Whilst returning home with M. Deviolaine I made such love to him that,

with the support of my brother-in-law, of whom he was very fond, I

obtained leave not only to go with him to the next hunt, but to all the

remaining ones, at any rate until the Abbé Grégoire should find fault

with and forbid me my pleasure by means of a similar veto to that which

cost Louis XVI. so dear.

CHAPTER III

Boars and keepers--The bullet of Robin-des-Bois--The pork-butcher.

The Sunday rendezvous was settled to take place at St. Hubert, one of

the most often used meeting-places, and also one of the most beautiful

places in the forest.

M. Deviolaine and I arrived punctually to the minute; but my

brother-in-law, being away travelling, had not been able to come.

Everybody else turned up at the rendezvous with the most exemplary

punctuality. Three beasts had been beaten up,--two youngsters and a

wild sow.

Of course not a single keeper failed to ask Bobino for news of his

boar; but he had heard nothing about the matter, and he had the good

sense still to wear its tail from his button-hole.

We had three boars to tackle. One came from Berthelin's preserve, and

the others from Choron's and Moinat's.

We began on the nearest, which was one of the youngsters; it was routed

out by Berthelin, but before it got through the ring Mildet killed it

by putting a bullet right through its heart at a distance of fifty

paces.

We went on to the second, on Choron's preserve; it was a short league's

distance from the place where we killed the first. Choron first

conducted us, according to his usual custom, to Maison-Neuve, to have a

drop to drink and a bite to eat; and then we resumed our way.

The circle was made. I was put between M. Deviolaine and François, the

lad who had decorated Bobino: then came Moinat, and I forget who came

after Moinat.

We had to deal with the sow this time.

Choron went into the thicket with his boarhound, and five minutes

later the sow was turned out of her lair. We heard her come, as we

had before, grinding her tusks against each other. She passed by M.

Deviolaine first, and he sent two shots after her but missed; I next

fired my gun at her; but, as it was the first boar I had fired at, I

too missed her; finally, François fired in his turn, and hit her full

in the body. Immediately the boar turned at right angles, and with the

rapidity of lightning rushed upon the shooter. François, who was quite

sure of his aim, held his ground stoutly, and sent a second shot into

her almost point blank. But, at that very moment, in the midst of the

smoke which the wind had not yet blown away, we saw François and the

boar in one shapeless mass, and we heard a cry for help. François was

on his back, vainly endeavouring to draw his hunting-knife, whilst the

maddened sow was rooting at him with her tusks. We all rushed to his

help, but had not gone more than a few steps before an imperious voice

cried out, which stopped even M. Deviolaine:--

"Do not stir!"

We all stopped dead, silent, immovable, where we were, though all eyes

turned in the direction of the voice. Then we saw Moinat lower the

barrel of his gun in the direction of the dreadful heap. For a moment

the old man seemed turned into a stone statue; then he fired, and the

animal, hit in the small of its shoulder, rolled over a few feet from

its crouched victim.

"Thanks, old friend!" said François, jumping up briskly to his feet;

"if ever you have need of me, I am yours for life or death!"

"Oh! it is not worth all that," Moinat replied, as he quietly began

reloading his gun.

We all ran to François: he had a scratch on his thigh, and a bite on

his arm, but that was all; it was nothing in comparison with what might

have happened to him, if, instead of the encounter having been with a

sow, it had been with a boar. When we had ascertained that there was

nothing dangerous in either of his wounds, all our exclamations were

turned into congratulations on Moinat's skill; but, as it was not the

first time he had been the hero of similar adventures, Moinat took our

compliments as though he could not understand why we made so much of

such a slight matter, one so easy for him to carry through.

After devoting our attention to the human beings, we then turned to the

beast.

The boar had received François's two bullets, but the one shot

broadwise had been flattened against its thigh, almost without breaking

the skin; the other, fired in front, had glided over its skull, in

which it had dug a deep wound; whilst Moinat's ball had caught the

animal in the small of the shoulder and had killed it stone dead.

The dogs were given their usual portion; then the beast was put on

the shoulders of two foresters to be carried to la Maison-Neuve,--as

the messengers of Moses brought the bunch of grapes from the Promised

Land,--and hunting began again as though nothing had happened, without

any prevision of the much more terrible event than the one we have

related that was to come to pass before the day's end.

The third attack took place in Moinat's preserve, adjacent to the one

in which Bobino had been decorated, three days before: it was reached

after three-quarters of an hour's walking. The same precautions were

taken as in the preceding battues; a ring was formed, and this time I

was placed between M. Deviolaine and Berthelin; then, as Moinat had

found the beast, it was his turn to go inside the enclosure to rout it

out.

The barking of his dog announced in five minutes' time that the boar

had been started.

Everyone was on the alert to have a shot at it as it passed, when

suddenly we heard the report of a gun, and, at the same time, I saw

a piece of rock, which was about forty paces from me, burst into

splinters; then I heard a cry of pain on my right. I turned my head,

and saw Berthelin clinging to the branch of a tree with one hand,

pressing the other against his side, whence the blood gushed out

between his fingers. Gradually he became too faint to hold himself up,

bent over double, and sank to the ground with a heavy groan.

"Help! help!" I cried; "Berthelin is wounded."

I ran to him, followed by M. Deviolaine, while the whole string of

huntsmen came rapidly up to us.

Berthelin had lost consciousness. We held him in our arms, the blood

flowing in torrents from a wound in his left hip: the ball was lodged

in his body.

We were all standing round the dying man, questioning each other with

our eyes to know who had fired the shot, when we saw Choron, capless,

issue out of the underwood, pale as a ghost, holding his gun, which was

still smoking, in his hand, and shouting:--

"Wounded! wounded! Did someone say my uncle is wounded?"

No one made answer. We pointed to the dying man, who was freely

vomiting blood.

Choron came forward with haggard eyes, the perspiration in beads on

his brow, his hair standing on end, and went up to the wounded man; he

went paler still, if such were possible, as he looked at him; then he

uttered a piercing yell, broke the stock of his gun against a tree, and

threw the barrel fifty yards off.

He next fell on his knees, imploring the dying man to pardon him, but

the eyes had already closed for ever!

They quickly improvised a litter, and placed the wounded man upon it;

then they carried him to Moinat's house, which was only three or four

hundred steps from the scene of the accident. We all accompanied the

litter, or, rather, we followed Choron, who walked close after it,

his arms hanging down, his head lowered, speechless, dry eyed. In the

meantime one of the keepers had mounted M. Deviolaine's horse, and had

ridden off full gallop to find a doctor.

The doctor arrived in half an hour's time, but only to say what

everyone knew for himself when he saw that Berthelin had never regained

consciousness--namely, that the wound was mortal.

His wife was still in ignorance of the news, and someone would have to

break it to her. M. Deviolaine offered to carry the sad message, and

got up to leave the house.

Then Choron rose too, and going up to him--

"M. Deviolaine," he said, "I want it to be understood that as long as

I live the poor, dear woman shall never want for anything; and if she

will come to live with us, she shall be treated like my own mother."

"Yes, Choron," M. Deviolaine replied, his heart full; "certainly,--I

know what a good, true-hearted fellow you are. We can't help these

things. Every bullet finds its billet: it is not your fault--it was

fate."

"Oh! _Monsieur l'inspecteur_" exclaimed Choron, "say that again, you do

not know how your words comfort me.... I think my heart will break."

"Cry, my boy, have a good cry, it will do you good," said M. Deviolaine.

"Oh! my God! my God!" the wretched man exclaimed, bursting into sobs,

as he fell back on a chair.

Nothing ever moves me so much as to see a great, strong man broken down

by deep sorrow.

The sight of Berthelin, struggling in his death agony, his lifeblood

welling out of him, moved me less than did the sight of Choron,

struggling against despair and unable to shed a tear.

We left that death-chamber, one after another, leaving there only the

dying man, the doctor, Moinat and Choron.

And in the night Berthelin died.

You can imagine my mother's state of mind when she heard all that

had passed, and the tremendous oration she gave me on random shots.

Choron's ball might just as easily have hit me as Berthelin, and then

_she_ would have been weeping over _my_ dead body!

I had plenty to say against such reasoning. I told her that of course

everything was possible, but that this was the first accident of its

kind, within the memory of man, that had happened in the forest; that

the fact of its having happened was a good reason why it should not

occur again for a century or so; that, within this period, those who

were not killed by bullets would be slain by the redoubtable hunter we

call Time. In short, there was no reason why I should not form part of

hunting-parties to come, as I had of those that had passed.... Alas! my

poor mother hadn't a will of her own where I was concerned. I worried

her until she gave in. Oh! poor mother mine! the deadly hunter was to

slay thee before thy time, just when I was going to make thee happy and

comfortable in return for all the sorrows and anxieties I had caused

thee!

The following Thursday I went to the hunt in spite of the terrible

accident of the Sunday.

The rendezvous was at _la Bruyère-aux-Loups_ this time.

M. Deviolaine had summoned everybody except Choron, but, summoned or

not, Choron was not the man to fail in his duty. He turned up at the

same hour as the rest; but he had neither carbine nor musket.

"There he is!" said M. Deviolaine; "I was sure he would turn up!"

Then, turning to him, he said:--

"Why the devil have you come, Choron?"

"Because I am head keeper, inspector."

"But I did not summon you to come."

"Yes, I understood, and I thank you. But it must not be. I must do my

duty before everything else. God knows I would gladly have given my

life to have prevented this; but, if I were to stay at home lamenting,

it would not lighten the earth over his body, poor fellow.... And one

thing troubles me terribly, M. Deviolaine."

"What is it, Choron?"

"That he died without forgiving me."

"Why should he have pardoned you? He did not even know that it was you

who fired the unfortunate shot."

"No, he did not know when he was dying, but he will know now he is

above--they say the dead know everything."

"Come, come, Choron, cheer up," said M. Deviolaine.

"Cheer up! indeed; surely the fact of my being here shows that I

am doing my best, _M. l'inspecteur_: but all the same I wish he had

pardoned me."

Then he bent down and whispered in his chief's ear: "You will see some

misfortune will happen to me, some mishap ... M. Deviolaine ... and

because..."

"And because?"

"Because he did not pardon me."

"Don't be a fool."

"You will see."

"Choron!"

"Well--that is what I feel."

"Very well, keep it to yourself, and let us turn the subject."

"Just as you please, _M. l'inspecteur._"

"Why have you come unarmed?"

"Because--do you not understand?--I could not touch a carbine or a

musket to save my life, not to save my life."

"Then how do you propose to kill a boar?"

"What shall I kill it with?"

