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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

NiSEKON.
' There never was a more honest man.

Frontispiece— Balzac, Volume Three.

A Tragedy of the Peasanis?.

THE

HdMAN GOMEBY

BEING THE BEST NOVELS FROM THE
"COMEDIE HUMAINE" OF

HONORE DE BALZAC

AN EPISODE UNDER THE

TERROR
MADAME DE DEY'S LAST

RECEPTION
DOOMED TO LIVE

THE CHOUANS
A PASSION IN THE DESERT
A TRAGEDY OF THE PEAS-
ANTRY

ILLUSTRATED WITH SIXTEEN ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD FROM THE

BEST FRENCII EDITION

WITH AN INTRODUCTION DESCRIPTIVE OF THE AUTHOR's STUPENDOUS

AND BRILLIANT WORK
BY

JULIUS CHAMBERS

IN THREE VOLdMES-YOUeME THREE

New York :
PETER FENELON COLLIER.

•/, ^

Contents of Volume Three.

SCENES FROM POLITICAL LIFE.

PAOB

(j-5 1— AX EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 5

^ S-MADAME DE DEY'S LAST RECEPTION 15

SCENES FROM MILITARY LIFE.

1— DOOMED TO LIVE 24

2-THE CHOUANS 30

8— A PASSION IN THE DESERT 199

SCENES FROM COUNTRY LIFE.

l-A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY .....206

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Frontispiece— NiSERON—" There never was a more honest man."

THE CHOUANS:

Mabche-a-Terre.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil— " I am horrid I I have the air of a statue of Liberty."

(3)

SCENES IN POLITICAL LIFE.

AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR.

On the 22d of January, 1793, about
eight o'clock in the evening-, an old lady
was walking" down the steep incline which
ends in front of the church of Saint Lau-
rent in Paris. It had snowed so hard all
day that her footsteps were scarcely au-
dible. The streets were deserted, and the
feeling of fear which silence naturally in-
spires was increased by the remembrance
of the terror under which France then
groaned. The old lady had met no one
on the way, and her eyesight, which had
long been failing, did not allow of her
distinguishing in the lamplight the few
passers-b\^, scattered here and there like
shadows along the immense vista of the
faubourg. She went on bravely alone
through the solitude, as if her age were
a talisman to preserve her from all harm.
When she had passed the Rue des Morts,
she thought she could distinguish the firm
heavy tread of a man walking behind her.
She fancied it was not the first time that
she had heard the sound. She was afraid,
thinking that she was being followed, so
she tried to walk faster than before, in
order to reach a shop window in which
the lights were bright enough for her to
test the truth of her suspicions. As soon
as she found herself in the gleam of light
which streamed out horizontally from the
shop, she turned her head suddenlj^ and
perceived a human form in the mist. This
indistinct glimpse was enough ; a feeling
of terror fell upon her ; she tottered for a
moment under it, for now she felt certain
that this stranger had accompanied her

from the first step she had taken outside
her own house. Her desire to escape
from this spy gave her strength; inca-
pable of reasoning, she walked twice as
fast as before, as though it were possible
for her to distance a man necessarily much
more active than she. After running' for
some minutes she reached a pastry-cook's
shop, went in and fell, rather than sat
down, on a chair which was standing be-
fore the counter. As her hand rattled
upon the latch a young woman seated at
her embroidery raised her eyes from her
work, looked through the square pane of
glass, and recognized the old-fashioned
violet silk mantle which enveloped the
old lady ; then she hurriedl3^ opened a
drawer, as if to take out something that
she had been keeping there for her. Not
only did this movement and the expres-
sion of the young woman's face betray
her desire to get rid of the stranger as
soon as possible, as a person whom she
did not want to see, but she even let a
gesture of impatience escape her when
she found the drawer empty. Then,
without looking at the lady, she went
out hastily from behind the counter into
the back part of the shop and called her
husband; he appeared at once.

''Wherever have you put ? " she

asked, mysteriously^, glancing in the
direction of the old lady, and not finish-
ing the sentence.

The pastry-cook could only see the old
lady's head-dress, a huge black bonnet,
trimmed with violet ribbons, but he looked

(5)

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

at his wife as much as to say, " Do you
think I should leave a thing- like that in
your counter?" and disappeared. His
wife, surprised that the old lady sat so
still and silent, went close up to her ;
when she saw her she was seized with a
feeling- of compassion, and perhaps of
curiosity too. Although the old lady's
face was naturally pallid, like the face of
a person who practices austerities in se-
cret, it was easy to see that some recent
emotion had rendered it even more pallid
than usual. Her head-dress was so ar-
ranged as to hide her hair, which was
white, no doubt from age, for it was
evident that she did not wear powder,
as there was no sign of it upon the collar
of her dress. This absence of ornament
g-a ve her face a look of religious severity.
Her features were proud and g-rave. In
former times the manners and habits of
people of rank were so different from those
of the other classes, that it was easy
then to distinguish a noble. Thus the
young- woman felt sure that the strange
lady was a ci-devant, who had at one
time been attached to the court.

"Madame?" said she involuntaril}'-,
forgetting, in the respect she inspired,
that the title was proscribed.

The old lady made no answer, she kept
her eyes fixed on the shop window, as if
some terrible object were depicted on the
glass.

'''What is the matter, citoyenne ?"
asked the shopman, returning- at that
moment.

The worthy pastry-cook awoke the ladj^
from her reverie, b\^ handing- her a small
cardboard box, wrapped up in blue paper.

'•'Nothing-, nothing-, my friends," said
she in a gentle voice.

She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook,
as if to thank him by a look, but seeing- a
red cap upon his head, she cried aloud —

" Ah ! 3'ou have betrayed me ! "

The young woman and her husband
answered with a gesture of horror ; the
stranger blushed, either with relief, or
Avith regret at having suspected them.

" Forgive me ! " she said at once, with
childish sweetness. Then she drew a gold
louis out of her pocket and gave it to the

pastry-cook. '' That is the price we
ag-reed upon," said she. There is a state
of want recognized instinctively by those
in want themselves. The pastry-cook and
his wife looked at one another, interchang--
ing- the same thought as they glanced at
the old lady. The louis was evidently her
last. Her hands trembled as she held out
the coin to them, she looked at it sorrow-
fully, but without grudging, though she
seemed to be conscious of the full extent
of the sacrifice. Hunger and misery were
engraved upon her face in as legible char-
acters as her ascetic habits and her pres-
ent fear. Her clothes still bore the traces
of past richness. She was dressed in
faded silk, with carefull}^ mended lace,
and an elegant though worn mantle — in
fact, the rags of former wealth. The
shop-keepers, wavering between pity and
self-interest, tried to soothe their con-
science with words.

" Citoyenne, you seem very poorly."

" Would madame like to take any-
thing?" asked the woman, catching up
her husband's words.

"We've got some very good broth,"
said the pastry-cook.

" It's so cold, perhaps you have caught
a chill, madame, coming here ; j^ou are
welcome to rest a bit and warm j'-our-
self."

"We are not so black as the devil,"
said the pastry-cook.

Reassured by the friendly tone of the
charitable pastry-cook, the lady admitted
that she had been followed by a man, and
was afraid to go home alone.

"Is that all?" replied the man with
the red cap. "Wait a minute for me,
citoyenne. ^^

He g-ave the louis to his wife ; then,
moved by that sense of acknowledgment
which steals into the heart of a vendor
who has received an exorbitant price for
goods of slight value, he went and put on
his uniform as a garde national, took his
hat and sword, and returned under arms.
But his wife had had time to reflect. As
in many other hearts, reflection closed
the hand which benevolence had opened.
The woman had got frightened ; she was
afraid her husband would get into some

AN EPISODE UXDER THE TERROR.

scrape, so she plucked at the lappet of
his coat to detain him. However, in
obedience to an instinct of charity, the
g-ood man offered on the spot to escort
the old lady.

" It looks as if the man whom the
citoyenne is afraid of were still prowling*
round the shop," said the young- woman
sharply.

" I am afraid he is," frankly admitted
the lady.

" Suppose it were a spy ? or perhaps
there is a conspirac^^ I Do not go — and
take the box away from her,"

These words were whispered into the
pastry-cook's ear by his wife ; they froze
the extempore courage which had inflated
his breast.

"Eh! I'll just go and say a word to
him, and he'll be off in a minute," he ex-
claimed, opening the door and g'oing out
precipitately.

The old lady sat down again on her
chair as passive as a child ; she looked
almost silly. The honest shopman speedily
returned; his face, red enoug-h to begin
with, and further inflamed by the fire of
his oven, had suddenly become livid ; he
was so overcome with terror that his legs
tottered under him, and his eyes looked
like a drunkard's.

'' D'you want to g"et our heads cutoff,
wretched aristocrat ! " he cried, furious.
''Come, take to j'our heels, and don't
ever show 3'ourself here again. Don't
expect me to furnish 3'ou with the ele-
ments of conspiracy ! "

As the pastry-cook finished these words,
he tried to snatch back the little box,
which the old lady had put into one of her
pockets. But scarcely had the impudent
fellow's hands touched her clothes, when
the strange lady — preferring to face the
dangers of her walk unprotected save by
God, rather than lose what she had just
purchased — regamed all the agility of
her 3'outh ; she sprang to the door,
opened it suddenh', and vanished from
the gaze of the pastry-cook and his wife,
leaving them trembling and stupefied.
As soon as she found herself outside, she
set off at a quick walk ; but her strength
soon failed her, for she heard the heavy

footsteps of the spy who was following
her so pitilesslj^ crunching the snow be-
hind her. She was obliged to stop ; he
stopped too. Whether from fear or lack
of intelligence, she did not dare either to
speak or to look at him. She went on,
walking slowlj^ ; then the man slackened
his steps, always keeping at a distance
from which he was able to watch her.
The stranger seemed to be the very sha-
dow of the old woman. Xine o'clock
struck as this silent pair passed again
before the church of Saint Laurent. It
is in the nature of every heart, even the
feeblest, that a feeling of calmness should
succeed to violent agitation, for, if feeling
is infinite, our organization is limited.
So the strange woman, as she experienced
no harm from her supposed persecutor,
was inclined to look upon him as an un-
known friend anxious to protect her. She
summed up all the circumstances attend-
ant on the apparitions of the stranger
with a view to discover plausible corrob-
oration of this consoling theory ; she
was bent on finding out good intentions
in him rather than evil. Forgetting the
terror with which he had inspired the
pastr^'-cook just before, she passed on
with a firm step through the higher parts
of le faubourg Saint Martin. After walk-
ing for half an hour, she reached a house
situated at the corner formed by the
principal street of the faubourg and the
street which leads to la barriere de Pan-
tin. Even now this is still one of the
loneliest places in the whole of Paris.
The north Avind blows over les buttes de
Saint Chaumont and de Belleville, and
whistles through the houses — or rather
hovels, sprinkled over a nearly deserted
valley, divided b^' walls of mud and bones.
This desolate spot seemed the natural
refuge of misery and despair. The man,
implacable in his pursuit of this poor creat-
ure, who was yet bold enough to traverse
those silent streets by night, seemed im-
pressed by the scene that rose before him.
He stopped to consider, standing upright
in an attitude of hesitation. A lamp,
whose flickering flame could scarcely pene-
trate the mist, cast its faint light upon
him. Fright gave the old woman eyes.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

She thought she could descry a sinister
look upon the man's features. She felt
her fears reawakening* — then, taking ad-
vantage of a sort of uncertainty which
seemed to make him linger, she glided
through the darkness to the door of the
solitary house, touched a spring, and was
gone swift as a dream. The man stood
motionless looking at the house. In a
certain measure it might have served for
the type of the wretched dwellings of this
faubourg. The crazy cahin was built of
ashlar smeared with a coat of plaster, so
rotten and with such big cracks that it
looked as if the least puff of wind would
blow the whole thing down. The roof,
covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had
sunk in several places, and seemed on the
point of falling in under the weight of the
snow. There were three windows in each
storj', the frames mouldering with damp
and starting with the action of the sun :
it was evident that the cold must find its
wa}'^ through them into the rooms. The
house was as isolated as an ancient tower
that time has forgotten to destroy. The
attics at the top of the wretched building
were pierced with windows at irregular
intervals, and from these shone a dim
light, but the rest of the house was in
complete darkness. The old woman had
some difficult jnn climbing the rough awk-
Avard staircase, up which a rope served
for a handrail. She knocked mysteriously
at the door of a lodging in the attic ; an
old man offered her a chair ; she sat down
in it precipitately^

" Hide ! hide ! " said she. '' Though
we only go out so seldom, they know
everything" we do, and spy out ever^'- step
we take."

" What is it now ? " asked another old
woman who was sitting by the fire.

'' That man who has been prowling
round the house since yesterday morning
has been following me this evening."

At these words the three inhabitants
of the garret looked at each other ; they
did not try to conceal the signs of pro-
found terror visible on their faces. The
old man was the least agitated of the
three, perhaps because he was in the most
danger. A brave man, under the bur-

den of great misfortune, or under the
yoke of persecution, has alreadj'^ — so to
speak — begun his self-sacrifice ; he looks,
upon each da}^ of his life only as one more
victory gained over fate. It was easy to
see from the looks of the two women which
were fastened on the old man, that he and
he alone was the object of their intense
anxiety.

" Why should we cease to trust in God,
sisters?" said he in a hollow voice, but
with much earnestness; "we sang His
praises amid the shouts of the murderers
and the cries of the dying in the Carmelite
convent; if He willed that I should be
saved from the massacre, it was doubtless
to preserve me for a destiny that I must
endure without murmuring. God protects
His own. He can dispose of them accord-
ing to His will. It is you we must take
thought for, not for me."

''No," said one of the two old women,
" what is our life compared with the life
of a priest ? "

" When I was once outside the Abbaye
de Chelles I looked upon myself as dead,"
exclaimed that one of the two nuns who
had not been out.

" Look," said the one who had just come
in, " here are the Hosts."

''But," exclaimed the other, "I can
hear some one coming up the stairs."

At these words they all three listened ;
the noise ceased.

"Do not be alarmed," said the priest,
" if some one tries to find you. Some
one, on whose fidelity we can count, was
to take all necessary steps for crossing
the frontier, and will come for letters
which I have written to le Due de Lan-
geais and le Marquis de Beauseant, asking
them to consider means for rescuing j^ou
from this terrible country, and the death
or misery which await you here."

"But will you not follow us?" whis-
pered the two nuns eagerly, with a sort
of despair.

" My place is where there are victims,"
said the priest simply.

The women looked at their guest in
silence, Avith holy admiration.

" Sceur Marthe," said he, addressing
the sister who had gone out for the Hosts,

AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR,

"this messenger will answer Fiat volun-
tas to the word Hosanna.^'

" There is some one on the stairs ! "
exclaimed the other nun, opening* a hid-
ing place contrived under the roof.

This time, in the profound silence, they
could easily hear the steps, which were
covered with lumps of dried mud, creak-
ing under the tread of a man. The priest
squeezed Avith diflEicult}^ into a sort of
wardrobe, and the nun threw some clothes
over him. "' You can shut the door, Soeur
Agathe," said he in a muffled voice.

He was scarcely hidden when there were
three raps at the door. The two holy
women trembled ; they took counsel b}'"
looks, not daring to pronounce a single
word. They appeared to be both about
sixty years old. Cut off from the world
for forty j^ears, they were like plants ac-
customed to the atmosphere of a green-
house, which die if fhey are put out of it.
They were so habituated to convent life
that they could not conceive any other.
One morning their gratings had been
broken down, and they had shuddered at
finding themselves free. It is easy to
picture the sort of unnatural numbness
that the events of the Revolution had
produced in their innocent hearts. Inca-
pable of reconciling their monastic ideas
with the difficulties of life, they could not
even understand their own situation ; they
were like children who have been once
cared for and then abandoned by their
special providence — their mother, praying
instead of crying. Thus in the face of the
danger they foresaw at this moment, they
remained mute and passive, knoAving no
other defense than Christian resignation.
The man who had asked for admittance
interpreted their silence as consent; he
opened the door at once and presented
himself. The two nuns shuddered when
thej'' recog'nized him as the person who
had been proAvling round their house for
some time past, collecting information
about them. They sat motionless, look-
ing at him with apprehensive curiosity,
like a shy child silently staring at a
stranger. The man was stout and of
lofty statue ; there was nothing in his
bearing, his manner, or his phj-siognomy

suggestive of an evil nature. He imitated
the stillness of the nuns, while his eyes
slowly examined the room he had just en-
tered.

Two straw mats, placea on the bare
boards, served as beds for the two nuns ;
there was only one table, in the middle of
the room ; on it stood some plates, three
knives, and a round loaf ; a small fire
burned in the grate ; some pieces of wood
piled up in a corner bore further witness
to the poverty of the two recluses. The
walls w^ere covered with a layer of very
old paint, showing the bad condition of
the roof by the stains upon it, which
marked with brown streams the infiltra-
tion of the rain. A relic, no doubt rescued
from the pillage of the Abbaye de Chelles,
was placed lil^e an ornament upon the
mantelpiece. Three chairs, two chests,
and a wretched cupboard completed the
furniture of the room, but a door near the
fireplace suggested that there might be a
second.

The person, who had introduced him-
self under such terrible auspices into the
bosom of this family, did not take long
to make an inventory of their cell. His
fej^tures assumed an expression of pity as
lie cast a look of benevolence upon the
two women ; he was at least as embar-
rassed as they. The strange silence
which they all three kept did not last
long, for presently the stranger began
to comprehend the moral feebleness and
inexperience of the two poor creatures,
so he said to them in a voice which he
tried to make gentle : **' I am not come
to 3'ou as an enemy, citoyennes — " He
stopped short, and then went on: " Mes
sceurs, if an}' misfortune should happen
to you, believe me it is not I who will
have contributed to it. I have a favor
to ask of you."

The}^ still kept silence.

" If I intrude upon you — if I annoy j'ou,
tell me so freely — I will leave you ; but I
hope you will understand that I am entire-
ly devoted to you ; that if there is any ser-
vice I could render you, you may com-
mand me without fear, for I alone perhaps
— now that there is no king — am above
the law."

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

There was a ring- of truth in his words.
Sister Agathe, the nun who belonged to
the family of Lang-eais, and whose man-
ners seemed to show that she had former-
ly been familiar with brilliant society and
had breathed the air of a court, hastened
to point to a chair, as if to invite their
visitor to sit down. The stranger showed
a sort of pleasure mingled with sadness,
when he saw this gesture ; then he waited
to sit down until the two worthy ladies
had done so themselves

"You have given refuge," he went on,
'Ho a venerable priest who has not taken
the oaths, who escaped miraculously from
the massacre of the Carmelites."

" Hosanna ! '' said Sister Agathe, in-
terrupting him, and looking at him with
nervous curiosity.

'■' No, I do not think that is his name,"
he replied.

"But, monsieur," said Sister Martha
eagerl}'-, "we have not g-ot any priest
here ; and — "

"Then you should have been more pru-
dent and wary," answered the stranger,
stretching out his hand and taking a
breviary from the table. "I do not
think that you are likely to know Latin,
and—"

He did not go on ; the extraordinary
emotion expressed by the faces of the
poor nuns made him afraid he had gone
too far ; they trembled, and their eyes
filled with tears.

"Do not distress yourselves," he said
frankl3^ " I know the name of your
guest and jour own ; three days ago I
learned all about 3'our distress, and your
devotion to the venerable Abbe de — "

" Sh ! " said Sister Agathe simplj^,
putting- her finger to her lips.

" You see, mes soeurs, that if I had con-
ceived the horrible plan of betraying- you,
I might have already accomplished it
more than once."

When the priest heard these words, he
extricated himself from his prison, and
appeared in the middle of the room.

"I cannot believe, monsieur," said he
to the strange man, " that 3'ou are one
of our persecutors ; I trust myself to you.
What is it that you want of me ? "

The holy confidence of the priest, the
noble fervor expressed in all his features,
would have disarmed a murderer. The
mysterious person who had thus brought
excitement into this scene of misery and
resignation, sat for a moment looking at
the g-roup of the three before him ; then,
assuming- a confidential tone, he addressed
the priest thus : " Mon pere, I came to
entreat 3'ou to celebrate a requiem mass
for the repose of the soul of — of a — of a
consecrated person whose body will never
rest in hallowed ground."

The priest shuddered involuntaril.y.
The two- nuns, not yet comprehending- to
whom the stranger referred, remained
in an attitude of curiosity, their necks
stretched out and their faces turned to
the two speakers. The ecclesiastic scru-
tinized the man : g-enuine anxiet}^ was
visible in his face, and his eyes expressed
ardent supplication.

''Eh hien ! Come back to-nig-ht, at
midnight ; I shall be ready to celebrate
the only funeral office we can offer in ex-
piation of the crime of which you speak."

The stranger trembled, but he looked
as if some feeling- of satisfaction, at once
solemn and sweet, had triumphed over
some secret sorrow. After respectfully
saluting the priest and the two holy wo-
men, he departed with an expression of
mute g-ratitude understood by these three
generous hearts. About two hours after
tjiis scene, he returned, knocked cautious-
ly at the outer door of the attic, and was
received by Mademoiselle de Beauseant,
and led into the second room of their
humble retreat. Herte all had been pre-
pared for the ceremon}^ Between the
two pillars of the chimnej^-piece the nuns
had pushed up the old cupboard ; its an-
tique shape was hidden under a magnifi-
cent altar frontal of g-reen moire. A
large ebony and ivory crucifix was fast-
ened to the yellow wall, making- the bare-
ness only more apparent, and of necessit}^
attracting- the eye to itself. The sisters
had managed to set up four little slender
tapers upon this temporary a Itar, b^^ fast-
ening- them to it with sealing--wax. The
tapers cast a pale light, almost absorbed
by the dead walls, their feeble flicker

AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR.

scarcely reaching- the rest of the room ;
it cast its beams only upon the Holy In-
struments, as it were, a ray of light fall-
ing- from heaven upon the naked altar.
The floor was reeking- with damp. The
roof sloped rapidly on both sides like the
roof of the other garret, and was scored
with cracks through which came the icy
blast. Nothing could have been less
stately, yet nothing- was more solemn
than this mournful ceremony. Profound
silence, through which the least sound
arising- from la route d'AUemagne could
be heard, cast a veil of somber majesty
over the midnight scene. Indeed tha
g-randeur of the action contrasted strong--
ly with the poverty of the instruments ;
therefrom arose a feeling- of relig-ious awe.
On each side of the altar, regardless of
the deadly damp, knelt the two aged
nuns upon the tiling of the floor, and
prayed tog-ether with the priest. Clad
in his sacrificial vestments, he set out
a golden chalice adorned with precious
stones, no doubt one of the sacred vessels
saved from the pillage of the Abbaye de
Chelles. By the side of this ciborium,
recalling- by its richness the splendor of
the monarchy, were placed two glasses,
scarcel3^ g-ood enough for the lowest inn,
containing the water and the wine for the
Holy Sacrifice. For want of a missal
the priest had placed his breviary upon
the corner of the altar. A common
towel was put readj'- for the washing- of
the innocent and bloodless hands. The
whole was infinite yet little; poor but
noble ; at once lioly and profane. The
stranger came and knelt down devoutl^y
between the two nuns. The priest had
tied a piece of crape round the chalice and
the crucifix ; having no other means of
showing the intention of this requiem
mass, he had put God Himself into
mourning- weeds. Suddenly the man
noticed it ; he was seized with a memorj^
that held such power over him, that the
sweat stood in drops upon his Avide and
lofty brow.

