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 bell-ringer,
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-for-nothing 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 battle-fields,
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.