Choron took a knife out of his pocket--

"Well, I shall kill it with that!"

M. Deviolaine shrugged his shoulders.

"Shrug your shoulders to your heart's content, M. Deviolaine,--it

shall be as I tell you. These wretched boars have been the cause of my

uncle's death, and I should not feel as though I were killing them if I

did it with a carbine or a musket--but with my knife it is a different

matter! Besides, don't they cut pigs' throats with a knife? and what

else is a boar but a pig?"

"Well," said M. Deviolaine, who knew he would never get the last word,

"as you will not listen to anything you must be left to go your own

way."

"Yes, yes; leave me to my own devices, _M. l'inspecteur_, and you shall

see!"

"To the chase! to the chase, gentlemen!" cried the inspector.

The boar was in the preserve of a man named Lajeunesse, and we attacked

it pretty soon, as the rendezvous was not more than five hundred steps

from the lair.

But this time, although the boar, which was a three-year old, was hit

four or five times, it led us a fine dance, and only after four or five

hours' chase did it desire to turn round upon the dogs.

Everybody knows that, no matter how tired one may be, so tired as

hardly to be able to stand, all fatigue is forgotten directly the boar

turns at bay. We had hunted altogether, taking into account the ins

and outs, some ten leagues. But, directly we recognised from the dogs'

voices that they were at close quarters with the animal, each of us

revived, and began to run towards the direction whence the barking was

heard.

It sounded from out a young spinney of eight or ten years'

standing--that is to say, a thicket of about ten or a dozen feet

high, wherein the drama was being acted. As we drew nearer the sound

increased, and from time to time we could see a dog flung above the

young trees by a creature's tusks, its four paws in mid air, howling

madly, but renewing the attack on the boar directly it touched the

ground again. At last we reached a kind of clearing: the animal was

pinned, as in a fortress, by the branches of a large tree which a storm

had blown down. Twenty to thirty dogs were attacking it all at the same

time; ten or a dozen of them were hurt, several had their stomachs

ripped open. But, game beasts as they were, they did not notice their

pain; they returned to the fight, with their insides hanging out,

trampling on them. It was a magnificent and yet a horrible spectacle!

"Come on, come on, Mildet or Moinat, send a ball into that rascal!

There are quite enough dogs killed--finish it off."

"Hah! what are you saying, _M. l'inspecteur_," cried Choron; "a

gun-shot, a gun-shot for a hog? Nothing of the kind! A cut with a knife

is good enough for him,--wait and you shall see."

Choron drew his knife, dashed at the boar, scattering the dogs, which

quickly returned to the charge, making one moving, howling mass. For

two or three seconds it was impossible for us to make out anything;

then, suddenly, the boar made a frantic attempt to spring out. We

all had our triggers ready, when we saw that the animal drew back

instead of rushing out. Choron stood up, and held the beast by its

two hind-legs, as he would have held a wheel-barrow, and stuck to it,

in spite of all its struggles, with that iron grasp of his we knew so

well; while the dogs, flying at it again, covered it with their bodies,

till the whole thing looked like a mottled and moving carpet.

"Go for it, Dumas!" shouted M. Deviolaine. "Now is your chance,--pluck

your first laurels."

I went nearer to the boar, which redoubled its efforts as it saw me

coming, and gnashed its tusks, looking at me with bloodshot eyes; but

it was caught in a regular trap this time, and none of its struggles

could free it.

I put the end of the barrel of my gun into its ear, and I fired.

The shock was so violent that the animal tore itself out of Choron's

hands, but only to roll over ten steps away; bullet, wadding, and

powder had all entered its head, and I had literally blown out its

brains.

Choron burst out laughing.

"Come now," he said. "There is still some pleasure left in life!"

"Yes," said M. Deviolaine, scared by what he had just seen; "but if

you go on in that fashion, my boy, you won't enjoy it long, I can tell

you.... What have you done to your hand?"

"Oh, it is nothing but a scratch; the beggar's skin was so tough that

my knife shut up."

"Yes, and in shutting up it has cut off your finger," said M.

Deviolaine.

"Clean off, _M. l'inspecteur_--clean off!" And Choron held up his right

hand, from which the first joint of the index finger had gone.

Then, out of the silence that this sight produced, he said as he went

up to M. Deviolaine:--

"It is quite right, _M. l'inspecteur_, that was the finger with which I

killed my uncle ..."

"But that wound must be attended to, Choron."

"Take care of that? Bah! it is not worth making a fuss about! If the

wind gets to it it will soon heal."

And with that Choron reopened his knife and cut the beast up as coolly

as if nothing had happened.

At the following hunt, instead of a knife Choron brought a poignard,

the shape of a bayonet, with a Spanish guard to it which covered the

whole hand. It had been made to his order by his brother, who was the

gunsmith of Villers-Cotterets. This poignard could neither break nor

bend, and thrust by Choron's fist it could penetrate to the very heart

of an oak tree. The same scene I have just described again took place,

only this time the boar remained in its place, and had its throat cut

like a domestic pig.

He did the same at all the other hunts; so that his comrades began to

nickname him the pork-butcher.

The extraordinary thing was that where any other man than Choron would

have lost his life, Choron did not get so much as a scratch!

One might have said that he cut off the only vulnerable part of his

body when he cut off his finger-tip. But all this did not cause him to

forget the death of Berthelin; he grew more and more melancholy, and

from time to time he said to the inspector:--

"You will see, Monsieur Deviolaine, nothing will prevent some

misfortune happening to me one of these days!"

Then his wife would complain of his jealousy, confidentially to her

friends.

"Some fine day," she said, "the wretch will kill me as he killed uncle

Berthelin!"

Ought I to finish Choron's lamentable history straight away? Shall I

wait till the dénouement comes to pass in due course in its proper time

and place?

No, we will clear away at once the sanguinary stain that left its mark

on the early records of my youth.

CHAPTER IV

A wolf-hunt--Small towns--Choron's tragic death.

Five or six years had flown by since the events we have just related.

I had left Villers-Cotterets, and I had returned there to spend a few

days with my good mother.

It was in the month of December, and the ground was completely covered

with snow.

My mother kissed me over and over again. Then, I ran straight off to M.

Deviolaine's.

"Ah! there you are, boy," he said; "you have come in the nick of time!"

"A wolf-hunt, isn't it?"

"Exactly so."

"I thought there would be as I looked at the snow, and I am delighted I

was not wrong in thinking so."

"Right; we have had news of three or four of those gentlemen being in

the forest, and, as there are a couple of them in Choron's preserve,

I sent him orders to-day to have them unearthed to-night, warning him

that we shall be at his house by seven o'clock to-morrow morning."

"He is still at Maison-Neuve?"

"Yes."

"How has poor Choron got on? Does he still kill boars with bayonet

thrusts."

"Oh! the boars are completely exterminated, I do not think a single one

is left in the forest. He took an account of them all."

"Did their death comfort him?"

"Good gracious, no! as you will see; the poor devil is sadder and

gloomier than ever: he is quite an altered man. I secured a pension for

Berthelin's widow; but nothing can cure him of his grief, he is struck

to the heart. Moreover, he has grown more and more jealous."

"As unjustifiably as ever?"

"The poor little wife is an angel!"

"Ah! then it is a monomania! But he is still' one of your best keepers,

is he not?"

"One of the best."

"He will not disappoint us of our prey to-morrow?"

"You may be sure of that."

"That is all we want; as for his folly, well! we must leave that to

time to cure."

"Oh! lad, I am afraid, on the contrary, that time will only make

matters worse; and, by dint of hearing him repeat it so often, I have

begun to believe some misfortune will happen to him."

"Really? has it come to that?"

"Yes, upon my word. I have done my utmost for him; I have nothing to

reproach myself with."

"How are all the others?"

"Capital."

"Mildet?"

"He still cuts squirrels in half with a single flying bullet; not

as they climb along the tree, but now as they leap from one tree to

another."

"And his rival Moinat?"

"Oh! poor devil; don't you know what happened to him?"

"Was he too killed by a nephew?"

"When he was out wolf-hunting last winter his gun burst and blew off

his left hand."

"How on earth did an accident like that happen to such an old

sportsman?"

"As he was leaping a ditch the butt of his gun struck the ground

without his noticing it, and by some means or other the gun exploded."

"Was there no way of saving part of his hand?"

"Not one finger! Lécosse had to amputate it within a few inches of the

wrist."

"Can he not hunt any more now?"

"Oh, yes! we were out shooting yesterday in the marshes of Coyolle, and

he killed seventeen out of the nineteen snipe we shot."

"How clever of him! I suspect Bobino would not have hit so many with

the use of both his hands? That reminds me--what has become of him?"

"Bobino?"

"Yes."

"He has made a whistle out of the boar's tail to call his dogs, and he

declares he will never rest, in this world or in the other, until he

has laid hands on the remaining portion of the animal."

"Then everyone is all right with the exception of poor Choron?"

"That is so."

"You say the rendezvous is at ...?"

"Six o'clock prompt to-morrow morning, at the end of the big avenue, to

enable everybody to reach la Maison-Neuve by seven o'clock."

"I will be there."

And I left M. Deviolaine to go and greet all my old friends; shaking

hands with some, embracing others, and wishing good fortune to all.

It is one of the best pieces of fortune in this life to be born in a

small town, where one knows every inhabitant, and where each household

keeps you in remembrance. I know it always excited me warmly to return

home--even to-day, after thirty years of work and struggle have passed

since my early days, and taken the bloom of freshness from things--to

that poor little hamlet, almost unknown to the world at large, in which

I first stretched out my arms towards life's fantasies--fantasies which

seemed crowned with haloes and adorned with flowers. Half a league

before reaching the town I get down from the carriage and count the

trees as I walk along the footpath. I know from which trees I cut

branches for my kites, and those into which I buried my arrows or

from which I stole birds' nests. I sit with closed eyes at the feet

of some of these, and give myself up to pleasant day-dreams that take

me back twenty years; there are some which I love as though they were

old friends, before which I bow as I pass them by; there are others

which have been planted since my departure, and these I pass by

indifferently, as before things unknown and of no account. But when I

reach the town it is quite another matter. The first person who catches

sight of me utters an exclamation, and runs to the door of his house;

and each one does the same as I go through the town. Then, when I have

passed by, the people of the district join in welcoming me, talk of me,

of my youthful escapades, of my present life so far away from theirs,

so full of storm and stress, which would have flown by uneventfully and

tranquilly if, like them, I had stopped at home where I was born; then,

ten minutes after, my arrival is the talk of the town, and there is joy

in my heart, and in the hearts of some two or three thousand persons

besides.