The four silent actors of this scene
looked at one another mj'steriously. Then
their souls rising with one another in their
mutual influence, communicated one to

another their own sensations, and were
melted tog-ether in religious pity. It
seemed as if their thoug-ht had called up
the martyr whose remains had been de-
voured by quick-lime, and that his shadow
rose before them in all its royal majesty.
They were celebrating an ohit without
the body of the dead. Under these g'ap-
ing- laths and tiles, four Christians were
about to intercede before God for a king'
of France, were about to celebrate his
funeral without the coffin. Here was the
purest of all devotion, an astonishing act
of fidelity performed without one thought
for the future. Doubtless to the eyes of
God, it was as the glass of water which
weig-hs in the balance as heavy as the
g-reatest virtues. The whole monarchy
was present in the prayers of a priest
and two poor women ; perhaps, too, the
Revolution itself was represented in the
man, for his face betrayed too much re-
morse not to cause the belief that he was
fulfilling the vows of a boundless re-
pentance.

Instead of pronouncing- the Latin words,
Introiho ad altar e Dei, etc., the priest,
by some divine inspiration, looked upon
the three assistants — the symbol there of
Christian France — and said to them, as
though to blot out the wretchedness of
the garret : ''We are about to enter into
the sanctuary of God ! " At these words,
uttered with thrilling- earnestness, the
server and the two nuns were filled with
religious awe. God would not have re-
vealed Himself in greater majesty under
the vaults of Saint Peter at Rome, than
He revealed Himself then to the e^'es of
these Christians in this refuge of poverty.
The truth is so perfect — that between
Him and man every intermediary seems
useless, and that He draws His greatness
only from Himself. The strang-er's devo-
tion was real, the sentiment, too, which
united the prayers of these four servants
of God and the king was unanimous. The
holy words rang- through the silence like
heavenly music. There was a moment
when the stranger was overcome with
tears ; it was at the Pater Noster. The
priest added, in Latin, this petition, which
the man no doubt understood : Et remitte

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

scelus regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis re-
misit semetipse. (And forgive the regi-
cides as Louis himself forgave them.) The
two nuns saw two great tears roll down
the stranger's manly cheeks and fall upon
the floor. The priest recited the Office
for the Dead. The Domine salvum fac
regem, intoned in a low voice, went to the
hearts of the faithful Royalists when they
remembered that the child-king, for whom
their prayers ascended to the Most High,
at that moment was a captive in the hands
of his enemies. The stranger shivered at
the thought that a new crime might still
be committed, w^herein he would no doubt
be forced to take part. When the funeral
service was over, the priest made a sign
to the two nuns, and they went out. As
soon as he found himself alone with the
stranger, he went up to him with a sad
and gentle air, and said in a fatherly
voice : ''My son, if you have stained jonv
hands in the blood of the martyr-king,
confide in me. There is no sin which can-
not be effaced in the ej'es of God, by re-
pentance as touching and sincere as 3'ours
seems to be." At the first words pro-
nounced by the ecclesiastic, the stranger
let a movement of involuntary terror es-
cape him ; but his face recovered its calm-
ness and he looked at the astonished priest
with confidence.

"Father," said he, in a voice visibly
affected, " no one is more innocent than I
of the blood shed — "

''I must believe you," interrupted the
priest.

He paused while he once more scruti-
nized his penitent ; then, persisting in the
belief that b.e was one of those timorous
Conventionnels who betrayed an invio-
lable and consecrated head in order to
save their own, he replied in a grave
voice : " Consider, my son, the fact that
you have not co-operated in so great a
crime is not sufficient to be absolved from
it. Those men who were able to defend
the king, and left their swords in their
scabbards, will have a very heavy ac-
count to render to the King of Heaven.
Oh ! yes," continued the old priest, shak-
ing his head impressively from right to
left — " yes, very heavy ! — for 'bj remain-

ing aloof, they became the passive accom-
plices of this terrible crime."

''You think," asked the stranger in
amazement, " that indirect participation
will be punished. The soldier commanded
to fall into line — is he then responsible ? "

The priest hesitated.

The stranger was glad of the embar-
rassment into which he had thrown this
Puritan Royalist, by placing him between
the dogma of passive obedience — which,
according to the Monarchists, was the
essence of all military law — and the
equally important dogma which magni-
fies into sanctity the respect due to the
royal person ; in the priest's silence he
eagerl^^ descried a solution to the doubts
which tormented him. Then, in order not
to leave the v^enerable Jansenist time for
further reflection, he said to him : "I
should blush to offer you any fee for the
funeral service you have just celebrated
for the repose of the king's soul and the
relief of my conscience ; one cannot pay
for a thing of inestimable value except by
an oft'ering also above price. Will you
deign, monsieur, to accept the gift of a
holy relic which I offer you. The day
will come, perhaps, when you will under-
stand its value."

As the stranger finished these words
he presented the ecclesiastic w^ith a little
box, which felt extremely light. He took
it, as it were, unconsciously, for the man's
solemn words, the tone in w^hich he spoke,
and the respect with which he held out
the box, struck him with the profoundest
astonishment. Then they returned into
the room w^here the two nuns were wait-
ing.

" You are in a house, " said the stranger,
" belonging to a man — Mucins Scaevola,
the plasterer who lives on the first floor
— who is well known in the section for his
patriotism ; but he is secretly attached
to the Bourbons. He was formerly
huntsman to Monseigneur le Prince de
Conti, and owes all his fortune to him.
As long as you do not go out of his
house, you are safer here than in any
other place in France. Staj'- here ; there
are pious souls who will watch over your
w^ants, and you will be able to wait, with-

AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR.

out danger, for less evil times. In a 3"ear,
on the 21st of January " — (as he pro-
nounced these last words he could not
hide an involuntary shudder) — " if you do
adopt this wretched place for your refuge,
I will return to celebrate the expiatory
mass with 3'ou — "

He did not finish his sentence. Then,
saluting the silent inhabitants of the
attic, he cast a last look on all the signs
of their poverty, and disappeared.

For the two innocent nuns, such an ad-
venture assumed all the interest of_^a ro-
mance. As soon, then, as the venerable
abbe had informed them of the myste-
rious gift which the man had made him
so solemnly, they placed the box on the
talDle, and their three anxious faces,
faintly lit up by the light of a tallow
dip, betrayed an indescribable curiosity.
Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the
box, and found a very fine batiste hand-
kerchief, soiled with sweat ; when they
unfolded it they found that there were
stains upon it.

"It is blood ! " said the priest.

'* It is marked with the royal crown ! "
exclaimed the other sister.

The two nuns dropped the precious relic
in horror. For these two simple souls
the mystery which enveloped the stranger
became inexplicable ; as to the priest, from
that day he did not even attempt to ac-
count for it.

The three prisoners soon perceived, in
spite of the Terror, that a powerful hand
was stretched out over them. First, they
received provisions and fuel ; then, the
two nuns discovered that there must be a
woman co-operating with their protector,
for linen and clothes were sent them which
enabled them to go out without exciting
remark b}^ the aristocratic fashion of the
dresses which tliey had been obliged to
continue to wear ; finallj^ Mucins Scaevola
gave them two cartes civiques. From
time to time warnings necessary to the
safety of the priest reached them in round-
about ways. These counsels came so op-
portunely that they were convinced they
could only have been given by a person
initiated into secrets of State. In spite
of the famine which weighed over Paris,

these outlaws found rations of white
bread regularl\^ brought to the door of
their cabin by invisible hands ; however,
they thought they had discovered in
Mucins Scaevola the mysterious agent of
these benefactions, which were always
both suitably timed and ingeniously car-
ried out. The three nobles then, who.
continued to dwell in the same attic,
could not doubt that their protector was
the person who had come to celebrate the
mass of expiation during the night of
the 22d of Janyarj^ 1793 ; thus he became
the object of their special devotion ; he was
their only hope, they lived through him
alone. They had added to their prayers
special prayers for him ; night and morn-
ing the pious creatures offered their vows
for his happiness, prosperity, and safety ;
they besought God to keep far from him
every snare, to deliver him from his
enemies and grant him a long and peace-
ful life. To their gratitude, renewed so
to speak erverj day, was necessarily allied
a feeling of curiosity which grew each day
more intense. The circumstances that
had attended the stranger's apparition
were the subject of their conversations;
they formed a thousand conjectures con-
cerning him ; even the mere distraction
of thought which he caused was a fresh
source of advantage to them. They prom-
ised themselves to make sure of not let-
ting him escape from their gratitude the
evening when he would come back accord-
ing to his promise, to celebrate the sad
anniversary of the death of Louis XVI.
That night, so impatiently awaited, ar-
rived at last. At midnight, the sound of
the stranger's heavy footsteps was heard
upon the old wooden staircase ; the room
had been prepared to receive him, the
altar was vested. This time the sisters
opened the door to greet him, and both
hastened to the stairs with a light. Made-
moiselle de Langeais even went a few
steps dowm in order to see their bene-
factor the sooner.

"Come," she said kindly, in a voice
broken by emotion — " come, we were ex-
pecting 3"ou."

The man raised his head, cast a somber
look at the nun, and made no answer.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

She felt as if a mantle of ice had fallen
upon her ; she was silent. Gratitude and
curiosity expired in their hearts at the
sig-ht of him. Perhaps he seemed to them,
whose hearts were excited by sentiment
and disposed to expand into friendship,
more chilling-, taciturn, and terrible than
he really was. The three poor prisoners
comprehended that he desired to remain
a strang-er to them, and resig-ned them-
selves. The priest fancied he saw a smile
upon the man's lips at the moment when
he perceived the preparation that they
had made for his reception ; but he im-
mediately repressed it. He heard mass
and prayed, then he departed, after hav-
ing- replied with a few polite words of re-
fusal to Mademoiselle de Langeais's invi-
tation to partake of the little collation
which they had prepared.

After the 9th of thermidor, the nuns
and the Abbe de MaroUes were able to
walk through Paris without the least
risk. The first expedition which the abbe
made was to a perfumery shop, at the
sign of La Eeine des fleurs, kept by a
citoyen and citoyenne Rag-on, late per-
fumers to the court, who remained faith-
ful to the ro3^al family, and whom the
Vendeans made use of to correspond Avith
the princes and the royalist committee in
Paris. The abbe, dressed as the times
required, was just at the doorstep of this
shop — which was situated between Saint
Roch and la rue des Trondeurs — when a
crowd that filled la rue Saint Honore pre-
vented his g-oing out. ''^ What's this?"
said he to Madame Rag-on.

'' It is nothing," she replied ; '' only the
tumbril and the executioner going- to la
Place Louis XV. Ah ! we saw it often
enoug-h last year; but to-day, just four
days after the anniversary of the twenty-
first of January, one can look at the
g-hastly procession without any pain."

"Why," said the abbe, '^ what you say
is not Christian."

" Ah ! but it is the execution of Robes-
pierre's accomplices. They defended them-
selves as long- as the}^ could, but now it's
their turn — over there, where they have
sent so many innocent men."

The crowd filled la rue Saint Honore,
and passed by like a flood. The Abbe de
MaroUes, yielding to an impulse of curi-
osity, looked, and saw above the heads of
the crowd, standing erect on the tumbril,
the man who had heard his mass three
days before.

" Who is it ? " said he ; ''the man—"

" It's the executioner," answered Mon-
sieur Ragon, calling the executeur des
hautes ceuvres by his title under the
monarchy.

" Mon ami, mon ami ! " cried Madame
Ragon ; " Monsieur I'Abbe is dying ! "
and the old lady got a flask of vinegar
to bring the priest to his senses, for he
had fainted. "No doubt what he gave
me," said he, "was the handkerchief
with which the king wiped his face when
he was g'oing to his martj^rdom. — Poor
man ! The ax had a heart in its steel
when none was found in all France ! "

The perfumers thought the poor priest
was delirious.

MADAME DE DEY'S LAST RECEPTION.

"Sometimes they saw that by some phenomenon of Vision or Locomotion he could abolish
Space in both its moods — Time and Distance — whereof the one is intellectual and the other
physical." — Louis Lambart.

One evening- in the month of November,
1793, the principal inhabitants of Carentan
were collected in the salon of Madame de
Dey, who held an Assembly every even-
ing-. Certain circumstances which would
have attracted no notice in a large town,
but were such as to mig-htily interest a
small one, imparted a peculiar impor-
tance to this customary gathering-. Two
days before, Madame de Dey had closed
her doors to her visitors on the ground of
indisposition, and had also announced that
she would be unable to receive them the
following- evening-. At an ordinar^'^ time
these two events would have produced the
same effect at Carentan as a relache at
all the theaters produces in Paris ; on
these days, existence seems in a sense in-
complete. But in 1793, the action of Ma-
dame de Dey was one which might lead to
the most disastrous consequences. At
that time, a step involving a noble in
the least risk was nearly always a matter
of life and death. In order to understand
properly the keen curiosity and petty
craftiness which on that evening ani-
mated the faces of all these respectable
Normans ; and still more, in order to share
the secret perplexities of Madame de Dey,
it is necessarj^ to explain the part she
played at Carentan. As tlie critical posi-
tion in which she was situated at this time
was no doubt the position of many during
the Revolution, the sympathies of not a
few of my readers will add their own color
to this narrative.

Madame de Dey was the widow of a
lieutenant-g-eneral decorated with sev-

* " Le Requisitionnaire " was included by Balzac
among his Philosophical Studies, because of the
supernaturnal feature. — Editor.

eral orders. At the beginning- of the emi-
gration she had left the court, and as she
owned considerable property in the neig-h-
borhood of Carentan, she had taken refuge
there in the hope that the influence of the
terror would make itself but little felt in
those parts. This supposition, founded
on an exact knowledge of the country,
proved correct, for the ravag-es of the
Revolution in Lower Normandy were
slight. Although, formerly, when she
came to visit her property she had onl^""
associated with the local noblesse, now,
out of policy, she opened her doors to the
principal townspeople and the new au-
thorities of Carentan, exerting- herself
to flatter them by the compliment of her
acquaintance, and at the same time to
avoid awakening- their hatred or their
jealousy. Kind and courteous, g-ifted
with an indescribable sweetness of man-
ner, she knew how to please without re-
course to cringing- or entreaty, and had
thus succeeded in winning- general esteem.
This was due to her exquisite tact, which
by its sage promptings enabled her to
steer a difficult course and satisfy- the
exig-encies of a mixed society ; she neither
humiliated the self-conceit of the paiwenus
nor shocked the sensibilities of her old
friends.

At the age of about thirtv-eight, she
still persevered — not that fresh buxom
beauty which distinguishes the girls of
Lower Normandy — but a slender, so to
speak, aristocratic type. Her features
were delicateh' chiseled and her figure
pliant and graceful ; when she spoke, her
pale face seemed to light up with fresh
life. Her larg-e dark eyes were full of
kindly courtesy, but an expression of re-
ligious calm within them seemed to show

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

that the principle of her existence lay no
long-er in herself. She had been married
at an earlj'- age to an old and jealous sol-
dier, and the falseness of her position in
the midst of a dissolute court, had no
doubt done much to spread a veil of g-rave
melanchol}' over a face which must once
have beamed with all the charm and vi-
vacity of love. Obliged to repress unceas-
ingly the instinctive impulses and emo-
tions of woman, at a time when she still
feels rather than reflects, with her, pas-
sion had remained virgin in the depth of
her heart. Thus her chief attraction was
derived from this inward j'^outhfulness,
which betrayed itself at certain moments
in her countenance, and gave her ideas an
innocent expression of desire.

Her appearance commanded respect,
but in her manner and her voice, im-
pulses toward an unknown future, such
as spring in the heart of a j^oung girl,
were continually showing themselves.
The least susceptible men soon found
themselves in love with her, and j'^et were
impressed with a sort of fear of her, in-
spired by her courtl}^ bearing. Her soul,
great b}'' nature but rendered strong by
cruel struggles, seemed to be raised too
high for common humanit}', and of this
men appeared to be conscious. To such
a soul, a lofty passion is a necessity.
Thus all Madame de Dey's affections were
concentrated in one single sentiment — the
sentiment of maternity. The happiness
of which she had been deprived as a wife
she found again in the intense love she
bore her son. She loved him, not only
with the pure and deep devotion of a
mother, but with the coquetry of a sweet-
heart and the jealous}'- of a wife. She was
miserable when he was far from her, anx-
ious when he had gone out ; she could
never see enough of him ; she lived onl}^
in him and for him. To give an idea of
the strength of this sentiment in Madame
de Dey, it will be enough to add that this
son, besides being her onl}^ child, was the
last relation left her, the onlj'- creature on
whom she could fasten the hopes and
fears and joys of her life. The late count
was the last of his family, and the count-
ess the sole heiress of hers, so that every

worldly calculation and interest combined
with the noblest needs of the soul to in-
tensify in her heart a sentiment already
so strong in the heart of woman. It w^as
only by infinite care that she had suc-
ceeded in rearing her son, and this had
endeared him still more to her. The doc-
tor had pronounced twenty times over
that she niust lose him, but she was con-
fident in her own hopes and presenti-
ments. So in spite of the decrees of the
faculty, she had the inexpressible joy of
seeing him pass safely through the perils
of infancy, and then of watching with
wonder the continued improvement of
his health.

Thanks to her constant care, her son
had grown into a young man of so much
promise that at the age of twentj'- he was
looked upon as one of the most accom-
plished gentlemen at the court of Ver-
sailles. Above all, happy in a crown
unattained by the efforts of every mo-
ther, she was adored by her son ; they
understood one another heart to heart
in fraternal sympathj^ If they had not
been already bound together by the bonds
of nature, they would have instinctive]}'
felt for each other that mutual friendship
between men which is so rarely met with
in life.

The young count had been appointed
sub-lieutenant at the age of eighteen, and
in obedience to the code of honor of the
&2iY had followed the princes in their
emigration.

Thus it was impossible for Madame de
Dey, being noble, rich, and the mother of
an emigrant, to hide from herself the
dangers of her cruel situation. With no
other aim than to save her large fortuen
for her son, she had given up the happi-
ness of accompanying him ; but when she
read at Carentan the stringent laws under
which the Republic was confiscating every
day the property of emigrants, she exulted
in her act of courage, for was she not pre-
serving her son's wealth at the risk of her
own life ? Later on, w^hen she heard of
the terrible executions decreed by the Con-
vention, she slept in peace, knowing that
her only treasure was in safety, far from
danger and the scaffold. She congratu-

MADAME DE DEY'S LAST RECEPTION.

lated herself in the belief that she had
taken the best means of preserving both
her treasures at once. By consecrating-
to this secret thought the concessions
which those unhappy times demanded, she
neither compromised her womanly dignity
nor her aristocratic convictions, but hid
her sorrows under a cold veil of mystery.

She had grasped all the difficulties which
awaited her at Carentan. To come there
and fill the first place was in itself a dail}'
tempting of the scaffold. But supported
by her motherlj' courage, she was enabled
to win the affection of the poor by consol-
ing the miserx'- of all without distinction,
and to make herself indispensable to the
rich by ministering to their pleasures.

She entertained at her house the pro-
cureur of the commune, the mayor, the
president of the district, the public prose-
cutor, and even the judges of the Revolu-
tionary Court. Of these personages the
first four were unmarried, and paid their
addresses to her. Each of them hoped
she would marrj^ him, either from fear of
the harm that it was in their power to do
her, or for the sake of the protection which
they had to offer her. The public prose-
cutor, formerly an attorney at Caen, em-
ploA'ed to manage the countess's business,
adopted an artifice which was most dan-
gerous for her. He tried a generous and
devoted line of conduct, in the hope of in-
spiring her with affection. In this way he
was the most formidable of all her suitors,
and as she had formerly been a client of
his, he alone knew intimately the condi-
tion and extent of her fortune. His passion
was therefore re-enforced by all the desires
of avarice, and further supported by im-
mense power — the power of life and death
over the whole district. This man, who
was still young, proceeded with so fine a
show of generosity that Madame de Dey
had not as yet been able to form a true
estimate of him. But despite the danger
of a trial of craft with ISTormans, she made
use of all the inventive wit and duplicity
bestowed by nature on women, to play off
these rivals one against the other. By
gaining time, she hoped to reach the end
of her difficulties, safe and sound. At
this period the Royalists of the interior

went on fiattering themselves from day to
day that on the morrow they would see
the end of the Republic ; it was this per-
suasion which brought many of them to
ruin.

In spite of these difficulties, by the exer-
cise of considerable address, the countess
had maintained her independence up to
the day on which she had determined,
with unaccountable imprudence, to close
her doors to her guests. She inspired such
a real and deep interest, that the people
who had come to her house that evening
were seriously perturbed when they heard
it was impossible for her to receive them.
Then, with that barefaced curiosity which
is ingrained in provincial manners, the^'^
immediately began to make inquiries as to
what trouble, or annoyance, or illness,
she suffered from. To these questions an
old housekeeper named Brigitte answered
that her mistress kept her room and would
see no one, not even the members of her
household.

