeannette returned and
announced that all was ready, Soudry said to her, "Come and help me!"
--a precaution which made the ex-monk smile.
"There's a difference, indeed!" said he. "As for me, I'd leave you
alone with Annette, my good friend."
A quarter of an hour later Soudry, in his best clothes, got into the
wicker carriage, and the two friends drove round the lake of Soulanges
to Ville-aux-Fayes.
"Look at it!" said Rigou, as they reached an eminence from which the
chateau of Soulanges could be seen in profile.
The old revolutionary put into the tone of his words all the hatred
which the rural middle classes feel to the great chateaux and the
great estates.
"Yes, but I hope it will never be destroyed as long as I live," said
Soudry. "The Comte de Soulanges was my general; he did me kindness; he
got my pension, and he allows Lupin to manage the estate. After Lupin
some of us will have it, and as long as the Soulanges family exists
they and their property will be respected. Such folks are largeminded;
they let every one make his profit, and they find it pays."
"Yes, but the Comte de Soulanges has three children, who, at his
death, may not agree," replied Rigou. "The husband of his daughter and
his sons may go to law, and end by selling the lead and iron mines to
manufacturers, from whom we shall manage to get them back."
The chateau just then showed up in profile, as if to defy the ex-monk.
"Ah! look at it; in those days they built well," cried Soudry. "But
just now Monsieur le Comte is economizing, so as to make Soulanges the
entailed estate of his peerage."
"My dear friend," said Rigou, "entailed estates won't exist much
longer."
When the topic of public matters was exhausted, the worthy pair began
to discuss the merits of their pretty maids in terms too Burgundian to
be printed here. That inexhaustible subject carried them so far that
before they knew it they saw the capital of the arrondissement over
which Gaubertin reigned, and which we hope excites enough curiosity in
the reader's mind to justify a short digression.
The name of Ville-aux-Fayes, singular as it is, is explained as the
corruption of the words (in low Latin) "Villa in Fago,"--the manor of
the woods. This name indicates that a forest once covered the delta
formed by the Avonne before it joins its confluent the Yonne. Some
Frank doubtless built a fortress on the hill which slopes gently to
the long plain. The savage conqueror separated his vantage-ground from
the delta by a wide and deep moat and made the position a formidable
one, essentially seignorial, convenient for enforcing tolls across the
bridges and for protecting his rights of profit on all grains ground
in the mills.
That is the history of the beginning of Ville-aux-Fayes. Wherever
feudal or ecclesiastical dominion established there we find gathered
together interests, inhabitants, and, later, towns when the localities
were in a position to maintain them and to found and develop great
industries. The method of floating timber discovered by Jean Rouvet in
1549, which required certain convenient stations to intercept it, was
the making of Ville-aux-Fayes, which, up to that time, had been,
compared to Soulanges, a mere village. Ville-aux-Fayes became a
storage place for timber, which covered the shores of the two rivers
for a distance of over thirty miles. The work of taking out of the
water, computing the lost logs, and making the rafts which the Yonne
carried down to the Seine, brought together a large concourse of
workmen. Such a population increased consumption and encouraged trade.
Thus Ville-aux-Fayes, which had but six hundred inhabitants at the end
of the seventeenth century, had two thousand in 1790, and Gaubertin
had now raised the number to four thousand, by the following means.
When the legislative assembly decreed the new laying out of territory,
Ville-aux-Fayes, which was situated where, geographically, a subprefecture
was needed, was chosen instead of Soulanges as chief town
or capital of the arrondissement. The increased population of Paris,
by increasing the demand for and the value of wood as fuel,
necessarily increased the commerce of Ville-aux-Fayes. Gaubertin had
founded his fortune, after losing his stewardship, on this growing
business, estimating the effect of peace on the population of Paris,
which did actually increase by over one-third between 1815 and 1825.
The shape of Ville-aux-Fayes followed the conformation of the ground.
Each side of the promontory was lined with wharves. The dam to stop
the timber from floating further down was just below a hill covered by
the forest of Soulanges. Between the dam and the town lay a suburb.
The lower town, covering the greater part of the delta, came down to
the shores of the lake of the Avonne.
Above the lower town some five hundred houses with gardens, standing
on the heights, were grouped round three sides of the promontory, and
enjoyed the varied scene of the diamond waters of the lake, the rafts
in construction along its edge, and the piles of wood upon the shores.
The waters, laden with timber from the river and the rapids which fed
the mill-races and the sluices of a few manufactories, presented an
animated scene, all the more charming because inclosed in the greenery
of forests, while the long valley of Les Aigues offered a glorious
contrast to the dark foil of the heights above the town itself.
Gaubertin had built himself a house on the level of the delta,
intending to make a place which should improve the locality and render
the lower town as desirable as the upper. It was a modern house built
of stone, with a balcony of iron railings, outside blinds, painted
windows, and no ornament but a line of fret-work under the eaves, a
slate roof, one story in height with a garret, a fine courtyard, and
behind it an English garden bathed by the waters of the Avonne. The
elegance of the place compelled the department to build a fine edifice
nearly opposite to it for the sub-prefecture, provisionally lodged in
a mere kennel. The town itself also built a town-hall. The law-courts
had lately been installed in a new edifice; so that Ville-aux-Fayes
owed to the active influence of its present mayor a number of really
imposing public buildings. The gendarmerie had also built barracks
which completed the square formed by the marketplace.
These changes, on which the inhabitants prided themselves, were due to
the impetus given by Gaubertin, who within a day or two had received
the cross of the Legion of honor, in anticipation of the coming
birthday of the king. In a town so situated and so modern there was of
course, neither aristocracy nor nobility. Consequently, the rich
merchants of Ville-aux-Fayes, proud of their own independence,
willingly espoused the cause of the peasantry against a count of the
Empire who had taken sides with the Restoration. To them the
oppressors were the oppressed. The spirit of this commercial town was
so well known to the government that they send there as sub-prefect a
man with a conciliatory temper, a pupil of his uncle, the well-known
des Lupeaulx, one of those men, accustomed to compromise, who are
familiar with the difficulties and necessities of administration, but
whom puritan politicians, doing infinitely worse things, call corrupt.
The interior of Gaubertin's house was decorated with the unmeaning
commonplaces of modern luxury. Rich papers with gold borders, bronze
chandeliers, mahogany furniture of a new pattern, astral lamps, round
tables with marble tops, white china with gilt lines for dessert, red
morocco chairs and mezzo-tint engravings in the dining-room, and blue
cashmere furniture in the salon,--all details of a chilling and
perfectly unmeaning character, but which to the eyes of Ville-aux-
Fayes seemed the last efforts of Sardanapalian luxury. Madame
Gaubertin played the role of elegance with great effect; she assumed
little airs and was lackadaisical at forty-five years of age, as
though certain of the homage of her court.
We ask those who really know France, if these houses--those of Rigou,
Soudry, and Gaubertin--are not a perfect presentation of the village,
the little town, and the seat of a sub-prefecture?
Without being a man of mind, or a man of talent, Gaubertin had the
appearance of being both. He owed the accuracy of his perception and
his consummate art to an extreme keenness after gain. He desired
wealth, not for his wife, not for his children, not for himself, not
for his family, not for the reputation that money gives; after the
gratification of his revenge (the hope of which kept him alive) he
loved the touch of money, like Nucingen, who, it was said, kept
fingering the gold in his pockets. The rush of business was
Gaubertin's wine; and though he had his belly full of it, he had all
the eagerness of one who was empty. As with valets of the drama,
intrigues, tricks to play, mischief to organize, deceptions,
commercial over-reachings, accounts to render and receive, disputes,
and quarrels of self-interest, exhilarated him, kept his blood in
circulation, and his bile flowing. He went and came on foot, on
horseback, in a carriage, by water; he was at all auctions and timber
sales in Paris, thinking of everything, keeping hundreds of wires in
his hands and never getting them tangled.
Quick, decided in his movements as in his ideas, short and squat in
figure, with a thin nose, a fiery eye, an ear on the "qui vive," there
was something of the hunting-dog about him. His brown face, very round
and sunburned, from which the tanned ears stood out predominantly,--
for he always wore a cap,--was in keeping with that character. His
nose turned up; his tightly-closed lips could never have opened to say
a kindly thing. His bushy whiskers formed a pair of black and shiny
tufts beneath the highly-colored cheek-bones, and were lost in his
cravat. Hair that was pepper-and-salt in color and frizzled naturally
in stages like those of a judge's wig, seeming scorched by the fury of
the fire which heated his brown skull and gleamed in his gray eyes
surrounded by circular wrinkles (no doubt from a habit of always
blinking when he looked across the country in full sunlight),
completed the characteristics of his physiognomy. His lean and
vigorous hands were hairy, knobbed, and claw-like, like those of men
who do their share of labor. His personality was agreeable to those
with whom he had to do, for he wrapped it in a misleading gayety; he
knew how to talk a great deal without saying a word of what he meant
to keep unsaid. He wrote little, so as to deny anything that escaped
him which might prove unfavorable in its after effects upon his
interests. His books and papers were kept by a cashier,--an honest
man, whom men of Gaubertin's stamp always seek to get hold of, and
whom they make, in their own selfish interests, their first dupe.
When Rigou's little green chaise appeared, towards twelve o'clock, in
the broad avenue which skirts the river, Gaubertin, in cap, boots, and
jacket, was returning from the wharves. He hastened his steps,--
feeling very sure that Rigou's object in coming over could only be
"the great affair."
"Good morning, gendarme; good morning, paunch of gall and wisdom," he
said, giving a little slap to the stomachs of his two visitors. "We
have business to talk over, and, faith! we'll do it glass in hand;
that's the true way to take things."
"If you do your business that way, you ought to be fatter than you
are," said Rigou.
"I work too hard; I'm not like you two, confined to the house and
bewitched there, like old dotards. Well, well, after all that's the
best way; you can do your business comfortably in an arm-chair, with
your back to the fire and your belly at table; custom goes to you, I
have to go after it. But now, come in, come in! the house is yours for
the time you stay."
A servant, in blue livery edged with scarlet, took the horse by the
bridle and led him into the courtyard, where were the offices and the
stable.
Gaubertin left his guests to walk about the garden for a moment, while
he went to give his orders and arrange about the breakfast.
"Well, my wolves," he said, as he returned, rubbing his hands, "the
gendarmerie of Soulanges were seen this morning at daybreak, marching
towards Conches; no doubt they mean to arrest the peasants for
depredations; ha, ha! things are getting warm, warm! By this time," he
added, looking at his watch, "those fellows may have been arrested."
"Probably," said Rigou.
"Well, what do you all say over there? Has anything been decided?"
"What is there to decide?" asked Rigou. "We have no part in it," he
added, looking at Soudry.
"How do you mean nothing to decide? If Les Aigues is sold as the
result of our coalition, who is to gain five or six hundred thousand
francs out of it? Do you expect me to, all alone? No, my inside is not
strong enough to split up two millions, with three children to
establish, and a wife who hasn't the first idea about the value of
money; no, I must have associates. Here's the gendarme, he has plenty
of funds all ready. I know he doesn't hold a single mortgage that
isn't ready to mature; he only lends now on notes at sight of which I
endorse. I'll go into this thing by the amount of eight hundred
thousand francs; my son, the judge, two hundred thousand; and I count
on the gendarme for two hundred thousand more; now, how much will you
put in, skull-cap?"