One makes a home everywhere one goes, but, in Paris, streets change

their name, increase or decrease in length, according to the caprice

of the head road-surveyor. If you leave Paris for ten years you do not

recognise either your street or your house on your return.

So I promised myself a high festival with all the keepers on the

morrow, in honour of my return.

This festival began at six in the morning. I saw the old faces, with

their beards covered with hoar-frost; for, as I have pointed out, it

had snowed in the night, and it was horribly cold; we all shook hands

cordially, then we started for la Maison-Neuve. It was still dark.

When we reached _Saut-du-Serf_ (so called because once, when the duc

d'Orléans was hunting in the forest, a stag had leapt over the road

which was enclosed between two thickets), we saw traces of daylight

beginning. The weather was capital for hunting: no snow had fallen for

twelve hours, so nothing prevented us following the trail; should any

wolves have been turned out of their lairs, they were certain to fall

into our hands.

We went another half league farther, until we caught sight of the

corner where Choron usually waited for us. He was not there.

Such an infringement of habit in a man so punctual in his engagements

as Choron made us uneasy. We hurried our pace, and we soon struck the

path whence we could see la Maison-Neuve about a kilomètre away.

Thanks to the carpet of snow over the ground, all objects were easy to

distinguish, even at some distance off. We saw the little white house

half buried in the trees; we saw a thin column of smoke which, rising

from the chimney, mounted up into the air; we saw, too, a riderless

horse, saddled and bridled; but we did not see Choron.

We heard the dogs making a dismal howling, and that was all.

We looked at one another and shook our heads sadly,--instinct told us

something unusual had happened, and we quickened our pace.

As we drew nearer nothing changed from our first view of things.

When we got within a hundred paces of the house we unconsciously

slackened our steps, feeling that we were on the brink of discovering

some dreadful mishap.

We came to a standstill when within fifty paces of the house.

"We must know what it is all about," said M. Deviolaine; so we set off

afresh, silently, with anxious hearts, not uttering a word.

As we approached, the horse craned its neck towards us and, with

smoking nostrils, whinnied to us.

The dogs rushed at their chains, champing wildly to be released from

their kennels.

Ten steps from the house we perceived a spot of blood on the snow, and

a discharged pistol close by it.

A track of blood led towards the house from that spot.

We shouted: no answer.

"We must go in," said the inspector.

We went in, and we found Choron stretched on the floor, near his bed,

the bed-clothes still gripped between his clasped fingers.

Upon a little table by his bed stood two bottles of white wine--one

empty, the other opened and begun. A large wound was in his left side,

which his favourite dog was licking.

He was still warm, and could not have been dead above ten minutes.

This is what had happened; we learnt next day from a postman from a

neighbouring village, who had almost seen what had occurred.

We have spoken of Choron's jealousy of his wife, and, although nothing

justified this jealousy, as the inspector had told me, it had increased

as time went on.

He had taken advantage of a splendid moon to set out at one o'clock in

the morning to turn out a couple of wolves which he knew were round

about.

A quarter of an hour after his departure a messenger came to tell his

wife that her father had been struck with apoplexy, and asked to see

her before he died.

The poor woman got up and set out immediately, without being able to

leave word where she was going; neither she nor the messenger could

write.

When Choron returned at five o'clock and found the house empty, he felt

the bed and found it was cold; he called his wife, he hunted all over;

she had disappeared.

"So, she has taken advantage of my absence," said Choron, "to go to her

lover, and she has not yet returned, thinking I should not be home so

soon. She has deceived me--I will kill her!"

He thought he knew where to find her, so he took down his holster

pistols, loaded them, put fourteen buckshot in one and seventeen in the

other.

The fourteen buckshot were found in the undischarged pistol and the

seventeen in Choron's body.

Then he saddled his horse, brought it out of the stable and led it in

front of his door.

He put one of the pistols in the right holster, and it fitted

perfectly: but the left holster happened to be narrower, and it was

difficult to get the pistol into its place, so Choron tried to make

it go forcibly: he took the holster in one hand and the butt end of

the pistol in his other hand, and violently pushed the pistol into its

place; the prod moved the trigger and the gun went off.

Choron had pressed the holster close to him to hold it steady, so the

whole charge, shot, wadding, and powder, entered his left side, tearing

and rupturing his internal organs.

The postman, who happened to be passing at the moment, ran up at the

sound of the shot. Choron was standing, leaning against his saddle.

"My God, what have you done, M. Choron?" asked the postman.

"My good Martineau, that has happened which I have been expecting,"

answered Choron; "I killed my uncle with a gun-shot, and now I have

killed myself with a pistol-shot. It says somewhere in the Scriptures

that 'he who lives by the sword, shall perish by the sword.'"

"You are killed--you, M. Choron?" cried the postman; "there is nothing

the matter with you."

Choron smiled and turned round; his clothes were singed, his blood

flowed in a stream down his trousers, which were dyed red all down.

"Oh! my God!" exclaimed the postman, starting back. "What can I do for

you? Shall I go for the doctor?"

"The doctor--what the devil do you suppose he can do?" replied Choron.

Then, in a melancholy voice, he added: "Did the doctor prevent my poor

uncle Berthelin from dying?"

"At least let me do something, M. Choron."

"Go and fetch me two bottles of my cooling draught, from the cellar,

and unchain Rocador for me."

The postman, who used to take a passing drink every morning with

Choron, took the key, went down into the cellar, got two bottles of

white wine, unfastened Rocador and then came back.

He found Choron, seated before a table, writing.

"Here it is," said the postman.

"Thank you, my friend," replied Choron; "put the two bottles upon the

night table, and then you had better go on with your own work."

"But, M. Choron," the postman insisted, "tell me, at least, how it

happened."

Choron reflected for a moment; then, in a whisper, he murmured:

"Perhaps it will be as well that people should know." And, turning to

the man, he said:

"Will you go when I have told you everything?"

"Yes, M. Choron."

Then he related "_the thing"_, as the postman put it, in every detail.

"And now that you know what you wanted to know, please go."

"You wish me to go?"

"I do."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, good-bye."

"Good-bye."

And the postman left, hoping with all his heart that Choron was wounded

less dangerously than he thought; for he could hardly believe a man

who could preserve his presence of mind with such coolness could be

mortally hurt.

No one ever knew what passed after the postman left him. No human

creature helped Choron in that dark hour of his mortal agony--he

struggled alone with death.

He had probably drunk as much of the wine out of the two bottles as

was missing; then he had tried to raise himself on his bed, but his

strength failed him, and he fell on the floor, clutching hold of the

bed-clothes, in which position he was when we found him dead.

A piece of paper was on the table: it was the same the postman had seen

him writing upon when he returned from the wine cellar.

On this paper were traced these few lines in a hand still firm:--

"M. L'INSPECTEUR,--You will find one of the wolves in

Duquesnoy Wood; the other has decamped.

"Farewell, M. Deviolaine.... I told you truly that some

misfortune would come to me.--Yours devotedly,

"CHORON--Head Keeper."

What I said a while back about small towns and their pleasing memories

can be said still more truly with regard to terrible recollections.

Such a catastrophe, happening in the faubourg Saint-Martin, in the

rue Poissonnière, or on the place du Palais-Royal, might have left an

impression for a week, or a fortnight, or a month at the most.

But in the little town of Villers-Cotterets, on the highroad leading

to Soissons, which passed by the ill-fated house itself, through the

beautiful arches of green foliage made by oaks and beeches, planted

centuries before, beneath which keepers take their noiseless way,

talking only in low tones, the event I have just recorded is as vividly

remembered to-day as if it had just happened, and everyone will tell it

you as I have done.

Alas! poor Choron! when I entered your house and saw you growing

deathly pale, with those half-empty bottles by your side and your

body still palpitating faintly, your dog licking the wound, I little

imagined I should one day become the biographer of your obscure life

and tragic death!

CHAPTER V

My mother realises that I am fifteen years old, and that _la marette_

and _la pipée_ will not lead to a brilliant future for me--I enter

the office of Me. Mennesson, notary, as errand-boy, otherwise

guttersnipe--Me. Mennesson and his clerks--La Fontaine-Eau-Claire.

Although all these hunting parties procured me a most delightful

existence, one which might have been indefinitely prolonged had I

possessed an income of 20,000 livres, they did not provide a future for

a poor devil whose patrimony, in spite of maternal economy, was melting

away day by day in a terrible fashion.

I was fifteen years old. It was considered quite time I learnt some

profession, and it was decided I should become a lawyer.

At that period, when a veil hid my future from me, and I had not yet

felt any of those ambitions which have since led me into other paths,

every profession, with the exception of that of the priesthood, was

equally indifferent to me.

My mother left home one fine morning, and, crossing the square

diagonally, went to ask her solicitor if he would be kind enough to

take me as his third clerk.

The solicitor replied that he would be most happy to receive me, but it

appeared to him, unless he were mistaken, that I cared too much for _la

marette, la pipée_, and hunting, ever to become an assiduous pupil of

Cujas and of Pothier.

My mother heaved a sigh; this was probably her own opinion, too, but

she persisted all the same, and the lawyer replied:

"Very well, my dear Madame Dumas, since it will give you so much

pleasure, send him to me, and we will see."

So it was decided that I should go to Maître Mennesson the following

Monday; polite folk would say in the capacity of third clerk--others

in that of errand-boy or guttersnipe, _saute-ruisseau_, to give the

rank its slang name.

It gave me some pain to give up my sweet independence; but it gave my

mother great pleasure when I yielded to her decision; all her friends

told her it was such a good opening for me; Lafarge (you remember the

spruce and clever son of the coppersmith who lived near us) had carved

a brilliant and lucrative career for himself in the same profession;

the thought that my profession would lead to an income of 12,000 or

15,000 francs per annum, and that then I could give bird-snaring

parties in grand style, as he had done, took my fancy so enormously

that--I went to M. Mennesson.

M. Mennesson would be at that time a man of about thirty-five, rather

under the average height, thick-set, sturdy, well proportioned

throughout his frame, almost to massiveness; his hair reddish and

short, his eyes sharp, his mouth inclined to teasing. He was a clever

man; often short in his manner, always obstinate; he was a fanatic, a

Voltairian and a Republican, before anyone had yet thought of becoming

a Republican.

The poem of _la Pucelle_ was his favourite reading; he knew whole

passages of it by heart, and would repeat them in his good-humoured

moments or after dinner.

Of course he selected the most impious and licentious passages.

I am told that he has since, without renouncing Republicanism, become

extravagantly religious, and that he now takes part in processions,

taper in hand, whereas previously he would keep his head covered when

they passed.