The semi-claustral life led by the inhabi-
tants of a small town forms a habit of
analyzing aud explaining the actions of
others, so germane to them as to become
invincible. So after having pitied Ma-
dame de Dey, without really knowing
whether she was happy or unhappy, each
one set himself to discover the cause of
her sudden retirement.

" If she were ill," said the first inquisi-
tor, " she would have sent for advice ; but
the doctor has been at my house the whole
da^^ playing chess. He was joking with
me and saying that there is only one dis-
ease nowadays, . . . and the loss of one's
head is incurable."

This jest was hazarded with caution.

Men and women, old and young, set
themselves to scour the vast field of con-
jecture ; each one thought he spied a
secret, and this secret occupied all their
imaginations.

By the next day their suspicions had
grow^n more venomous. As life in a small
town is balanced up to date, the women
learned, the first thing in the morning,
that Brigitte had made larger purchases
at the market than usual. This was an
indisputable fact. Brigitte had been seen

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

very early in the Place, and — marvelous
to relate ! — she had boug-ht the only hare
there was to be got. Now the whole town
knew that Madame de Dey did not care
for g-ame, so this hare became the object
of endless speculation. Then, as the old
men were taking- their usual stroll they
observed a sort of concentrated activity in
the countess's house, betrayed by the very
precautions that the servants took to con-
ceal it. The valet was beating a carpet
in the g-arden ; the evening- before no one
would have noticed it, but as every one
was constructing a romance of his own,
this carpet served them for a foundation.
Each person had a different tale.

The second day, the principal person-
ages of Carentan, hearing- that Madame
de Dey announced that she was ill, met for
the evening" at the house of the maj^or's
brother, a retired merchant. He was a
married man, honorable, and g-enerall}^
respected, tlie countess herself having- a
g-reat regard for him. On this occasion
all the aspirants to the rich widow's hand
had a more or less probable story to tell,
while each of them pondered how to turn to
his own profit the secret which obliged her
to compromise herself in the way she had.

The public prosecutor imagined all the
details of a drama in which her son was
to be brought to the countess by night.
The ma^^or believed that a priest who had
refused the oaths had come from La
Vendee, and sought refuge. The presi-
dent of the district was convinced it was
a Chouan or Vendean leader, hotl^^ pur-
sued. Others inclined to a noble escaped
from the prisons in Paris. In short, every-
body suspected that the countess had
been g-uilty of one of those acts of g-ener-
osity, denominated hy the laws of that
time "crimes," and such as might bring
her to the scaffold. However, the public
prosecutor whispered that they must be
silent, and try to save the unfortunate
lady from the abyss into which she was
hurrying.

'' If you publish this affair abroad," he
added, " I shall be obliged to interfere,
search her house, and then — ! " He said
no more, but every one understood his
reticence.

The countess's true friends were so much
alarmed for her, that, on the morning of
the third day, the procureur syndic of the
commune g-ot his wife to write her a note,
entreating her to hold her reception that
evening- as usual. The old merchant,
bolder still, presented himself during- the
morning- at Madame de Dej'^'s house. Con-
fident in his desire to serve her, he insisted
on being shown in, when, to his utter
amazement, he caug-ht sight of her in the
g-arden, engag-ed in cutting- the last flowers
in her borders to fill her vases.

"■ There's no doubt she has given re-
fuge to her lover," said the old man,
struck with pity for this charming wo-
man. The strange expression of her face
confirmed his suspicions. Deeply moved
by a devotion natural in woman but always
touching to us — because every man is flat-
tered bj^the sacrifices a woman makes for
one of them — the merchant informed the
countess of the reports which were going
about the town, and of the danger she
was in. — ''For, "he concluded, "if cer-
tain of our functionaries would not be
disinclined to pardon your heroism, if a
priest were the object, no one will have
any pity on you, if it is discovered that
you are sacrificing yourself to the dic-
tates of the heart." '

At these words Madame de Dey looked
at him in such a strange, wild way, that,
old man as he was, he could not help
shuddering.

"Come," said she, taking him by the
hand and leading him into her own room.
After making- sure that they were alone,
she drew from her bosom a soiled and
crumpled letter. " Read it," she cried,
pronouncing the words with a violent
effort.

She fell back into her easy-chair com-
pletely overcome. While the old mer-
chant was looking for his spectacles and
wiping them clean, she raised her eyes to
his face, and for the first time gazed at
him curiously ; then she said sweetly, and
in a changed voice : "I can trust you."

"Am I not going to take a share in
your crime?" answered the worthy man
simply.

She shuddered. For the first time in

MADAME DE DEY'S LAST RECEPTION.

that little town her soul found sympathy
in the soul of another. The old merchant
understood immediately both the dejec-
tion and the joy of the countess. Her
son had taken part in the expedition of
Granville, he had written to his mother
from the depth of his prison to give her
one sad, sweet hope. Confident in his
plan of escape, he named three days
within which he would present himself
at her house in disgnise. The fatal letter
contained heartrending- adieux in case he
should not be at Carentan by the evening-
of the third day. He also entreated his
mother to remit a considerable sum of
money to the messenger who had under-
taken to carry this missive to her, through
innumerable dangers.

The paper quivered in the old man's
hands.

"And this is the third day," cried Ma-
dame de Dey. Then she rose hastily,
took the letter, and began to walk up and
down the room.

"You have not been altogether pru-
dent," said the merchant. "Why did
you have provisions got in?"

"But he may arrive dying with hunger,
wornout with fatigue, and — " She could
not go on.

" I am certain of my brother, " answered
the old man ; " I will go and get him on
your side."

The merchant summoned up all the
keenness which he had formerly employed
in his commercial affairs. He gave the
countess the most prudent and sagacious
directions, and after having agreed to-
gether as to everything they both were
to say and do, the old man invented a
plausible pretext for visiting all the prin-
cipal houses of Carentan. He announced
in each that he had just seen Madame de
Dey, and that she would hold her recep-
tion that evening, in spite of her indispo-
sition. In the cross-examination which
each family subjected him to on the nat-
ure of the countess's malady, his keen-
ness was a match for the shrewd Normans.
He managed to start on the wrong track
almost every one who busied themselves
with this mysterious affair. His first
visit did wonders ; it was to an old lady

who suffered from gout. To her he re-
lated that Madame de Dey had almost
died from an attack of gout on the stom-
ach, and went on to say that the famous
Tronchin having formerly prescribed, on
a similar occasion, the skin of a hare
flayed alive to be laid on the chest, and
for the patient to lie in bed without stir-
ring ; the countess, who was in imminent
danger two days before, after having
scrupulously carried out Tronchin's ex-
traordinary^ prescription, now felt suffi-
ciently convalescent to receive any one
Avho liked to visit her that evening.

This tale had an enormous success, and
the doctor of Carentan, himself a Ro^'alist
in petto, increased its effect by the ear-
nestness w^th which he discussed the rem-
edy. However, suspicion had taken too
deep root in the minds of certain obstinate
or philosophic persons to be entirely dis-
sipated ; so that evening the guests of
Madame de Dey were eager to arrive at
her house at an early hour, some to spy
into her face, some out of friendship, and
most from astonishment at her marvelous
cure.

They found the countess sitting in her
salon at the corner of the large chimney-
piece.

Her room was almost as severe as the
salons of Carentan, for, to avoid wound-
ing her narrow-minded guests, she had
denied herself the pleasures of luxury to
w^hich she had been accustomed before,
and had made no changes in her house.
The floor of the reception-room was not
even polished ; she let the old dingy stuffs
still hang upon the walls, still kept the
country furniture, burned tallow candles,
and in fact followed the fashions of Ca-
rentan.

She had adopted provincial life without
shrinking from its crudest pettinesses or
its most disagreeable privations. But
knowing that her guests would pardon
her an}' expenditure conducive to their
own comfort, she neglected nothing which
could afford them personal enjojnnent :
at her house they were alwaj^s sure of
an excellent dinner. She even went so
far as to feign avarice to please their
calculating minds, and led them on to dis-

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

approve of certain details as concessions
to luxury, in order to show that she could
3'ield with grace.

Toward seven o'clock in the evening-
the upper middle-class society of Caren-
tan was assembled at her house, and
formed a large circle round her hearth.
The mistress of the house, supported in
her trouble by the old merchant's com-
passionate g-lances, submitted with un-
heard-of courag-e to the minute question-
ings and stupid, frivolous talk of her
g"uests. But at every rap of the knocker,
and whenever a footstep sounded in the
street, she could scarcel3^ control her emo-
tion. She raised discussions affecting the
prosperity of the district and such burn-
ing questions as the quality of ciders, and
was so well seconded by her confidant
that the company almost forgot to spy
upon her, the expression of her face was
so natural and her assurance so imper-
turbable.

However, the public prosecutor and one
of the judges of the Revolutionary Tri-
bunal kept silence, watching attentively
the least movement of her features, and
listening, in spite of the noise, to every
sound in the house. Every now and then
they would ask some question calculated
to embarrass her, but these she answered
with admirable presence of mind. She
proved how great a mother's courage
can be.

After having arranged the card-tables
and settled every one to boston, or reversi,
or whist, Madame de Dey still remained
talking with the greatest nonchalance to
some young people ; she played her part
like a consummate actress. Presently she
led them on to ask for loto, pretended to
be the only person who knew where it
was, and left the room.

'^ Ma pauvre Brigitte," she cried, '"'I
feel almost suffocated."

Her eyes were brilliant with fever and
grief and impatience as she dried the
tears which started quickly from them.
"He is not coming," she said, looking
into the bedroom into which she had come.
" Here I can breathe and live. — But in a
few minutes more he will be here ! for he
is alive, I am certain he is alive. My

heart tells me so. Do you not hear some-
thing, BrigetteJ' Oh ! I wduld give the
rest of my life to know whether he is in
prison or walking across the country.
I would give anything not to think."

She looked round once again to see if
everything was in order in the room. A
good fire burned brightl}^ in the grate,
the shutters were shut close, the furni-
ture was polished until it shone again ;
the very way in which the bed was made
was enough to prove that the countess
herself as well as Brigitte had been busy
about the smallest details. Her hopes
too were manifest in all the delicate care
that had evidently been spent upon this
room. The scent of the flowers she had
placed there seemed to shed forth, mingled
with their o"\vn perfume, the gracious
sweetness and the chastest caresses of
love. Only a mother could thus have
anticipated a soldier's wants, and pre-
pared him such complete satisfaction of
them. A daint}-^ meal, choice wines,
slippers, clean linen — in short, every-
thing necessary or agreeable to a weary
traveler, were collected together, that he
might want for nothing, and that the de-
lights of home might remind him of a
mother's love.

The countess went and placed a seat at
the table as if to realize her prayers and
increase the strength of her illusions. As^
she did so she cried in a heartrending voice,
"Brigitte!"

"Ah, madame, he will come ; he can-
not be far off. I am certain that he is
alive and on the way," replied Brigitte.
" I put a key in the Bible, and rested it
on my fingers, while Cottin read the
Gospel of St. John — and, madame, the
key did not turn."

"Is that a sure sign?" asked the
countess.

"Oh, madame, it's well known; I
would stake my soul that he is still
alive. God would never deceive us like
that."

" In spite of the danger he will be in
here ; still, I long to see him."

" Poor Monsieur Auguste," cried Bri-
gitte, "no doubt he is on the roads, on
foot."

MADAME DE DEY'S LAST RECEPTION.

''Hark, that is eig-ht striking-," ex-
claimed the countess in terror.

She was afraid that she had staj^ed too
long- in the room, but there she could be-
lieve that her son still lived when she saw
everything- bear witness to his life. She
went doAvnstairs, but before g-oing- into
the salon she waited a moment under the
colonnade of the staircase, and listened
for some sound to awaken the silent
echoes of the town. She smiled at Bri-
g'itte's husband, who kept watch like a
sentinel ; his eyes seemed stupefied with
straining- to catch the murmurs of the
Place and the first sounds of the nig-ht.
Everywhere and in everything she saw
her son.

A moment afterw^ard she had returned
to her guests, affecting- an air of g-a^-ety,
and sat down to play at loto with some
girls. But every now and then she com-
plained of feeling' ill, and went to recline
in her easy-chair by the fireplace.

Such was the situation, material and
mental, in the house of Madame de De^-.
Meanwhile, on the high road from Paris
to Cherbourg, a young- man clad in a
brown carmagnole, a costume in vog-ue
at this period, directed his steps toward
Carentan.

In the commencement of the Requisi-
tions there was little or no discipline.
The exigencies of the moment scarcely
allowed the Republic to equip its soldiers
fully at once, so that it was nothing- un-
usual to see the roads full of requisition-
naires still wearing their civil clothes.
These young- men arrived at the halting--
places before their battalions or remained
there behind them, for the progress of
each man depended on his personal capa-
bility of enduring- the fatig-ues of a long-
journey. The traveler in question found
himself considerably in advance of a
battalion of requisitionnaires which was
on its way to Cherbourg-, and which the
mayor of Carentan was waiting for from
hour to hour, to billet on the inhabitants.

The young man w^alked with heavy
steps, but still he did not falter, and his
gait seemed to show that he had long been
accustomed to the severities of military
life. Though the moon shed her light

upon the pastures around Carentan, he
had noticed a thick white bank of clouds
ready to cover the whole country'- with
snow. The fear of being caught in a hur-
ricane no doubt hastened his steps, for he
was walking at a pace little suited to his
weariness. He carried an almost empty
knapsack on his back and in his hand a
box-wood stick, cut from one of the high
thick hedges which this shrub forms round
most of the estates of Lower Normandy.

The towers of Carentan, thrown into
fantastic relief by the moonlight, had onl}"
just come into sight, when this solitary
traveler entered the town. His footfall
awakened the echoes of the silent streets.
He did not meet a creature, so he was
obliged to inquire for the house of the
mayor from a weaver who was still at his
work. The mayor lived only a short dis-
tance off, and the requisitionnaire soon
found himself under shelter in the porch
of his house. Here he applied for a billet
order and sat down on a stone seat to
wait. However, the maj'or sent for him,
so he was obliged to appear before him
and become the object of a scrupulous ex-
amination. The requisitionnaire was a
foot soldier, a young man of fine bearing,
apparentl}' belonging to a family of dis-
tinction. His manners had the air of
gentle birth, and his face expressed all
the intelligence due to a good education.

"What is your name?" asked the
mayor, casting a knowing glance at him,

"Julien Jussieu," replied the requisi-
tionnaire.

The magistrate let an incredulous smile
escape him. " And 3'ou come — ? "

''From Paris."

"Your comrades must be some distance
off," replied the Norman in a bantering
tone.

" I am three leagues in front of the bat-
talion."

"No doubt some sentiment draws you
to Carentan, citoyen requisitionnaire?^'
said the mayor with a shrewd look. "It
is all right," he continued. The young
man was about to speak, but he motioned
him to be silent and went on, "You can
go, Citoyen Jussieu ! "

There was a tinge of vcony discernible

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

in his accent, as he pronounced these two
last woi-ds and held out to him a billet
order which directed him to the house of
Madame de Dey. The young man read
the address with an air of curiosity.

''He knows well enoug-h that he hasn't
got far to g"o ; when he's once outside he
won't be long- crossing- the Place ! " ex-
claimed the mayor, talking to himself as
the young man went out. " He's a fine
bold fellow ; God help him ! He's got an
answer ready to everything. Ay, but if
it had been any one else but me, and they
had demanded to see his papers — it would
have been all up with him."

At this moment the clocks of Carentan
struck half -past nine. In the antecham-
ber at Madame de De^^'s the lanterns were
lighted, the servants were helping their
masters and mistresses to put on their
clogs and Jiouppelandes and mantles, the
card players had settled their accounts,
and they were all leaving together, ac-
cording to the established custom in little
towns.

When they had exhausted all the formu-
laries of adieu and were separating in the
Place, each in the direction of his own
home, one of the ladies, observing that
that important personage was not with
them, remarked, ''It appears that the
prosecutor intends to remain."

As a matter of fact, the countess was
at that moment alone with that terrible
magistrate ; she waited, trembling, till it
should please him to depart.

After a long silence, which inspired her
with a feeling of terror, he said at last,
" Citoyenne, I am here to carry out the
laws of the Republic."

Madame de De}'^ shuddered.

" Have 3"ou nothing to reveal to me ? "
he asked.

"Nothing," she replied, in astonish-
ment.

"Ah,madame," cried the prosecutor,
sitting down beside her and changing his
tone, "at this moment one word could
send us— you and me — to the scaffold.
I have watched your character, your
mind, your manners too closely to share
in the m3'stification by which you have
succeeded in misleading your guests this

evening. You are expecting your son, I
have not the least doubt of it."

The countess made an involuntary ges-
ture of denial ; but she had growm pale,
the muscles of her face had contracted
under the necessity of displaying a cool-
ness she did not feel ; the pitiless eye of
the prosecutor had not lost one of these
movements.

" Well ! receive him," replied this mag-
istrate of the revolution, "but do not let
him remain under 3^our roof after seven
o'clock in the morning. To-morroAv at
daj'break I shall come to your house
armed with a denunciation which I shall
get drawn up."

She looked at him with a bewildered,
numbed look that might have drawm
pity from a tiger.

"I shall demonstrate," he continued
sweetl}^, "the falsity of this denunciation
b}'^ a careful search. You will then be
screened by the nature of my report from
all ulterior suspicions. I shall speak of
your patriotic gifts, your civism, and we
shall be saved."

Madame de Dey suspected a snare ; she
remained motionless, her tongue was
frozen and her face on fire. The sound
of the knocker echoed through the house.

"Ah," cried the mother as she fell in
terror upon her knees, "save him! save
him ! "

The public prosecutor cast a passionate
glance at her.

"Yes, let us save him," he replied,
" even at the cost of our own lives." He
raised her politely.

" I am lost," she cried.

"Ah, madame !" he answered, with an
oratorical gesture, " I would not owe 3'ou
to anything — but to yourself alone."

"Madame, he's — " cried Brigitte, think-
ing her mistress was alone.

At the sight of the public prosecutor,
the old servant, who had burst in, beam-
ing wath joy, grew pale and motionless.

" Who is it, Brigitte ? " asked the mag-
istrate, with an air of gentle intelligence.

" A requisitionnaire sent us from the
mayor's to lodge," answered the servant,
showing him the billet order. The prose-
cutor read the paper. "True," said he;

MADAME DE BET'S LAST RECEPTION.

''a battalion is coming- to us to-nig'ht."
He went out.

At that moment the countess had too
much need to believe in the sincerit^^ of
her former attorne^^ for the least doubt
of it to cross her mind !

Thoug-h she had scarcely the power to
stand, she ascended the staircase pre-
cipitatel\% opened the door of the room,
saw her son, and threw herself half dead
into his arms. "My child, my child,"
she sobbed, almost beside herself, as she
covered him with kisses.

"Madame ! " said a strang-er's voice.

" Ah, it is not he ! " she cried, recoiling
in horror. She stood upright before the
requisitionnaire and g-azed at him with
hag-g-ard ej'es.

" My g-ood God, how like he is ! " said
Brig'itte.

There was a moment's silence ; even
the strang-er shuddered at the sight of
Madame de Dey.

The first blow had almost killed her,
and now she felt the full extent of her
grief. She leaned for support on Brigitte's
husband. "Ah, monsieur," she said, "I
could not bear to see you any longer.
Allow me to leave you for my servants
to entertain."

She went down to her own room, half
carried \>j Brigitte and her old man-
servant. "What ! madame," cried the
housekeeper, as she led her mistress to a
chair; "is that man going to sleep in
Monsieur Auguste's bed, and wear Mon-
sieur Auguste's slippers, and eat the
pasty that I made for Monsieur Auguste ?
If I was to be guillotined for it, I — "

" Brigitte ! " cried Madame de Y)ey.

Brigitte was mute.

" Hold thy tongue, chatterbox," said
her husband in a low voice. " Dost want
to kill madame ? "

At this moment the requisitionnaire
made a noise in his room as he sat down
to the table.

"I cannot stay here," cried Madame
de Dey. " I will go into the conserva-
tory ; J. shall be able to hear better there
what goes on outside during the night."

She was still tossed between the fear of
having lost her son and the hope of seeing
him come back to her.

The silence of the night was horrible.
The arrival of the battalion of requisi-
tionnaires in the town, when each man
sought his lodging, was a terrible mo-
ment for the countess. Her hopes were
cheated at every footfall, at every sound ;
presently nature resumed her awful calm.

Toward morning the countess was
oblig'ed to return to her own room.

Brigitte, who was watching her mis-
tress's movements, not seeing her come
out, went into the room and found the
countess dead.

" She must have heard that requisi-
tionnaire.'' cried Brigitte. "As soon as
he has finished dressing, there he is,
marching up and down Monsieur Au-
guste's bedroom, as if he were in a
stable, singing their damned Marseil-
aise ! It was enough to kill her."

The death of the countess was due to a
deeper sentiment, and doubtless caused
by some terrible vision. At the exact
hour when Madame de Dey died at Ca-
rentan, her son was shot in le Morbihan.

We may add this tragic event to all
the evidence of sj-mpathies ignoring the
laws of space, which has been collected
through the learning and curiosity of
certain recluses. These documents will
some day serve as the groundwork
whereon to base a new science — a
science that has hitherto lacked its man
of genius.

SCENES IN MILITARY LIFE.

DOOMED TO LIVE.*

The clock of the little town of Menda
had just struck midnight. At this mo-
ment a young- French officer was leaning
on the parapet of a long terrace which
bounded the gardens of the castle. He
seemed plunged in the deepest thought —
a circumstance unusual amid the thought-
lessness of militarj^ life ; but it must be
owned that never were the hour, the
nighty and the place more propitious to
meditation. The beautiful Spanish sky-
stretched out its azure dome above his
head. The glittering stars and the soft
moonlight lit up a charming valley that
unfolded all its beauties at his feet. Lean-
ing against a blossoming orange tree he
could see, a hundred feet below him, the
town of Menda, which seemed to have
been placed for shelter from the north
winds at the foot of the rock on which
the castle was built. As he turned his
head he could see the sea, framing the
landscape with a broad silver sheet of
glistening water. The castle was a blaze
of light. The mirth and movement of a
ball, the music of the orchestra, the
laughter of the officers and their part-
ners in the dance, were borne to him
mingled with the distant murmur of the
Avaves. The freshness of the night im-
parted a sort of energy to his limbs, wearj^
with the heat of the day. Above all, the
gardens were planted with trees so aro-
matic, and flowers so fragrant, that the
young man stood plunged, as it were, in
a bath of perfumes.

