Marie's mother received her with a look almost of reproach; so
overpowered was the poor woman with the business of providing lodging,
food, fire, and washing for three strangers, when she had no money, and
few other means of making them comfortable. The men seemed to behave
well. One of them was absent, helping his host to bring in his share of
the forage, to be provided by the village, for the cavalry now awaiting
the arrival of the Dauphiness. The other two guests were sitting before
the door, one smoking, and the other every now and then looking in, and
addressing some civil word to the hostess, who was plucking her fowls
with a heavy heart.
"I thought you were lost," said she to her children as they entered.
"Robin, fill the boiler; and Marc, blow the fire under it. Your sister
and I shall have to be at the wash-tub and ironing-board all night."
The soldiers were very sorry this trouble should be caused by them. Was
there no one in the village who could relieve them of this part of their
work? That the linen should be ready by the morning was indeed
indispensable, as the Dauphiness might arrive at any hour of the next
day: but to stand at the wash-tub at midnight!--it was terrible to think
of. However terrible, there was no help for it. Every housewife in
Saint Menehould had soldiers quartered upon her house, and her hands
therefore full, instead of being able to wash for another. Besides
this, the Randolphes could not pay for such service. Moreover, the
family had to give up their beds (which were but poor cribs in the wall)
to the strangers; and as they had to be up, they had better be employed
than idle.
As soon as Robin and Marc had done all they could for their sister in
the washing-shed, they hastened to the soldiers, and made the
acquaintance which boys like to make with strangers who have travelled
and seen wonderful things. First they found out that one soldier was
called Jerome, and that the other, who never ceased smoking, pretended
to have so many names, that they saw he either meant to make a joke of
them, or did not choose to say what his real name was. Then the boys
told their own names and ages, and those of all the family: but they did
not mention Charles, having learned that much prudence from the distress
they saw in the faces of their sister and mother. Then it appeared that
the soldiers could tell a great deal about the Dauphiness.
"Will she be here to-morrow?" asked Marc.
"That depends upon where she is to-night," replied Jerome. "The last I
heard of her was at Strasburg. You know she is a German, and comes from
Germany."
The boys had never heard of Germany, near as they were to it, and did
not know where Strasburg was. So they asked about something that they
could understand; what the great lady's name was, and how old she
looked.
"Her name is Marie-Antoinette-Joseph-Jeanne de Lorraine: and her age
is--Let us see. Comrade, how old is she, exactly? I heard tell, I
think, that she is fifteen."
"Oh, that can't be!" exclaimed the boys. "Married at fifteen! And our
Marie is--"
Here Robin remembered that he must not allude to Charles, and stopped.
"She was born on the day of the great earthquake at Lisbon--"
"Is that where she lives?"
"No, I think not. Whether Lisbon is in Germany, I am not certain; but I
don't think she and her mother were in the earthquake; but I know that
it happened the day she was born, and that it hurts her spirits to think
of it. She takes it for a sign that she will live unhappy, or die in
some dreadful way."
"You have not served out of France," observed Randolphe, as he came up,
with the third soldier, and seated himself on the bench. "You have not
seen either Lisbon or Germany, I suppose; for I can tell you that Lisbon
is a good way off from any place where this princess has been. Well, I
am sorry to hear anything hurts her spirits; but, to be sure, the great
earthquake was an awful thing."
"I am thinking," said Jerome, "that a good many thousand people must
have been born that same day; I hope they are not all troubled with bad
spirits. It would be a curious sight to see so many people of fifteen
all low about the manner of their lives and deaths."
"She is very low sometimes, however," observed his comrade. "When she
was leaving the city she lived in, she wept so that nothing was ever
seen like it. She covered her eyes sometimes with her handkerchief, and
sometimes with her hands; and looked out many times from the
coach-window, to see her mother's palace once more."
Everyone thought there was no great wonder in this. A young girl
leaving her own country for ever, to be the wife of a foreign prince
whom she had never seen, and could not tell whether she should like,
might well be in tears, Randolphe said. Had she cheered up yet?
"Yes, indeed," said Jerome, "that she has. When she saw the fine
pavilion on the frontier, she was pleased enough."
The boys wanted to hear about the pavilion.
"It was there," said Jerome, "that she was to be made a French princess
of. It was a very grand sort of tent, that cost more money than I can
reckon."
Randolphe sighed.
"There were three rooms," continued Jerome; "a large one in the middle,
and a smaller one at each end. In one of these smaller rooms she left
everything she had worn, even to her very stockings, and all her German
attendants; and then she went through to the other, where she found her
French attendants, and her fine French wardrobe."
"And shall we see her in some of her new clothes?" asked Marc.
"Certainly." And Jerome went on describing the princess's dress, and
told all he had heard of her jewels, and furs, and laces, till the
soldiers observed that their host had sighed very often. One of the
soldiers then said that it was enough to make poor men like themselves
sad to hear of such luxury, when they were hungry in the long summer
days, and cold all the long winter nights.