"All the rest," replied Rigou, stiffly.
"The devil! well, I wish I had my hand where your heart is!" exclaimed
Gaubertin. "Now what are you going to do?"
"Whatever you do; tell your plan."
"My plan," said Gaubertin, "is to take double, and sell half to the
Conches, and Cerneux, and Blangy folks who want to buy. Soudry has his
clients, and you yours, and I, mine. That's not the difficulty. The
thing is, how are we going to arrange among ourselves? How shall we
divide up the great lots?"
"Nothing easier," said Rigou. "We'll each take what we like best. I,
for one, shall stand in nobody's way; I'll take the woods in common
with Soudry and my son-in-law; the timber has been so injured that you
won't care for it now, and you may have all the rest. Faith, it is
worth the money you'll put into it!"
"Will you sign that agreement?" said Soudry.
"A written agreement is worth nothing," replied Gaubertin. "Besides,
you know I am playing above board; I have perfect confidence in
Rigou, and he shall be the purchaser."
"That will satisfy me," said Rigou.
"I will make only one condition," added Gaubertin. "I must have the
pavilion of the Rendezvous, with all its appurtenances, and fifty
acres of the surrounding land. I shall make it my country-house, and
it shall be near my woods. Madame Gaubertin--Madame Isaure, for that's
what she wants people to call her--says she shall make it her villa."
"I'm willing," said Rigou.
"Well, now, between ourselves," continued Gaubertin, after looking
about him on all sides and making sure that no one could overhear him,
"do you think they are capable of striking a blow?"
"Such as?" asked Rigou, who never allowed himself to understand a
hint.
"Well, if the worst of the band, the best shot, sent a ball whistling
round the ears of the count--just to frighten him?"
"He's a man to rush at an assailant and collar him."
"Michaud, then."
"Michaud would do nothing at the moment, but he'd watch and spy till
he found out the man and those who instigated him."
"You are right," said Gaubertin; "those peasants must make a riot and
a few must be sent to the galleys. Well, so much the better for us;
the authorities will catch the worst, whom we shall want to get rid of
after they've done the work. There are those blackguards, the Tonsards
and Bonnebault--"
"Tonsard is ready for mischief," said Soudry, "I know that; and we'll
work him up by Vaudoyer and Courtecuisse."
"I'll answer for Courtecuisse," said Rigou.
"And I hold Vaudoyer in the hollow of my hand."
"Be cautious!" said Rigou; "before everything else be cautious."
"Now, papa skull-cap, do you mean to tell me that there's any harm in
speaking of things as they are? Is it we who are indicting and
arresting, or gleaning or depredating? If Monsieur le comte knows what
he's about and leases the woods to the receiver-general it is all up
with our schemes,--'Farewell baskets, the vintage is o'er'; in that
case you will lose more than I. What we say here is between ourselves
and for ourselves; for I certainly wouldn't say a word to Vaudoyer
that I couldn't repeat to God and man. But it is not forbidden, I
suppose, to profit by any events that may take place. The peasantry of
this canton are hot-headed; the general's exactions, his severity,
Michaud's persecutions, and those of his keepers have exasperated
them; to-day things have come to a crisis and I'll bet there's a
rumpus going on now with the gendarmerie. And so, let's go and
breakfast."
Madame Gaubertin came into the garden just then. She was a rather fair
woman with long curls, called English, hanging down her cheeks, who
played the style of sentimental virtue, pretended never to have known
love, talked platonics to all the men about her, and kept the
prosecuting-attorney at her beck and call. She was given to caps with
large bows, but preferred to wear only her hair. She danced, and at
forty-five years of age had the mincing manner of a girl; her feet,
however, were large and her hands frightful. She wished to be called
Isaure, because among her other oddities and absurdities she had the
taste to repudiate the name of Gaubertin as vulgar. Her eyes were
light and her hair of an undecided color, something like dirty
nankeen. Such as she was, she was taken as a model by a number of
young ladies, who stabbed the skies with their glances, and posed as
angels.
"Well, gentlemen," she said, bowing, "I have some strange news for
you. The gendarmerie have returned."
"Did they make any prisoners?"
"None; the general, it seems, had previously obtained the pardon of
the depredators. It was given in honor of this happy anniversary of
the king's restoration to France."
The three associates looked at each other.
"He is cleverer than I thought for, that big cuirassier!" said
Gaubertin. "Well, come to breakfast. After all, the game is not lost,
only postponed; it is your affair now, Rigou."
Soudry and Rigou drove back disappointed, not being able as yet to
plan any other catastrophe to serve their ends and relying, as
Gaubertin advised, on what might turn up. Like certain Jacobins at the
outset of the Revolution who were furious with Louis XVI.'s
conciliations, and who provoked severe measures at court in the hope
of producing anarchy, which to them meant fortune and power, the
formidable enemies of General Montcornet staked their present hopes on
the severity which Michaud and his keepers were likely to employ
against future depredators. Gaubertin promised them his assistance,
without explaining who were his co-operators, for he did not wish them
to know about his relations with Sibilet. Nothing can equal the
prudence of a man of Gaubertin's stamp, unless it be that of an exgendarme
or an unfrocked priest. This plot could not have been brought
to a successful issue,--a successfully evil issue,--unless by three
such men as these, steeped in hatred and self-interest.
CHAPTER V
VICTORY WITHOUT A FIGHT
Madame Michaud's fears were the effect of that second sight which
comes of true passion. Exclusively absorbed by one only being, the
soul finally grasps the whole moral world which surrounds that being;
it sees clearly. A woman when she loves feels the same presentiments
which disquiet her later when a mother.
While the poor young woman listened to the confused voices coming from
afar across an unknown space, a scene was really happening in the
tavern of the Grand-I-Vert which threatened her husband's life.
About five o'clock that morning early risers had seen the gendarmerie
of Soulanges on its way to Conches. The news circulated rapidly; and
those whom it chiefly interested were much surprised to learn from
others, who lived on high ground, that a detachment commanded by the
lieutenant of Ville-aux-Fayes had marched through the forest of Les
Aigues. As it was a Monday, there were already good reasons why the
peasants should be at the tavern; but it was also the eve of the
anniversary of the restoration of the Bourbons, and though the
frequenters of Tonsard's den had no need of that "august cause" (as
they said in those days) to explain their presence at the Grand-IVert,
they did not fail to make the most of it if the mere shadow of
an official functionary appeared.
Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard and his family, Godain, and an old
vine-dresser named Laroche, were there early in the morning. The
latter was a man who scratched a living from day to day; he was one of
the delinquents collected in Blangy under the sort of subscription
invented by Sibilet and Courtecuisse to disgust the general by the
results of his indictments. Blangy had supplied three men, twelve
women, also eight girls and five boys for whom parent were answerable,
all of whom were in a condition of pauperism; but they were the only
ones who could be found that were so. The year 1823 had been a very
profitable one to the peasantry, and 1826 as likely, through the
enormous quantity of wine yielded, to bring them in a good deal of
money; add to this the works at Les Aigues, undertaken by the general,
which had put a great deal more in circulation throughout the three
districts which bordered on the estate. It had therefore been quite
difficult to find in Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, one hundred and
twenty indigent persons against whom to bring the suits; and in order
to do so, they had taken old women, mothers, and grandmothers of those
who owned property but who possessed nothing of their own, like
Tonsard's mother. Laroche, an old laborer, possessed absolutely
nothing; he was not, like Tonsard, hot-blooded and vicious,--his
motive power was a cold, dull hatred; he toiled in silence with a
sullen face; work was intolerable to him, but he had to work to live;
his features were hard and their expression repulsive. Though sixty
years old, he was still strong, except that his back was bent; he saw
no future before him, no spot that he could call his own, and he
envied those who possessed the land; for this reason he had no pity on
the forests of Les Aigues, and took pleasure in despoiling them
uselessly.
"Will they be allowed to put us in prison?" he was saying. "After
Conches they'll come to Blangy. I'm an old offender, and I shall get
three months."
"What can we do against the gendarmerie, old drunkard?" said Vaudoyer.
"Why! cut the legs of their horses with our scythes. That'll bring
them down; their muskets are not loaded, and when they find us ten to
one against them they'll decamp. If the three villages all rose and
killed two or three gendarmes, they couldn't guillotine the whole of
us. They'd have to give way, as they did on the other side of
Burgundy, where they sent a regiment. Bah! that regiment came back
again, and the peasants cut the woods just as much as they ever did."
"If we kill," said Vaudoyer; "it is better to kill one man; the
question is, how to do it without danger and frighten those Arminacs
so that they'll be driven out of the place."
"Which one shall we kill?" asked Laroche.
"Michaud," said Courtecuisse. "Vaudoyer is right, he's perfectly
right. You'll see that when a keeper is sent to the shades there won't
be one of them willing to stay even in broad daylight to watch us. Now
they're there night and day,--demons!"
"Wherever one goes," said old Mother Tonsard,--who was seventy-eight
years old, and presented a parchment face honey-combed with the smallpox,
lighted by a pair of green eyes, and framed with dirty-white
hair, which escaped in strands from a red handkerchief,--"wherever one
goes, there they are! they stop us, they open our bundles, and if
there's a single branch, a single twig of a miserable hazel, they
seize the whole bundle, and they say they'll arrest us. Ha, the
villains! there's no deceiving them; if they suspect you, you've got
to undo the bundle. Dogs! all three are not worth a farthing! Yes,
kill 'em, and it won't ruin France, I tell you."
"Little Vatel is not so bad," said Madame Tonsard.
"He!" said Laroche, "he does his business, like the others; when
there's a joke going he'll joke with you, but you are none the better
with him for that. He's worse than the rest,--heartless to poor folks,
like Michaud himself."
"Michaud has got a pretty wife, though," said Nicolas Tonsard.
"She's with young," said the old woman; "and if this thing goes on
there'll be a queer kind of baptism for the little one when she
calves."
"Oh! those Arminacs!" cried Marie Tonsard; "there's no laughing with
them; and if you did, they'd threaten to arrest you."
"You've tried your hand at cajoling them, have you?" said
Courtecuisse.
"You may bet on that."
"Well," said Tonsard with a determined air, "they are men like other
men, and they can be got rid of."
"But I tell you," said Marie, continuing her topic, "they won't be
cajoled; I don't know what's the matter with them; that bully at the
pavilion, he's married, but Vatel, Gaillard, and Steingel are not;
they've not a woman belonging to them; indeed, there's not a woman in
the place who would marry them."
"Well, we shall see how things go at the harvest and the vintage,"
said Tonsard.
"They can't stop the gleaning," said the old woman.
"I don't know that," remarked Madame Tonsard. "Groison said that the
mayor was going to publish a notice that no one should glean without a
certificate of pauperism; and who's to give that certificate? Himself,
of course. He won't give many, I tell you! And they say he is going to
issue an order that no one shall enter the fields till the carts are
all loaded."