May God have mercy on his soul!

Two members of that legal hierarchy stand out in my memory--the head

and second clerks.

The first was called Niguet. He was a young man of twenty-six or

twenty-eight, the son of a lawyer, grandson of a lawyer, nephew of a

lawyer; one of those individuals who come into this world possessed of

the equipment of spidery handwriting, an illegible signature, and a

tremendous flourish after it.

The second was a lad of about my own age. He was fat and

yellow-skinned; he had a pointed nose; he studied ten years to become a

lawyer, and ended by being a forest keeper.

I never heard whether he ever raised himself above the grade of

a common keeper, although he had influential connections in the

administration of the forest lands, and three or four thousand livres

income from his mother's family.

He was called Cousin.

My apprenticeship to the law was agreeable enough. M. Mennesson was not

a bad sort of fellow, provided one did not in his presence say anything

good concerning priests, or pronounce a panegyric upon the Bourbons.

If anybody did, his little grey eyes would flash; he would seize hold

of an Old Testament or a History of France, open the Old Testament at

the Book of Ezekiel, the History of France at the Reign of Henri III.,

and begin commenting on either after the fashion of the _Citateur_ of

Pigault-Lebrun.

I have said that I entered M. Mennesson's as errand-boy; at first the

title caused me some feeling of shame; but I soon saw, on the contrary,

that quite the pleasantest side of the profession of a lawyer's clerk

fell to my share.

M. Mennesson drew up many deeds for the peasants of neighbouring

villages. When these peasants could not make it convenient to come to

him, I was commissioned to go and get their signatures to the deeds in

their homes. I was told over night of the direction I was to be sent

next day, and I made my plans accordingly.

If it was in the shooting season, I took an excellent companion for the

wayside in the shape of my gun; if the season was over, I would go over

night and set bird snares at all the pools which lay along my route.

In the first instance, it was very seldom that I did not bring back

a hare or a couple of rabbits; in the second, half a dozen thrushes,

blackbirds or jays, and a score of robins and other small birds.

One day my employer gave me notice that I was to go to Crespy on the

day following, to collect information about a deed from his confrère,

Me. Leroux.

As the distance was rather longer than usual (it is three and a half

leagues from Villers-Cotterets to Crespy), I engaged a baker, who was

a client of M. Mennesson, and who was concerned in the business I was

going about, to lend me his horse.

It was always a treat to me to be on horseback, even though only

astride a baker's steed.

I set off next morning with instructions to return the same evening, at

all costs.

Besides the pleasure of the ride, there was yet another attraction

for me at Crespy; I should be able to call and see once more that

worthy family from whom we had received hospitality at the time of the

invasion and also my friends the de Longprés.

I have related Madame de Longpré's story. She was the widow of a groom

of the bedchamber to King Louis XV. She had gradually sold all her

magnificent china, inherited from her husband. Her oldest son was a

quartermaster in the chasseurs, a brave fellow all round, but one who

would shake with fear and hide himself under the bed when there was a

thunderstorm.

I set off, promising to return as quickly as possible: and I kept my

word scrupulously.

First of all, I fulfilled my commission to Me. Leroux; then, when that

was over, I began my calls.

I remounted my horse at seven in the evening, and started on my

homeward way.

It was the month of September. The days were visibly becoming shorter;

and, as the weather was gloomy on that particular evening, and almost

raining, it was already dark when I set off from Crespy and put spur to

my horse.

The road between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy, or rather from

Crespy to Villers-Cotterets--to be topographically accurate in our

descriptions--is almost a highroad, but nearly deserted by business

traffic; half-way between Crespy and Villers-Cotterets it rejoins the

highroad from Villers-Cotterets to Paris, describing a huge Y by its

divergence.

A quarter of a league from Crespy, a portion of forest, called the

Tillet Wood, extends to the roadside, but does not cross to the other

side.

A league and a half farther on, the road, which hitherto is flat, drops

into a kind of ravine, at the bottom of which runs a stream; the sides

of this ravine are intersected on the left by quarries long since

deserted and unworked.

The stream has given its name to the place, which is called _la

Fontaine-Eau-Claire._

Several of these quarries open their dark and deep mouths on the road,

and give the place a solitary and threatening character, which inspires

the people of the countryside with terror.

There are traditions belonging to this ravine of armed robbers and

assassinations--connected with obscure periods, it is true, but which

are handed down in popular couplets, like the traditions connected with

the forest of Bondy.

We will content ourselves by quoting the following, which, although

poor enough in rhyme, is a product of the locality, and is not given as

an example of poetry:--

"A la Fontaine-Eau-Claire,

Bois quand le jour est dans son clair."

The charming valley of Vauciennes crosses transversely that of

la Fontaine-Eau-Claire, half a league farther on; this valley of

Vauciennes leads to the mill of Walue à Coyolle, at the bottom of which

winds a stream of liquid silver ending in the noted marsh where Moinat

used to practise his skill on squirrels with M. Deviolaine.

The road descends here at a steep gradient and climbs up beyond at a

still steeper slope. In frosty weather these two hills are the terror

of drivers, who descend the one too quickly, and do not know how to

ascend the other.

Yokes of oxen are stationed in the village on purpose to perform the

office of haulers.

The summit of the second hill, from which Villers-Cotterets can be seen

at about a league's distance, is crowned by a windmill belonging to M.

Picot, who owes, moreover, also part of the plain of Noue, of Coyolle,

and of Largny.

This windmill plays an important rôle in the remainder of my story--for

it will have been gathered that I have not described the road between

Villers-Cotterets and Crespy (a road which would little interest my

readers) for the mere love of description. The mill is totally isolated

from all other dwelling-houses, it stands well above Vouffly, nearly

three kilomètres from Largny, and a league from Villers-Cotterets.

This then was the road I followed, at as fast a trot as my baker's

horse would permit, the highway of His Majesty King Louis XVIII.

resounding heavily under its hoofs.

Towards about eight o'clock, I reached the neighbourhood of la

Fontaine-Eau-Claire.

I have already pointed out that the weather was gloomy; the moon, in

its first quarter, was shrouded in large clouds, which sped rapidly

across the sky, ending off in flecks of greyish, foam-like scud.

I had money about me, I was unarmed, I was barely fifteen years old;

the traditions of Fontaine-Eau-Claire were vividly present to my mind;

therefore my heart was beating slightly.

Half-way down the hill I urged my horse into a trot, and, by the help

of an oak branch that I had gathered in Tillet Wood, I succeeded in

making him pass from a trot to a gallop.

I got past the dangerous place, the _malo sitio_, as they say in Spain,

without accident, and, although it was behind me, I decided that I must

still keep my steed to his gallop.

I was obliged, however, to slacken his pace down the steep and up the

rising of Vauciennes; but I had hardly cleared the top of the hill,

when I urged him into a gallop again by the help of a dig from my spur,

and a couple of good lashes with my switch.

Everything round me seemed asleep. The landscape, steeped in darkness,

was not even rendered less sombre by a light on the horizon or by a

falling star; not even a dog bayed, a sound that would have indicated

the presence, in the invisible distance, of a farmhouse, which I knew

was there, and which my eyes searched for in vain.

The windmill seemed asleep with the rest of nature; its sails were

stiff and motionless, and looked like the arms of a skeleton raised to

the heavens in a despairing attitude.

Only the trees along the roadside seemed alive; they twisted and

groaned in the wind, which tore their leaves off roughly, sending them

flying away down into the plain, like flocks of dark feathered birds.

Suddenly, my horse, which was keeping to the middle of the road and

galloping fast, shied to one side so violently, and so unexpectedly,

that he sent me spinning fifteen paces off across the road; then,

instead of waiting for me, he went on his way at double speed, snorting

noisily as he went.

I picked myself up, stunned by my fall, which might have been my death,

if, instead of falling on the wet side paths, I had fallen on the paved

road itself.

My first thought was to run after my horse, but he had already gone so

far that I decided it would be quite useless. Then, curiosity overcame

me to know what object had so terribly frightened him.

I rose and tottered into the roadway.

I had hardly gone four steps before I perceived a man laid right

across the road. I thought he must be some drunken peasant, and,

congratulating myself that my horse had not trodden on his body, I

stooped to help him to get up.

I touched his hand: it was stiff and icy.

I stood up, looked all round me, and thought I could discern a human

form creeping in the ditch some ten paces away.

Then it occurred to me that the motionless man had been assassinated,

and that the moving figure was very likely his murderer.

I did not wait to push my inquiries any further. I leapt over the

corpse, and I took the road to Villers-Cotterets at full speed, as my

horse had done.

Without stopping, without turning round, breathless, I did the

remaining league of my journey in about ten minutes' time, and I

reached my mother's house panting, covered with mud and sweat, just

as the baker had come to tell her that his horse had returned to its

stable without me.

My mother was already terribly alarmed, but her alarm was greatly

increased when she caught sight of me.

I took her aside and told her everything.

My mother recommended me not to say a single word of what I had seen.

She reflected that if it were really a murdered man, there would be an

inquest, an inquiry at Soissons, assizes at Laon; I should be involved

in the whole thing, and compelled to appear as witness at both inquiry

and assizes; and it would mean expense and waste time, and annoyance.

My mother made the excuse that I was very tired, and went herself to

take the answer I had brought for M. Mennesson from Maître Leroux,

whilst I changed my clothes throughout. My underclothing was saturated

with perspiration, my suit was covered with mud.

My mother's visit to M. Mennesson was a brief one. She was in haste to

return to me, and to ask me fresh details.

The return of the horse without its rider was put down to an ordinary

fall, and as there was nothing unusual in such an occurrence the

baker's suspicions were not roused.

We spent half the night without closing our eyes. My mother and I still

slept in the same room, and even our beds were in the same recess. She

did not give over asking questions, and I did not weary of repeating

the same details over and over again, so profound was the impression

they had left upon me.

Towards one o'clock we fell asleep; but that did not prevent us from

waking at seven in the morning.

The whole town was in a flutter.

A carter, from Villers-Cotterets, whom I had passed half-way from the

hill of Vauciennes, had come across the corpse, had put it in his

waggon, had brought it to the town, and had reported the occurrence to

the authorities.

CHAPTER VI

Who the assassin was and who the assassinated--Auguste Picot--Equality

before the law--Last exploits of Marot--His execution.

The body was taken to the hospital, where it was exposed to view,

as neither the justice of peace, the mayor, nor the chief constable

recognised it. I very naturally wished to go and see by daylight the

object of my fears of the night before. My mother made me promise not

to say a word, for she knew that if I promised I should keep my word.

The body was sheltered under a shed and laid on a table.