* "El Verduffo.'

(24)

The castle of Menda belonged to a Span-
ish grandee, then living there with his
family. During the whole of the evening
his eldest daughter had looked at the
officer with an interest so tinged with sad-
ness that the sentiment of compassion
thus expressed by the Spaniard might
well call up a reverie in the Frenchman's
mind.

Clara was beautiful, and although she
had three brothers and a sister, the wealth
of the Marques de Leganes seemed great
enough for Victor Marchand to believe
that the young lady would have a rich
dowry. But how dare he hope that the
most bigoted old hidalgo in all Spain
would ever give his daughter to the son
of a Parisian grocer ? Besides, the French
were hated. The marques was suspected
by General Gautier, who governed the
province, of planning a revolt in favor of
Ferdinand VII. For this reason the bat-
talion commanded by Victor Marchand
had been cantoned in the little town of
Menda, to hold the neighboring hamlets,
which were dependent on the marques, in
check. Recent dispatches from Marshal
ISTey had given ground for fear that the
English Would shortly land on the coast,
and had indicated the marques as a man
who carried on communication with the
cabinet of London.

In spite, therefore, of the welcome which
the Spaniard had given him and his sol-
diers, the young officer Victor Marchand
remained constantly on his guard. Ashe
was directing his steps toward the terrace
whither he had come to examine the state

DOOMED TO LIVE.

of the town and the country districts in-
trusted to his care, he debated how he
oug"ht to interpret the friendliness which
the marques had unceasingly shown him,
and how the tranquillity of the country
could he reconciled with his general's un-
easiness ; but in a moment these thoughts
were driven from his mind by a feeling of
caution and well-grounded curiosit3^

He had just perceived a considerable
number of lights in the town. In spite
of the day being the Feast of St. James,
he had given orders, that very morning,
that all lights should be extinguished at
the hour prescribed by his regulations ;
the castle alone being excepted from this
order. He could plainly see, here and
there, the gleam of his soldiers' bayonets
at their accustomed posts ; but there was
a solemnity in the silence, and nothing
to suggest that the Spaniards were a
prey to the excitement of a festival.
After having sought to explain the of-
fense of which the inhabitants were
guilty, the m^-sterj'- appeared all the
more unaccountable to him, because he
had left officers in charge of the night
police and the rounds. With all the im-
petuosity of youth, he was just about to
leap through a breach and descend the
rocks in haste, and thus arrive more
quickly than by the ordinary road at a
small outpost placed at the entrance of
the town nearest to the castle, when a
faint sound stopped him. He thought he
heard the light footfall of a woman upon
the gravel walk. He turned his head and
saw nothing ; but his gaze was arrested
by the extraordinary brightness of the
sea. All of a sudden he beheld a sight
so portentous that he stood dumfounded ;
he thought that his senses deceived him.
In the far distance he could distinguish
sails gleaming wiiite in the moonlight.
He trembled and tried to convince him-
self that this vision was an optical illu-
sion, merelj'- the fantastic effect of the
moon on the waves. At this moment a
hoarse voice pronounced his name. He
looked toward the breach, and saw
slowh' rising above it the head of the
soldier whom he had ordered to accom-
pany him to the castle.

"Is that you, commandant?"

"Yes; what do you want?" replied
the young man in a low voice. A sort of
presentiment warned him to be cautious.

" Those rascals dow^n there are stirring
like worms. I have hu tried, with your
leave, to tell you my own little observa-
tions."

" Go on," said Victor Marchand.

" I have just followed a man from the
castle who came in this direction with a
lantern in his hand. A lantern's a fright-
fully suspicious thing. I don't fancy it
was tapers my fine Catholic was going
to light at this time of night. ' They
want to eat us body and bones ! ' says I
to mj'self ; so I w^ent on his track to re-
connoiter. There, on a ledge of rock,
not three paces from here, I discovered
a great heap of fagots."

Suddenl}^ a terrible shriek rang through
the town, and cut the soldier short. At
the same instant a gleam of light flashed
before the commandant. The poor grena-
dier received a ball in the head and fell.
A fire of straw and dry wood burst into
flame like a house on fire, not ten paces
from the j^oung man . The sound of the in-
struments and the laughter ceased in the
ball-room. The silence of death, broken
only by groans, had suddenly succeeded
to the noises and music of the feast. The
fire of a cannon roared over the surface
of the sea. Cold sweat trickled down the
3^oung officer's forehead ; he had no sword.
He understood that his men had been
slaughtered, and the English were about
to disembark. If he lived he saw himself
dishonored, summoned before a council of
war. Then he measured with his eyes
the depth of the valley. He sprang for-
ward, when just at that moment his hand
was seized by the hand of Clara.

"Fly!" said she; "my brothers are
following to kill you. Down yonder at
the foot of the rock you will find Juani-
to's Andalusia n horse. Quick ! "

The 3'oung man looked at her for a
moment, stupefied. She pushed him on ;
then, obeying the instinct of self-preser-
vation which never forsakes even the
bravest man, he rushed down the park
in the direction she had indicated. He

J>6

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

leaped from rock to rock, where only the
goats had ever trod before; he heard
Clara crying- out to her brothers to pur-
sue him ; he heard the footsteps of the
assassins ; he heard the balls of several
discharges whistle about his ears ; but he
reached the valle^^, he found the horse,
mounted, and disappeared swift as light-
ning-. In a few hours he arrived at the
quarters occupied by General Gautier.
He found him at dinner with his staff.

"I bring you my life in vay hand!"
cried the commandant, his face pale and
haggard.

He sat down and related the horrible
disaster. A dreadful silence greeted his
story.

" You appear to me to be more unfort-
unate than criminal," said the terrible
general at last. "You are not account-
able for the crime of the Spaniards, and
unless the marshal decides otherwise, I
acquit you,"

These words could give the unfortunate
officer but slight consolation.

*'But when the emperor hears of it ! "
he exclaimed.

" He will want to have 3" ou shot," said
the general. '•' However — But we Avill
talk no more about it," he added severe-
ly, " except how we are to take such a
revenge as will strike wholesome fear
upon this country, w^here they carry on
war like savages."

One hour afterward, a whole regiment,
a detachment of cavahy, and a convoy of
ar tiller}^ were on the road. The general
and Victor marched at the head of the
column. The soldiers, informed of the
massacre of their comrades, were filled
with extraordinary fury. The distance
which separated the town of Menda from
the general quarters was passed with
marvelous rapidity. On the road the
general found whole villages under arms.
Each of these wretched townships was
surrounded and their inhabitants deci-
mated.

By some inexplicable fatalitj^, the En-
glish ships stood off instead of advancing.
It was known afterward that these ves-
sels had outstript the rest of the trans-
ports and only carried artillery. Thus

the town of Menda, deprived of the de-
fenders she was expecting, and w'hich
the sight of the English vessels had
seemed to assure, was surrounded by
the French troops almost without strik-
ing a blow. The inhabitants, seized with
terror, offered to surrender at discretion.
Then followed one of those instances of
devotion not rare in the Peninsula. The
assassins of the French, foreseeing, from
the cruelty of the general, that Menda
w^ould probably be given over to the
flames and the whole population put to
the sword, offered to denounce them-
selves. The general accepted this offer,
inserting, as a condition, that the in-
habitants of the castle, from the lowest
valet to the marques himself, should be
placed in his hands. This capitulation
agreed upon, the general promised to
pardon thfe rest of the population and
to prevent his soldiers from pillaging
or setting fire to the towm. An enor-
mous contribution was exacted, and the
richest inhabitants gave themselves up
as hostages to guarantee the payment,
which was to be accomplished within
twenty-four hours.

The general took all precautions neces-
sary for the safety of his troops, provided
for the defense of the country, and re-
fused to lodge his men in the houses.
After having formed a camp, he went
up and took military possession of the
castle. The members of the family of
Leganes and the servants were gagged,
and shut up in the great hall where the
ball had taken place, and closely watched.
The wandows of the apartment afforded
a full view of the terrace which com-
manded the town. The staff Avas estab-
lished in a neighboring gallerj^, and the
general proceeded at once to hold a coun-
cil of war on the measures to be taken for
opposing the debarkation. After having
dispatched an aid-de-camp to Marshal
Ney, with orders to plant batteries along
the coast, the general and his staff turned
their attention to the prisoners. Two
hundred Spaniards, w^hom the inhabi-
tants had surrendered, were shot down
then and there upon the terrace. After
this military execution the general or-

DOOMED TO LIVE.

dered as many gallows to be erected on
the terrace as there were prisoners in the
hall of the castle, and the town execu-
tioner to be broug-ht. Victor Marchand
made use of the time from then until din-
ner to go and visit the prisoners. He
soon returned to the general.

"1 have come," said he, in a voice
broken with emotion, " to ask you a
favor.'"'

''' You ? " said the general, in a tone of
bitter irony.

'•'Alas!" replied Victor, ''it is but a
melanchoh' errand that I am come on.
The marques has seen the gallows being
erected, and expresses a hope that you
will change the mode of execution for his
family : he entreats you to have the
nobles beheaded."

"So be it ! " said the general.

"The}' further ask you to allow them
the last consolations of religion, and to
take off their bonds ; they promise not
to attempt to escape."

"I consent," said the general; "but
3'ou must be answerable for them."

" The old man also offers you the whole
of his fortune if you will pardon his 3'oung
son."

"Really!" said the general. "His
goods already belong to King Joseph ; he
is under arrest." His brow contracted
scornfully, then he added : " I will go
beyond what they ask. I understand
now the .importance of the last request.
Well, let him buy the eternity of his
name, but Spain shall remember forever
his treachery and its punishment. I give
up the fortune and his life to whichever
of his sons will fulfill the office of execu-
tioner. Go, and do not speak to me of
it again."

Dinner was ready, and the officers sat
down to table to satisfy appetites sharp-
ened b}' fatigue.

One of them only, Victor Marchand,
"was not present at the banquet. He
hesitated for a long time before he en-
tered the room. The haughtj'' family of
Leganes were in their agony . He glanced
sadl}' at the scene before him ; in this
very room, only the night before, he had
watched the fair heads of those two voung

girls and those three youths as they cir-
cled in the excitement of the dance. He
shuddered when he thought how soon
they must fall, struck off by the sword
of the headsman.

Fastened to their gilded chairs, the
father and mother, their three sons,
and their two young daughters, sat ab-
solutely motionless. Eight serving-men
stood upright before them, their hands
bound behind their backs. These fifteen
persons looked at each other gravely,
their eyes scarcely betraying the thoughts
that surged within them. Only profound
resignation and regret for the failure of
their enterprise left any mark upon the
features of some of them. The soldiers
stood likewise motionless, looking at
them, and respecting the affliction of
their cruel enemies. An expression of
curiosity lit up their faces when Victor
appeared. He gave the order to unbind
the condemned, and went himself to loose
the cords which fastened Clara to her
chair. She smiled sadly. He could not
refrain from touching her arm, and look-
ing with admiring eyes at her black locks
and graceful figure. She was a true
Spaniard ; she had the Spanish com-
plexion and the Spanish eyes, with their
long curled lashes and pupils blacker
than the raven's wing.

"Have you been successful ? " she said,
smiling upon him mournfully with some-
what of the charm of girlhood still linger-
ing in her eyes.

Victor could not suppress a groan. He
looked one after the other at Clara and
her three brothers. One, the eldest, was
aged thirty; he was small, even some-
what ill made, with a proud disdainful
look, but there was a certain nobleness in
his bearing; he seemed no stranger to
that delicacy of feeling wiiich elsewhere
has rendered the chivalry of Spain so
famous. His name was Juanito. The
second, Felipe, was aged about twenty ;
he was like Clara. The youngest was
eight, Manuel ; a painter would have
found in his features a trace of that
Roman steadfastness which David has
given to children's faces in his episodes
of the Republic. The old marques, his

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

head still covered with white locks,
seemed to have come forth from a pict-
ure of Murillo. The young officer shook
his head. When he looked at them, he
was hopeless that he would ever see the
harg-ain proposed by the general ac-
cepted by either of the four ; neverthe-
less he ventured to impart it to Clara.
At first she shuddered, Spaniard though
she was; then, immediately recovering
her calm demeanor, she went and knelt
down before her father.

"Father," she said, "make Juanito
swear to obej^ faithfully an3^ orders that
you give him, and we shall be content."

The marquesa trembled with hope ; but
when she leaned toward her husband, and
heard — she was a mother — the horrible
confidence whispered by Clara, she
swooned away. Juanito understood all ;
he leaped up like a lion in its cage. After
obtaining an assurance of perfect submis-
sion from the marques, Victor took upon
himself to send away the soldiers. The
servants were led out, handed over to the
executioner, and hanged. When the fami-
ly had no guard but Victor to watch
them, the old father rose and said,
*' Juanito."

Juanito made no answer, except by a
movement of the head, equivalent to a re-
fusal ; then he fell back in his seat, and
stared at his parents with eyes dry and
terrible to look upon. Clara went and sat
on his knee, put her arm round his neck,
and kissed his eyelids.

"My dear Juanito," she said gaj'ly,
''if thou didst only know how sweet
death would be to me if it were given by
thee, I should not have to endure the
odious touch of the headsman's hands.
Thou wilt cure me of the Avoes that were
in store for me— and, dear Juanito, thou
could st not bear to see me belong to
another, well — " Her soft eyes cast one
look of fire at Victor, as if to awaken in
Juanito's heart his horror of the French.

"Have courage," said his brother
Felipe, "or else our race, that has al-
most given kings to Spain, will be ex-
tinct."

Suddenly Clara rose, the group which
had formed round Juanito separated,

and this son, dutiful in his disobedience,
saw his aged father standing before him,
and heard him cry in a solemn voice,
"Juanito, I command thee."

The 3^oung count remained motionless.
His father fell on his knees before him ;
Clara, Manuel, and Felipe did the same
instinctivel3^ They all stretched out their
hands to him as to one who was to save
their family from oblivion ; they seemed
to repeat their father's words — " M^'' son,
hast thou lost the energy, the true chiv-
alry of Spain ? How long wilt thou leave
thy father on his knees? What right
hast thou to think of thine own life and
its suffering ? Madame, is this a son of
mine ? " continued the old man, turning
to his wife.

"He consents," cried she in despair.
She saw a movement in Juanito's eyelids,
and she alone understood its meaning.

Mariquita, the second daughter, still
knelt on her knees, and clasped her
mother in her fragile arms; her little
brother Manuel, seeing her weeping hot
tears, began to chide her. At this mo-
ment the almoner of the castle came in :
he was immediately surrounded by the
rest of the family and brought to Juanito.
Victor could bear this scene no longer ;
he made a sign to Clara, and hastened
away to make one last effort with the
general. He found him in high good-
humor in the middle of the banquet drink-
ing with his officers ; they were beginning
to make merry.

An hour later a hundred of the princi-
pal inhabitants of Menda came up to the
terrace, in obedience to the general's
orders, to witness the execution of the
family of Leganes. A detachment of
soldiers was drawn up to keep back these
Spanish burghers who were ranged under
the gallows on which the servants of the
marques still hung. The feet of these
mart.yrs almost touched their heads.
Thirty yards from them a block had been
set up, and by it gleamed a scimitar.
The headsman also was present, in case
of Juanito's refusal. Presently, in the
midst of the profoundest silence, the
Spaniards heard the footsteps of several
persons approaching, the measured tread

DOOMED TO LIVE.

of a company of soldiers, and the faint
clinking of their muskets. These diverse
sounds were ming-led with the merriinent
of the officers' banquet ; just as before it
was the music of the dance which had
concealed preparations for a treacherous
massacre. All eyes were turned toward
the castle ; the noble family was seen ad-
vancing Avith incredible dignity. Every
face was calm and serene ; one man only
leaned, pale and haggard, on the arm of
the priest. Upon this man he lavished
all the consolations of religion — upon the
onl3' one of them doomed to live. The
executioner understood, as did all the
rest, that for that da}- Juanito had under-
taken the office himself. The aged mar-
ques and his wife, Clara, Mariquita, and
their two brothers, came and knelt
do"SATi a few steps from the fatal spot.
Juanito was led thither by the priest. As
he approached the block the executioner
touched him by the sleeve and drew him
aside, probably to give him certain in-
structions.

The confessor placed the victims in such
a position that they could not see the ex-
ecutioner ; but like true Spaniards, they
knelt erect without a sign of emotion.

Clara was the first to spring forward
to her brother. ''^ Juanito," she said,
''have pit}'- on my faint-heartedness ; be-
gin with me."

At that moment they heard the foot-
steps of a man running at full speed, and
Victor arrived on the tragic scene. Clara
was already" on her knees, already her
white neck seemed to invite the edge of
the scimitar. A deadly pallor fell upon
the officer, but he still found strength to
run on.

" The general grants thee thy life if
thou wilt marry me," he said to her in
a low voice.

The Spaniard cast a look of proud dis-
dain on the officer. "Strike, Juanito,"
she said, in a voice of profound meaning.

Her head rolled at Victor's feet. When
the marquesa heard the sound a convul-
sive start escaped her ; this was the only
sign of her affliction.

" Am I placed right so, dear Juanito ^ "
little Manuel asked his brother.

"All, thou weepest, Mariquita ! " said
Juanito to his sister,

"Yes," answered the girl; •'•I was
thinking of thee, my poor Juanito ; thou
wilt be so unhappy without us."

At length the noble figure of the mar-
ques appeared. He looked at the blood
of his children; then he turned to the
spectators, who stood' mute and motion-
less before him. He stretched out his
hands to Juanito, and said in a firm
voice : " Spaniards, I give my son a
father's blessing. Now, marques, strike
without fear, as thou art without fault."

But when Juanito saw his mother ap-
proach, supported by the confessor, he
groaned aloud, " She fed me at her own
breast." His cry seemed to tear a shout
of horror from the lips of the crowd. At
this terrible sound the noise of the banquet
and the laughter and merrymaking of the
officers died away. The marquesa com-
prehended that Juanito 's courage was ex'
hausted. With one leap she had thrown
herself over the balustrade, and her head
was dashed to pieces against the rocks
below. A shout of admiration burst forth.
Juanito fell to the ground in a swoon.

" Marchand has just been telling me
something about this execution," said a
half-drunken officer. " 1*11 warrant, gen-
eral, it wasn't by your orders that — "

" Have you forgotten, messieurs," cried
General Gautier, "that during the next
month there will be five hundred French
families in tears, and that we are in
Spain ? Do you wish to leave your bones
here ? "

After this speech there was not a man
who dared to empty his glass.

In spite of the respect with which he is
surrounded — in spite of the title of El
Verdugo (the executioner), bestowed upon
him as a title of nobility by the king of
Spain — the Marques de Leganes is a prey
to melancholy. He hves in solitude, and
is rarel}^ seen. Overwhelmed with the
load of his glorious crime, he seems only
to wait the birth of a second son, impa-
tient to seek again the company of those
Shades whp are about his path continu-
ally.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

II.

THE CHOUANS.

THE AMBUSH.

In the early days of the Year Eight, at
the heg-inning of Vendemiaire, or, to adopt
the present calendar, toward the end of
September, 1799, some hundred peasants
and a pretty large number of townsmen,
who had left Fougeres in the morning
for Mayenne, were climbing the Pilgrim
Hill which lies nearly half-way between
Fougeres and Ernee, a little town used
by travelers as a half-way house. The
detachment, divided into groups of un-
equal strength, presented a collection of
costumes so odd, and included persons
belonging to places and professions so
different, that it may not be useless to
describe their outward characteristics, in
order to lend this history the lively color-
ing so much prized nowadays, notwith-
standing that, as some critics say, it in-
terferes with the portrayal of sentiments.

Some (and the greater part) of the
peasants went barefoot, with no gar-
ments but a large goatskin which cov-
ered them from neck to knee, and
breeches of white linen of very coarse
texture, woven of j^arn so rough as to
show the rudeness of the country'" manu-
facture. The straight locks of their long
hair mingled so regularly with the goat-
skin and hid their downcast faces so com-
pletely, that the goatskin itself might
have been easily mistaken for their own,
and the poor fellows might, at first sight,
have been confounded with the animals
whose spoils served to clothe them. But
before long the spectator would have
seen their eyes flashing through this mat
of hair, like dewdrops in thick herbage ;
and their glances, while showing human

intelligence, were better fitted to cause
alarm than pleasure. On their heads
they wore dirty bonnets of red wool, like
the Phrygian cap which the Republic then
affected as an emblem of liberty. Every
man had on his shoulder a stout cudgel
of knotty oak, from which there hung a
long but slenderly filled wallet of linen.
Some had, in addition to the bonnet, a
hat of coarse felt, with wide brim, and
adorned with a parti-colored woolen fillet
surrounding the crown.

Others, entirely dressed in the same
linen or canvas of which the breeches
and wallets of the first party were com-
posed, showed scarcely anything in their
costume corresponding to modern civili-
zation . Their long hair fell on the collar
of a round jacket with little square side-
pockets — a jacket coming down no lower
than the hips, and forming the distinctive
garb of the peasant of the West. Under
the jacket, which was open, there could
be seen a waistcoat of the same material,
with large buttons. Some of them walked
in sabots, while others, out of thrift, car-
ried their shoes in their hands. This cos-
tume, soiled with long wear, grimed with
sweat and dust, and less strikingl}^ pecul-
iar than that first described, had, from
the point of view of histor^'^, the advan-
tage of serving as a transition to the
almost Costly array of some few who, scat-
tered here and there amid the troop, shone
like flowers. Indeed, their blue linen
breeches, their red or yellow waistcoats
ornamented with two parallel rows of
copper buttons, and shaped like square-
cut cuirasses, contrasted as sharply with
the white coats and the goatskins of their
companions, as corn-flowers and poppies
do with a field of wheat. Some were shod

THE CHOUANS.

with the sabots which the Breton peasants
know how to make for their own use. But
the great majority had larg-e hobnailed
shoes and coats of very coarse cloth, cut
in that old French style which is still
religiously observed by the peasantr3^
Their shirt - collars were fastened by
silver buttons in the shape of hearts or
anchors, and their wallets seemed much
better stocked than those of their com-
panions, not to mention that some finished
off their traveling- dress with a flask
(doubtless filled with brandy) which hung
by a string to their necks. Among these
semi-savages there appeared some towns-
folk, as if to mark the limit of civilization
in these districts. In round or flat hats,
and some of them in caps, with top-boots
or shoes surmounted by gaiters, their
costumes were as remarkably different,
the one from the other, as those of the
peasants. Some half-score wore the Re-
publican jacket known as a carmagnole ;
others, no doubt well-to-do artisans, were
clad in complete suits of cloth of a uniform
color. The greatest dandies were distin-
guished by frocks or riding-coats in green
or blue cloth more or less worn. These
persons of distinction wore boots of ever}'
shape, and swished stout canes about with
the air of those who make the best of
*' Fortune their foe."