"Why, the fellow's a pestilence!" cried Tonsard, beside himself with
rage.
"I heard that only yesterday," said Madame Tonsard. "I offered Groison
a glass of brandy to get something out of him."
"Groison! there's another lucky fellow!" said Vaudoyer, "they've built
him a house and given him a good wife, and he's got an income and
clothes fit for a king. There was I, field-keeper for twenty years,
and all I got was the rheumatism."
"Yes, he's very lucky," said Godain, "he owns property--"
"And we go without, like the fools that we are," said Vaudoyer. "Come,
let's be off and find out what's going on at Conches; they are not so
patient over there as we are."
"Come on," said Laroche, who was none too steady on his legs. "If I
don't exterminate one of two of those fellows may I lose my name."
"You!" said Tonsard, "you'd let them put the whole district in prison;
but I--if they dare to touch my old mother, there's my gun and it
never misses."
"Well," said Laroche to Vaudoyer, "I tell you that if they make a
single prisoner at Conches one gendarme shall fall."
"He has said it, old Laroche!" cried Courtecuisse.
"He has said it," remarked Vaudoyer, "but he hasn't done it, and he
won't do it. What good would it do to get yourself guillotined for
some gendarme or other? No, if you kill, I say, kill Michaud."
During this scene Catherine Tonsard stood sentinel at the door to warn
the drinkers to keep silent if any one passed. In spite of their halfdrunken
legs they sprang rather than walked out of the tavern, and
their bellicose temper started them at a good pace on the road to
Conches, which led for over a mile along the park wall of Les Aigues.
Conches was a true Burgundian village, with one street, which was
crossed by the main road. The houses were built either of brick or of
cobblestones, and were squalid in aspect. Following the mail-road from
Ville-aux-Fayes, the village was seen from the rear and there it
presented rather a picturesque effect. Between the road and the
Ronquerolles woods, which continued those of Les Aigues and crowned
the heights, flowed a little river, and several houses, rather
prettily grouped, enlivened the scene. The church and the parsonage
stood alone and were seen from the park of Les Aigues, which came
nearly up to them. In front of the church was a square bordered by
trees, where the conspirators of the Grand-I-Vert saw the gendarmerie
and hastened their already hasty steps. Just then three men on
horseback rode rapidly out of the park of Les Aigues and the peasants
at once recognized the general, his groom, and Michaud the bailiff,
who came at a gallop into the square. Tonsard and his party arrived a
minute or two after them. The delinquents, men and women, had made no
resistance, and were standing between five of the Soulanges gendarmes
and fifteen of those from Ville-aux-Fayes. The whole village had
assembled. The fathers, mothers, and children of the prisoners were
going and coming and bringing them what they might want in prison. It
was a curious scene, that of a population one and all exasperated, but
nearly all silent, as though they had made up their minds to a course
of action. The old women and the young ones alone spoke. The children,
boys and girls, were perched on piles of wood and heaps of stones to
get a better sight of what was happening.
"They have chosen their time, those hussars of the guillotine," said
one old woman; "they are making a fete of it."
"Are you going to let 'em carry of your man like that? How shall you
manage to live for three months?--the best of the year, too, when he
could earn so much."
"It's they who rob us," replied the woman, looking at the gendarmes
with a threatening air.
"What do you mean by that, old woman?" said the sergeant. "If you
insult us it won't take long to settle you."
"I meant nothing," said the old woman, in a humble and piteous tone.
"I heard you say something just now you may have cause to repent of."
"Come, come, be calm, all of you," said the mayor of Conches, who was
also the postmaster. "What the devil is the use of talking? These men,
as you know very well, are under orders and must obey."
"That's true; it's the owner of Les Aigues who persecutes us-- But
patience!"
Just then the general rode into the square and his arrival caused a
few groans which did not trouble him in the least. He rode straight up
to the lieutenant in command, and after saying a few words gave him a
paper; the officer then turned to his men and said: "Release your
prisoners; the general has obtained their pardon."
General Montcornet was then speaking to the mayor; after a few
moments' conversation in a low tone, the latter, addressing the
delinquents, who expected to sleep in prison and were a good deal
surprised to find themselves free, said to them:--
"My friends, thank Monsieur le comte. You owe your release to him. He
went to Paris and obtained your pardon in honor of the anniversary of
the king's restoration. I hope that in future you will conduct
yourself properly to a man who has behaved so well to you, and that
you will in future respect his property. Long live the King!"
The peasants shouted "Long live the King!" with enthusiasm, to avoid
shouting, "Hurrah for the Comte de Montcornet!"
The scene was a bit of policy arranged between the general, the
prefect, and the attorney-general; for they were all anxious, while
showing enough firmness to keep the local authorities up to their duty
and awe the country-people, to be as gentle as possible, fully
realizing as they did the difficulties of the question. In fact, if
resistance had occurred, the government would have been in a tight
place. As Laroche truly said, they could not guillotine or even
convict a whole community.
The general invited the mayor of Conches, the lieutenant, and the
sergeant to breakfast. The conspirators of the Grand-I-Vert adjourned
to the tavern of Conches, where the delinquents spent in drink the
money their relations had given them to take to prison, sharing it
with the Blangy people, who were naturally part of the wedding,--the
word "wedding" being applied indiscriminately in Burgundy to all such
rejoicings. To drink, quarrel, fight, eat and go home drunk and sick,
--that is a wedding to these peasants.
The general, who had come by the park, took his guests back through
the forest that they might see for themselves the injury done to the
timber, and so judge of the importance of the question.
Just as Rigou and Soudry were on their way back to Blangy, the count
and countess, Emile Blondet, the lieutenant of gendarmerie, the
sergeant, and the mayor of Conches were finishing their breakfast in
the splendid dining-room where Bouret's luxury had left the delightful
traces already described by Blondet in his letter to Nathan.
"It would be a terrible pity to abandon this beautiful home," said the
lieutenant, who had never before been at Les Aigues, and who was
glancing over a glass of champagne at the circling nymphs that
supported the ceiling.
"We intend to defend it to the death," said Blondet.
"If I say that," continued the lieutenant, looking at his sergeant as
if to enjoin silence, "it is because the general's enemies are not
only among the peasantry--"
The worthy man was quite moved by the excellence of the breakfast, the
magnificence of the silver service, the imperial luxury that
surrounded him, and Blondet's clever talk excited him as much as the
champagne he had imbibed.
"Enemies! have I enemies?" said the general, surprised.
"He, so kind!" added the countess.
"But you are on bad terms with our mayor, Monsieur Gaubertin," said
the lieutenant. "It would be wise, for the sake of the future, to be
reconciled with him."
"With him!" cried the count. "Then you don't know that he was my
former steward, and a swindler!"
"A swindler no longer," said the lieutenant, "for he is mayor of
Ville-aux-Fayes."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Blondet, "the lieutenant's wit is keen; evidently a
mayor is essentially an honest man."
The lieutenant, convinced by the count's words that it was useless to
attempt to enlighten him, said no more on that subject, and the
conversation changed.
CHAPTER VI
THE FOREST AND THE HARVEST
The scene at Conches had, apparently, a good effect on the peasantry;
on the other hand, the count's faithful keepers were more than ever
watchful that only dead wood should be gathered in the forest of Les
Aigues. But for the last twenty years the woods had been so thoroughly
cleared out that very little else than live wood was now there; and
this the peasantry set about killing, in preparation for winter, by a
simple process, the results of which could only be discovered in the
course of time. Tonsard's mother went daily into the forest; the
keepers saw her enter; knew where she would come out; watched for her
and made her open her bundle, where, to be sure, were only fallen
branches, dried chips, and broken and withered twigs. The old woman
would whine and complain at the distance she had to go at her age to
gather such a miserable bunch of fagots. But she did not tell that she
had been in the thickest part of the wood and had removed the earth at
the base of certain young trees, round which she had then cut off a
ring of bark, replacing the earth, moss, and dead leaves just as they
were before she touched them. It was impossible that any one could
discover this annular incision, made, not like a cut, but more like
the ripping or gnawing of animals or those destructive insects called
in different regions borers, or turks, or white worms, which are the
first stage of cockchafers. These destructive pests are fond of the
bark of trees; they get between the bark and the sap-wood and eat
their way round. If the tree is large enough for the insect to pass
into its second state (of larvae, in which it remains dormant until
its second metamorphose) before it has gone round the trunk, the tree
lives, because so long as even a small bit of the sap-wood remains
covered by the bark, the tree will still grow and recover itself. To
realize to what a degree entomology affects agriculture, horticulture,
and all earth products, we must know that naturalists like Latreille,
the Comte Dejean, Klugg of Berlin, Gene of Turin, etc., find that the
vast majority of all known insects live at the sacrifice of
vegetation; that the coleoptera (a catalogue of which has lately been
published by Monsieur Dejean) have twenty-seven thousand species, and
that, in spite of the most earnest research on the part of
entomologists of all countries, there is an enormous number of species
of whom they cannot trace the triple transformations which belong to
all insects; that there is, in short, not only a special insect to
every plant, but that all terrestrial products, however much they may
be manipulated by human industry, have their particular parasite. Thus
flax, after covering the human body and hanging the human being, after
roaming the world on the back of an army, becomes writing-paper; and
those who write or who read are familiar with the habits and morals of
an insect called the "paper-louse," an insect of really marvellous
celerity and behavior; it undergoes its mysterious transformations in
a ream of white paper which you have carefully put away; you see it
gliding and frisking along in its shining robe, that looks like
isinglass or mica,--truly a little fish of another element.
The borer is the despair of the land-owner; he works underground; no
Sicilian vespers for him until he becomes a cockchafer! If the
populations only realized with what untold disasters they are
threatened in case they let the cockchafers and the caterpillars get
the upper hand, they would pay more attention than they do to
municipal regulations.
Holland came near perishing; its dikes were undermined by the teredo,
and science is unable to discover the insect from which that mollusk
derives, just as science still remains ignorant of the metamorphoses
of the cochineal. The ergot, or spur, of rye is apparently a
population of insects where the genius of science has been able, so
far, to discover only one slight movement. Thus, while awaiting the
harvest and gleaning, fifty old women imitated the borer at the feet
of five or six hundred trees which were fated to become skeletons and
to put forth no more leaves in the spring. They were carefully chosen
in the least accessible places, so that the surrounding branches
concealed them.
Who conveyed the secret information by which this was done? No one.
Courtecuisse happened to complain in Tonsard's tavern of having found
a tree wilting in his garden; it seemed he said, to have a disease,
and he suspected a borer; for he, Courtecuisse, knew what borers were,
and if they once circled a tree just below the ground, the tree died.
Thereupon he explained the process. The old women at once set to work
at the same destruction, with the mystery and cleverness of gnomes;
and their efforts were doubled by the rules now enforced by the mayor
of Blangy and necessarily followed by the mayors of the adjoining
districts.