It was that of a young man of fifteen or sixteen years of age. He was

dressed in a poor suit of blue cotton, and a coarse shirt torn open

down to his waist, leaving his chest bare.

The wound that seemed to have caused his death was a transverse cut

right across the skull, and it seemed to have been made by a blunt

instrument.

His feet and his hands were bare. His feet looked like those of a man

used to much walking; his hands were those of a working man.

Beyond these details he was, as I have said, completely unknown in our

district.

Two days passed, during which everyone held forth upon the event at

leisure; then, all at once, the rumour spread abroad that the assassin

had been arrested.

He was a shepherd in M. Picot's employ.

And next we saw a crowd rushing to the corner of the rue de Largny,

where a man wearing a blouse, and handcuffed, was being brought in

between two mounted policemen, armed with swords.

His type of face was that of a Picardy peasant of the lowest class,

coarse and cunning.

He was taken to the prison, and the gate shut after him; but the crowd

continued to besiege the gate in spite of its being closed. It was far

too exciting an event not to bring the whole town out. The magistrate

began the inquiry, and in his first examination the accused man denied

everything.

But terrible proofs were brought against him. Shepherds, as is known,

sleep in log huts, near their sheep-folds. The hut of the accused,

during the day in which the murder had taken place, and during the

night following that on which the body had been discovered, had been

only a couple of hundred paces or so from the highroad.

Traces of blood had been found under a wretched mattress on the straw

which covered the floor of the hut.

Besides this, the mallet with which the accused drove in the stakes of

his sheep-pens was blood-stained on one side, and it appeared to have

been the tool with which the deadly blow had been delivered.

In spite of all these proofs, the accused man--whose name was Marot--as

we have said, completely denied the charge, and the magistrate and his

clerk left without being able to get anything out of him.

But, about eleven o'clock at night, he changed his mind, called the

gaoler, Sylvestre, who was also verger to the church, and begged him to

send for the magistrate, as he had a confession to make.

The magistrate sent word to his clerk, and both repaired to the

accused's cell.

He did not refuse to speak this time; on the contrary, he had quite a

long story to relate--the upshot being a charge of murder against his

master, Auguste Picot.

The man had built up a clever fabrication in the solitude of his cell,

by the help of which he hoped to drag into complicity with himself a

man too influential to have any dealings with him. But Marot shall tell

his own tale.

On the day of the murder, a young man was walking along the highroad,

looking for work, when he perceived Marot on the plain, busied over

changing his flock from one place to another. The young man left the

highroad and came straight to the shepherd, just when the latter was

driving in his last picket.

He told his miserable story; he said he had no money to buy himself

bread, he had tramped through the town without a bite, too proud to beg

alms; but, seeing Marot was a working man, he had ventured to come and

ask a bit of bread from a fellow-labourer.

Marot had brought out of his hut some of the small, round, thick

loaves, such as farmers distribute each morning to their day-labourers,

and he shared the loaf with the tramp, who sat down by him.

They both leant back against the hut and began their breakfast, when

suddenly--it is Marot who tells the tale--Auguste Picot came up on

horseback at full gallop, and cried out roughly to his shepherd:

"You scoundrel, do you suppose I give you my bread to have it eaten by

beggars and by vagabonds?"

The stranger was on the point of replying to excuse the shepherd, when

Picot--so said his accuser--urged his horse on with such brutality

that the youth was obliged to raise his stick, to prevent himself

being kicked underfoot by the horse. At this movement in self-defence,

Picot's horse wheeled round, kicked out with his hind feet, and hit the

youth in the chest with one of his hoofs.

The youth fell down unconscious.

Picot then, seeing he had become an unintentional murderer, decided to

become one in intention: he turned an accident he was anxious to hide

into a crime. He looked round him, he saw on the ground the mallet

with which Marot had just been driving in the pickets of his fold, and

then (please understand thoroughly that this version is not mine, but

the accused's) he dealt him a violent blow on the back of his head,

finishing off the wretched tramp, who had only fainted before.

Death was almost instantaneous.

Then he offered all sort of bribes to the shepherd if he would help him

to conceal the crime.

The shepherd had been weak enough to be touched by his master's

entreaties: he consented to conceal the body in his hut.

Hence the blood-stains on the straw and mattress.

When evening came, Picot returned to the hut to take the dead body,

under cover of darkness, to the windmill, of which he possessed the key.

The two accomplices intended to go in, shut the door upon themselves

and the body, dig a pit and there bury the unfortunate tramp.

But, as they were crossing the road, they were alarmed by the sound

of a horse coming at full gallop; they let the body fall out of their

hands, and both ran off to hide themselves.

They returned ten minutes later; but the waggoner with his cart

appeared on the top of the hill of Vauriennes, and they were obliged

again to abandon their ghastly work.

The waggoner had taken up the corpse and had carried it, as we have

seen, to Villers-Cotterets. All hope of hiding the crime had gone, and

all their thoughts had to be given to attending to their own safety.

Marot had been captured and had at first attempted to deny the charge;

but, on reflection, he preferred to confess his passive part in the

crime than to risk his life by a complete denial of all complicity in

it.

We shall soon see that the fable was sufficiently skilfully conceived

to necessitate the arrest of Picot, even if it did not carry conviction

to the judge's mind.

So, when morning came, everybody heard of the shepherd's accusation and

of his master's arrest.

The news made a great stir: Picot was not liked; he was a rich

and good-looking young fellow, strong in physique, haughty in his

manner--all qualities and defects which are fatal to popularity in a

small town.

As a matter of fact, Picot had never done an injury to anyone. But,

alas! at the first news of the misfortune that had befallen him, half

the town sided against him.

The Picot family were cursed with ill luck, and the Almighty made them

pay very dear for the wealth He bestowed upon them.

Four years previously Stanislas Picot, it will be remembered, was

killed when out shooting. Two years before, the farm had been burnt

down, and now to-day the eldest son was accused of murder.

The inquiry was actively pursued, and it was decided that a visit

should be paid on the following day to the spot where the murder had

taken place: the Government prosecutor had arrived from Soissons.

I shall always recollect the terrible effect the sight of that

procession made upon me, as it crossed the great square. The town

authorities marched at its head, with the representative of the king;

next came Picot between two rows of police, some before, others behind

him; then the shepherd between two more rows of police placed in the

same way; after these the whole town either followed the procession or

stood at their doors and windows.

They all walked fast, for it rained. People talked of equality in the

eye of the law, and the justices had thought to carry out this precept

by placing the two men on foot each exactly the same, with an equal

number of police to guard them.

But they had forgotten the different impression this would make on two

such different natures, the one belonging to the head and the other to

the foot of the social ladder.

Most assuredly the man at the top of the scale suffered all the

tortures of the situation.

The other man was almost triumphant; he had by a few words dragged

down to the same level as himself a man who had been far higher in the

social scale only a week before, a man whose bread he had eaten, whose

paid servant he was, and before whom he never spoke save cap in hand.

So a debased light of exultant satisfaction radiated from the man's low

countenance.

Besides, he had the sympathies of the men of his own class, who looked

upon him as a victim, and even of some enviously disposed people of

higher ranks in life.

Picot's expression was quite unmoved, although one could realise the

fury, shame, and pride that were raging tumultuously in that massive

frame.

No! Justice was not evenly dealt out to these two men, in the very fact

of their being treated alike.

Next day there was another ceremony quite as lugubrious--they proceeded

to exhume the body.

Most discussion took place over the bruised wound in the youth's chest.

The shepherd contended that it had been caused by the horse's kick.

Picot retorted that if it had been bruised by a kick from a horse and

from one leg only, violent enough to make him faint away, the marks of

the shoe would be imprinted on the chest, which, although bruised, was

more probably marked by the clogs of the shepherd than by the horse's

shoe. They were both sent to the prison at Soissons, and at the end

of a month Picot was given his liberty on the grounds of there being

insufficient evidence against him.

He returned to his people; but the blow had been violent enough to

spoil his future life. He had been proud before, but now he became

misanthropic; he shut himself up on his property at home, avoided all

assemblies of young people of his own age, and ended by marrying the

daughter of a policeman, who had been his mistress for some time.

Doubtless--as there is compensation in the end for all unmerited

misfortune--Providence had led him by dark paths into simpler and

happier ways. He had one real joy,--perhaps the deepest joy of this

world,--his father and his poor mother, to whom he was devotedly

attached, died near him at an extreme old age.

The shepherd was sentenced to twelve or fifteen years' imprisonment, I

think, for _having stolen the clothes found on a dead man._

A strange sentence, which established the fact that a crime had been

committed without pointing out a culprit!

And here are some further details that I received after the trial.

The young man whom I found assassinated on the 13th September

1816 was called Félix-Adolphe-Joseph Billaudet; he was the son of

François-Xavier-Léger Billaudet, court-crier to the _tribunal de

première instance_ in the arrondissement of Strasbourg; he was born at

Strasbourg on the 1st April 1801, and was therefore, at the time of his

death, fifteen years, six months, and twelve days old.

He was servant to M. Maréchal, forest inspector at Vervins, and had a

passport upon him, at the time of his assassination, for Paris, signed

at Vervins, 8th September 1816.

Probably the father and the mother of the poor lad are now dead, and

I am perhaps the only person in the world who still remembers him, in

thus going back to the days of my youth.

When Marot came out of prison, he returned to the country, and at first

settled as a butcher in the village of Vivières. Then it seems things

went badly with him, and he went to a little hamlet called Chelles,

situated two or three leagues from Villers-Cotterets.

Some time after this change of residence, his wife died under

mysterious and strange circumstances. While she was drawing water from

a well, she leant against the pulley support, which broke; she was

precipitated thirty feet deep into the well, where she was drowned.

Her death was regarded at the time as an accident.

Some time after that death, the body of a young carter was found buried

only one or two feet deep, between Vivières and Chelles; he appeared to

have been murdered by a pistol-shot, fired point blank in his back.

Some inquiry was set up, but no assassin or assassins could be traced.

Finally, some time after, Marot himself went before the magistrate to

make a declaration concerning a new event that had just happened. A

young glass-painter, who had come to ask hospitality of him, lacking

the money needed for a stay at the inn (a request to which he had

generously acceded), had died during the night of an attack of colic in

the barn, where he had been given a truss of straw to lie on.

The young painter was duly buried.

Some days after, Marot's fowls were found dead in neighbouring yards

and gardens.

They seemed to have been poisoned.

These facts were put together, and suspicions began to be aroused.

Marot was arrested. His own child gave evidence against him, and

brought about his conviction.

The young painter had been poisoned by some soup into which Marot had

put arsenic.