Some heads carefully powdered, some
queues twisted smartly enough, indicated
the rudimentarj'- care of personal appear-
ance which a beginning of fortune or of
education sometimes inspires. A looker-
on at this group of men, associated by
chance and, as it were, each astonished
at finding himself with the others, might
have thought them the inhabitants of a
town driven pell-mell from their homes
by a conflagration. But time and place
gave quite a different interest to the crowd.
An observer experienced in the civil dis-
cord which then agitated France would
have had no difficulty in distinguishing
the small number of citizens on whom the
Republic could count in this assembly'-,
composed, as it was, almost entirely of
men who four years before had been in
open war against her. One last and
striking trait gave an infallible indica-

tion of the discordant sympathies of the
gathering. Only the Republicans showed
any sort of al;\crity in their march.

For the other members of the troop,
though the disparity of their costume
was noticeable enough, their faces and
their bearing exhibited the monotonous
air of misfortune. Townsmen and peas-
ants alike, melancholy marked them all
deeply for her own ; their very silence
had a touch of ferocity in it, and they
seemed weighed down by the burden of
the same thought — a thought of fear, no
doubt, but one carefully dissembled, for
nothing definite could be read on their
countenances. The sole sign which might
indicate a secret arrangement was the
extraordinary slowness of their march.
From time to time some of them, distin-
guished by rosaries which hung from
their necks (dangerous as it Avas to pre-
serve this badge of a religion suppressed
rather than uprooted), shook back their
hair, and lifted their faces with an air of
mistrust. At these moments they stealth-
il}^ examined the woods, the by-paths, and
the rocks by the roadside, after the fash-
ion of a dog who snuffs the air and tries
to catch the scent of game. Then hear-
ing nothing but the monotonous tramp
of their silent companions, they dropped'
their heads once more, and resumed their
looks of despair, like criminals sent to the
hulks for life and death.

The march of this column toward
Mayenne, the motley elements which
composed it, and the difference of senti-
ment which it manifested, received a
natural enough explanation from the
presence of another part}' which headed
the detachment. Some hundred and fifty
regular soldiers marched in front, armed
and carrying their baggage, under the
command of a " demi-brigadier." It may
be desirable to inform those who have
not personally shared in the drama of
the Revolution, that this title replaced
that of "colonel," proscribed b}^ the
patriots as too aristocratic. These sol-
diers belonged to the depot of a "demi-
brigade " of infantry quartered at May-
enne. In this time of discord the in-
habitants of the West had been wont

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

to call all Republican soldiers " Blues, "
a surname due to the early blue and red
uniforms which are still freshly enough
remembered to make description super-
fluous. Now the detachment of Blues
was escorting- this compan3^ of men, al-
most all disgusted with their destination,
to Mayenne, where military discipline
would promptly communicate to them
the identity of temper, of dress, and of
bearing which at present they lacked so
completely.

The column was, in fact, the contingent
extracted with great difficult^'- from the
district of Fougeres, and due by it in vir-
tue of the levy which the executive Direc-
tory of the French Republic had ordered
b3^ virtue of the law of the tenth Messidor
preceding. The Government had asked
for a hundred millions of money and a
hundred thousand men, in order promptly
to re-enforce its armies, at that time in
process of defeat by the Austrians in
Italy, by the Prussians in Germany, and
threatened in Switzerland by the Russians,
to whom Suwarrow gave good hope of
conquering France. The departments of
the West, known as Vendee and Brittanj'-,
with part of Lower Normandy, though
pacified three years before by General
Hoche's efforts after a four years' war,
seemed to have grasped at this moment
for beginning the struggle anew. In the
face of so many enemies, the Republic re-
covered its pristine energy. The defense
of the threatened departments had been
at first provided for by intrusting the
matter to the patriot inhabitants in ac-
cordance with one of the clauses of this
law of Messidor. In realit}'-, the Govern-
ment, having" neither men nor money to
dispose of at home, evaded the difficulty
b3" a piece of parliamentary brag, and
having nothing else to send to the dis-
affected departments, presented them
with its confidence.

It was perhaps also hoped that the
measure, by arming the citizens one
against the other, would stifle the insur-
rection in its cradle. The wording of the
clause whicK led to disastrors reprisals
was this : " Free companies shall be or-
ganized in the departments of the West,"

an unstatesmanlike arrangement which
excited in the West itself such lively hos-
tility that the Directory despaired of an
easy triumph over it. Therefore, a few
days later, it asked the Assembly to pass
special measures in reference to the scanty
contingents leviable in virtue of the Free
Companies clause. So then, a new law
introduced a few days before the date at
which this storj^ begins, and passed on
the third complementary day of the Year
Seven, ordained the organization in legions
of these levies, weak as thej'" were. The
legions were to bear the names of the
departments of Sarthe, Orne, Mayenne,
lUe-et- Vilaine, Morbihan, Loire-Inf erieure,
and Maine-et-Loire ; but in the words
of the Bill, " being specially emplo3'ed in
fighting the Chouans, they might on no
pretext be moved toward the frontiers."

All which details, tiresome perhaps, but
not generally known, throw light at once
on the weakness of the Director^'- a-nd on
the march of this herd of men conducted
by the Blues. Nor is it perhaps useless
to add that these handsome and patriotic
declarations of the Directory never were
put in force further than by their insertion
in the " Bulletin des Louis." The decrees
of the Republic, supported no longer either
by great moral ideas, or by patriotism, or
by terror — the forces which had once given
them power — now created on paper mil-
lions of money and legions of men, whereof
not a sou entered the treasury, nor a man
the ranks. The springs of the Revolution
had broken down in bungling hands, and
the laws followed events in their applica-
tion instead of deciding them.

The departments of Maj^enne and of
Ille-et- Vilaine were then under the military
command of an old officer who, calculat-
ing on the spot the fittest measures to
take, resolved to try to levy by force the
Breton contingents, and especially that
of Fougeres, one of the most formidable
centers of Chouannerie, hoping thereby
to weaken the strength of the threaten-
ing districts. This devoted soldier availed
himself of the terms of the law, illusory
as they were, to declare his intention of
at once arming and fitting out the " Re-
quisitionaries, " and to assert that he had

THE CHOUANS.

ready for them a month's pay at the rate
promised by the Government to these ir-
regular troops.

Despite the reluctance of the Bretons
at that time to undertake any military
service, the scheme succeeded immedi-
ately on the faith of these promises —
succeeded indeed so promptly that the
officer took alarm. But he was an old
watch-dog", and not easy to catch asleep.
No sooner had he seen a portion of the
contingent of the district come in, than
he suspected some secret motive in so
quick a concentration, and his guess that
they wished to procure arms was perhaps
not ill justified. So, without waiting for
laggards, he took measures for securing,
if possible, his retreat on Alengon, so as
to draw near settled districts, though he
knew that the growing disturbance in
the country made the success of his
scheme very doubtful. Therefore keeping,
as his instructions bade him, the deepest
silence as to the disasters of the army,
and the alarming news from La Vendee,
he had endeavored, on the morning with
which our story begins, to execute a
forced march to Mayenne, where he
promised himself that he would inter-
pret the law at his own discretion, and
fill the ranks of his demi-brigade with
the Breton conscripts.

For this word ''•'conscript," since so
famous, had for the first time taken legal
place of the term '•' requisitionary,'' given
earlier to the recruits of the Republic.
Before quitting Fougeres, the command-
ant had secretl}'^ (in order not to awake
the suspicion of the conscripts as to the
length of the route) caused his soldiers to
provide themselves with ammunition and
with rations of bread sufficient for the
whole party ; and he was resolved not to
halt at the usual resting-place of Ernee,
\Yhere, having recovered their first sur-
prise, his contingent might have opened
communication with the Chouans who
were doubtless spread over the neighbor-
ing countr3^ The sullen silence which
prevailed among the requisitionaries,
caught unawares by the old Republican's
device, and the slowness of their march
over the hill, excited vehement distrust
Balzac — b

in this demi-brigadier, whose name was
Hulot. All the striking points of the
sketch we have given, had attracted his
closest attention : so that he proceeded in
silence among his five young officers, who
all respected their chief's taciturnity.
But at the moment when Hnlot reached
the crest of the Pilgrim Hill, he turned
his head sharply, and as though instinct-
ively, to glance at the disturbed counte-
nances of the requisitionaries, and was not
long in breaking silence. Indeed, the in-
creasing slackness of the Bretons' march
had already' put a distance of some two
hundred paces beeween them and their
escort. Hulot made a peculiar grimace
which was habitual with him.

''What is the matter with these dainty
gentlemen? " cried he in a loud tone. "I
think our conscripts are planting their
stumps instead of stirring them ! "

At these words the officers who were
with him turned with a sudden move-
ment, somewhat resembling the start
with which a sleeping man wakes at a
sudden noise. Sergeants and corporals
did the like ; and the whole company
stopped without having heard the wished-
for sound of " Halt ! " If at first the offi-
cers directed their eyes to the detachment
which, like a lengthened tortoise, Avas
slowly climbing the hill, the}' — J'oung
men whom the defense of their country
had torn, with man}' others, from higher
studies, and in whom war had not yet ex-
tinguished liberal tastes — were sufficiently
struck with the spectacle beneath their
eyes to leave unanswered a remark of
which they did not seize the importance.
Though they had come from Fougeres,
whence the tableau which presented itself
to their eyes is also visible, though with
the usual differences resulting from a
change in the point of view, they could
not help admiring it for the last time,
hke dilettanti, who take all the more
pleasure in music the better they know
its details.

From the summit of the Pilgrim the
traveler sees beneath his eyes the wide
valley of the Couesnon, one of the culmi-
nating points on the horizon being occu-
pied by the town of Fougeres, the castle

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

of which dominates three or four impor-
tant roads from the height which it occu-
pies. This advantage formerly made it
one of the kej^s of Brittany. From their
position the officers could descry, in all its
extent, a river basin as remarkable for the
extraordinary fertility of its soil as for the
varied character of its aspect. On all
sides mountains of granite rise in a circle,
disguising their ruddy sides under oak
woods and hiding in their slopes valleys
of delicious coolness. These rocky hills
present to the e^'e a vast circular inclos-
ure, at the bottom of which there extends
a huge expanse of soft meadow, arranged
like an English garden. The multitude
of green hedges surrounding many prop-
erties irregular in size, but all of them
well wooded, gives this sheet of green an
aspect rare in France, and it contains in
its multiplied contrast of aspect a wealth
of secret beauties lavish enough to influ-
ence even the coldest minds.

At the time we speak of, the landscape
was illuminated b}' that fleeting splendor
with which Nature delights sometimes to
heighten the beauty of her everlasting
creations. While the detachment was
crossing the valley the rising sun had
slowly dissipated the light white mists
which in September mornings are wont
to flit over the fields. At the moment
when the soldiers turned their heads, an
invisible hand seemed to strip the land-
scape of the last of its veils — veils of deli-
cate cloud like a shroud of transparent
gauze, covering precious jewels and
heightening curiosity as they shine
through it — over the wide horizon which
presented itself to the officers. The sky
showed not the faintest cloud to suggest,
by its silver sheen, that the huge blue
vault was the firmament. It seemed
rather a silken canopy supported at
irregular intervals b}^ the mountain-tops,
and set in the air to protect the shining
mosaic of field and meadow, stream and
woodland. Tlie officers could not weary
of surveying this wide space, so fertile in
pastoral beaut3^ Some Avere long before
they could prevent their gaze from wan-
dering among the wonderful maze of
thickets bronzed richly by the yellowing

foliage of some tufts of trees, and set off
by the emerald greenness of the interven-
ing lawns. Others fixed their eyes on
the contrast offered b}^ the ruddy fields,
where the buckwheat, already- harvested,
rose in tapering sheaves like the stacks of
muskets piled by the soldier where he
bivouacs, and divided from each other by
other fields where patches of rye, already
past the sickle, showed their lighter gold .
Here and there were a few roofs of som-
ber slate, whence rose white smoke. And
next the bright and silvery slashes made
by the tortuous streams of the Couesnon
caught the eye with one of those optical
tricks which, without obvious reason,
cast a dreamy vagueness on the mind.

The balmy freshness of the autumn
breeze, the strong odor of the forests, rose
like a cloud of incense, and intoxicated the
admiring gazers on this lovely country —
gazers who saw with rapture its unknown
flowers, its flourishing vegetation, its
verdure equal to that of its neighbor and
in one way namesake, England. The
scene, already worthy enough of the
theater, was further enlivened by cattle,
while the birds sang and made the whole
valley utter a sweet, low melody which
vibrated in the air. If the reader's imagi-
nation will concentrate itself so as fully to
conceive the rich accidents of light and
shade, the mistj'" mountain horizons, the
fantastic perspectives which sprang from
the spots where trees were missing, from
those where water ran, from those where
coy windings of the landscape faded awaj'^;
if his memory will color, so to speak, a
sketch, as fugitive as the moment when it
was taken, then those who can taste such
pictures will have an idea, imperfect it is
true, of the magical scene which surprised
the still sensitive minds of the youthful
officers.

They could not help an involuntary
emotion of pardon for the natural tardi-
ness of the poor men who, as they thought,
were regretfully quitting their dear coun-
tr}-^ to go — perhaps to die — afar off in a
strange land ; but with the generous feel-
ing natural to soldiers, they hid their
sympathy under a pretended desir«r of
examining the military positions of the

THE CHOUANS.

country. Hulot, however, whom we must
call the commandant, to avoid g-iving him
the ineleg-ant name of deini-brigadier, was
one of those warriors who, when danger
presses, are not the men to be caug-ht by
the charms of a landscape, were they
those of the Eai-thly Paradise itself. So
he shook his head disapprovingly, and
contracted a pair of thick black eyebrows
which gave a harsh cast to his counte-
nance.

" Why the devil do they not come on ? "
he asked a second time, in a voice deep-
ened by the hardships of war. '* Is there
some kind Virgin in the village whose
hand they are squeezing?"

^^You want to know why?" answered
a voice.

The comm.andant, hearing sounds like
those of the horn with which the peas-
ants of these valleys summon their flocks,
turned sharply round as though a sword-
point had pricked him, and saw, two
paces off, a figure even odder than any of
those whom he was conveying to Mayenne
to serve the Republic. The stranger — a
short, stouth^ built man with broad shoul-
ders— showed a head nearly as big as a
bull's, with whicli it had also other re-
semblances. Thick nostrils shortened
the nose in appearance to even less than
its real length. The man's blubber lips,
pouting over teeth white as snow, his
flapping ears and his red hair made him
seem akin rather to herbivorous animals
than to the goodly Caucasian race. More-
over, the bare head was made still more
remarkable b}^ its complete lack of some
other features of a man who has lived in
the society of his fellows.

The face, sun-bronzed and with sharp
outlines vaguely suggesting the granite
of which the country-side consists, was
the only visible part of this singular
being's person. From the neck down-
ward he was wrapped in a sarrau — a
kind of smock-frock in red linen, coarser
still than that of the poorest conscripts'
wallets and breeches. This sarrau, in
which an antiquary might have recog-
nized the saga, saye, or sayon of the
Gauls, ended at the waist, being joined
to tight breeches of goatskin b}^ wooden

fastenings roughly sculptured, but in
part still with the bark on. These goat-
skins, or peaux de bique in local speech,
which protected his thighs and his legs,
preserved no outline of the human form.
Huge wooden shoes hid his feet, while hLs
hair, long, glistening, and not unlike the
nap of his g'oatskius, fell on each side of
his face, evenly parted, and resembling
certain mediaeval sculptures still to be
seen in cathedrals. Instead of the knotty
stick which the conscripts bore on their
shoulders, he carried, resting on his
breast Uke a gun, a large whip, the lash
of which was cunningly plaited, and
seemed twice the length of whip-lashes
in general. There w^as no great diffi-
culty in explaining the sudden apparition
of this strange figure ; indeed, at first
sight some of the officers took the stran-
ger for a requisitionary or conscript (the
two words were still used indifferently)
who was falling back on his column,
perceiving that it had halted. Still, the
commandant was much surprised by
the man's arrival ; and though he did
not seem in the least alaj:'med, his brow
clouded. Having scanned the stranger
from head to foot, he repeated, in a me-
chanical fashion and as though preoccu-
pied with gloomj"^ ideas, '' Yes ; why do
they not come on ? do you know, man ? "

*• The reason," replied his sinister inter-
locutor, in an accent which showed that
he spoke French with difficulty, '' the
reason is," and he pointed his huge rough
hand to Ernee, " that there is Maine, and
here Brittany ends."

And he smote the ground hard, throw-
ing the heavy handle of his whip at the
commandant's feet. The impression pro-
duced on the bystanders by the stranger's
laconic harangue was not unlike that
which the beat of a savage drum might
make in the midst of the regular music
of a military band ; yet '"'harangue " is
hardly word enough to express the
hatred and the thirst for vengeance which
breathed through his haughty gesture,
his short fashion of speech, and his coun-
tenance full of a cold, fierce energy. The
very rudeness of the man's appearance,
fashioned as he was as though by ax-

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

blows, his rug-g-ed exterior, the dense ig--
norance imprinted on his features, made
him resemble some savage demigod. He
kept his seer-like attitude, and seemed
like an apparition of the very g-enius of
Brittany aroused from a three -j'-ears'
sleep, and ready to begin once more a
war where victory never showed herself
except swathed in mourning- for both
sides.

" Here is a pretty fellow ! " said Hulot,
speaking to himself ; "he looks as if he
were the spokesman of others who are
about to open a parley in gunshot lan-
guage."

But when he had muttered these words
between his teeth, the commandant ran
his eyes in turn from the man before him
to the landscape, from the landscape to
the detachment, from the detachment to
the steep slopes of the road, their crests
shaded by the mighty Breton broom.
Then he brought them back sharply on
the stranger, as it Avere questioning him
mutelj'- before he ended with the bruskly
spoken question, " Whence come you ? "

His eager and piercing e^^e tried to
guess the secrets hidden under the man's
impenetrable countenance, which in the
interval had fallen into the usual sheep-
ish expression of torpidity that wraps the
peasant ^vhen not in a state of excite-
ment.

"From the country of the Gars,"
answered the man, quite unperturbed.

" Your name ? "

" Marche-a-Terre."

"Why do you still use your Chouan
name in spite of the law ? "

But Marche-a-Terre, as he was pleased
to call himself, stared at the command-
ant with so utteii}^ truthful an air of im-
becility that the soldier thought he really
had not understood him.

" Are you one of the Fougeres contin-
gent ? "

To which question Marche-a-Terre an-
swered by one of those " I don't know's "
whose very tone arrests all further in-
quir}^ in despair-. He seated himself calmlj^
by the wayside, drew from his smock
some pieces of thin and black buckwheat
cake — a national food whose unenticing-

. delights can be comprehended of Bretons
alone — and began to eat with a stolid
nonchalance. He gave the impression of
so complete a lack of intelligence that
the officers by turns compared him, as he
sat there, to one of the cattle browsing
on the fat pasturage of the valley, to the
savages of America, and to one of the
aborigines of the Cape of Good Hope.

Deceived by his air, the commandant
himself was beginning not to listen to his
own doubts, when, prudently giving a
last glance at the man whom he sus-
pected of being the herald of approaching-
carnage, he saw his hair, his smock, his
goatskins, covered with thorns, scraps of
leaves, splinters of timber and brush-
wood, just as if the Chouan had made
a long journey through dense thickets.
He glanced significantly at his adjutant
Gerard, who was near him, squeezed his
hand hard, and whispered, " We came
for wool, and we shall go home shorn."

The officers gazed at each other in
silent astonishment.

It maj^ be convenient to digress a little
here in order to communicate the fears of
Commandant Hulot to some home keep-
ing folk who doubt everything because
they see nothing, and who might even
denj' the existence of men like Marche-a-
Terre and those peasants of the West
whose behavior was then so heroic. The
word gars (pronounced gd) is a waif of
Celtic. It has passed from Low Breton
into French, and the word is, of our whole
modern vocabulary'-, that which contains
the oldest memories. The gais was the
chief weapon of the Gaels or Gauls :
gaisde meant "'armed"; gais, "brav-
ery"; gas, "force" — comparison with
which terms will show the connection
of the word gars with these words of
our ancestors' tongue. The word has a
further analogy with the Latin vir,
"man " ; the root of virtus, " strength,"
"courage." This little disquisition may
be excused by its patriotic character ;
and it may further serve to rehabilitate
in some persons' minds terms such as
gars, garcon, garconnette, garce, gar-
cette, which are generall}^ excluded from
common parlance as improper, but which

THE CHOUANS.

have a warlike origin, and which will
recur here and there in the course of our
history.

" 'Tis a brave wench " {garce) was the
somewhat misunderstood praise which
Madame de Stael received in a little vil-
lage of the Vendomois, where she spent
some days of her exile. Now Brittany is
of all France the district where Gaulish
customs have left the deepest trace. The
parts of the province where, even in our
days, the wild life and the superstitious
temper of our rude forefathers ma}^ still,
so to speak, be taken red-handed, are
called the country of the gai^s. When a
township is inhabited by a considerable
number of wild men like him who has just
appeared on our scene,the countr^^-f oik call
them ''the gars of such and such a parish;"
and this stereotyped appellation is a kind
of reward for the fidelity with which these
gars strive to perpetuate the traditions of
Gaulish language and manners. Thus,
also, their life keeps deep traces of the
superstitious beliefs and practices of an-
cient times. In one place, feudal customs
are still observed ; in another, antiquaries
find Druidic monuments still standing ; in
yet another, the spirit of modern civiliza-
tion is aghast at having to make its way
through huge primeval forests. An in-
conceivable ferocity and a bestial obsti-
nacy, found in company with the most
absolute fidelity to an oath ; a complete
absence of our laws, our manners, our
dress, our new-fangled coinage, our very
language, combined with a patriarchal
simplicity of life and with heroic virtues,
unite in reducing the dwellers in these
regions below the Mohicans and the red-
skins of iSTorth America in the higher
intellectual activities, but make them as
noble, as cunning, as full of fortitude as
these.