"What need you care?" said the host, somewhat bitterly. "You are
provided for by law, when we country people are ground down by it. You
come upon us, and must be served with the best, when we have not enough
for ourselves."
The third soldier declared that he thought this a very uncivil speech.
Jerome said that he, for his part, could dispense with civility in such
a case, when he happened to know where the truth lay. He assured
Randolphe that soldiers like himself were as little pleased with the
state of things as any countryman. They themselves were the sons of
peasants; and many had led a cottage life, and knew how to pity it. But
he must say, a soldier's life was very little better. The army could
not get its pay. Glad enough would soldiers be to save trouble to their
hosts, if they had a little money in their pockets; but pay was not to
be got, in these days, by soldiers, any more than if none was due to
them.
His smoking comrade thought there must be an earthquake somewhere in
France, swallowing up all the money: for nobody could tell where it all
went to.
"How can you say that," said Randolphe, "when you think of the numbers
of idle people that are feeding upon those who work?--I hear you, wife,"
he said, in answer to a warning cough from his wife within. "It is no
treason to say that in this land there are swarms of idle folk, living
upon the toil of us who work."
The guests declared that they were men of honour, who would be ashamed
to repay hospitality by reporting the conversation of their host.
Besides, nobody in France could question the feet. To say nothing of
the old king, languishing in the midst of costly pleasures, so vicious
that by every indulgence he purchased the curses of virtuous families,
and the hatred of the poor,--besides all the extravagances in that
quarter, there were the nobility, sitting heavy upon the people
throughout the land, like the nightmare upon the sleep of a wearied man.
These nobles must all be rich,--must all be pampered in luxury, though
not one of them would work with his head or hands. If a nobleman had
five sons, they must all be pampered alike; and the sons of five hundred
peasants must be oppressed, to supply the means.
Randolphe said he had little thought to see the day when he should hear
soldiers say these things openly at his own door. His face brightened
as he declared this, though his wife again coughed more than once.
Jerome replied that it was a common thing now to hear these things told;
for the oppressed do get to speak out, sooner or later. The story of
the king's meeting a coffin was in everybody's mouth. No one here had
heard it: so Jerome told that the king was fond of asking questions of
strangers, and particularly about disease, death, and churchyards;
because he thought his gay attendants did not like to hear of such
things. One day, he was hunting in the forest of Senard, when he met a
man on horseback, carrying a coffin.
"Where are you carrying that coffin?" asked the king.
"To the village yonder."
"Is it for a man or a woman?"
"For a man."
"What did he die of?"
"Of hunger."
The king clapped spurs to his horse, and rode away.
"He might find the same thing happening in many other villages," said
Randolphe, stroking the thin cheeks of his boy Robin. "Look here!"
showing the boy's arm. "Is this an arm that can work or fight as a
Frenchman's should do, when my boy is a man?"
"Things may be different when that boy is a man," said the smoker,
between two whiffs of his pipe.
"How? Where? When? Why? Is anything going to be done for the poor?"
asked Randolphe and his family, within and without doors.
"I don't know when and how: but I think you need not ask why, if you
live some days of the week upon boiled nettles, as many of your
neighbours do. Those that have looked into the matter say that the
country people (they who really do the work of the land) possess only
one-third of the country, and yet pay three-fourths of the taxes. One
does not see why this should go on, when once they choose that it shall
not: and many think that they won't choose it much longer."
"And then something will be done for the poor?" said the hostess, coming
to the door.
"Certainly; unless the rich do something for the poor first; which would
be their wisest way."
"But if the rich should not choose to do anything for us?" said Robin.
"Then they must look to themselves."
"And what will happen to them? What will happen to the Dauphiness?"
"Oh, poor lady! There is no saying that. She knows little of what the
French people are suffering, and nothing of what they are thinking. How
should she? What notion should she have of poverty and the poor, when
she is now buying, out of her allowance, a pair of ear-rings that cost
360,000 francs?"
[Note: This is fact; but it happened a little later in her history,
immediately after she became queen: 360,000 francs are about 15,000
pounds.]
"You are joking, comrade."
"No, it is true. She thinks there is no harm in it, because she will
pay the whole out of her own allowance, year by year; and the diamonds
are so rare and wonderful that she thinks she has a good bargain. What
should she know of poverty and the poor?"
"God bless her!" said the hostess, "and may she never know what it is to
eat boiled nettles, for want of anything better!"
"I wish she would have done with throwing away our money in diamonds at
that rate," said Randolphe, gloomily. "The people will not love her if
she does. We all know it is what we pay for this cursed salt, and our
poll-tax, and all our grinding taxes, that go to pay for such freaks as
these."
"Well, love," said his wife, "she is young, and may learn. Don't let us
be grudging to her as a stranger."