The young man complained that the soup had a queer taste; Marot's son

took a spoonful, tasted it, and agreed with the painter.

"The soup," Marot replied, "tastes queer because it is made of pig's

head. As for you, you greedy boy," he added, addressing this remark

particularly to his son, "eat your own soup, and let this boy eat

his--each dog has his platter."

But the taste of the soup was so acrid that the young painter left half

of it. The rest was thrown on the dungheap; the fowls ate it, and,

driven by pain, they scattered to right and left, their death revealing

the fact of the poisoning.

The charges brought against Marot were this time too strong for him to

deny them.

And, seeing there was no hope of salvation from the consequences of his

latest crime, he confessed all the others.

He confessed that he had killed Billaudet, to steal some six or eight

francs there were on him.

He confessed he had filed the screw that held the pulley, so that his

wife, who was about to add to his family, should be flung into the

well, wherein she was killed, either by the fall or by drowning.

He confessed he had shot the young carter whose body had been found

between Chelles and Vivières point blank with a pistol, in order to rob

him of thirty francs he had just received.

Finally, he confessed he had poisoned the young glass-painter, by

putting arsenic in his plate, in order to steal twelve francs from him.

Marot was condemned to death, and executed at Beauvais in 1828 or 1829.

CHAPTER VII

Spring at Villers-Cotterets--Whitsuntide--The Abbé Grégoire invites me

to dance with his niece--Red books--The Chevalier de Faublas--Laurence

and Vittoria--A dandy of 1818.

"O youth! springtime of life! O spring! youth of the year!" So said

Metastasio.

We have now reached the beginning of May 1818, and I should be sixteen

in the month of July.

The month of May, the favourite month of the year, which is abundant

in beauty and in promise everywhere, is even more beautiful and

resplendent at Villers-Cotterets than anywhere else.

It is difficult to form any idea of what that fine park was like at

that epoch of time and at that season of the year: my heart still

mourns because of the order for its destruction given by Louis-Philippe.

The park was simple and yet great in its design. Two splendid stretches

of grass--rather longer than they were broad--were attached like two

wings to the immense Castle which overlooked the green sward: one end

touched the Castle walls, and the other joined two avenues of gigantic

Spanish chestnut trees, which first formed laterally the two sides of a

great square, then approached one another diagonally till they nearly

met, then continued right out of sight, leaving between their two lines

a large open space until within a league of the mountain of Vivières,

which stood out on the distant horizon, with its crumbling red sides

tufted with yellow blossoming gorse.

It was all lifeless, sad, lonely, and silent in winter; the birds had

migrated to more cheerful climes; only the rooks' nests remained, sole

and persistent proprietors of the highest trees about that magnificent

domain. It seemed as though hordes of savages had spoiled the grounds

and laid waste the forests.

This state of desolation lasted four months of the year; but with the

beginning of April the grass began to spring up, braving the hoar

frost, which spread a silvery carpet over it every morning; the buds

of the trees, which had looked so bare, so desolate, so dead, began to

put on their velvety down. The sleeping birds--(where do birds sleep?

we know nothing about them;--) wake up, hop about among the branches,

and soon begin building their nests. Thence, each day of the month

and every hour of the day brings its own changes, as part of Nature's

great awakening. Chestnuts, limes, and beeches are the spring's advance

guard. Daisies star the lawn; buttercups glow richly; and grasshoppers

chirp in the long grass. Butterflies, flying flowers that blow in the

air, come and kiss the flowers of earth. Pretty children come out of

the town in their white frocks and their pink ribbons, and play on the

grass: everything moves, and revives, and lives. Spring comes with the

first breath of May, and we think we feel her touch as she passes in

the morning mists, shaking her rose-filled hair and reviving the world

with her sweet-scented breath.

It was at this joyous time of renaissance that our town held it's

feast--a feast ever lavish and charming, for Nature took upon herself

to defray its costs.

The feast, as I believe I have already said, lasted three days, and

fell at Whitsuntide.

For three days the park was filled with pleasant sounds and happy

murmurs, which began at early morning and did not die away until far on

in the night. For three days the poor forgot their misery, and, much

more extraordinary still, the rich forgot their riches. The whole town

was gathered together in the park as one great family, and, as this

family invited all its branches, relations, friends, acquaintances,

the population increased fourfold. People came from la Ferté-Milon,

from Crespy, from Soissons, from Château-Thierry, from Compiègne,

from Paris! Every place in the coaches was booked for fifteen days

in advance: and all kinds of other means of transport were devised;

horses, cabs, tilburys, postcarts arrived and jostled each other in

the only two hotels of the district, the _Dauphin_ and the _Boule

d'Or._ For three days the little town was like a body over full of

blood, whose heart was beating ten times as fast as it should. But

on the Wednesday it began to part with its surplus, which gradually

dwindled away during the following days, until everything little by

little resumed its ordinary aspect again. The large woods, which had

been disturbed for three days even in their thickest depths, recovered

their silence and their solitude once more: the chestnuts again became

inhabited by birds, which, flying in and out among their branches,

scattered a snow of flowers. Finally, the sward, which had been trodden

underfoot and despoiled of its flowers, sprang up again by degrees,

under the sun's influence, and once more offered a second harvest of

daisies and buttercups to the devastating hands of children.

Two strangers came to the pleasant feast of Whitsuntide, this

particular year.

One was a niece of the Abbé Grégoire, named Laurence--I have forgotten

her surname.

The other was a friend of hers. She made out that she was of Spanish

extraction, and was called Vittoria.

The abbé had told me of her coming. One morning, he came into our house

and quite frightened me.

"Come here, boy," he said to me.

And I went to him, not feeling very sure what he was going to do to me.

"Nearer," he said--"much nearer still; you know I am shortsighted ...

there--that will do."

The poor abbé was really as blind as a mole.

"You can dance, can you not?"

"Why do you ask me that, M. l'abbé?"

"Why! don't you remember you accused yourself in your last confession

of having been to the theatre, to the opera, and to a ball?"

And, indeed, in one of those examinations of conscience that are sold

ready printed, to aid idle and recalcitrant memories, I had read that

it was a sin to go to a comedy, to the opera, and to a ball; therefore,

as during my journey to Paris with my father when I was three years

old, I had seen _Paul et Virginie_ played at the Opéra Comique; as I

had since been to plays, if by chance any strolling players passed

through Villers-Cotterets; as, finally, I had been to a ball at Madame

Deviolaine's on the birthday of one of her daughters, I had naïvely

accused myself of having committed these three sins, much to the

amusement of the worthy Abbé Grégoire, who, as we see, had revealed the

secrets of the confessional.

"Well,--yes, I can dance," I replied,--"but why?"

"Dance an _entrechat_ for me."

The _entrechat_ was my strong point. People really did dance at the

time I learnt dancing: nowadays they are satisfied to walk; which is

much more convenient ... and much easier to learn.

I danced a few steps there and then.

"Bravo!" said the abbé. "Now you shall dance with my niece, who is

coming at Whitsuntide."

"But ... I do not like dancing," I rudely replied.

"Bah! you must pretend you do, out of politeness."

"It is no wonder your cousin Cécile says you are a bear in manners,"

added my mother, with a shrug of her shoulders.

This accusation set me thinking.

"I beg your pardon, M. l'abbé," I said; "I will do just what you wish."

"Very good," said the abbé; "and, to make the acquaintance of our

Parisian visitors, come and have lunch with us after high mass on

Sunday."

There were eight days in which to prepare myself for my office of

attendant cavalier.

During those eight days an important event occurred.

When my brother-in-law left Villers-Cotterets he left part of his

library behind.

Amongst these books, there was a work covered in smooth red paper,

comprising some eight or ten volumes. My brother-in-law had remarked to

my mother:

"You can let him read them all except that work."

I shot a furtive glance at the work, and determined that on the

contrary it should be the very one I would read.

I waited some days after my brother-in-law's departure, then I set

myself to find the famous red books he had forbidden me to read.

But, although I turned all the books upside down, I could not lay hands

on it, and I had to renounce the search.

Suddenly the thought that I had to be the cavalier of a young lady of

twenty-two or twenty-four made me look through my wardrobe. Nearly all

my coats had patched elbows, and most of my trousers had darned knees.

The only presentable suit I had was the one I had worn at my first

communion: nankeen breeches, a white piqué waistcoat, a light blue coat

with gilt buttons. Luckily everything had been made two inches too

long, so that now everything was but one inch too short.

There was a big chest in the loft which contained coats and vests and

breeches belonging to my grandfather, and coats and breeches belonging

to my father: all in very good condition.

These clothes were destined by my mother to form my wardrobe as I grew

up, and they were protected against vermin by bottles of _vétyver_ and

sachets of camphor.

I had never troubled over my toilette, and consequently never taken it

into my head to pay a visit to this chest.

But, promoted by the abbé, who looked upon me as a dancer whom he need

not trouble about, to the dignity of squire to his niece, a new idea

entered my head.

I felt myself seized by the desire to look smart.

Without saying a word to my mother, for I had my own plans in mind, I

went up to the loft; I locked myself in there, so as to be undisturbed

in my search; and then I opened the chest.

It contained clothing fashionable enough to satisfy the most fastidious

taste: from a figured satin vest to a scarlet waistcoat braided with

gold; from rep breeches to pantaloons of leather.

But, of more importance still, at the bottom of that mysterious press,

under all these clothes, were the famous red paper-covered volumes

which I had been so expressly forbidden to read.

I immediately opened the first that fell into my hands, and I read:

"_Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas._"

The title did not convey much to my mind, but the engravings taught me

rather more.

A score of lines which I devoured taught me more than the engravings.

I gathered up the first four volumes, which I hid, carefully spread

out over my chest, over which I buttoned my waistcoat; and I went down

on tiptoe. I went along M. Lafarge's back lane rather than pass by

the shop, and I gained the park at a run. I hid myself in one of the

darkest and remotest parts of it, where I was quite certain I should

not be disturbed, and then I began to read.

Chance had sometimes put obscene books in my hands.

A travelling hawker who ostensibly sold pictures, but who

concealed forbidden literature under his cloak, used to go through

Villers-Cotterets two or three times a year, hobbling along with

difficulty on two wooden legs, and giving out he was an old soldier.

The money that I had managed to extort from my poor mother had more

than once been spent in these clandestine purchases; but a feeling

of delicacy which was innate in me, and by reason of which there are

not four out of the six hundred volumes I have written that the most

scrupulous of mothers need hide from her daughter--this sentiment of

delicacy, for which I give thanks to God, always caused me to throw far

away from me such books at the tenth page or at the second picture.