The great land-owners of the department applauded General de
Montcornet's course; and the prefect in his private drawing-room
declared that if, instead of living in Paris, other land-owners would
come and live on their estates and follow such a course together, a
solution of the difficulty could be obtained; for certain measures,
added the prefect, ought to be taken, and taken in concert, modified
by benefactions and by an enlightened philanthropy, such as every one
could see actuated in General Montcornet.
The general and his wife, assisted by the abbe, tried the effects of
such benevolence. They studied the subject, and endeavored to show by
incontestable results to those who pillaged them that more money could
be made by legitimate toil. They supplied flax and paid for the
spinning; the countess had the thread woven into linen suitable for
towels, aprons, and coarse napkins for kitchen use, and for
underclothing for the very poor. The general began improvements which
needed many laborers, and he employed none but those in the adjoining
districts. Sibilet was in charge of the works and the Abbe Brossette
gave the countess lists of the most needy, and often brought them to
her himself. Madame de Montcornet attended to these matters personally
in the great antechamber which opened upon the portico. It was a
beautiful waiting-room, floored with squares of white and red marble,
warmed by a porcelain stove, and furnished with benches covered with
red plush.
It was there that one morning, just before harvest, old Mother Tonsard
brought her granddaughter Catherine, who had to make, she said, a
dreadful confession,--dreadful for the honor of a poor but honest
family. While the old woman addressed the countess Catherine stood in
an attitude of conscious guilt. Then she related on her own account
the unfortunate "situation" in which she was placed, which she had
confided to none but her grandmother; for her mother, she knew, would
turn her out, and her father, an honorable man, might kill her. If she
only had a thousand francs she could be married to a poor laborer
named Godain, who KNEW ALL, and who loved her like a brother; he could
buy a poor bit of ground and build a cottage if she had that sum. It
was very touching. The countess promised the money; resolving to
devote the price of some fancy to this marriage. The happy marriages
of Michaud and Groison encouraged her. Besides, such a wedding would
be a good example to the people of the neighborhood and stimulate to
virtuous conduct. The marriage of Catherine Tonsard and Godain was
accordingly arranged by means of the countess's thousand francs.
Another time a horrible old woman, Mother Bonnebault, who lived in a
hut between the gate of Conches and the village, brought back a great
bundle of skeins of linen thread.
"Madame la comtesse has done wonders," said the abbe, full of hope as
to the moral progress of his savages. "That old woman did immense
damage to your woods, but now she has no time for it; she stays at
home and spins from morning till night; her time is all taken up and
well paid for."
Peace reigned everywhere. Groison made very satisfactory reports;
depredations seemed to have ceased, and it is even possible that the
state of the neighborhood and the feeling of the inhabitants might
really have changed if it had not been for the revengeful eagerness of
Gaubertin, the cabals of the leading society of Soulanges, and the
intrigues of Rigou, who one and all, with "the affair" in view, blew
the embers of hatred and crime in the hearts of the peasantry of the
valley des Aigues.
The keepers still complained of finding a great many branches cut with
shears in the deeper parts of the wood and left to dry, evidently as a
provision for winter. They watched for the delinquents without ever
being able to catch them. The count, assisted by Groison, had given
certificates of pauperism to only thirty or forty of the real poor of
the district; but the other two mayors had been less strict. The more
clement the count showed himself in the affair at Conches the more
determined he was to enforce the laws about gleaning, which had now
degenerated into theft. He did not interfere with the management of
three of his farms which were leased to tenants, nor with those whose
tenants worked for his profit, of which he had a number; but he
managed six farms himself, each of about two hundred acres, and he now
published a notice that it was forbidden, under pain of being arrested
and made to pay the fine imposed by the courts, to enter those fields
before the crop was carried away. The order concerned only his own
immediate property. Rigou, who knew the country well, had let his
farm-lands in portions and on short leases to men who knew how to get
in their own crops, and who paid him in grain; therefore gleaning did
not affect him. The other proprietors were peasants, and no nefarious
gleaning was attempted on their land.
When the harvest began the count went himself to Michaud to see how
things were going on. Groison, who advised him to do this, was to be
present himself at the gleaning of each particular field. The
inhabitants of cities can have no idea what gleaning is to the
inhabitants of the country; the passion of these sons of the soil for
it seems inexplicable; there are women who will give up well-paid
employments to glean. The wheat they pick up seems to them sweeter
than any other; and the provision they thus make for their chief and
most substantial food has to them an extraordinary attraction. Mothers
take their babes and their little girls and boys; the feeblest old men
drag themselves into the wheat-fields; and even those who own property
are paupers for the nonce. All gleaners appear in rags.
The count and Michaud were present on horseback when the first
tattered batch entered the first fields from which the wheat had been
carried. It was ten o'clock in the morning. August had been a hot
month, the sky was cloudless, blue as a periwinkle; the earth was
baked, the wheat flamed, the harvestmen worked with their faces
scorched by the reflection of the sun-rays on the hard and arid earth.
All were silent, their shirts wet with perspiration; while from time
to time, they slaked their thirst with water from round, earthenware
jugs, furnished with two handles and a mouth-piece stoppered with a
willow stick.
At the father end of the stubble-field stood the carts which contained
the sheaves, and near them a group of at least a hundred beings who
far exceeded the hideous conceptions of Murillo and Teniers, the
boldest painters of such scenes, or of Callot, that poet of the
fantastic in poverty. The pictured bronze legs, the bare heads, the
ragged garments so curiously faded, so damp with grease, so darned and
spotted and discolored, in short, the painters' ideal of the material
of abject poverty was far surpassed by this scene; while the
expression on those faces, greedy, anxious, doltish, idiotic, savage,
showed the everlasting advantage which nature possesses over art by
its comparison with the immortal compositions of those princes of
color. There were old women with necks like turkeys, and hairless,
scarlet eyelids, who stretched their heads forward like setters before
a partridge; there were children, silent as soldiers under arms,
little girls who stamped like animals waiting for their food; the
natures of childhood and old age were crushed beneath the fierceness
of a savage greed,--greed for the property of others now their own by
long abuse. All eyes were savage, all gestures menacing; but every one
kept silence in presence of the count, the field-keeper, and the
bailiff. At this moment all classes were represented,--the great landowners,
the farmers, the working men, the paupers; the social question
was defined to the eye; hunger had convoked the actors in the scene.
The sun threw into relief the hard and hollow features of those faces;
it burned the bare feet dusty with the soil; children were present
with no clothing but a torn blouse, their blond hair tangled with
straw and chips; some women brought their babes just able to walk, and
left them rolling in the furrows.
The gloomy scene was harrowing to the old soldier, whose heart was
kind, and he said to Michaud: "It pains me to see it. One must know
the importance of these measures to be able to insist upon them."
"If every land-owner followed your example, lived on his property, and
did the good that you and yours are doing, general, there would be, I
won't say no poor, for they are always with us, but no poor man who
could not live by his labor."
"The mayors of Conches, Cerneux, and Soulanges have sent us all their
paupers," said Groison, who had now looked at the certificates; "they
had no right to do so."
"No, but our people will go to their districts," said the general.
"For the time being we have done enough by preventing the gleaning
before the sheaves were taken away; we had better go step by step," he
added, turning to leave the field.
"Did you hear him?" said Mother Tonsard to the old Bonnebault woman,
for the general's last words were said in a rather louder tone than
the rest, and reached the ears of the two old women who were posted in
the road which led beside the field.
"Yes, yes! we haven't got to the end yet,--a tooth to-day and tomorrow
an ear; if they could find a sauce for our livers they'd eat
'em as they do a calf's!" said old Bonnebault, whose threatening face
was turned in profile to the general as he passed her, though in the
twinkling of an eye she changed its expression to one of hypocritical
softness and submission as she hastened to make him a profound
curtsey.
"So you are gleaning, are you, though my wife helps you to earn so
much money?"
"Hey! my dear gentleman, may God preserve you in good health! but,
don't you see, my grandson squanders all I earn, and I'm forced to
scratch up a little wheat to get bread in the winter,--yes, yes, I
glean just a bit; it all helps."
The gleaning proved of little profit to the gleaners. The farmers and
tenant-farmers, finding themselves backed up, took care that their
wheat was well reaped, and superintended the making of the sheaves and
their safe removal, so that little or none of the pillage of former
years could take place.
Accustomed to get a good proportion of wheat in their gleaning, the
false as well as the true poor, forgetting the count's pardon at
Conches, now felt a deep but silent anger against him, which was
aggravated by the Tonsards, Courtecuisse, Bonnebault, Laroche,
Vaudoyer, Godain, and their adherents. Matters went worse still after
the vintage; for the gathering of the refuse grape was not allowed
until Sibilet had examined the vines with extreme care. This last
restriction exasperated these sons of the soil to the highest pitch;
but when so great a social distance separates the angered class from
the threatened class, words and threats are lost; nothing comes to the
surface or is perceived but facts; meantime the malcontents work
underground like moles.
The fair of Soulanges took place as usual quite peacefully, except for
certain jarrings between the leading society and the second-class
society of Soulanges, brought about by the despotism of the queen, who
could not tolerate the empire founded and established over the heart
of the brilliant Lupin by the beautiful Euphemie Plissoud, for she
herself laid permanent claim to his fickle fervors.
The count and countess did not appear at the fair nor at the Tivoli
fete; and that, again, was counted a wrong by the Soudrys, the
Gaubertins, and their adherents; it was pride, it was disdain, said
the Soudry salon. During this time the countess was filling the void
caused by Emile's return to Paris with the immense interest and
pleasure all fine souls take in the good they are doing, or think they
do; and the count, for his part, applied himself no less zealously to
changes and ameliorations in the management of his estate, which he
expected and believed would modify and benefit the condition of the
people and hence their characters. Madame de Montcornet, assisted by
the advice and experience of the Abbe Brossette, came, little by
little, to have a thorough and statistical knowledge of all the poor
families of the district, their respective condition, their wants,
their means of subsistence, and the sort of help she must give to each
to obtain work so as not to make them lazy or idle.
The countess had placed Genevieve Niseron, La Pechina, in a convent at
Auxerre, under pretext of having her taught to sew that she might
employ her in her own house, but really to save her from the shameful
attempts of Nicolas Tonsard, whom Rigou had managed to save from the
conscription. The countess also believed that a religious education,
the cloister, and monastic supervision, would subdue the ardent
passions of the precocious little girl, whose Montenegrin blood seemed
to her like a threatening flame which might one day set fire to the
domestic happiness of her faithful Olympe.
So all was at peace at the chateau des Aigues. The count, misled by
Sibilet, reassured by Michaud, congratulated himself on his firmness,
and thanked his wife for having contributed by her benevolence to the
immense comfort of their tranquillity. The question of the sale of his
timber was laid aside till he should go to Paris and arrange with the
dealers. He had not the slightest notion of how to do business, and he
was in total ignorance of the power wielded by Gaubertin over the
current of the Yonne,--the main line of conveyance which supplied the
timber of the Paris market.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREYHOUND
Towards the middle of September Emile Blondet, who had gone to Paris
to publish a book, returned to refresh himself at Les Aigues and to
think over the work he was planning for the winter. At Les Aigues, the
loving and sincere qualities which succeed adolescence in a young
man's soul reappeared in the used-up journalist.