Placed as Brittany is in the center of
Europe, it is a more curious field of ob-
servation than Canada itself. Surrounded
by light and heat, whose beneficent influ-
ences do not touch it, the country' is like
a coal which lies *' black-out" and ice-
cold in the midst of a glowing hearth.
All the efforts which some enlightened
spirits have made to win this beautiful

part of France over to social life and
commercial prosperit3- — nay, even the
attempts of Government in the same
direction — perish whelmed in the undis-
turbed bosom of a population devoted to
immemorial use and wont. But sufficient
explanations of this ill-luck are found in
the character of the soil, still furrowed
with ravines, torrents, lakes, and marshes;
still bristling with hedges — improvised
earth-works, which make a fastness of
every field ; destitute alike of roads and
canals ; and finally, in virtue of the genius
of an uneducated population, delivered
over to prejudices whose dangerous na-
ture our historj"^ will discover, and ob-
stinately hostile to new methods of
agriculture. The very picturesque ar-
rangement of the country, the very su-
perstitions of its inhabitants, prevent at
once the association of individuals and
the advantages of comparison and ex-
change of ideas. There are no villages
in Brittan^^ ; and the rudely built struct-
ures which are called dwellings are
scattered all over the country. Each
family lives as if in a desert ; and the
onl3" recognized meetings are the quickly
dissolved congregations which Sunday and
other ecclesiastical festivals bring togeth-
er at the parish church. These meetings,
where there is no exchange of conversa-
tion, and which are dominated by the
rector, the only master whom these rude
spirits admit, last a few hours only. After
listening to the awe-inspiring words of the
priest, the peasant goes back for a whole
week to his unwholesome dwelling, which
he leaves but for work, and whither he
returns but to sleep. If he receives a
visitor, it is still the rector, the soul of
the country-side.

And thus it was that at the voice of
such priests thousands of men flew at the
throat of the Republic, and that these
quarters of Brittany furnished, five years
before the date at which our stor\^ begins,
whole masses of soldiery for the first
Chouannerie. The brothers Cottereau,
bold smugglers, who gave this war its
name, plied their perilous trade between
Laval and Fougeres. But the insurrec-
tion in these districts had no character of

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

nobility. And it may be said with confi-
dence that if La Vendee made war of
brig-andag-e,* Brittany made brig-andage
of war. The proscription of the royal
family, the destruction of religion, were
to the Chouans only a pretext for plun-
der ; and the incidents of intestine strife
took some color from the wild roughness
of the manners of the district. When real
defenders of the monarchy came to recruit
soldiers among these populations, equally
ignorant and warlike, they tried in vain
to infuse under the white flag some ele-
ment of sublimity into the raids which
made Cliouanner^ie odious ; and the Chou-
ans remain a memorable instance of the
danger of stirring up the more uncivilized
portions of a people.

The above-given description of the first
valley w^hich Brittany offers to the trav-
eler's ej'e, the picture of the men who
made up the detachment of requisition-
aries, the account of the gars who ap-
peared at the top of Pilgrim Hill, give in
miniature a faithful idea of the province
and its inhabitants ; anj^ trained imagi-
nation can, by following these details,
conceive the theater and the methods of
the Avar ; for its whole elements are there.
At that time the blooming hedges of these
lovely valleys hid invisible foes : each
meadow was a place of arms, each tree
threatened a snare, each willow trunk
held an ambuscade. The field of battle
was everywhere. At each corner gun-
barrels lay in wait for the Blues, whom
young girls laughingly- enticed under fire,
without thinking themselves guilty of
treachery. Nay, the}' made pilgrimage
with their fathers and brothers to this
and that Virgin of worm-eaten wood to
ask at once for suggestion of stratagems
and absolution of sins. The religion, or
rather the fetichism, of these uneducated
creatures, robbed murder of all remorse.
Thus, when once the strife was entered
on, the whole country was full of terrors:
noise was as alarming as silence ; an ami-

* I have done violence to the text here as print-
ed : Si La Vendee jit un brigandage de la guerre.
But the point of the antithesis and the truth of
history seem absolutely to require tlie supposi-
tion of a misprint.

able reception as threats ; the family
hearth as the highway. Treachery itself
was convinced of its honesty ; and the
Bretons were savages who served God
and the king on the principles of Mohicans
on the war-path. But to give a descrip-
tion, exact in all points, of this struggle,
the historian ought to add that no sooner
was Hoche's peace arranged than the
whole country became smiling and friend-
ly. The very families who over night
had been at each other's throats, supped
the next day without fear of danger under
the same roof.

Hulot had no sooner detected the secret
indications of treachery which Marche-a-
Terre's goatskins revealed, than he be-
came certain of the breach of this same
fortunate peace, due once to the genius
of Hoche, and now, as it seemed to him,
impossible to maintain. So, then, war
had revived, and no doubt would be,
after a three-years' rest, more terrible
than ever. The revolution, which had
waxed milder since the Ninth Thermidor,.
would very likely resume the character of
terror which made it odious to well-dis-
posed minds. English gold had doubt-
less, as alwa3's, helped the internal dis-
cords of France. The Republic, abandoned
by young Bonaparte, who had seemed its
tutelary genius, appeared incapable of re-
sisting so many enemies, the worst of
whom was showing himself last. Civil
war, foretold already'' by hundreds of
pett}' rismgs, assumed an air of alto-
gether novel gravity when the Chouans
dared to conceive the idea of attacking
so strong an escort. Such were the
thoughts which followed one another
(though by no means so succinctly put)
in the mind of Hulot as soon as he seemed
to see in the apparition of Marche-a-Terre
a sign of an adroitly laid ambush ; for he
alone at once understood the hidden dan-
ger.

The silence following the comman-
dant's prophetic observation to Gerard,
with which we finished our last scene,
gave Hulot an opportunity of recovering
his coolness. The old soldier had nearly
staggered. He could not clear his brow
as he thought of being surrounded al-

THE CHOUAXS.

ready \>y the horrors of a war whose
atrocities cannihals themselves might
haply have refused to approve. Captain
Merle and Adjutant Gerard, his two
friends, were at a loss to explain the
alarm, so new to them, which their
chief's face showed ; and the^'- gazed at
Marche-a-Terre, who was still placidly
eating- his bannocks at the road-side,
without being able to see the least con-
nection between a brute beast of this
kind and the disquiet of their valiant
leader. But Hulot's countenance soon
grew brighter ; sorry as he was for the
Republic's ill-fortune, he was rejoiced at
having to fight for her, and he cheerfully
promised himself not to fall blindly into
the nets of the Chouans, and to outwit
the man, however darkly cunning he
might be, whom they did himself the
honor to send against him.

Before, however, making up his mind
to any course of action, he set himself to
examine the position in which his enemies
would fain surprise him. When he saw
that the road in the midst of which he
was engaged passed through a kind of
gorge, not, it is true, very deep, but
flanked by woods, and with several by-
paths debouching on it, he once more
frowned hard with his black brows, and
then said to his friends, in a low voice,
full of emotion :

" We are in a pretty wasps '-nest ! "

'' But of whom are you afraid ? " asked
Gerard.

" Afraid ? " repeated the commandant.
" Yes ; afraid is the w^ord. I always
have been afraid of being shot like a dog,
as the road turns a wood with no one to
cry ' Qui vive ? "'

** Bah ! " said Merle, laughing ; " ' Qui
vive ? ' itself is a bad phrase ! "

"Are we, then, really in danger?"
asked Gerard, as much surprised at Hu-
lot's coolness as he had been at his pass-
ing fear.

"Hist!" said the commandant: "we
are in the wolf's throat and as it is as
dark there as in a chimnej', we had better
light a candle. Luckily," he went on,
" we hold the top of the ridge." He be-
stowed a forcible epithet upon the said

ridge, and added, " I shall see my way
soon, perhaps." Then taking the two
officers Avith him, he posted them round
Marche-a-Terre ; but the gars, pretending
to think that he was in their way, rose
quicklj'. "Stay there, rascal!" cried
Hulot, giving him a push, and making
him fall back on the slope where he had
been sitting. And from that moment the
demi-brigadier kept his eje steadily on
the Breton, who seemed quite indifferent.
" Friends, " said he, speaking low to the
two officers, "it is time to tell you that
the fat is in the fire down there at Paris.
The Directory, in consequence of a row in
the Assembly, has muddled our business
once more. The pentarchy of pantaloons
(the last word is nearer French at any
rate) have lost a good blade, for Berna-
dotte will have nothing more to do with
them."

" Who takes his place ? " asked Gerard,
eagerly.

" Milet-Mureau, an old dotard. 'Tis
an awkward time for choosing blockheads
to steer the ship. Meanwhile, English
signal-rockets are going off round the
coast ; all these cockchafers of Vendeans
and Chouans are abroad on the wing :
and those who pull the strings of the
puppets have chosen their time just when
we are beaten to our knees."

" How so ? " said Merle.

"Our armies are being beaten on every
side," said Hulot, lowering his voice more
and more. " The Chouans have twice in-
terrupted the post, and I onl3'^ received
my last dispatches and the latest decrees
by an express which Bernadotte sent the
moment he quitted the ministry. Luckily,
friends have given me private informa-
tion of the mess we are in. Fouche has
found out that the tyrant Louis XVIII.
has been warned by traitors at Paris to
send a chief to lead his wild ducks at home
here. It is thought that Barras is placing
the Republic false. In fine, Pitt and the
princes have sent hither a ci-devant, 2b
man full of talent and vigor, whose hope
is to unite Vendeans and Chouans, and so
lower the Republic's crest. The fellow
has actually landed in Morbihan; I learned
it before any one, and told our clever ones

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

at Paris. He calls himself the Gars. For
all these cattle," said he, pointing to
Marche - a - Terre, •'• fit themselves with
names which would give an honest pa-
triot a stomach-ache if he bore them.
Moreover, our man is about here ; and
the appearance of this Chouan" (he
pointed to Marche-a-Terre once more)
" shows me that he is upon us. But
they don't teach tricks to an old monkey;
and you shall help me to cage my birds
in less than no time. I should be a pretty
fool if I let myself be trapped like a crow
by a ci-devant who comes from London
to dust our jackets for us ! "

When they learned this secret and
critical intelligence, the two officers,
knowing that their commandant never
took alarm at shadows, assumed the
steady mien which soldiers wear in time
of danger when they are of good stuff
and accustomed to look ahead in human
affairs. Gerard, whose post, since sup-
pressed, put him in close relations with
his chief, was about to answer and to
inquire into all the political news, a part
of which had evidently been omitted. But
at a sign from Hulot he refrained, and
all three set themselves to watch Marche-
a-Terre. Yet the Chouan did not exhibit
the faintest sign of emotion, though he
saw himself thus scanned by men as
formidable by their wits as by' their
bodily strength. The curiosity of the
two officers, new to this kind of warfare,
was vividly excited by the beg'inning- of
an affair which seemed likel^^ to have
something of the interest of a romance,
and the}' were on the point of making
jokes on the situation. But at the first
word of the kind that escaped them,
Hulot said, with a grave look, " God's
thunder, citizens ! don't light your pipes
on the powder barrel. Cheerfulness out
of season is as bad as water poured into
a sieve. Gerard," continued he, leaning
toward his adjutant's ear, " come quietly
close to this brigand, and be ready at his
first suspicious movement to run him
through the body. For my part, I will
take measures to keep up the conversa-
tion, if our unknown friends are good
enough to begin it."

Gerard bowed slightly to intimate
obedience, and then began to observe
the chief objects of the valle^^, which
have been sufficiently described. He
seemed to wish to examine them more
attentively, and kept walking up and
down and without ostensible object ; but
3^ou may be sure that the landscape was
the last thing he looked at. For his part,
Marche-a-Terre gave not a sign of con-
sciousness that the officer's movements
threatened him ; from the way in which
he played with his whip-lash, you might
have thought that he was fishing in the
ditch by the roadside.

While Gerard thus maneuvered to gain
a position in front of the Chouan, the com-
mandant whispered to Merle: ''Take a
sergeant with ten picked men and post
them yourself afbove us at the spot on the
hill-top where the road widens out level,
and where you can see a g'ood long stretch
of the way to Ernee ; choose a place where
there are no trees at the roadside, and
where the sergeant can overlook the open
country. Let Clef-des-Coeurs be the man :
he has his wits about him. It is no laugh-
ing matter : I would not give a penny for
our skins if we do not take all the advan-
tage we can get."

While Captain Merle executed this order
with a promptitude of which he well knew
the importance, the commandant shook
his right hand to enjoin deep silence on
the soldiers who stood round him, and
who were talking at ease. Another gest-
ure bade them get once more under arms.
As soon as quiet prevailed, he directed his
eyes first to one side of the road and then
to the other, listeninig with anxious atten-
tion, as if he hoped to catch some stifled
noise, some clatter of weapons, or some
foot-falls preliminary^ to the expected
trouble. His black and piercing eye
seemed to probe the furthest recesses of
the woods ; but as no symptoms met him
there, he examined the gravel of the road
after the fashion of savages, trying to dis-
cover some traces of the invisible enemy
whose audacity was well known to him.

Li despair at seeing nothing to justify
his fears, he advanced to the edge of the
roadway, and after carefully climbing its

THE CHOUANS.

slight rising's, paced their tops slowly;
but then he remembered how indispensable
his experience was to the safety of his
troops, and descended. His countenance
darkened : for the chiefs of those days
alwaj'^s reg-retted that they were not able
to keep the most dang-erous tasks for
themselves. The other officers and the
privates, noticing- the absorption of a
leader whose disposition they loved, and
whose bravery the^' knew, perceived that
his extreme care betokened some danger ;
but as they were not in a position to ap-
preciate its g-ravity, they remamed motion-
less, and, by a sort of instinct, even held
their breaths. Like dog-s who would fain
make out the drift of the orders — to them
incomprehensible — of a cunning- hunter,
but who obey him implicitly, the soldiers
g-azed by turns at the valley of the Coues-
non, at the woods by the roadside, and
at the stern face of their commander, trj^-
ing- to read their impending fate in eacli.
Glance met g-lance, and even more than
one smile ran from lip to lip.

As Hulot bent his brows, Beau-Pied, a
young serg-eant who passed for the wit of
the company, said, in a half whisper :
" Where the devil have we put our foot in
it that an old soldier like Hulot makes
such mudd^^ faces at us ? he looks like a
court-martial ! "

But Hulot bent a stern g-lance on Beau-
Pied, and the due "silence in the ranks ''
once more prevailed. In the midst of this
solemn hush the laggard steps of the con-
scripts, under whose feet the g-ravel g-ave
a dull crunch, distracted vaguely, with
its regular pulse, the g-eneral anxiety.
Only those can comprehend such an in-
definite feeling, who, in the g-rip of some
cruel expectation, have during- the stilly
night felt the heavy beating's of their
own hearts quicken at some sound whose
monotonous recurrence seems to distill
terror drop by drop. But the comman-
dant once more took his place in the midst
of the troops, and began to ask himself,
"Can I have been deceived?" He was
beg-inning to look, with gatliering anger
flashing- from his ej^es, on the calm and
stolid fig'ure of Marche-a-Terre, when a
touch of savag-e irony which he seemed

to detect in the dull eyes of the Chouan
urg-ed him not to discontinue liis precau-
tions. At the same moment Captain
Merle, after carrying out Hulot's orders,
came up to rejoin him. The silent actors
in this „scene, so like a thousand other
scenes which made this war exceptionally
dramatic, waited impatiently for new in-
cidents, eager to see hg-ht thrown on the
dark side of their military situation by
the maneuvers which mig-ht follow.

"We did well, captain," said the com-
mandant, " to set the few patriots^mong
these requisitionaries at the tail of the
detachment. Take a dozen more stout
fellows, put Sub-lieutenant Lebrun at
their head, and lead them at quick march
to the rear. They are to support the pa-
triots who are there, and to bustle on the
whole flock of g-eese briskly, so as to
bring- it up at the double to the heig-ht
which their comrades already occupy. I
will wait for you."

The captain disappeared in the midst
of his men, and the commandant, looking-
by turns at four brave soldiers whose ac-
tivity and intellig-ence were known to him,
beckoned silently to them with a friendly
g-esture of the fingers, sig-nifying "Come;"
and they came.

"You served with me under Hoche,"
he said, " when we brought those bri-
g-ands who called themselves the '■ King-'s
Huntsmen ' to reason ; and -yon know how
they used to hide themselves in order to
pot the Blues ! "

At this encomium on their experience
the four soldiers nodded with a sig-nificant
grin, exhibiting- countenances full of sol-
dierly heroism, but whose careless indif-
ference announced that, since the strugg-le
had begun between France and Europe,
they had thoug-ht of nothing- beyond their
knapsacks behind them and their baj^o-
nets in front. Their lips were contracted
as with tight-drawn purse-string-s, and
their watchful and curious eyes g-azed at
their leader.

"Well," continued Hulot, who pos-
sessed in perfection the art of speaking-
the soldier's highly colored lang-uage,
" old hands such as we must not let our-
selves be caug-ht by Chouans, and there

THE HUMAN COMEDY

are Chouans about here, or my name is
not Hulot. You four must beat the two
sides of the road in front. The detach-
ment will g-o slowl}^ Keep up well with
it. Try not to lose the number of your
mess,* and do your scouting- there smart-
ly."

Then he pointed out to them the most

dang-erous heig-hts on the way. They all,
by way of thanks, carried the backs of
their hands to the old three-cornered hats,
whose tall brims, rain-beaten and limp
with ag-e, slouched on the crown; and
one of them, Larose, a corporal, and well
known to Hulot, made his musket ring-,
and said, ''We will play them a tune on
the rifle, commandant ! "

They set off, two to the right, the
others to the left ; and the company saw
them disappear on both sides with no
slig-ht anxiety. This feeling* was shared
by the commandant, who had little doubt
that he was sending them to certain
death. He could hardly help shuddering-
when the tops of their hats were no
longer visible, while both officers and
men heard the dwindling- sound of their
steps on the dry leaves with a feeling- all
the acuter that it was carefully veiled.
For in Avar there are situations when the
risk of four men's lives causes more alarm
than the thousands of slain at a battle of
Jemmapes. Soldiers' faces have such
various and such rapidl}- fleeting expres-
sions, that those who would sketch them
are forced to appeal to memories of sol-
diers, and to leave peaceable folk to study
for themselves their dramatic counte-
nances, for storms so rich in details as
these could not be described without in-
tolerable tediousness.

Just as the last flash of the four bay-
onets disappeared. Captain Merle re-
turned, having- accomplished the com-
mandant's orders with the speed of
lig-htning-. Hulot, with a few words of
command, set the rest of his troops in
fighting order in the middle of the road.
Then he bade them occupy the summit of

* This is a naval rather than a mihtary meta-
phor ; bvit I do not know how the law recruit
would express descendre la garde.

the Pilg-rim, where his scanty vanguard
was posted ; but he himself marched last
and backward so as to note the slightest
change at any point of the scene which
Nature had made so beautiful and man
so full of fear. He had reached the spot
where Gerard was mounting guard on
Marche-a-Terre, when the Chouan, who
had followed with an apparently careless
eye all the commandant's motions, and
who was at the moment observing with
unexpected keenness the two soldiers who
were busy in the woods at the right,
whistled twice or thrice in such a manner
as to imitate the clear and piercing note
of the screech-owl.

Now, the three famous smugglers men-
tioned above used in the same way to em-
ploy at night certain variations on this
hoot in order to interchange intelligence
of ambuscades, of threatening dangers,
and of every fact of importance to them.
It was from this that the surname
Chuin, the local word for the owl, was
given to them, and the term , slightly cor-
rupted, served in the first war to desig-
nate those who followed the ways and
obeyed the signals of the brothers. When
he heard this suspicious whistle, the com-
mandant halted, and looked narrowly at
Marche-a-Terre. He pretended to be de-
ceived by the sheepish air of the Chouan,
on purpose to keep him near to himself,
as a barometer to indicate the move-
ments of the enemy. And. therefore he
checked the hand of Gerard, who was
about to dispatch him. Then he posted
two soldiers a couple of paces from the
spy, and in loud, clear tones bade them
shoot him at the first signal that he gave.
Yet Marche-a-Terre, in spite of his im-
minent danger, did not show any emo-
tion, and the commandant, who was still
observing him, noting his insensibility'-,
said to Gerard : " The goose does not
know his business. 'Tis never easy to
read a Chouan 's face, but this fellow has
betrayed himself by wishing to show his
pluck. Look you, Gerard, if he had pre-
tended to be afraid, I should have taken
him for a mere fool. There would have
been a pair of us, and I should have been
at my wits' end. Now it is certain that

THE CHOUANS.

we shall be attacked. But they ma}'-
come; I am ready."

Having- said these words in a low voice,
and with a triumphant air, the old soldier
rubbed his hands and g-lanced slyly at
Marche-a-Terre. Then he crossed his
arms on his breast, remained in the mid-
dle of the road between his two favorite
officers, and waited for the event of his
dispositions. Tranquil at last as to the
result of the fight, he surveyed his soldiers
with a calm countenance.

''There will be a row in a minute,"
whispered Beau-Pied; ''the commandant
is rubbing- his hands."