But it was quite a different thing with _Faublas._ _Faublas_ is,

without gainsaying, a bad book from the point of view of morality; a

delightful romance from the point of view of fancy; a romance full of

originality, depicting a variety of types, somewhat exaggerated, no

doubt, but which had their counterparts in the days of Louis XV.

So I felt as great an attraction towards _Faublas_ as I had felt

repugnance towards _Thérèse philosophe, Felicia ou mes fredaines_,

those dirty lucubrations which persistently polluted the press

throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century.

From that moment I discovered my vocation--one I had never recognised

or even suspected until then--I wanted to become a second Faublas.

It is true I soon renounced the idea, and that idiocy has never been

put down on the list of the many failings with which I have been

charged.

I had prepared a magnificent theory, all cut and dried, of

seductiveness, by the time Sunday in Whitsuntide came, and I was

introduced, clad in my light blue coat and nankeen breeches, to the two

charming Parisian girls.

Mademoiselle Laurence was tall, thin, willowy in figure, and in

character she was of a bantering and indolent disposition. She was

fair-haired, clear-skinned, and possessed the graceful taste of a

Parisian woman: she, as I have said, was the good abbé's niece.

Mademoiselle Vittoria was pale, stout, slightly pitted with smallpox,

broad-bosomed, wide-hipped, bold in her looks, representing exactly the

Spanish type from Madrid, with her dead white complexion, her velvety

eyes, and her supple figure.

Although I knew it to be my duty, from M. Grégoire's previous choice

of me, to give my special attention first to his niece, and although

the expression of gentle candour on her face had won me from the very

outset, it was to Mademoiselle Laurence that I first paid court.

It was to her I offered my arm for a walk in the park after dinner.

I will not hide the fact that I was dreadfully bored, and that I

must therefore have behaved very awkwardly and very ridiculously. My

appearance, besides, which was all right for a child attending his

first communion in 1816, was slightly eccentric in the case of a young

man making his first debut into society in 1818. Breeches at that time

were only worn by old-fashioned people, who almost all belonged to the

previous century, so it came about that I, almost a child still, whom

no one would have been surprised to see in a turn-down collar, a round

waistcoat, and fancy knickerbockers, was dressed like an old man--an

anachronism that made the charms of the coquettish young lady on my arm

stand out to still greater advantage. She knew well enough that the

ridicule that was being poured on her cavalier could not affect her,

so she kept as calm a demeanour in the midst of the smiles we met and

the curious looks that followed us, as Virgil's divinities, who passed

in the midst of men unmoved by the looks of men, because they did not

deign to notice them. But it was a different matter to me; I could feel

myself blushing all the time; and, when anyone I knew came by, instead

of meeting his glance proudly, I simply turned my head away.

Like the stag in the fable, I discovered that I had very poor legs.

My poor mother imagined that because I was heir to my father's

breeches, I had also inherited his calves.

They have developed since, it is true, but they are a superfluous

luxury at a time when short breeches are no longer worn.

Worse than this was the fact that the presence of the two strangers

made me a centre of curiosity. Mademoiselle Vittoria walked immediately

after us, giving her arm to the abbé's sister, who was a little

hunchback, a most excellent housekeeper to her brother, but whose plain

dress and deformity of figure stood out most conspicuously against the

elegant dress and ample voluptuous figure of the Spanish woman.

Every now and again the two young girls exchanged looks, and, although

I did not catch them, I could feel, so to speak, the smiles that passed

between them; smiles which sent the blood rushing up to my temples with

shame, for they seemed to say, "Oh! my dear friend, what a bear garden

have we stumbled upon!"

A word I heard increased my confusion and turned it to anger.

A young Parisian who had been employed for two or three years at the

Castle, and who was gifted with all the qualities I lacked, that is

to say, he was fair, pink, plump, and dressed in the latest fashion,

crossed our path, and gazed after us through an eyeglass hung from a

little steel chain.

"Ah! ah!" he said, "there is Dumas going to his first communion again,

only he has changed his taper."

This epigram hit me straight to the heart; I went white, and almost

dropped my companion's arm. She saw what was my trouble, no doubt, for

she said, pretending she had not heard:

"Who is the young man who has just passed us?"

"He is a certain M. Miaud," I replied, "who is employed at the

workhouse."

I must confess I dwelt on these last words with delight, hoping they

might modify the good opinion my lovely companion seemed immediately to

have formed of this dandy.

"Ah! how strange!" she said; "I should have taken him for a Parisian."

"By what?" I asked.

"By his style of dress."

I am sure the arrow was not shot intentionally, but, like Parthian

barbed arrows, it went right to the depths of my heart, none the less.

"His style of dress!" So dress was a most important matter; by its

means and in proportion to its good or bad taste, people could at the

first glance at a man form an idea of his intelligence, his mind, or

his heart.

This expression, "his style of dress," illuminated my ignorance at a

flash.

He was indeed perfectly dressed in the fashion of 1818: he wore

tight-fitting, light coffee-coloured trousers, with boots folded in the

shape of a heart over his instep, a waistcoat of chamois leather with

carved gilt buttons, a brown coat with a high collar. In his waistcoat

pocket was a gold eyeglass fastened to a fine steel chain, and a host

of tiny charms and seals dangled coquettishly from the fob of his

pantaloons.

I heaved a sigh, and vowed to dress like that some day, no matter what

it cost me.

CHAPTER VIII

I leap the _Haha_--A slit follows--The two pairs of gloves--The

quadrille--Fourcade's triumph--I pick up the crumbs--The waltz--The

child becomes a man.

We went along the promenade taken by all the townsfolk and by every

stranger who came to visit the town: we walked under the grand,

magnificent avenue of Spanish chestnut trees, all laden with flowers,

as full as they could hold, right down to a tremendous wolf-leap,

hollowed out of the ground, called the _Haha_: no doubt the word was

derived from the exclamation it produces from walkers ignorant of its

position when they suddenly come upon it.

I felt the moment had come to regain something of my lost dignity.

I was, it will be remembered, pretty clever at all kinds of physical

exercise, and I could jump best of all.

"Do you see that ditch?" I said to my companion, pointing it out to her

as something amazing. "Well, I can jump across it."

"Really?" she said with an indifferent air: "it looks very wide."

"It is fourteen feet wide.... I can tell you it is more than M. Miaud

can do."

"He would be right not to try," she said: "what is the use of jumping

it?"

I was struck dumb at the reply. When Pizarro was conquering Peru, one

of his lieutenants, so I had read, when pursued by the natives, had

leapt over a little river, which was 22 feet wide, by the help of his

lance, which he stuck in the bottom.

I thought it a wonderful feat, and I had long dreamt of the possibility

of doing a similar exploit if ever in great peril.

Now I had got as far as to be able to jump a distance of fourteen feet,

with my own unaided strength and without the aid of any lance; this

accomplishment of agility astonished my comrades, two or three only

offering to compete with me. How was it, then, that the suggestion did

not excite any enthusiasm in my fair Parisian?

I took it that her indifference arose from her incredulity.

"You shall see," I said to her.

And, without waiting for further remarks from her, with one bound, that

Auriol himself might have envied, I reached the other side.

But Auriol performed his feats in wide trousers, whilst I did mine

in tight breeches. When I alighted with doubled-up knees, I heard

an ominous crack, and there seemed an airy feeling about my hind

quarters--I had burst open the seat of my trousers.

This stroke was decisive; I could not take back my beautiful Parisian

to the dancing hall, or give myself up to the least choregraphic

exercise with her in the teeth of such a catastrophe; I could not tell

her what had happened to me and ask to leave her for half an hour. So I

made up my mind to take leave without asking; and off I set, at a mad

run, without uttering a single word, or offering any explanation. I

flew towards home, which was more than half a league away, through the

astonished promenaders, who asked if my rapid flight through the crowd

was on account of a bet, or whether I had suddenly taken leave of my

senses.

I reached home almost in the same state as my father reached Jérémie

when he came across an alligator and amused himself by throwing stones

at it.

My poor mother was scared to see the state of excitability I was in.

Breathless, voiceless, nearly suffocated, I could only respond to

her questions by the disrespectful gesture the Neapolitan makes near

Vesuvius when he thinks it is going to erupt; but my mother saw nothing

in the gesture but the true facts of the case, namely, an appeal to

her good nature to repair the accident that had happened.

Five minutes after, thanks to the quickness of a needle used to such

mendings, the break in continuity had been repaired.

I gulped down a big glass of cider, which we made ourselves with dried

apples, and I resumed my race back to the lawn as quickly as I had left

it.

But, quick though I was, I did not succeed in reaching the dancing

hall until ten minutes after my two Parisians; who were just taking

their places: Mademoiselle Vittoria was going to dance with Niguet, and

Mademoiselle Laurence with Miaud.

I have depicted the imaginary sorrows of Pitou in this very situation.

I had but to draw them from actual experience. Throughout the whole

of that quadrille I never took my eyes off the lovely Laure,--so she

was called for short among her intimate friends,--at every smile she

exchanged with her partner, a flush of anger and of shame rose to my

forehead; I fancied I was the subject of their conversation, and that

the conversation was not of a nature very flattering to my self-respect.

When the quadrille was over, Miaud led Laure back to her seat. I drew

as near as I could to the bench on which the two Parisians sat, looking

exquisite and beautiful in the midst of the most beautiful, most

charming, and most aristocratic-looking young girls of our countryside.

I met Miaud near the centre of the space I had to cross to reach them.

"See what it is to wear breeches!" he said as he passed me, as though

speaking to himself.

It may be guessed that this apostrophe did anything but soothe the

feeling of dislike I had towards a man whom I already regarded in

the light of a rival. But I knew what ridicule I should bring down

on myself if I picked a quarrel with Miaud for such a cause, and I

continued on my way.

"Here I am, Mademoiselle Laure," I said, when I stopped behind my

Parisian.

"Ah! that is all right," she replied; "seeing you set off like that, I

thought some accident must have happened to you!"

The conversation had taken a most embarrassing turn at the very

beginning.

"Indeed, mademoiselle," I replied stammeringly, "I saw that--"

"That you had forgotten your gloves; I quite understood. You did not

like to dance without gloves, and you were quite right."

I cast my eyes down to my bare hands, and I went purple. I mechanically

thrust my hands into my pockets.

Alas! I had no gloves.

I stepped back and threw a wild glance round me.

Four steps from me stood a young man, named Fourcade, who had

been sent from Paris to start and direct a Lancastrian school at

Villers-Cotterets; he was busily engaged trying with difficulty to get

into a pair of beautiful new gloves, which he had evidently purchased

only a quarter of an hour previously.