"What a fine soul!" was the comment of the count and the countess when
they spoke of him.
Men who are accustomed to move among the abysses of social nature, to
understand all and to repress nothing, make themselves an oasis in the
heart, where they forget their perversities and those of others; they
become within that narrow and sacred circle,--saints; there, they
possess the delicacy of women, they give themselves up to a momentary
realization of their ideal, they become angelic for some one being who
adores them, and they are not playing comedy; they join their soul to
innocence, so to speak; they feel the need to brush off the mud, to
heal their sores, to bathe their wounds. At Les Aigues Emile Blondet
was without bitterness, without sarcasm, almost without wit; he made
no epigrams, he was gentle as a lamb, and platonically tender.
"He is such a good young fellow that I miss him terribly when he is
not here," said the general. "I do wish he could make a fortune and
not lead that Paris life of his."
Never did the glorious landscape and park of Les Aigues seem as
luxuriantly beautiful as it did just then. The first autumn days were
beginning, when the earth, languid from her procreations and delivered
of her products, exhales the delightful odors of vegetation. At this
time the woods, especially, are delicious; they begin to take the
russet warmth of Sienna earth, and the green-bronze tones which form
the lovely tapestry beneath which they hide from the cold of winter.
Nature, having shown herself in springtime jaunty and joyous as a
brunette glowing with hope, becomes in autumn sad and gentle as a
blonde full of pensive memories; the turf yellows, the last flowers
unfold their pale corollas, the white-eyed daisies are fewer in the
grass, only their crimson calices are seen. Yellows abound; the shady
places are lighter for lack of leafage, but darker in tone; the sun,
already oblique, slides its furtive orange rays athwart them, leaving
long luminous traces which rapidly disappear, like the train of a
woman's gown as she bids adieu.
On the morning of the second day after his arrival, Emile was at a
window of his bedroom, which opened upon a terrace with a balustrade
from which a noble view could be seen. This balcony ran the whole
length of the apartments of the countess, on the side of the chateau
towards the forests and the Blangy landscape. The pond, which would
have been called a lake were Les Aigues nearer Paris, was partly in
view, so was the long canal; the Silver-spring, coming from across the
pavilion of the Rendezvous, crossed the lawn with its sheeny ribbon,
reflecting the yellow sand.
Beyond the park, between the village and the walls, lay the cultivated
parts of Blangy,--meadows where the cows were grazing, small
properties surrounded by hedges, filled with fruit of all kinds, nut
and apple trees. By way of frame, the heights on which the noble
forest-trees were ranged, tier above tier, closed in the scene. The
countess had come out in her slippers to look at the flowers in her
balcony, which were sending up their morning fragrance; she wore a
cambric dressing-gown, beneath which the rosy tints of her white
shoulders could be seen; a coquettish little cap was placed in a
bewitching manner on her hair, which escaped it recklessly; her little
feet showed their warm flesh color through the transparent stockings;
the cambric gown, unconfined at the waist, floated open as the breeze
took it, and showed an embroidered petticoat.
"Oh! are you there?" she said.
"Yes."
"What are you looking at?"
"A pretty question! You have torn me from the contemplation of Nature.
Tell me, countess, will you go for a walk in the woods this morning
before breakfast?"
"What an idea! You know I have a horror of walking."
"We will only walk a little way; I'll drive you in the tilbury and
take Joseph to hold the horses. You have never once set foot in your
forest; and I have just noticed something very curious, a phenomenon;
there are spots where the tree-tops are the color of Florentine
bronze, the leaves are dried--"
"Well, I'll dress."
"Oh, if you do, we can't get off for two hours. Take a shawl, put on a
bonnet, and boots; that's all you want. I shall tell them to harness."
"You always make me do what you want; I'll be ready in a minute."
"General," said Blondet, waking the count, who grumbled and turned
over, like a man who wants his morning sleep. "We are going for a
drive; won't you come?"
A quarter of an hour later the tilbury was slowly rolling along the
park avenue, followed by a liveried groom on horseback.
The morning was a September morning. The dark blue of the sky burst
forth here and there from the gray of the clouds, which seemed the sky
itself, the ether seeming to be the accessory; long lines of
ultramarine lay upon the horizon, but in strata, which alternated with
other lines like sand-bars; these tones changed and grew green at the
level of the forests. The earth beneath this overhanging mantle was
moistly warm, like a woman when she rises; it exhaled sweet, luscious
odors, which yet were wild, not civilized,--the scent of cultivation
was added to the scents of the woods. Just then the Angelus was
ringing at Blangy, and the sounds of the bell, mingling with the wild
concert of the forest, gave harmony to the silence. Here and there
were rising vapors, white, diaphanous.
Seeing these lovely preparations of Nature, the fancy had seized
Olympe Michaud to accompany her husband, who had to give an order to a
keeper whose house was not far off. The Soulanges doctor advised her
to walk as long as she could do so without fatigue; she was afraid of
the midday heat and went out only in the early morning or evening.
Michaud now took her with him, and they were followed by the dog he
loved best,--a handsome greyhound, mouse-colored with white spots,
greedy, like all greyhounds, and as full of vices as most animals who
know they are loved and petted.
So, then the tilbury reached the pavilion of the Rendezvous, the
countess, who stopped to ask how Madame Michaud felt, was told she had
gone into the forest with her husband.
"Such weather inspires everybody," said Blondet, turning his horse at
hazard into one of the six avenues of the forest; "Joseph, you know
the woods, don't you?"
"Yes, monsieur."
And away they went. The avenue they took happened to be one of the
most delightful in the forest; it soon turned and grew narrower, and
presently became a winding way, on which the sunshine flickered
through rifts in the leafy roof, and where the breeze brought odors of
lavender, and thyme, and the wild mint, and that of falling leaves,
which sighed as they fell. Dew-drops on the trees and on the grass
were scattered like seeds by the passing of the light carriage; the
occupants as they rolled along caught glimpses of the mysterious
visions of the woods,--those cool depths, where the verdure is moist
and dark, where the light softens as it fades; those white-birch
glades o'ertopped by some centennial tree, the Hercules of the forest;
those glorious assemblages of knotted, mossy trunks, whitened and
furrowed, and the banks of delicate wild plants and fragile flowers
which grow between a woodland road and the forest. The brooks sang.
Truly there is a nameless pleasure in driving a woman along the ups
and downs of a slippery way carpeted with moss, where she pretends to
be afraid or really is so, and you are conscious that she is drawing
closer to you, letting you feel, voluntarily or involuntarily, the
cool moisture of her arm, the weight of her round, white shoulder,
though she merely smiles when told that she hinders you in driving.
The horse seems to know the secret of these interruptions, and he
looks about him from right to left.
It was a new sight to the countess; this nature so vigorous in its
effects, so little seen and yet so grand, threw her into a languid
revery; she leaned back in the tilbury and yielded herself up to the
pleasure of being there with Emile; her eyes were charmed, her heart
spoke, she answered to the inward voice that harmonized with hers. He,
too, glanced at her furtively; he enjoyed that dreamy meditation,
while the ribbons of the bonnet floated on the morning breeze with the
silky curls of the golden hair. In consequence of going they knew not
where, they presently came to a locked gate, of which they had not the
key. Joseph was called up, but neither had he a key.
"Never mind, let us walk; Joseph can take care of the tilbury; we
shall easily find it again."
Emile and the countess plunged into the forest, and soon reached a
small interior cleared space, such as is often met with in the woods.
Twenty years earlier the charcoal-burners had made it their kiln, and
the place still remained open, quite a large circumference having been
burned over. But during those twenty years Nature had made herself a
garden of flowers, a blooming "parterre" for her own enjoyment, just
as an artist gives himself the delight of painting a picture for his
own happiness. The enchanting spot was surrounded by fine trees, whose
tops hung over like vast fringes and made a dais above this flowery
couch where slept the goddess. The charcoal-burners had followed a
path to a pond, always full of water. The path is there still; it
invites you to step into it by a turn full of mystery; then suddenly
it stops short and you come upon a bank where a thousand roots run
down to the water and make a sort of canvas in the air. This hidden
pond has a narrow grassy edge, where a few willows and poplars lend
their fickle shade to a bank of turf which some lazy or pensive
charcoal-burner must have made for his enjoyment. The frogs hop about,
the teal bathe in the pond, the water-fowl come and go, a hare starts;
you are the master of this delicious bath, decorated with iris and
bulrushes. Above your head the trees take many attitudes; here the
trunks twine down like boa-constrictors, there the beeches stand erect
as a Greek column. The snails and the slugs move peacefully about. A
tench shows its gills, a squirrel looks at you; and at last, after
Emile and the countess, tired with her walk, were seated, a bird, but
I know not what bird it was, sang its autumn song, its farewell song,
to which the other songsters listened,--a song welcome to love, and
heard by every organ of the being.
"What silence!" said the countess, with emotion and in a whisper, as
if not to trouble this deep peace.
They looked at the green patches on the water,--worlds where life was
organizing; they pointed to the lizard playing in the sun and escaping
at their approach,--behavior which has won him the title of "the
friend of man." "Proving, too, how well he knows him," said Emile.
They watched the frogs, who, less distrustful, returned to the surface
of the pond, winking their carbuncle eyes as they sat upon the watercresses.
The sweet and simple poetry of Nature permeated these two
souls surfeited with the conventional things of life, and filled them
with contemplative emotion. Suddenly Blondet shuddered. Turning to the
countess he said,--
"Did you hear that?"
"What?" she asked.
"A curious noise."
"Ah, you literary men who live in your studies and know nothing of the
country! that is only a woodpecker tapping a tree. I dare say you
don't even know the most curious fact in the history of that bird. As
soon as he has given his tap, and he gives millions to pierce an oak,
he flies behind the tree to see if he is yet through it; and he does
this every instant."
"The noise I heard, dear instructress of natural history, was not a
noise made by an animal; there was evidence of mind in it, and that
proclaims a man."
The countess was seized with panic, and she darted back through the
wild flower-garden, seeking the path by which to leave the forest.
"What is the matter?" cried Blondet, rushing after her.
"I thought I saw eyes," she said, when they regained the path through
which they had reached the charcoal-burner's open.
Just then they heard the low death-rattle of a creature whose throat
was suddenly cut, and the countess, with her fears redoubled, fled so
quickly that Blondet could scarcely follow her. She ran like a willo'-
the-wisp, and did not listen to Blondet who called to her, "You are
mistaken." On she ran, and Emile with her, till they suddenly came
upon Michaud and his wife, who were walking along arm-in-arm. Emile
was panting and the countess out of breath, and it was some time
before they could speak; then they explained. Michaud joined Blondet
in laughing at the countess's terror; then the bailiff showed the two
wanderers the way to find the tilbury. When they reached the gate
Madame Michaud called, "Prince!"
"Prince! Prince!" called the bailiff; then he whistled,--but no
greyhound.
Emile mentioned the curious noise that began their adventure.