Such a critical situation as that in which
Commandant Hulot and his detachment
were placed, is one of those where life is
so literally at stake that men of energy
make it a point of honor to show coolness
and presence of mind. At such moments
manhood is put to a last proof. So the
commandant, knowing inore of the danger
than his officers, plumed himself all the
more on appearing- the most tranquil. By
turns inspecting Marche-a-Terre, the road,
and the woods, he awaited, not without
anxiet^^, the sound of a volley from the
Chouans, who, he doubted not, were lurk-
ing- like forest-demons around him. His
face was impassive. When all the soldiers'
e3"es were fixed on his, he slightly wrinkled
his brown cheeks pitted with small-pox,
drew up the right side of his lip, and
winked hard, producing a g-rimace which
his men regularlj^ understood to be a smile.
Then he clapped Gerard's shoulder, and
said. "Now that we are quiet, what were
you going to say to me ? "

" What new crisis is upon us, comman-
dant ? '

'* The thing- is not new," answered he,
in a low tone. " The whole of Europe is
against us, and this time the cards are
with them. While our directors are
squabbling- among themselves like horses
without oats in a stable, and while their
whole administration is going to pieces,
they leave the army without supplies. In
Italy we are simplj'^lost ! Yes. my friends,
we have evacuated Mantua in consequence
of losses on the Trebia, and Joubert has
just lost a battle at Novi. I only hope

Masse n a may be able to keep the passes
in Switzerland ag-ainst Suwarrow. We
have been driven in on the Rhine, and the
Directory has sent Moreau there. Will
the fellow be able to hold the frontier ?
Perhaps ; but sooner or later the coali-
tion must crush us, and the only g-eneral
who could save us is — the devil knows
where — dow^n in Egypt. Besides, how
could he get back ? England is mistress
of the seas."

" I do not care so much about Bona-
parte's absence, commandant," said the
young adjutant Gerard, in whom a care-
ful education had developed a naturally
strong- understanding. " Do 3^ou mean
that the Revolution will be arrested in its
course ? Ah no ! we are not only charged
with the duty of defending- the frontiers
of France ; we have a double mission. Are
we not bound as well to keep alive the
g-enius of our country, the noble prin-
ciples of liberty and independence, the
spirit of human reason which our Assem-
blies have aroused, and which must ad-
vance from time to time ? France is as
a traveler commissioned to carry a torch :
she holds it in one hand, and defends her-
self with the other. But if your news is
true, never during- ten years have more
folk anxious to blow the torch out
thronged around us. Our faith and our
country both must be near perishing."

" Alas ! 'tis true," sighed Commandant
Hulot ; " our puppets of Directors have
taken g-ood care to quarrel with all the
men who could steer the ship of state.
Bernadotte, Carnot, all, even citizen
Talleyrand, have left us There is but a
single good patriot left — friend Fouche,
who keeps things together by means of
the police. That is a man for you ! It
was he who warned me in time of this
rising — and w^hat is more, I am sure we
are caught in a trap of some sort."

"Oh ! " said Gerard, "if the army has
not some finger in the government, these
attorney fellows will put us in a worse
case than before the Revolution. How
can such weasels know how to com-
mand ? "

" I am always in fear," said Hulot, " of
hearing- that they are parleying- with the

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Bourbons. God's thunder ! if thej' came
to terms, we should be in a pickle here ! "

"No, no, commandant, it will not come
to that," said Gerard; 'Hhe army, as
you say, will make itself heard, and un-
less it speaks according- to Picheg-ru's
dictionary, there is good hope that we
shall not have worked and foug-ht our-
selves to death for ten years, onl}^ to have
planted the flax ourselves, and let others
spin it."

''Why, yes!" said the commandant,
'' we have not chang-ed our coats without
its costing us something-."

"Well, then," said Captain Merle, "let
us play the part of g-ood patriots still
here, and tr^'^ to stop communications be-
tween our Chouans and La Vendee. For
if the}'- join, and England lends a hand,
why, then, I will not answer for the cap
of the Republic, one and indivisible."

At this point the owl's hoot, which
sounded afar off, interrupted the conver-
sation. The commandant, more anxious,
scanned Marche-a-Terre anew, but *liis
impassive countenance g-ave hardly even
a sig-n of life. The conscripts, brought
up by an officer, stood huddled like a herd
of cattle in the middle of the road, some
thirt}^ paces from the company drawn up
in order of battle. Last of all, ten paces
further, were the soldiers and patriots
under the orders of Lieutenant Lebrun.
The commandant threw a g-lance over his
array, resting it finally on the picket
which he had posted in front. Satisfied
with his dispositions, he was just turning
round to give the word "March," when
he caught sight of the tricolor cockades
of the two soldiers who were coming- back
after searching the woods to the left.
Seeing that the scouts on the right had
not returned, he thoug-ht of waiting for
them.

"Perhaps the bomb is g-oing to burst
there," he said to the two officers, point-
ing to the wood where his forlorn hope
seemed to be buried.

While the two scouts made a kind of
report to him, Hulot took his eyes off
Marche-a-Terre. The Chouan thereupon
set to whistling- sharply in such u. fashion
as to send the sound to a prodigious dis-

tance; and then, before either of his
watchers had been able even to take aim
at him, he dealt them blows with his whip,
which stretched them on the foot-path. At
the same moment cries, or rather san^age
howls, surprised the Republicans : a heavy
volley coming- from the wood at the top
of the slope where the Chouan had seated
himself, laid seven or eig-ht soldiers low;
while Marche-a-Terre, at whom half a
dozen useless shots were fired, disap-
peared in the thicket, after climbing the
slope like a wildcat. As he did so his
sabots dropped in the ditch, and they could
easily see on his feet the stout hobnailed
shoes which were usualh" worn by the
"King's Huntsmen." No sooner had
the Chouans given tongue than the whole
of the conscripts dashed into the wood to
the right, like flocks of birds Avhich take
to wing- on the approach of a traveler.

" Fire on the rascals ! " cried the com-
mandant

The company fired, but the conscripts
had had the address to put themselves in
safety by setting- each man his back to
a tree, and before the muskets could be
reloaded they had vanished.

" Now talk of recruiting- departmental
legions, eh ? " said Hulot to Gerard. "' A
man must be as great a fool as a Direc-
tor}^ to count on levies from such a coun-
try as this ! The Assembly would do bet-
ter to vote us less, and give us more in
uniforms, monej'', and stores."

" These are g-entlemen who like their
bannocks better than ammunition bread,"
said Beau-Pied, the wit of the company.

As he spoke hooting-s and shouts of
derision from the Republican troops cried
shame on the deserters ; but silence fe\\
ag-ain at once, as the soldiers saw, climb-
ing- painfully down the slope, the two
light infantry men whom the comman-
dant had sent to beat the wood to the
rig-ht. The less severelj'^ wounded of the
two was supporting- his comrade, whose
blood poured on thfe g-round, and the two
poor fellows had reached the middle of
the descent when Marche-a-Terre showed
his hideous face, and took such g-ood aim
at the two Blues that he hit them both
with the same shot, and they dropped

TEE CHOUANS.

heavily into the ditch. His great head
had no sooner appeared than thirty bar-
rels were raised, but like a fig-ure in a
fantasmng-oria, he had already disap-
peared behind tlie terrible broom lufts.
These incidents,, whicli talvc so long- in
the telling-, passed in a moment, and
then, again in a moment, the patriots
and the soldiers of the rear-g-uard ef-
fected a junction witli the rest of the
escort.

" Forward ! '' cried Hulot.

Tlie compan\' made its way quickly to
the lofty and bare spot where the piclvet
had been posted. There the commandant
once more set the company in battle
array : but he could see no further sigrn
of hostility" on the Chouans' part, and
thought that the deliverance of the con-
scripts had been the only object of the
ambuscade.

'•' I can tell by their shouts,'' said he to
his two friends, "that there are not many
of them. Let us quicken up. Perhaps
we can gain Ernee without having- them
upon us."

The words were heard b3^a patriot con-
script, who left the ranks and presented
himself to Hulot.

'' General," said he, " I liave served in
this war before as a counter-Chouan.
May a man say a word to 3'ou?"

" 'Tis a lawyer : these fellows always
think themselves in court," whispered the
commandant into Merle's ear. " Well,
make your speech," said he to the young-
man of Fougeres.

"Commandant, the Chouans have no
doubt brought arms for the new recruits
they have just gained. Now, if we budge,
the^^ will wait for us at every corner of
the wood and kill us to the last man be-
fore we reach Ernee. We must make a
speech, as you say, but it must be with
cartridges. During the skirmish, which
will last longer than you think, one of my
comrades will go and fetch the National
Guard and the Free Companies from Fou-
geres. Though we are only conscripts,
you shall see then whether we are kites
and crows at fighting."

" You think there are many of the
Chouans, then? "

' ' Look for 3^ourself , citizen comman-
dant."

He took Hulot to a spot on the plateau
where the road-gravel had been disturbed
as if with a rake, and then, after drawing
his attention to this, he led him some waj*"
in front to a bj'-path where they saw
traces of the passage of no small number
of men, for the leaves were trodden right
into the beaten soil.

"These are the Oars of Vitre," said
the man of Fougeres. " They have start-
ed to join the men of Lower Normandy."

"What is your name, citizen?" said
Hulot.

" Gudin, commandant."

"Well, Gudin, I make you corporal of
your townsfolk. You seem to be a fellow
who can be depended on. Choose for
yourself one of your comrades to send to
Fougeres. And you yourself sta}' by me.
First, go with ^-our requisitionaries and
pick up the knapsacks, the guns, and the
uniforms of our poor comrades whom the
brigands have knocked over. You shall
not staj' here to stand gunshot without
returning it."

So the bold men of Fougeres went to
strip the dead, and the whole company
protected them by pouring a steady fire
into the wood, so that the task of strip-
ping was successfully performed without
the loss of a single man.

"' These Bretons," said Hulot to Gerard,
"will make famous infantr}' if they can
ever make up their minds to the panni-
kin."*

Gudin's messenger started at a run by
a winding path in the wood to the left.
The soldiers, busy in seeing to their weap-
ons, made read^^ for the fight ; and the
commandant, after lookmg them over
smilingly, took his station a few steps in
front, with his two favorite officers, and
waited stubbornly'' for the Chouans to
attack. There was again silence for a
while, but it did not last long. Three
hundred Chouans, dressed in a similar
fashion to the requisitionaries, debouched

* Garnelle, the joint soup-plate or bowl in which
the rations of several French soldiers were served,
and which has something' of the traditional sa-
credness of the Janissary soup-kettle.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

from the woods to the right, and occu-
pied, after a disorderly fashion, and utter-
ing shouts which w^ere true wild-beast
howls, the hreadth of the road in front of
the thin line of Blues. The commandant
drew up his men in two equal divisions,
each ten men abreast, placing between
the two his dozen requisition aries hastily
equipped and under his own immediate
command. The little army was guarded
on the wings by two detachments, each
twentj'-five men strong, who operated on
the two sides of the road under Gerard
and Merle, and whose business it was to
take the Chouans in flank, and prevent
them from practicing the maneuver called
in the country dialect s'egailler — ^that is
to saj'^, scattering themselves about the
country, and each man taking up his own
position so as best to shoot at the Blues
without exposing himself ; in which way
of fighting the Republican troops were at
their wits' end where to have their ene-
mies.

These dispositions, which the comman-
dant ordered with the promptitude suited
to the circumstances,, inspired the soldiers
with the same confidence that he himself
felt, and the whole body silently marched
on the Chouans. At the end of a few
minutes, the interval required to cover
the space between the two forces, a volley
at point-blank laid manj^ low on both
sides ; but at the same moment the Re-
publican wings, against which the Chou-
ans had made no counter-movement, came
up on the flank, and by a close and lively
fire spread death and disorder amid the
enemy to an extent which almost equalized
the number of the two bodies. But there
was in the character of the Chouans a
stubborn courage w^hich would stand any
trial : they budgod not a step, their losses
did not make them waver ; thej'" closed up
their broken ranks, and strove to surround
the dark and steady handful of Blues,
which occupied so little space that it
looked like a queen bee in the midst of a
swarm.

Then began one of those appalling en-
gagements in which the sound of gunshot,
scarcely heard at all, is replaced by the
clatter of a struggle with the cold steel,

in which men fight hand to hand and in
which with equal courage the victory is
decided simpl}^ by numbers. The Chouans
would have carried the day at once if the
wings under Merle and Gerard had not
succeeded in raking their rear with more
than one volle3^ The Blues who composed
these wings ought to have held their posi-
tion and continued to mark down their
formidable adversaries ; but, heated by
the sight of the dangers which the brave
detachment ran, completely' surrounded
as it was by the King's Huntsmen, they
flung themselves madlj^ on the road, bay-
onet in hand, and for a moment redressed
the balance. Both sides then gave them-
selves up to the furious zeal, kindled by a
wild and savage party spirit, which made
this war unique. Each man, heedful of
his own danger, kept absolute silence ;
and the whole scene liad the grizzly cool-
ness of death itself. Across the silence,
broken only b}^ the clash of arms and the
crunching of the gravel, there came noth-
ing else but the dull, heavy groans of
those who fell to earth, dying, or wounded
to the death. In the midst of the Repub-
licans the requisitionaries defended the
commandant, who was busied in giving
counsel and command in all directions, so
stoutly that more than once the regulars
cried out, ''Well done, recruits!" But
Hulot, cool and watchful of everything,
soon distinguished among the Chouans
a man who, surrounded like himself by
a few picked followers, seemed to be their
leader. He thought it imperative that
he should take a good look at the officer ;
but though again and again he tried in
vain to note his features, the view was al-
ways barred by red bonnets or flapping
hats. He could but perceive Marche-a-
Terre, who, keeping by the side of his
chief, repeated his orders in a harsh tone,
and whose rifle was unceasingl}^ active.

The commandant lost his temper at
this continual disappointment, and, draw-
ing his sword and cheering on the requisi-
tionaries, charged the thickest of the Chou-
ans so furiously that he broke through
them, and was able to catch a glimpse of
the chief, whose face was unluckily quite
hidden by a huge flapped hat bearing the

THE CHOUANS.

white cockade. But the stranger, startled
by the boldness of the attack, stepped
backward, tliroAving- up his hat sharply,
and Hulot had the opportunity of taking
brief stock of him. The 3'oung leader,
Avhom Hulot could not judge to be more
than five-and-twenty, wore a green cloth
shooting-coat, and pistols were thrust in
his white sash ; his stout shoes were hob-
nailed like those of the Chouans, while
sporting gaiters rising to his knees, and
joining breeches of very coarse duck,
completed a costume which revealed a
shape of moderate height, but slender
and well proportioned. Enraged at see-
ing the Blues so near him, he slouched
his hat and made at them ; but he was
immediately surrounded by Marche-a-
Terre and some other Chouans alarmed
for his safety. Yet Hulot thought he
could see in the intervals left by the heads
of those who thronged round the 3"0ung
man a broad red ribbon on a half-opened
waistcoat. The commandant's eyes were
attracted for a moment by this Royalist
decoration, then entirely forgotten, but
shifted suddenly to the face, which he
lost from sight almost as soon, being
driven by the course of the fight to at-
tend to the safet^'^ and the movements of
his little force. He thus saw but for a
moment a pair of sparkling eyes, whose
color he did not mark, fair hair, and feat-
ures finely cut enough, but sunburned.

He was, however, particularly struck
by the gleam of a bare neck whose white-
ness was enhanced by a black cravat,
loose, and carelessly tied. The fiery and
spirited gestures of the young chief were
soldierh' enough, after the fashion of
those who like to see a certain conven-
tional romance in a fight. His hand,
carefully gloved, flourished a sword-blade
that flashed in the sun. His bearing dis-
played at once elegance and streng-th ;
and his somewhat deliberate excitement,
set off as it was by the charms of youth
and by graceful manners, made the emi-
grant leader a pleasing type of the French
noblesse, and a sharp contrast with Hulot,
Avho, at a pace or two from him, personi-
fied in his turn the vigorous Republic for
which the old soldier fought, and whose

stem face and blue uniform, faced with
shabby red, the epaulets tarnished and
hanging back over his shoulders, depicted
not ill his character and his hardships.

The young man's air and his not un-
graceful affectation did not escape Hulot,
who shouted, as he tried to get at him :
" Come, you opera-dancer there ! come
along and be thrashed ! "

The royal chief, annoj^ed at his momen-
tary check, rushed forward desperately ;
and no sooner had his men seen him thus
risk himself, than they all flung them-
selves on the Blues.

But suddenly a clear, sweet voice made
itself heard above the battle, " 'Twashere
that sainted Lescure died : will you not
avenge him?" And at these words of
enchantment the exertions of the Chou-
ans became so terrible that the Republi-
can soldiers had the greatest trouble in
holding their ground without breaking
ranks.

''Had he not been a youngster," said
Hulot to himself, as he retreated step by
step, "we should not have been attacked.
Who ever heard of Chouans fighting a
pitched battle ? But so much the better :
we shall not be killed like dogs along the
roadside." Then raising his voice that
it might up-echo along the woods, "Wake
up, children ! " he cried ; " shall we let
ourselves be bothered by brigands ? ' '

The term by which we have replaced
the word which the valiant commandant
actually used is but a weak equivalent ;
but old hands will know how to restore
the true phrase, which certainly has a
more soldierly flavor.

" Gerard ! Merle ! " continued the com-
mandant, " draw off 3-our men ! form them
in column ! fall back ! fii;e on the dogs,
and let us have done with them ! "

But Hulot's order was not easy to exe-
cute ; for, as he heard his adversary's
voice, the young chief cried : '' By Saint
Anne of Auray ! hold them fast I scatter
3^ ourselves, my Gars ! "

And when the two wings commanded
by Merle and Gerard left the main battle,
each handful was followed by a deter-
mined band of Chouans much superior
in numbers, and the stout old goatskins

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

surrounded the regulars on all sides,
shouting- aneAv their sinister and bestial
howls.

"Shut up, g-entlemen, please," said
Beau-Pied; ''we can't hear ourselves
being- killed."

The joke revived the spirits of the Blues,
Instead of fighting- in a sing-le position,
the Republicans continued their defense
at three different spots on the plateau of
tiie Pilgrim, and all its valleys, lately so
peaceful, re-echoed with the fusillade. Vic-
tory might have remained undecided for
hours, till the fight ceased for want of
fighters, for Blues and Chouans fought
with equal bravery and with rage con-
stantly increasing on both sides, when the
faint beat of a drum was heard afar off,
and it was clear, from the direction of the
sound, that the force which it heralded
was crossing the valley of the Couesnon,

" 'Tis the National Guard of FougeresI"
cried Gudin, loudly ; " Vannier must have
met them."

At this cry, which reached the ears of
the j^oungChouan chief and his fierce aid-
de-camp, the Royalists made a backward
movement, but it was promptlj' checked
by a roar, as of a wild beast, from Marche-
a-Terre. After a word of command or two
given by the leader in a low voice and
transmitted in Breton \>y Marche-a-Terre
to the Chouans, thej'^ arranged their re-
treat with a skill which astonished the
Republicans, and even the commandant.
At the first word those in best condition
fell into line and showed a stout front, be-
hind which the wounded men and the rest
retired to load. Then all at once, with
the same agility of which Marche-a-Terre
had before set the example, the wounded
scaled the heigjit which bounded the road
on the right, and were followed by half
the remaining Chouans, Avho, also climb-
ing it smartly, manned the summit so as
to show the Blues nothing but their bold
heads.

Once there, they took the trees for
breastworks, and leveled their guns at
the remnant of the escort, who, on Hulot's
repeated orders, had dressed their ranks
quickly so as to show on the road itself
a front not less than that of the Chouans

still occupying it. These latter fell back
slowly and fought every inch of ground,
shifting so as to put themselves under
their comrades' fire. As soon as they
had reached the ditch, they in their turn
escaladed the slope whose top their fellows
held, and joined them after suffering with-
out flinching the fire of the Republicans,
who were lucky enough to fill the ditch
with dead, though the men on the top of
the scrap replied with a volley quite as
deadly. At this moment the Pougeres
National Guard came up at a run to the
battle-field, and its arrival finished the
business. The National Guards and some
excited regulars Avere already crossing
the foot-path to plunge into the woods,
when the commandant's martial voice
cried to them: "Do you want to have
your throats cut in there ? "

So they rejoined the Republican force
which had held the field, but not without
heavy losses. All the old hats were stuck
on the bayonet points, the guns were
thrust aloft, and the soldiers cried with
one voice and twice over, '• Long live the
Republic ! " Even the wounded sitting
on the roadsides shared the enthusiasm,
and Hulot squeezed Gerard's hand, saj'-
ing : "Eh ! these are something like fel-
lows ! "

Merle was ordered to bury the dead in
a ravine by the roadside ; while other sol-
diers busied themselves with the wounded.
Carts and horses were requisitioned from
the farms round, and the disabled com-
rades were softly bedded in them on the
strippings of the dead. But before de-
parting, the Fougeres National Guard
handed over to Hulot a dangerously
wounded Chouan. They had taken him
prisoner at the foot of the steep slope by
which his comrades had escaped, and on
which he had slipped, betrayed by his
flagging strength.

" Thanks for j^our prompt action, citi-
zens," said the commandant. "God's
thunder ! but for you we should have had
a bad time of it. Take care of 3'ourselves :
the war has begun . Farewell, my brave
fellows ! " Then Hulot turned to the pris-
oner. "What is your general's name ? "
asked he.

Makche-a-Tkure.

BA.LZAC, Volume Three.

Thk Chouans.

THE CHOUANS.

''The Gars."

" Who is that ? Marche-a-Terre ? "

''No! the Gars."

" Where did the Gars come from ? "

At this question the King's Huntsman,
his roug-h, fierce face stricken with pain,
kept silence, told his beads, and began
to say prayers.

"Of course the Gars is the young ci-
devant with the black cravat ; he was
sent by the t3"rant and his allies Pitt and
Cobourg?"

But at these words the Chouan, less
well informed than the commandant,
raised his head proudly : " He was sent
by God and the king ! "

He said the words with an energx'^
which exhausted his small remaining
strength. The commandant saw that it
was almost impossible to extract intelli-
gence from a dying man, whose whole
bearing showed his blind fanaticism, and
turned his head aside with a frown. Two
soldiers, friends of those whom Marche-a-
Terre had so brutall}^ dispatched with his
whip on the side of the road (for indeed
they lay dead there), stepped back a
little, took aim at the Chouan, whose
steady eyes fell not before the leveled
barrels, fired point-blank at him, and he
fell. But when they drew near to strip
the corpse, he mustered strength' to cr3^
once more and loudly, " Long live the
king!"

"Oh, 3'es, sly dog!" said Clef-des-
Coeurs, "go and eat your bannocks at
your good Virgin's table. To think of
his shouting ' Long live the tyrant ! ' in
our faces when we thought him done
for!"

"Here, commandant," said Beau-Pied,
"here are the brigand's papers."