"Not I, love; I would grudge her nothing, if only I could give my family
food that would make them plump and rosy, as I hope to see this lady
to-morrow, and if I could but apprentice my boys to some trade that
would give them a chance of a better living than their father had before
them, and take them a little from under the Count's hand, for that is
very heavy upon us. If my boys have nothing better before them than to
divide my poor field, and live as peasants under the Count, I don't know
that I should cry to lay them in their graves before I lie down myself."
"And cannot you apprentice one of them, at least?" inquired Jerome.
"How can I? Besides the transaction between the artisan and me, there
is a great sum to be paid to the king upon the indenture, and another
and a larger before the lad begins his trade. What can a poor peasant
do with his boys but make them poorer peasants than himself, if that is
possible? But it is not possible. Is there coarser woollen than this
that I wear? Is there a tougher leather than my belt is made of? And
is there anything for the feet poorer than our wooden clogs? And as for
food, we are as far from health and strength on the one hand, as we are
from the grave on the other--just half-way. So my boys will be poor
peasants, like their father, if they can make his field yield double;
and if not, they will be in their graves."
The boys trembled, and would have cried if they dared. Their mother
wept outright: and the good-natured Jerome could only shake his head and
sigh, and mutter that he feared that was the plight of millions more in
France. His smoking comrade again gave out, between two puffs, that
before these boys were men, everything might be changed, and the nobles
might chance to find their mouths stuffed with boiled nettles, for once,
just to show what they were like. This speech made the boys laugh.
Their mother wiped her eyes, and gave notice that supper, such as it
was, was ready. She knew there was nothing that could satisfy three
men, if they happened to be very hungry; she could only say that here
was all she had.
Her guests answered her with a civil nod, and sat down at her board with
alacrity, saying that the fowls looked savoury, and the bowl of milk
good for a thirsty man after a march. Some of their comrades in the
village had wine, they knew: but nothing was said about it; for the
soldiers' pockets were empty, like those of their host.
It was growing dark. Randolphe made what blaze he could by throwing
light wood upon the fire. By law, he was bound to furnish candles to
his guests; and some soldiers whom he had entertained had required this
of him; but his present guests felt no disposition to do so, after what
they had heard. They cut up their fowls by firelight: then, before
beginning to eat, they exchanged glances, the consequence of which was
that the boys were called, made to sit down, each between two soldiers,
and treated with some mouthfuls of savoury fowl. Can it be wondered at
that they forgot, till afterwards, that they were eating poor Marie's
fowls, which they had hoped to see pecking about in the wood?
The lively talk that was going on round the table was soon interrupted
by a loud rap upon the door, made by a heavy staff, such as the Count's
followers usually carried when they went on messages. Randolphe was not
fond of receiving visits from the Count's people, and he now desired
Robin to go to the door, and see what was wanted. The message was heard
by those within, for the bearer shouted it aloud from door to door of
all the peasantry of the Count's estate. Randolphe and another were
wanted to-night, to flog the ponds.
"I will go myself, because I must," observed Randolphe: "but how to find
another I don't know, so I shall just let that alone."
"They won't forgive you for not taking a second," remarked his wife.
"You will have to pay dear, one way or another: and yet I can't ask you
to take one of the boys.--It is bad enough for you, a poor rest between
two days' labour, to stand flogging the ponds till field time in the
morning."
"Have you often to do this night-work, neighbour?" asked Jerome.
"Only when the family are at the chateau. They are so used to live in
Paris, away from country noises, that they cannot sleep in the country
for the noise of the frogs, unless the ponds are flogged; so, when they
come, we have that work to do."
"Cannot you poison the frogs?" asked Jerome.
"O, yes, father!" cried Marc. "You poison rats: cannot you poison the
frogs, and have done with them?"
The smoker here muttered something which made his comrade jog his elbow,
and the host say, "Hush! Hush!" What he was muttering was, that if
they wanted to get rid of a nuisance, the aristocrats were fewer than
the frogs.
Randolphe was evidently anxious to be gone after he had heard this
speech. He would not say another word on his own grievances, or those
of his neighbours. He fetched his woollen cap, and stood only undecided
as to what he should do about furnishing a second, to work with him that
night. He glanced from one boy to the other: but both looked too pale
to stand in the damps through an April night. He repeated that he would
take no second: but while he said so, there were images in his mind of
fine or compensation, bringing increased hardships on the morrow. At
this moment a voice from the darkness without called his name, and said
he need not look any further for a comrade.
All the family knew that this was Charles's voice; but even the little
boys had learned so much caution from hardship, that they did not speak,
but only looked at each other. Jerome observed that it told well for
his host that he had a neighbour ready, without asking, to help him in
so irksome a service.
The soldiers contrived to make room for the boys to sleep, thinking it
quite enough that the law obliged Randolphe to flog the ponds, and his
wife and daughter to toil in the shed all night, without the addition of
the two half-fed lads having to lie down on the clay floor, or not at
all. So each boy had a share of the crib, and a corner of the rug.