"My wife heard that noise," said Michaud, "and I laughed at her."
"They have killed Prince!" exclaimed the countess. "I am sure of it;
they killed him by cutting his throat at one blow. What I heard was
the groan of a dying animal."
"The devil!" cried Michaud; "the matter must be cleared up."
Emile and the bailiff left the two ladies with Joseph and the horses,
and returned to the wild garden of the open. They went down the bank
to the pond; looked everywhere along the slope, but found no clue.
Blondet jumped back first, and as he did so he saw, in a thicket which
stood on higher ground, one of those trees he had noticed in the
morning with withered heads. He showed it to Michaud, and proposed to
go to it. The two sprang forward in a straight line across the forest,
avoiding the trunks and going round the matted tangles of brier and
holly until they found the tree.
"It is a fine elm," said Michaud, "but there's a worm in it,--a worm
which gnaws round the bark close to the roots."
He stopped and took up a bit of the bark, saying: "See how they work."
"You have a great many worms in this forest," said Blondet.
Just then Michaud noticed a red spot; a moment more and he saw the
head of his greyhound. He sighed.
"The scoundrels!" he said. "Madame was right."
Michaud and Blondet examined the body and found, just as the countess
had said, that some one had cut the greyhound's throat. To prevent his
barking he had been decoyed with a bit of meat, which was still
between his tongue and his palate.
"Poor brute; he died of self-indulgence."
"Like all princes," said Blondet.
"Some one, whoever it is, has just gone, fearing that we might catch
him or her," said Michaud. "A serious offence has been committed. But
for all that, I see no branches about and no lopped trees."
Blondet and the bailiff began a cautious search, looking at each spot
where they set their feet before setting them. Presently Blondet
pointed to a tree beneath which the grass was flattened down and two
hollows made.
"Some one knelt there, and it must have been a woman, for a man would
not have left such a quantity of flattened grass around the impression
of his two knees; yes, see! that is the outline of a petticoat."
The bailiff, after examining the base of the tree, found the beginning
of a hole beneath the bark; but he did not find the worm with the
tough skin, shiny and squamous, covered with brown specks, ending in a
tail not unlike that of a cockchafer, and having also the latter's
head, antennae, and the two vigorous hooks or shears with which the
creature cuts into the wood.
"My dear fellow," said Blondet, "now I understand the enormous number
of DEAD trees that I noticed this morning from the terrace of the
chateau, and which brought me here to find out the cause of the
phenomenon. Worms are at work; but they are no other than your
peasants."
The bailiff gave vent to an oath and rushed off, followed by Blondet,
to rejoin the countess, whom he requested to take his wife home with
her. Then he jumped on Joseph's horse, leaving the man to return on
foot, and disappeared with great rapidity to cut off the retreat of
the woman who had killed his dog, hoping to catch her with the bloody
bill-hook in her hand and the tool used to make the incisions in the
bark of the tree.
"Let us go and tell the general at once, before he breakfasts," cried
the countess; "he might die of anger."
"I'll prepare him," said Blondet.
"They have killed the dog," said Olympe, in tears.
"You loved the poor greyhound, dear, enough to weep for him?" said the
countess.
"I think of Prince as a warning; I fear some danger to my husband."
"How they have ruined this beautiful morning for us," said the
countess, with an adorable little pout.
"How they have ruined the country," said Olympe, gravely.
They met the general near the chateau.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"You shall know in a minute," said Blondet, mysteriously, as he helped
the countess and Madame Michaud to alight. A moment more and the two
gentlemen were alone on the terrace of the apartments.
"You have plenty of moral strength, general; you won't put yourself in
a passion, will you?"
"No," said the general; "but come to the point or I shall think you
are making fun of me."
"Do you see those trees with dead leaves?"
"Yes."
"Do you see those others that are wilting?"
"Yes."
"Well, every one of them has been killed by the peasants you think you
have won over by your benefits."
And Blondet related the events of the morning.
The general was so pale that Blondet was frightened.
"Come, curse, swear, be furious! your self-control may hurt you more
than anger!"
"I'll go and smoke," said the general, turning toward the kiosk.
During breakfast Michaud came in; he had found no one. Sibilet, whom
the count had sent for, came also.
"Monsieur Sibilet, and you, Monsieur Michaud, are to make it known,
cautiously, that I will pay a thousand francs to whoever will arrest
IN THE ACT the person or persons who are killing my trees; they must
also discover the instrument with which the work is done, and where it
was bought. I have settled upon a plan."
"Those people never betray one another," said Sibilet, "if the crime
done is for their benefit and premeditated. There is no denying that
this diabolical business has been planned, carefully planned and
contrived."
"Yes, but a thousand francs means a couple of acres of land."
"We can try," said Sibilet; "fifteen hundred francs might buy you a
traitor, especially if you promise secrecy."
"Very good; but let us act as if we suspected nothing, I especially;
if not, we shall be the victims of some collusion; one has to be as
wary with these brigands as with the enemy in war."
"But the enemy is here," said Blondet.
Sibilet threw him the furtive glance of a man who understood the
meaning of the words, and then he withdrew.
"I don't like your Sibilet," said Blondet, when he had seen the
steward leave the house. "That man is playing false."
"Up to this time he has done nothing I could complain of," said the
general.
Blondet went off to write letters. He had lost the careless gayety of
his first arrival, and was now uneasy and preoccupied; but he had no
vague presentiments like those of Madame Michaud; he was, rather, in
full expectation of certain foreseen misfortunes. He said to himself,
"This affair will come to some bad end; and if the general does not
take decisive action and will not abandon a battle-field where he is
overwhelmed by numbers there must be a catastrophe; and who knows who
will come out safe and sound,--perhaps neither he nor his wife. Good
God! that adorable little creature! so devoted, so perfect! how can he
expose her thus! He thinks he loves her! Well, I'll share their
danger, and if I can't save them I'll suffer with them."
CHAPTER VIII
RURAL VIRTUE
That night Marie Tonsard was stationed on the road to Soulanges,
sitting on the rail of a culvert waiting for Bonnebault, who had spent
the day, as usual, at the Cafe de la Paix. She heard him coming at
some distance, and his step told her that he was drunk, and she knew
also that he had lost money, for he always sang if he won.
"Is that you, Bonnebault?"
"Yes, my girl."
"What's the matter?"
"I owe twenty-five francs, and they may wring my neck twenty-five
times before I can pay them."
"Well, I know how you can get five hundred," she said in his ear.
"Oh! by killing a man; but I prefer to live."
"Hold your tongue. Vaudoyer will give us five hundred francs if you
will let him catch your mother at a tree."
"I'd rather kill a man than sell my mother. There's your old
grandmother; why don't you sell her?"
"If I tried to, my father would get angry and stop the trick."
"That's true. Well, anyhow, my mother sha'n't go to prison, poor old
thing! She cooks my food and keeps me in clothes, I'm sure I don't
know how. Go to prison,--and through me! I shouldn't have any bowels
within me; no, no! And for fear any one else should sell her, I'll
tell her this very night not to kill any more trees."
"Well, my father may say and do what he likes, but I shall tell him
there are five hundred francs to be had, and perhaps he'll ask my
grandmother if she'll earn them. They'll never put an old woman
seventy-eight years of age in prison,--though, to be sure, she'd be
better off there than in her garret."
"Five hundred francs! well, yes; I'll speak to my mother," said
Bonnebault, "and if it suits her to give 'em to me, I'll let her have
part to take to prison. She could knit, and amuse herself; and she'd
be well fed and lodged, and have less trouble than she has at Conches.
Well, to-morrow, my girl, I'll see you about it; I haven't time to
stop now."
The next morning at daybreak Bonnebault and his old mother knocked at
the door of the Grand-I-Vert. Mother Tonsard was the only person up.
"Marie!" called Bonnebault, "that matter is settled."
"You mean about the trees?" said Mother Tonsard; "yes, it is all
settled; I've taken it."
"Nonsense!" cried Mother Bonnebault, "my son has got the promise of an
acre of land from Monsieur Rigou--"
The two old women squabbled as to which of them should be sold by her
children. The noise of the quarrel woke up the household. Tonsard and
Bonnebault took sides for their respective mothers.
"Pull straws," suggested Tonsard's wife.
The short straw gave it in favor of the tavern.
Three days later, in the forest of Ville-aux-Fayes at daybreak, the
gendarmes arrested old Mother Tonsard caught "in flagrante delicto" by
the bailiff, his assistants, and the field-keeper, with a rusty file
which served to tear the tree, and a chisel, used by the delinquent to
scoop round the bark just as the insect bores its way. The indictment
stated that sixty trees thus destroyed were found within a radius of
five hundred feet. The old woman was sent to Auxerre, the case coming
under the jurisdiction of the assize-court.
Michaud could not refrain from saying when he discovered Mother
Tonsard at the foot of the tree: "These are the persons on whom the
general and Madame la comtesse have showered benefits! Faith, if
Madame would only listen to me, she wouldn't give that dowry to the
Tonsard girl, who is more worthless than her grandmother."
The old woman raised her gray eyes and darted a venomous look at
Michaud. When the count learned who the guilty person was, he forbade
his wife to give the money to Catherine Tonsard.
"Monsieur le comte is perfectly right," said Sibilet. "I know that
Godain bought that land three days before Catherine came to speak to
Madame. She is quite capable, that girl, of pretending she is with
child, to get the money; very likely Godain has had nothing to do with
it."
"What a community!" said Blondet; "the scoundrels of Paris are saints
by comparison."
"Ah, monsieur," said Sibilet, "self-interest makes people guilty of
horrors everywhere. Do you know who betrayed the old woman?"
"No."
"Her granddaughter Marie; she was jealous of her sister's marriage,
and to get the money for her own--"
"It is awful!" said the count. "Why! they'd murder!"
"Oh yes," said Sibilet, "for a very small sum. They care so little for
life, those people; they hate to have to work all their lives. Ah
monsieur, queer things happen in country places, as queer as those of
Paris,--but you will never believe it."
"Let us be kind and benevolent," said the countess.
The evening after the arrest Bonnebault came to the tavern of the
Grand-I-Vert, where all the Tonsard family were in great jubilation.
"Oh yes, yes!" said he, "make the most of your rejoicing; but I've
just heard from Vaudoyer that the countess, to punish you, withdraws
the thousand francs promised to Godain; her husband won't let her give
them."
"It's that villain of a Michaud who has put him up to it," said
Tonsard. "My mother heard him say he would; she told me at Ville-aux-
Fayes where I went to carry her some money and her clothes. Well; let
that countess keep her money! our five hundred francs shall help
Godain buy the land; and we'll revenge ourselves for this thing. Ha!
Michaud meddles with our private matters, does he? it will bring him
more harm than good. What business is it of his, I'd like to know? let
him keep to the woods! It's he who is at the bottom of all this
trouble--he found the clue that day my mother cut the throat of his
dog. Suppose I were to meddle in the affairs of the chateau? Suppose I
were to tell the general that his wife is off walking in the woods
before he is up in the morning, with a young man."