Fourcade was a delightful young fellow who, in spite of the difference

in age between us, had taken a fancy to me. He belonged as much to the

century that had just ended as to the one we had entered upon; so he

too, like myself, wore nankeen trousers and a pale blue coat.

Such a bond of similarity between us would alone have given me

confidence in Fourcade, if this confidence had not already existed.

"My dear friend," I said, "will you do me an immense service?"

"What is it?"

"Give me your gloves."

"My gloves?"

"Yes, I have asked the young lady seated there, Mademoiselle Laurence,

to give me a dance, and just as I went to take my place I found I had

forgotten my gloves. You understand the awkwardness of the situation?"

"My dear boy, I will not say to you, 'You are luckier than being in

love,' for it seems to me you are deeply in love; but I will say to

you, 'My dear friend, you are in luck's way,' for I have two pairs with

me."

And he drew a second pair of gloves from his pocket, as new as the

first, handing me those he was trying to draw on.

Such unheard-of luxury astonished me.

"Why do you have two pair of gloves?" I asked.

"Because the first might perhaps split, as I put them on," he replied,

with the utmost ingenuousness and as though surprised I should ask him

such a question.

His reply staggered me;--it opened such vistas of unknown extravagance

of living; there were actually people who took the precaution of having

two pairs of gloves, while there were others who had not even dreamed

of providing themselves with a single pair.

"Have you a _vis-à-vis_?" I asked Fourcade.

"No, I have only just come."

"Will you be mine?"

"With pleasure."

"Take your places for the quadrille!" cried the head fiddler.

I rushed up to Laure and proudly presented my gloved hand.

Fourcade invited her neighbour Vittoria, and we took our places.

Fourcade and I were the only two who wore short breeches at the ball.

We were both making our debut; Fourcade had hardly been a fortnight in

Villers-Cotterets, and open-air dances did not begin before Whitsuntide.

This solemn rite, together with the appearance of both of us wearing

short breeches, attracted a considerable number of looks. Our Parisians

themselves stared as hard at us as anybody present.

The dance began.

I have said I was apt at all physical exercises. I had had a

dancing-master just as I had had a fencing-master, by a lucky chance;

my dancing-master's name was Brezette, an ex-infantry corporal, uncle

of one of the prettiest girls in the town, to whom I had hitherto paid

no attention.

I have made up for lost time since, and I shall have occasion to refer

to her more than once.

I had therefore learnt, for my three francs per month, a rather

eccentric style of dancing, but nevertheless it was not wanting in

deftness or power. Fourcade led off first; Fourcade was one of Vestris'

best pupils.

I repeat that people really danced at that time, and all the flourishes

of choreography which are thought absurd to-day were then considered

elegant.

At the first steps Fourcade took, there was an audible murmur of

admiration. Those who were not dancing stood on their seats to look at

him; while the dancers themselves lengthened their _chasses-croisés_ or

their _traversés_, to seize an _entrechat_ or a _flic-flac._ Fourcade's

debut was a triumph.

It was on this occasion that I discovered nature had endowed me with

the gift of assimilation. During the short _avant-deux_ made by my

_vis-à-vis_, I realised the superiority of such dancing over my own. I

picked out from among the complicated twinklings of his ankles and the

crossing and uncrossing of his legs those evolutions which were within

my compass if simply performed, and, when my turn came to take the

lead, a kindly rumour reached me, in the wake of my partner's immense

success, that I was doing better than had been expected of me.

From that moment I became crazy on dancing, and the frenzy lasted until

it became the fashion for young men of twenty-four or twenty-five to

declare that they were too bored or too busy thinking of other things,

to take part in such a pleasure as dancing.

I have begun by revealing the follies of my childhood: the reader need

not be uneasy, for I am not going to hide those of my youth; I will be

more courageous than Rousseau, who only confessed his vices.

As I conducted my partner back to her seat, I reaped the fruits of my

triumph.

"Do you know, you dance very well," my Parisian said to me; "where did

you learn?"

"Here."

"What! here in Villers-Cotterets?"

I had a great mind to reply as did the baroness in _la Fausse Agnès_,

my pride in my native town being so deeply wounded, "Do you take us

provincials for simpletons, then?" but I contented myself by replying

in rather a sneering tone:

"Yes, here in Villers-Cotterets;" adding, with the air of a man sure of

his powers:

"Do you by chance happen to waltz?"

"No, it makes me giddy; but Vittoria there loves waltzing." I turned

towards the Spaniard.

"If you are not engaged for the next?" I said.

"No."

"Are you inclined to venture?"

She looked at me.

"Why, certainly!" she said smilingly.

A waltz was being played.

If I were a fair dancer, I was first-rate at the waltz. The Spanish

girl discovered this at the first round we made, and she gave herself

up to it completely, feeling she was being well steered and had a good

partner.

"You waltz very well," she said.

"You flatter me," I responded; "hitherto I have only had chairs to

waltz with."

"Chairs?" she asked.

"Yes, I learnt to waltz the year I took my first communion," I

said, "and the Abbé Grégoire forbade me to waltz with girls; so my

dancing-master, thinking I really must hold something in my arms, gave

me a chair; I was thus enabled to take my lesson without sinfulness."

My partner stopped short; I thought she would choke with laughter.

"You really are the funniest boy, I like you very much," she said, when

she could regain her faculty of speech.... "Let us waltz again."

And we plunged afresh into the whirlpool, which carried us round with

it.

This, as I have said, was the first time I danced with a woman; it

was the first time I breathed a woman's perfumed breath, or felt her

hair touch my cheeks; the first time my eyes had been riveted on bare

shoulders or my arm had clasped a round, full, supple waist. I heaved a

shuddering sigh of delight.

"Well? what is the matter with you?" my partner asked, looking at me

with her Spanish eyes, which shone even through her lace mantilla.

I replied, while we waltzed on unceasingly: "It is far nicer to waltz

with you than with a chair."

She escaped out of my arms this time, and went to sit near her friend.

"Well, what is the matter?" asked Laurence.

"Oh! my dear, he is so comic."

"It is strange he did not strike me in that light."

"That is because you did not waltz with him," she whispered. "I assure

you I think him fascinating! Come on," she continued, placing herself

of her own accord on my arm, "just one more turn."

I asked nothing better: and we resumed our places.

I will say no more of my own success, but my partner made quite a

sensation. Her supple quivering figure, accustomed to such dances

as the cachucha and fandango, managed to put some of the voluptuous

energy which is such an essential characteristic of Spanish dancing

into French waltzing; some electric influence seemed to radiate from

her lithe, snake-like body; she had acquired that faculty from the

Andalusians, who love the waltz for its own sake; who are so graceful

because they let themselves go with complete abandon, and who are so

beautiful because they do not think of their beauty.

The music stopped; we still stuck to our places, I with brow

contracted, my teeth showing through my open lips, with a rapt

expression on my face; she graceful, panting, excited.

An immense change was coming over me: the womanly breath and hair and

perfume had made a man of me in a few short minutes.

"Shall we have another waltz together?" I asked her.

"As many as you like," she replied, as she went and seated herself by

her friend, who leant over and whispered something in her ear. I both

listened and watched them.

"Come," said Laure, with a smile that indicated some amusement in her

remonstrance, "do not take my schoolboy away from me; my uncle gave him

to me, you know."

"No," the Spaniard replied, showing her white teeth, which looked quite

as ready to bite as to kiss--"but you must lend him to me for the

waltzes. I will return him to you for the other dances."

Behind all this I could detect a spirit of raillery; it was evident

I was but a trivial plaything in the hands of these two beautiful

creatures, both so different in their style of beauty. I was but a

shuttlecock which they flung from battledore to battledore as they

chose, caring little if the violence of their blows broke some of its

feathers.

I had grown much older within the last ten minutes; for it was no

longer shame that I felt--this time it was a feeling of sadness; it was

not a moist blush of confusion that mounted to my temples, but a sharp

sting of pain that made my heart bleed.

I had stepped into the second circle of human life; I suffered.

And yet, in spite of this pain, a mysterious hymn, an unknown song,

rose from the depths of my soul; that hymn extolled pain, and for the

first time cried out to the child, "Courage! you are a man!"

The boon I craved above aught else was solitude.

The musicians were playing the first bars of a quadrille; everyone

sprang up to take his partner's hand. Fourcade made an interrogative

sign with his head, which signified "Will you be my _vis-à-vis_ again?"

I replied with a negative sign, and, as the two Parisian girls were

going to take their places with two new dancers, I went away.

I could not possibly describe what passed through my mind during the

hour I spent dreaming by myself. The whole of my childhood disappeared;

just as towns and villages, valleys and mountains, lakes and rivers

disappear in an earthquake: the present alone remained with me, an

immense chaos, lit up by intermittent flashes which neither showed up

the whole void nor its details: nothing seemed definite enough to get

hold of, either with regard to my body or my mind. The only definite

incontestably real actual thing was that during the last quarter of an

hour I had fallen in love.

With whom?

With no one as yet ... but with Love.

I returned at the end of an hour.

"You are polite!" Vittoria said to me; "you asked me to waltz with you,

and then you go away."

"Quite true," I replied: "I beg your pardon, I had forgotten."

"You are indeed polite!"

I smiled.

"I assure you," I said, "it was not intended for rudeness."

"Where did you go, then?"

"Do you wish to know?"

"It seems to me I have a right to know."

"Look there," I said, "do you see that beautiful dark avenue?"

"Yes--well...?"

"It is called the Avenue of _Sighs_: I came from there."

I had replied out of the simplicity of my heart; I had no intention of

being clever or sentimental.

Those two failings came to me later.

"Did I not tell you how charming he was!" said Vittoria to Laure.

I did not understand how or why I was charming; so, instead of thanking

the Spaniard for the compliment she had paid me, I made a face, which

was greeted with shouts of laughter from both the two young girls.

I wanted to return to my Avenue of Sighs, but I had not the courage; I

was already in the condition of Molière's lovers who always get as far

as the door, but who never make up their minds to cross the threshold.

People were again preparing for the quadrille.

"Come," said Laure, "do not pout, young scholar; I invite you to dance

this time.... Will you accept?"

"Alas! yes," I replied.

"Why alas?"

"Yes, I hear."

And I gave her my hand. The rest of the evening and part of the night

passed in dancing and in waltzing. We returned home at one o'clock in

the morning.

Niguet, who was above me in the lawyer's office, conducted Mademoiselle

Vittoria home; I conducted Mademoiselle Laurence.

The hours that followed during the rest of that night were the most

agitated I had ever spent in my previous life.

END OF VOL. I.