"The general, the general!" sneered Courtecuisse; "they can do what
they like with him. But it's Michaud who stirs him up, the mischiefmaker!
a fellow who don't know his business; in my day, things went
differently."
"Ah!" said Tonsard, "those were the good days for all of us--weren't
they, Vaudoyer?"
"Yes," said the latter, "and the fact is that if Michaud were got rid
of we should be left in peace."
"Enough said," replied Tonsard. "We'll talk of this later--by
moonlight--in the open field."
Towards the end of October the countess returned to Paris, leaving the
general at Les Aigues. He was not to rejoin her till some time later,
but she did not wish to lose the first night of the Italian Opera, and
moreover she was lonely and bored; she missed Emile, who was recalled
by his avocations, for he had helped her to pass the hours when the
general was scouring the country or attending to business.
November was a true winter month, gray and gloomy, a mixture of snow
and rain, frost and thaw. The trial of Mother Tonsard had required
witnesses at Auxerre, and Michaud had given his testimony. Monsieur
Rigou had interested himself for the old woman, and employed a lawyer
on her behalf who relied in his defence on the absence of
disinterested witnesses; but the testimony of Michaud and his
assistants and the field-keeper was found to outweigh this objection.
Tonsard's mother was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the
lawyer said to her son:--
"It was Michaud's testimony which got her that."
CHAPTER IX
THE CATASTROPHE
One Saturday evening, Courtecuisse, Bonnebault, Godain, Tonsard, his
daughters, wife, and Pere Fourchon, also Vaudoyer and several
mechanics were supping at the tavern. The moon was at half-full, the
first snow had melted, and frost had just stiffened the ground so that
a man's step left no traces. They were eating a stew of hare caught in
a trap; all were drinking and laughing. It was the day after the
wedding of Catherine and Godain, and the wedded pair were to be
conducted to their new home, which was not far from that of
Courtecuisse; for when Rigou sold an acre of land it was sure to be
isolated and close to the woods. Courtecuisse and Vaudoyer had brought
their guns to accompany the bride. The neighborhood was otherwise fast
asleep; not a light was to be seen; none but the wedding party were
awake, but they made noise enough. In the midst of it the old
Bonnebault woman entered, and every one looked at her.
"I think she is going to lie-in," she whispered in Tonsard's ear. "HE
has saddled his horse and is going for the doctor at Soulanges."
"Sit down," said Tonsard, giving her his place at the table, and going
himself to lie on a bench.
Just then the gallop of a horse passing rapidly along the road was
heard. Tonsard, Courtecuisse, and Vaudoyer went out hurriedly, and saw
Michaud on his way to the village.
"He knows what he's about," said Courtecuisse; "he came down by the
terrace and he means to go by Blangy and the road,--it's the safest
way."
"Yes," said Tonsard, "but he will bring the doctor back with him."
"He won't find him," said Courtecuisse, "the doctor has been sent for
to Conches for the postmistress."
"Then he'll go from Soulanges to Conches by the mail-road; that's
shortest."
"And safest too, for us," said Courtecuisse, "there's a fine moon, and
there are no keepers on the roads as there are in the woods; one can
hear much farther; and down there, by the pavilions, behind the
hedges, just where they join the little wood, one can aim at a man
from behind, like a rabbit, at five hundred feet."
"It will be half-past eleven before he comes past there," said
Tonsard, "it will take him half an hour to go to Soulanges and as much
more to get back,--but look here! suppose Monsieur Gourdon were on the
road?"
"Don't trouble about that," said Courtecuisse, "I'll stand ten minutes
away from you to the right on the road towards Blangy, and Vaudoyer
will be ten minutes away on your left towards Conches; if anything
comes along, the mail, or the gendarmes, or whatever it is, we'll fire
a shot into the ground,--a muffled sound, you'll know it."
"But suppose I miss him?" said Tonsard.
"He's right," said Courtecuisse, "I'm the best shot; Vaudoyer, I'll go
with you; Bonnebault may watch in my place; he can give a cry; that's
easier heard and less suspicious."
All three returned to the tavern and the wedding festivities went on;
but about eleven o'clock Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard, and
Bonnebault went out, carrying their guns, though none of the women
took any notice of them. They came back in about three-quarters of an
hour, and sat drinking till past one o'clock. Tonsard's girls and
their mother and the old Bonnebault woman had plied the miller, the
mechanics, and the two peasants, as well as Fourchon, with so much
drink that they were all on the ground and snoring when the four men
left the tavern; on their return, the sleepers were shaken and roused,
and every one seemed to them, as before, in his place.
While this orgy was going on Michaud's household was in a scene of
mortal anxiety. Olympe had felt false pains, and her husband, thinking
she was about to be delivered, rode off instantly in haste for the
doctor. But the poor woman's pains ceased as soon as she realized that
Michaud was gone; for her mind was so preoccupied by the danger her
husband ran at that hour of the night, in a lawless region filled with
determined foes, that the anguish of her soul was powerful enough to
deaden and momentarily subdue those of the body. In vain her servantwoman
declared her fears were imaginary; she seemed not to comprehend
a word that was said to her, and sat by the fire in her bed-chamber
listening to every sound. In her terror, which increased every moment,
she had the man wakened, meaning to give him some order which still
she did not give. At last, the poor woman wandered up and down, coming
and going in feverish agitation; she looked out of all the windows and
opened them in spite of the cold; then she went downstairs and opened
the door into the courtyard, looking out and listening. "Nothing!
nothing!" she said. Then she went up again in despair. About a quarter
past twelve, she cried out: "Here he is! I hear the horse!" Again she
went down, followed by the man who went to open the iron gate of the
courtyard. "It is strange," she said, "that he should return by the
Conches woods!"
As she spoke she stood still, horrorstruck, motionless, voiceless. The
man shared her terror, for, in the furious gallop of the horse, the
clang of the empty stirrups, the neigh of the frightened animal, there
was something, they scarcely knew what, of unspeakable warning. Soon,
too soon for the unhappy wife, the horse reached the gate, panting and
sweating, but alone; he had broken the bridle, no doubt by entangling
it. Olympe gazed with haggard eyes at the servant as he opened the
gate; she saw the horse, and then, without a word, she ran to the
chateau like a madwoman; when she reached it she fell to the ground
beneath the general's windows crying out: "Monsieur, they have
murdered him!"
The cry was so terrible it awoke the count; he rang violently,
bringing the whole household to their feet; and the groans of Madame
Michaud, who as she lay on the ground, gave birth to a child that died
in being born, brought the general and all the servants about her.
They raised the poor dying woman, who expired, saying to the general:
"They have murdered him!"
"Joseph!" cried the count to his valet, "go for the doctor; there may
yet be time to save her. No, better bring the curate; the poor woman
is dead, and her child too. My God! my God! how thankful I am that my
wife is not here. And you," he said to the gardener, "go and find out
what has happened."
"I can tell you," said the pavilion servant, coming up, "Monsieur
Michaud's horse has come back alone, the reins broke, his legs bloody;
and there's a spot of blood on the saddle."
"What can be done at this time of night?" cried the count. "Call up
Groison, send for the keepers, saddle the horses; we'll beat the
country."
By daybreak, eight persons--the count, Groison, the three keepers, and
two gendarmes sent from Soulanges with their sergeant--searched the
country. It was not till the middle of the morning that they found the
body of the bailiff in a copse between the mail-road and the smaller
road leading to Ville-aux-Fayes, at the end of the park of Les Aigues,
not far from Conches. Two gendarmes started, one to Ville-aux-Fayes
for the prosecuting attorney, the other to Soulanges for the justice
of the peace. Meantime the general, assisted by the sergeant, noted
down the facts. They found on the road, just above the two pavilions,
the print of the stamping of the horse's feet as he roared, and the
traces of his frightened gallop from there to the first opening in the
woods above the hedge. The horse, no longer guided, turned into the
wood-path. Michaud's hat was found there. The animal evidently took
the nearest way to reach his stable. The bailiff had a ball though his
back which broke the spine.
Groison and the sergeant studied the ground around the spot where the
horse reared (which might be called, in judicial language, the theatre
of the crime) with remarkable sagacity, but without obtaining any
clue. The earth was too frozen to show the footprints of the murderer,
and all they found was the paper of a cartridge. When the attorney and
the judge and Monsieur Gourdon, the doctor, arrived and raised the
body to make the autopsy, it was found that the ball, which
corresponded with the fragments of the wad, was an ammunition ball,
evidently from a military musket; and no such musket existed in the
district of Blangy. The judge and Monsieur Soudry the attorney, who
came that evening to the chateau, thought it best to collect all the
facts and await events. The same opinion was expressed by the sergeant
and the lieutenant of the gendarmerie.
"It is impossible that it can be anything but a planned attack on the
part of the peasants," said the sergeant; "but there are two
districts, Conches and Blangy, in each of which there are five or six
persons capable of being concerned in the murder. The one that I
suspect most, Tonsard, passed the night carousing in the Grand-I-Vert;
but your assistant, general, the miller Langlume, was there, and he
says that Tonsard did not leave the tavern. They were all so drunk
they could not stand; they took the bride home at half-past one; and
the return of the horse proves that Michaud was murdered between
eleven o'clock and midnight. At a quarter past ten Groison saw the
whole company assembled at table, and Monsieur Michaud passed there on
his way to Soulanges, which he reached at eleven. His horse reared
between the two pavilions on the mail-road; but he may have been shot
before reaching Blangy and yet have stayed in the saddle for some
little time. We should have to issue warrants for at least twenty
persons and arrest them; but I know these peasants, and so do these
gentlemen; you might keep them a year in prison and you would get
nothing out of them but denials. What could you do with all those who
were at Tonsard's?"
They sent for Langlume, the miller, and the assistant of General
Montcornet as mayor; he related what had taken place in the tavern,
and gave the names of all present; none had gone out except for a
minute or two into the courtyard. He had left the room for a moment
with Tonsard about eleven o'clock; they had spoken of the moon and the
weather, and heard nothing. At two o'clock the whole party had taken
the bride and bridegroom to their own house.
The general arranged with the sergeant, the lieutenant, and the civil
authorities to send to Paris for the cleverest detective in the
service of the police, who should come to the chateau as a workman,
and behave so ill as to be dismissed; he should then take to drinking
and frequent the Grand-I-Vert and remain in the neighborhood in the
character of an ill-wisher to the general. The best plan they could
follow was to watch and wait for a momentary revelation, and then make
the most of it.
"If I have to spend twenty thousand francs I'll discover the murderer
of my poor Michaud," the general was never weary of saying.
He went off with that idea in his head, and returned from Paris in the
month of January with one of the shrewdest satellites of the chief of
the detective police, who was brought down ostensibly to do some work
to the interior of the chateau. The man was discovered poaching. He
was arrested, and turned off, and soon after--early in February--the
general rejoined his wife in Paris.
CHAPTER X
THE TRIUMPH OF THE VANQUISHED
One evening in the month of May, when the fine weather had come and
the Parisians had returned to Les Aigues, Monsieur de Troisville,--who
had been persuaded to accompany his daughter,--Blondet, the Abbe
Brossette, the general, and the sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes, who
was on a visit to the chateau, were all playing either whist or chess.
It was about half-past eleven o'clock when Joseph entered and told his
master that the worthless poaching workman who had been dismissed
wanted to see him,--something about a bill which he said the general
still owed him. "He is very drunk," added Joseph.
"Very good, I'll go and speak to him."
The general went out upon the lawn to some distance from the house.
"Monsieur le comte," said the detective, "nothing will ever be got out
of these people. All that I have been able to gather is that if you
continue to stay in this place and try to make the peasants renounce
the pilfering habits which Mademoiselle Laguerre allowed them to
acquire, they will shoot you as well as your bailiff. There is no use
in my staying here; for they distrust me even more than they do the
keepers."
The count paid his spy, who left the place the next day, and his
departure justified the suspicions entertained about him by the
accomplices in the death of Michaud.
When the general returned to the salon there were such signs of
emotion upon his face that his wife asked him, anxiously, what news he
had just heard.
"Dear wife," he said, "I don't want to frighten you, and yet it is
right you should know that Michaud's death was intended as a warning
for us to leave this part of the country."
"If I were in your place," said Monsieur de Troisville, "I would not
leave it. I myself have had just such difficulties in Normandy, only
under another form; I persisted in my course, and now everything goes
well."
"Monsieur le marquis," said the sub-prefect, "Normandy and Burgundy
are two very different regions. The grape heats the blood far more
than the apple. We know much less of law and legal proceedings; we
live among the woods; the large industries are unknown among us; we
are still savages. If I might give my advice to Monsieur le comte it
would be to sell this estate and put the money in the Funds; he would
double his income and have no anxieties. If he likes living in the
country he could buy a chateau near Paris with a park as beautiful as
that of Les Aigues, surrounded by walls, where no one can annoy him,
and where he can let all his farms and receive the money in good bankbills,
and have no law suits from one year's end to another. He could
come and go in three or four hours, and Monsieur Blondet and Monsieur
le marquis would not be so often away from you, Madame la comtesse."
"I, retreat before the peasantry when I did not recoil before the
Danube!" cried the general.
"Yes, but what became of your cuirassiers?" asked Blondet.
"Such a fine estate!"
"It will sell to-day for over two millions."
"The chateau alone must have cost that," remarked Monsieur de
Troisville.
"One of the best properties in a circumference of sixty miles," said
the sub-prefect; "but you can find a better near Paris."
"How much income does one get from two millions?" asked the countess.
"Now-a-days, about eighty thousand francs," replied Blondet.
"Les Aigues does not bring in, all told, more than thirty thousand,"
said the countess; "and lately you have been at such immense expenses,
--you have surrounded the woods this year with ditches."
"You could get," added Blondet, "a royal chateau for four hundred
thousand francs near Paris. In these days people buy the follies of
others."
"I thought you cared for Les Aigues!" said the count to his wife.
"Don't you feel that I care a thousand times more for your life?" she
replied. "Besides, ever since the death of my poor Olympe and
Michaud's murder the country is odious to me; all the faces I meet
seem to wear a treacherous or threatening expression."
The next evening the sub-prefect, having ended his visit at the
chateau, was welcomed in the salon of Monsieur Gaubertin at Ville-aux-
Fayes in these words:--
"Well, Monsieur des Lupeaulx, so you have returned from Les Aigues?"
"Yes," answered the sub-prefect with a little air of triumph and a
look of tender regard at Mademoiselle Elise, "and I am very much
afraid to say we may lose the general; he talks of selling his
property--"
"Monsieur Gaubertin, I speak for my pavilion. I can on longer endure
the noise, the dust of Ville-aux-Fayes; like a poor imprisoned bird I
gasp for the air of the fields, the woodland breezes," said Madame
Isaure, in a lackadaisical voice, with her eyes half-closed and her
head bending to her left shoulder as she played carelessly with the
long curls of her blond hair.
"Pray be prudent, madame!" said her husband in a low voice; "your
indiscretions will not help me to buy the pavilion." Then, turning to
the sub-prefect, he added, "Haven't they yet discovered the men who
were concerned in the murder of the bailiff?"
"It seems not," replied the sub-prefect.
"That will injure the sale of Les Aigues," said Gaubertin to the
company generally, "I know very well that I would not buy the place.
The peasantry over there are such a bad set of people; even in the
days of Mademoiselle Laguerre I had trouble with them, and God knows
she let them do as they liked."
At the end of the month of May the general still gave no sign that he
intended to sell Les Aigues; in fact, he was undecided. One night,
about ten o'clock, he was returning from the forest through one of the
six avenues that led to the pavilion of the Rendezvous. He dismissed
the keeper who accompanied him, as he was then so near the chateau. At
a turn of the road a man armed with a gun came from behind a bush.
"General," he said, "this is the third time I have had you at the end
of my barrel, and the third time that I give you your life."
"Why do you want to kill me, Bonnebault?" said the general, without
showing the least emotion.
"Faith, if I don't, somebody else will; but I, you see, I like the men
who served the Emperor, and I can't make up my mind to shoot you like
a partridge. Don't question me, for I'll tell you nothing; but you've
got enemies, powerful enemies, cleverer than you, and they'll end by
crushing you. I am to have a thousand crowns if I kill you, and then I
can marry Marie Tonsard. Well, give me enough to buy a few acres of
land and a bit of a cottage, and I'll keep on saying, as I have done,
that I've found no chances. That will give you time to sell your
property and get away; but make haste. I'm an honest lad still, scamp
as I am; but another fellow won't spare you."
"If I give you what you ask, will you tell me who offered you those
three thousand francs?" said the general.
"I don't know myself; and the person who is urging me to do the thing
is some one I love too well to tell of. Besides, even if you did know
it was Marie Tonsard, that wouldn't help you; Marie Tonsard would be
as silent as that wall, and I should deny every word I've said."
"Come and see me to-morrow," said the general.
"Enough," replied Bonnebault; "and if they begin to say I'm too
dilatory, I'll let you know in time."
A week after that singular conversation the whole arrondissement,
indeed the whole department, was covered with posters, advertising the
sale of Les Aigues at the office of Maitre Corbineau, the notary of
Soulanges. All the lots were knocked down to Rigou, and the price paid
amounted to two millions five hundred thousand francs. The next day
Rigou had the names changed; Monsieur Gaubertin took the woods, Rigou
and Soudry the vineyards and the farms. The chateau and the park were
sold over again in small lots among the sons of the soil, the
peasantry,--excepting the pavilion, its dependencies, and fifty
surrounding acres, which Monsieur Gaubertin retained as a gift to his
poetic and sentimental spouse.
*
Many years after these events, during the year 1837, one of the most
remarkable political writers of the day, Emile Blondet, reached the
last stages of a poverty which he had so far hidden beneath an outward
appearance of ease and elegance. He was thinking of taking some
desperate step, realizing, as he did, that his writings, his mind, his
knowledge, his ability for the direction of affairs, had made him
nothing better than a mere functionary, mechanically serving the ends
of others; seeing that every avenue was closed to him and all places
taken; feeling that he had reached middle-life without fame and
without fortune; that fools and middle-class men of no training had
taken the places of the courtiers and incapables of the Restoration,
and that the government was reconstituted such as it was before 1830.
One evening, when he had come very near committing suicide (a folly he
had so often laughed at), while his mind travelled back over his
miserable existence calumniated and worn down with toil far more than
with the dissipations charged against him, the noble and beautiful
face of a woman rose before his eyes, like a statue rising pure and
unbroken amid the saddest ruins. Just then the porter brought him a
letter sealed with black from the Comtesse de Montcornet, telling him
of the death of her husband, who had again taken service in the army
and commanded a division. The count had left her his property, and she
had no children. The letter, though dignified, showed Blondet very
plainly that the woman of forty whom he had loved in his youth offered
him a friendly hand and a large fortune.
A few days ago the marriage of the Comtesse de Montcornet with
Monsieur Blondet, appointed prefect in one of the departments, was
celebrated in Paris. On their way to take possession of the
prefecture, they followed the road which led past what had formerly
been Les Aigues. They stopped the carriage near the spot where the two
pavilions had once stood, wishing to see the places so full of tender
memories for each. The country was no longer recognizable. The
mysterious woods, the park avenues, all were cleared away; the
landscape looked like a tailor's pattern-card. The sons of the soil
had taken possession of the earth as victors and conquerors. It was
cut up into a thousand little lots, and the population had tripled
between Conches and Blangy. The levelling and cultivation of the noble
park, once so carefully tended, so delightful in its beauty, threw
into isolated relief the pavilion of the Rendezvous, now the Villa
Buen-Retiro of Madame Isaure Gaubertin; it was the only building left
standing, and it commanded the whole landscape, or as we might better
call it, the stretch of cornfields which now constituted the
landscape. The building seemed magnified into a chateau, so miserable
were the little houses which the peasants had built around it.
"This is progress!" cried Emile. "It is a page out of Jean-Jacques'
'Social Compact'! and I--I am harnessed to the social machine that
works it! Good God! what will the kings be soon? More than that, what
will the nations themselves be fifty years hence under this state of
things?"
"But you love me; you are beside me. I think the present delightful.
What do I care for such a distant future?" said his wife.
"Oh yes! by your side, hurrah for the present!" cried the lover,
gayly, "and the devil take the future."
Then he signed to the coachman, and as the horses sprang forward along
the road, the wedded pair returned to the enjoyment of their
honeymoon.
1845.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Note: Sons of the Soil is also known as The Peasantry and is referred
to by that title when mentioned in other addendums.
Blondet, Emile
Jealousies of a Country Town
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
The Firm of Nucingen
Blondet, Virginie
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Secrets of a Princess
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
The Member for Arcis
A Daughter of Eve
Bourlac, Bernard-Jean-Baptiste-Macloud, Baron de
The Seamy Side of History
Brossette, Abbe
Beatrix
Carigliano, Duchesse de
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Member for Arcis
Casteran, De
The Chouans
The Seamy Side of History
Jealousies of a Country Town
Beatrix
Laguerre, Mademoiselle
A Prince of Bohemia
La Roche-Hugon, Martial de
Domestic Peace
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
Lupin, Amaury
A Start in Life
Marest, Georges
A Start in Life
Minorets, The
The Government Clerks
Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de
Domestic Peace
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Man of Business
Cousin Betty
Navarreins, Duc de
A Bachelor's Establishment
Colonel Chabert
The Muse of the Department
The Thirteen
Jealousies of a Country Town
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Country Parson
The Magic Skin
The Gondreville Mystery
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Ronquerolles, Marquis de
The Imaginary Mistress
Ursule Mirouet
A Woman of Thirty
Another Study of Woman
The Thirteen
The Member for Arcis
Scherbelloff, Princesse (or Scherbellof or Sherbelloff)
Jealousies of a Country Town
Soulanges, Comte Leon de
Domestic Peace
Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de
Domestic Peace
The Thirteen
Steingel
The Gondreville Mystery
Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de
The Seamy Side of History
The Chouans
Jealousies of a Country Town