"Hullo ! " cried Clef-des-Coeurs again,
"do come and look at this soldier of God
with his stomacli painted ! "

Hulot and some of the men crowded
round the Cho nan's body, now quite
naked, and perceived on his breast a
kind of bluish tattoo-mark representing
a burning heart, the mark of initiation
of the Brotherhood of the Sacred Heart.
Below the design Hulot could decipher the
words " Marie Lambrequin," no doubt the

Chouan's name. "You see that, Clef-
des-Coeurs ? " said Beau-Pied. " Well,
,you may guess for a month of Sundays
before 3''ou find out the use of this ac-
couterment."

" What do I know about the Pope's
uniforms ? " replied Clef-des-Coeurs.

" Wretched pad-the-hoof that you are !"
retorted Beau-Pied; "will you never learn?
Don't you see that they have promised the
fellow resurrection, and that he has paint-
ed his belly that he may know himself
again ? "

At this sall^'^, which had a certain ground
of fact, Hulot himself could not help join-
ing in the general laughter. B}^ this time
Merle had finished burning the dead, and
the wounded had been, as best could be
done, packed in two wagons by their com-
rades. The rest of the soldiers, forming
without orders a double file on each side
of the improvised ambulances, made their
way down the side of the hill which faces
Maine, and from which is seen the valley
of the Pilgrim, a rival to that of the
Couesnon in beautj^. Hulot, with his two
friends. Merle and Gerard, followed his
soldiers at an easy pace, hoping to gain
Ernee, where his wounded could be looked
after without further mishap. The fight,
though almost forgotten among the migh-
tier events which were then beginning in
France, took its name from the place
where it had occurred, and attracted
some attention, if not elsewhere, in the
West, whose inhabitants, noting with
care this new outbreak of hostilities, ob-
served a change in the way in which the
Chouans opened the new war. Formerly
they would never have thought of attack-
ing detachments of such strength. Hu-
lot conjectured that the young Ro^'^alist
he had seen must be the Gars, the new
general sent to France by the royal fam-
ily, who, after the fashion usual with the
Royalist chiefs, concealed his stjde and
title under one of the nicknames called
noms de guerre.

The fact made the commandant not
less thoughtful after his dearly-won vic-
tor}" than at the moment when he sus-
pected the ambuscade. He kept turning
back to look at the summit of the Pilgrim

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

wliicli lie was leaving- behind, and whence
there still came at intervals the muffled
sound of the drums of the National
Guard, who were descending- the valley
of the Couesnon just as the Blues were
descending that of the Pilgrim.

" Can either of you," he said suddenly
to his two friends, " gness the Chouans'
motive in attacking us ? They are busi-
ness-like folk in dealing- with g-unshots,
and I cannot see what they had to gain
in • this particular transaction. They
must have lost at least a hundred men ;
and we," he added, hitching his right
cheek and winking by way of a smile,
" have not lost sixty. God's thunder !
I do not see their calculation. The ras-
cals need not have attacked us unless
they liked : we should have gone along
as quietl}^ as a mail-bag, and I don't see
what g-ood it did them to make holes in
our poor fellows." And he pointed sadlj'
enough at the two wagon-loads of wound-
ed. '' Of course, " he added, ''itma3^have
been mere politeness — a kmd of ' g-ood day
to you!'"

'''But, commandant, they carried off
our hundred and fifty recruits," answered
Merle.

"The conscripts might have hopped
into the woods like frogs for all the
trouble we should have taken to catch
them," said Hulot, '^especiall3^ after the
first volley ; " and he repeated, " No ! no !
there is something' behind." Then, with
yet another turn toward the hill, "There !"
he cried, "look ! "

Although the officers were now some
way from the fatal plateau, they could
easily distinguish Marche-a-Terre and
some Chouans who had occupied it
afresh.

"Quick march!" cried Hulot to his
men -, " slir 3'our stumps, and wake up
Shanks his mare ! Are your legs frozen ?
have t\iey turned Pitt - and - Cobourg
men ? "

The little force began to move briskl}^
at these words and the commandant con-
tinued to the two officers : " As for this
riddle, friends, which I can't make out,
God grant the answer be not g-iven in
musket language at Ernee. I am much

afraid of hearing- that the communication
with Mayenne has been cut again by the
king-'s subjects."

But the problem which curled Com-
mandant Hulot's mustache was at the
same time causing- quite as lively anx-
iety to the folk he had seen on the top of
the Pilgrim. As soon as the drums of
the National Guard died away, and the
Blues were seen to have reached the bot-
tom of the long descent, Marche-a-Terre
sent the owl's ciy cheerily out, and the
Chouans reappeared, but in smaller num-
bers. No doubt, not a few Avere busy in
looking- to the wounded in the village of
the Pilg-rim, which lay on the face of the
hill looking toward the Couesnon. Two
or three leaders of the " King-'s Hunts-
men " joined Marche-a-Terre, while, a
pace or two away, the young- nobleman,
seated on a granite bowlder, seemed
plunged in various thoughts, excited by
the difficultj^ which his enterprise already
presented. Marche-a-Terre made a screen
with his hand to shade his sight from the
sun's g-lare, and g-azed in a melancholy
fashion at the road which the Republicans
were following- across the Pilgrim valle3^
His ej^es, small, black, and piercing-,
seemed tr^ang to discover what was
passing- where the road beg-an to climb
ag-ain on the horizon of the valley.

"The Blues will intercept the mail ! "
said, savag-el^^, one of the chiefs who was
nearest Marche-a-Terre.

" In the name of Saint Anne of Auray,"
said another, "why did you make us
fight? To save your own skin?"

Marche-a-Terre cast a venomous look
at the speaker, and slapped the butt of
his heavy rifle on the g-round.

"Am I g-eneral ? " he asked. Then,
after a pause, " If you had all foug-ht as I
did, not one of those Blues, " and he pointed
to the remnant of Hulot's detachment,
" would have escaped, and the coach
might have been here now."

"Do you think," said a third, "that
they would have even thought of escorting-
or stopping it, if we had let them pass
quietly ? You wanted to save your cursed
skin, which was in danger because you
did not think the Blues were on the road.

THE CHOUANS.

To save his bacon/' continued the speaker,
turning to the others, "he bled us, and
we shall lose twenty thousand francs of
g-ood money as well ! "

"Bacon j'ourself ! " cried Marche-a-
Terre, falling back, and leveling his rifle
at his foe; "you do not hate the Blues;
you only love the money. You shall die
and be damned, you scoundrel ! For you
have not been to confession and com-
munion this whole year ! "

The insult turned the Chouan pale, and
he took aim at Marche-a-Terre, a dull
growl starting from his throat as he did
so ; but the j^oung chief rushed between
them, struck down their weapons with the
barrel of his own rifle, and then asked for
an explanation of the quarrel ; for the con-
versation had been in Breton, with which
he was not very familiar.

"My Lord Marquis," said Marche-a-
Terre, when he had told him, "it is all
the greater shame to find fault with me
in that I left behind Pille-Miche, who will
perhaps be able to save the coach from
the thieves' claws after all," and he
pointed to the Blues, who, in the eyes of
these faithful servants of the throne and
altar, were all assassins of Louis XVL,
and all robbers as well.

"What!" cried the young man, an-
gril}^, "you are lingering here to stop a
coach like cowards, when you might have
won the victory in the first fight where I
have led you ? How are we to triumph
with such objects as these ? Are the de-
fenders of God and the king common
marauders ? By Saint Anne of Auray !
it is the Republic and not the mail that
we make war on. Henceforward, a man
who is guilty of such shameful designs
shall be deprived of absolution, and shall
not share in the honors reserved for the
king's brave servants."

A low growl rose from the midst of the
band, and it was easy to see that the
chief's new-born authority, always diffi-
cult to establish among such undisciplined
gangs, was likely to be compromised.
The young man, who had not missed
this demonstration, was searching for
some means of saving the credit of his
position, when the silence was broken by

a horse's trot, and all heads turned in the
supposed direction of the new-comer. It
was a young lady mounted sidewise on
a small Breton pony. She broke into a
gallop, in order to reach the group of
Chouans more quickly, when she saw
the young man in their midst.

" What is the matter ? " said she, look-
ing from men to leader by turns.

"Can 3'ou believe it, madame?" said
he, " they are lying in wait for the mail
from Mayenne, with the intention of
plundering it, when we have just fought
a skirmish to deliver the Gars of Fou-
geres, with heavy loss, but without hav-
ing been able to destroy'' the Blues ! "

" Well ! what harm is there in that ? "
said the lady, whose woman's tact showed
her at once the secret of the situation.
" You have lost men ; we can always get
plenty more. The mail brings monej",
and we can never have enough of that.
We will bury our brave fellows who are
dead, and who will go to heaven ; and we
will take the money to put into the pock-
ets of the other brave fellows who are
alive. What is the difficulty ? "

Unanimous smiles showed the approval
T\T.th which the Chouans heard this speech.

" Is there nothing in it that brings a
blush to your cheek? " asked the 3'oung
man, in a low tone. " Are you so short
of mone^^ that 3'ou must take it on the
highway?" ^

" I want it so much, marquis, that I
would pledge my heart for it," said she,
with a coquettish smile, "if it were not
in pawn already. But where have you
been that you think j'ou can employ
Chouans without giving them plunder
now and then at the Blues' expense ?
Don't you know the proverb thievish
as an owl ? ' Remember what a Chouan
is; besides," added she, louder, "is not
the action just ? have not the Blues taken
all the Church's goods, and all our own ?"

A second approving murmur, very dif-
ferent from the growl with which the
Chouans had answered the marquis,
greeted these words.

The young man's brow darkened, and,
taking the lady aside, he said to her, Avith
the sprightly vexation of a well-bred man.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

'' Are those persons coming- to the Yive-
ti^re on the appointed day ? "

"Yes," said she, ''all of. them; L'ln-
time, Grand-Jacques, and perhaps Ferdi-
nand."

" Then allow me to return thither, for
I cannot sanction such brig-andag-e as this
by my presence. Yes, madame, I use the
word brigandage. There is some nobilit}'-
in being" robbed ; but — "

"Very well/' said she, cutting him
short, " I shall have your share, and I am
much obliged to you for handing- it over
to mc. The additional prize-mone3' will
suit me capitall3^ M}^ mother has been
so slow in sending me supplies, that I am
nearly at my wits' end."

" Farewell ! " cried the marquis, and he
was on the point of vanishing-. But the
young lady followed him briskly. "Wh}^
will 3'ou not stay with me ? " she said,
with the g-lance, half imperious half ca-
ressing, by which women who have a hold
over a man know how to express their will.

" Are you not going to rob a coach ? "

"Rob!" replied she, "what a word!
Allow me to explain to 3'ou — "

"No; you shall explain nothing," he
said, taking- her hands and kissing them
with the easy g-allantry of a courtier.
And then, after a pause, " Listen : if I
stay here while the mail is stopped, our
fellows will kill me, for I shall- — "

"No, you would not attempt to kill
them," she said, quickly, "for they would
bind you hand and foot with every re-
spect due to 3"our rank ; and when they
had levied on the Republicans the contri-
bution necessary for their equipment,
their food, and their powder, they would
once more 3'ield you impUcit obedience."

"And yet you would have me command
here ? If my life is necessary to fight for
the cause, let me at least keep the honor
of my authority safe. If I retire, I can
ignore this base act. I will come back
and join 3'ou."

And he made off swiftly-, the young
lady listening to his footfalls with obvious
vexation. When the rustle of the dry
leaves gradually died away, she remained
in perplexity for a moment. Then she
quickl}'- made her way back to the Chou-

ans, and allowed a brusk expression of
contempt to escape her, saying to Marche-
a-Terre, who helped her to dismount.
"That young- gentleman would like to
carry on war against the Republic with
all the regular forms. Ah well ! he will
chang-e his mind in a day or two. But
how he has treated me ! " she added, to
herself, after a pause. She then took her
seat on the rock, which had just before
served the marquis as a chair, and silent-
ly awaited the arrival of the coach. She
was not one of the least sing-ular symp-
toms of the time, this young- woman of
noble birth, thrown by the streng-th of
her passions into the strug-gie of mon-
archy against the spirit of the age, and
driven by her sentiments into actions for
which she was in a way irresponsible ;
as, indeed, were man}^ others who were
carried away by an excitement not sel-
dom productive of g-reat deeds. Like
her, many other women pla^^ed, in these
disturbed times, the parts of heroines or
of criminals. The Roj^alist cause had no
more devoted, no more active servants
than these ladies ; but no virag-o of the
parly paid the penalty of excess of zeal,
or suffered the pain of situations forbid-
den to the sex, more bitterh' than this
lady, as, sitting- on her roadside bowlder,
she was forced to accord admiration to
the noble disdain and the inflexible integ--
rity of the young- cliief. B3^ degrees she
fell into a deep reverie, and many sad
memories made her long for the innocence
of her early years, and reg-ret that she
had not fallen a victim to that Revolution
whose victorious prog-ress hands so weak
as hers could not arrest.

The coach which had partly been the
cause of the Chouan onslaught had left
the little town of Ernee a few moments
before the skirmish begun. Nothing- bet-
ter paints the condition of a country than
the state of its social "plant," and thus
considered, this vehicle itself deserves
honorable mention. Even the Revolution
had not been able to abolish it ; indeed,
it runs at this very day.* When Turg-ot

* Au.o-ust, 1827, when Balzac, twenty-eight years
old, and twenty-eight years after date, wrote
" The Chouans " at Fougeres itself.

THE CHOUANS.

boug-ht up the charter which a company
had obtained under Louis XIV. for the
exclusive rig-ht of serving" passenger traffic
all over the kingdom, and when he estab-
lished the new enterprise of the so-called
turgotines, the old coaches of Messieurs
de Vousg'es, Chanteclaire, and the widow
La combe were banished to the provinces

One of these wretched vehicles ser^^ed
the traffic between May enne and Fougeres.
Some feather-headed persons had baptized
it antiphrastically a turgotine, either in
imitation of Paris or in ridicule of an inno-
vating minister. It was a ramskackle
cabriolet on two very high wheels, and in
its recesses two pretty stoat persons would
have had difficulty in ensconcing them-
selves. The scanty size of the frail trap
forbidding" heavy loads, and the inside of
the coach-box being strictly reserved for
the use of the mail, travelers, if they had
any luggage, were obliged to keep it be-
tween their legs, already cramped in a
tiny kind of boot shaped like a bellows.
Its original color and that of its wheels
presented an insoluble riddle to travelers.
Two leathern curtains, difficult to draw
despite their length of service, were in-
tended to protect the ^sufferers against
wind and rain ; and the driver, perched
on a box like those of the worst Parisian
shandrj'dans, could not help joining in the
travelers' conversation from his position
between his two-legged and his four-leg-ged
victims. The whole equipage bore a fan-
tastic likeness to a decrepit old man who
has lived through any number of catarrhs
and apoplexies, and from whom Death
seems yet to hold his hand. As it trav-
eled, it alternately groaned and creaked,
lurching by turns forward and backward
like a traveler heavy with sleep, as though
it was pulling the other way to the rough
action of two Breton ponies who dragged
it over a sufficiently rugged road. This
relic of by-gone ages contained three trav-
elers, who, after leaving Ernee, where they
had changed horses, resumed a conversa-
tion with the driver which had been begun
before the end of the last stage.

"What do you mean by saying that
Chouans have shown themselves here-
abouts?" said the driver. "The Ernee

people have just told me that Com-
mandant Hulot has not left Fougeres

yet."

"Oh, oh! friend," said the youngest
traveler, "you risk nothing but your
skin. If you had, like me, three hundred
crowns on you, and if j^ou were known for
a good patriot, you would not take things
so quietly-."

"Anyhow, you don't keep your own
secrets," said the driver, shaking his
head.

"Count your sheep, and the wolf will
eat them," said the second traveler, who,
dressed in black, and apparently some
forty years old, seemed to be a rector of
the district. His chin was double, and
his rosy complexion was a certain sign of
his ecclesiastical status. But though fat
and short, he showed no lack of agility
whenever there was- need to get down
from the vehicle or to get up again.

"Perhaps you are Chouans your-
selves ? " said the man with the three
hundred crowns, whose ample goatskin-
covered breeches of good cloth, and a
clean waistcoat, resembled the garments
of some well-to-do farmer. "By Saint
Robespierre's soul ! you shall have a
warm reception, I promise you ! " And
his gray eyes traveled from the priest to
the driver, as he pointed to a pair of pis-
tols in his belt.

" Bretons are not afraid of those
things," said the rector, contemptuously.
" Besides, do we look like people who have
designs on your money ? "

Every time the word "mono}''" was
mentioned, the driver became silent, and
the rector w^as sufficiently wide-awake to
suspect that the patriot had no crowns
at all, and that their conductor was in
charge of some.

"Are you well loaded to-day, Cou-
piau ? " said the priest.

"Oh, Monsieur Gudin ! I have noth-
ing worth speaking of," answered the
driver. But the Abbe Gudin, considering
the countenances of the patriot and Cou-
piau, perceived that they were equally
undisturbed at the answer.

"So much the better for^you," retorted
the patriot ; " I can then take my own

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

means to protect my own property in case
of ill-fortune."

But Coupiau rebelled at this cool an-
nouncement as to taking- the law into
the patriot's own hands, and answered
roughh^ :

''I am master in my coach, and pro-
vided I drive you — "

'•Are you a patriot, or are you a
Chouan ? " said his opponent, interrupt-
ing- him sharply.

"I am neither one nor the other," re-
plied Coupiau. " I am a postilion ; and
what is more, I am a Breton — therefore
I fear neither the Blues nor the g-entle-
men."

" The gentlemen of the road, you
mean," sneered the patriot.

"Nay, they only take back what has
been taken from them," said the rector,
quickly ; and the two travelers stared
each other straight in the face, to speak
vernacularly. But there was in the in-
terior of the coach a third passeng-er, who
during- this altercation observed the deep-
est silence, neither the driver, nor the
patriot, nor even Guidin paying- the least
attention to such a dummy. Indeed, he
was one of those unsociable and imprac-
ticable travelers who journey like a calf
carried unresistingly, with its legs tied,
to the nearest market, who begin by
. occupying at least their full legal room,
and end by lolling asleep, without any
false modesty, on their neighbors' shoul-
ders. The patriot, Gudin, and the driver
had therefore left the man to himself on
the strength of his sleep, after perceiving
that it was useless to talk to one whose
ston}' countenance indicated a life passed
in measuring out yards of linen, and an
intelligence busied only in selling them
as much as possible over cost price. A
fat little man, curled up in his corner,
he from time to time opened his china-blue
ej-es and rested them on each speaker in
turn during the discussion, with expres-
sions of alarm, doubt, and mistrust. But
he seemed only to be afraid of his fellow-
travelers, and to care 'little for the Chou-
ans ; while when he looked at the driver
it was as though one freemason looked at
another. At this moment the firing on

the Pilgrim began. Coupiau, with a
startled air, pulled up his horses.

"Oh, oh ! " said the priest, who seemed
to know what he was talking about, " that
means hard fighting, and plenty of men
at it."

' * Yes, Monsieur Gudin . But the puzzle
is, who will win?" said Coupiau; and
this time all faces seemed equally anxious.

"Let us put up the coach," said the
patriot, " at the inn over there, and hide
it till we know the result of the battle."

This seemed such prudent advice that
Coupiau 3"ielded to it, and the patriot
helped the driver to stow the coach away
from all eyes, behind a fagot stack. But
the supposed priest seized an opportunity
of saying to Coupiau :

" Has he really got money ? "

"JEh ! Monsieur Gudin, if what he has
were in your reverence's pockets, they
would not be heavy."

The Republicans, in their hurry to gain
Ernee, passed in front of the inn without
halting; and at the sound of their march,
Gudin and the innkeeper, urged by curi-
osity, came out of the yard gate to look
at them. All of a sudden the plump
priest ran to a^ soldier, who was some-
what behind.

"What, Gudin!" he said, "are you
going with the Blues, you obstinate boy ?
what are you thinking of ? "

"Yes, uncle," answered the corporal,
" I have sworn to defend France."

"But, miserable man, you are risking
your soul ! " said the uncle, trying to
arouse in his nephew those religious sen-
timents which are so strong in a Breton's
heart.

"Uncle, if the king had taken the
head of the army himself, I don't say
but—"

" Who is talking of the king, silly boy ?
will your Republic give j'ou a fat living ?
It has upset everything. What career
do you expect ? Stay with us ; we shall
win sooner or later, and you shall have a
counselor's place in some parliament or
other."

" A parliament ! " cried Gudin, scorn-
fully. " Good-by, uncle."

" You shall not have three louis' worth

THE CHOUANS.

from me/' said the angrj^ uncle ; " I will
disinherit j^ou ! "

"Thanks!" said the Republican; and
the3" parted.

The fumes of some cider with which the
patriot had reg^aled Coupiau while the
little troop passed, had succeeded in mud-
dling- the driver's brains ; but he started
up joyfully when the innkeeper, after
learning- the result of the strug-g-le, an-
nounced that the Blues had got the bet-
ter. He set off once more with his coach,
and the vehicle was not long in showing-
itself at the bottom of the Pilgrim vallej^,
where, like a piece of wreckag-e floating-
after a storm, it could easily be seen from
the high gTound, both of Maine and Brit-
tany.

Hulot, as he reached the top of a rising-
ground which the Blues were climbing-,
and whence the Pilg^rim was still visible
in the distance, turned back to see
whether the Chouans were still there ;
and the sun flashing on their gun-barrels,
showed them to him like dots of light.
As he threw a last look over the vallej^
which he was just leaving for tliat of
Ernee, he thought he could see Coupiau's
coach and horses on the high road.

" Is not that the Mayenne coach ? " he
asked his two friends ; and the officers,
g-azing at the old turgotine, recognized
it easily.

" Well ! " said Hulot, " why did we not
meet it ? " The}^ looked at each other
silently. " Another puzzle ! " cried the
commandant ; " but I think I begin to
understand."

At that moment Marche-a-Terre, who
also knew the turgotine well, signaled it
to his comrades, and then shouts of gen-
eral joy woke the strang-e young lady
from her reverie. She came forward,
and saw the vehicle bowling- along- with
fatal swiftness from the othei- side of the
Pilgrim. The unlucky turgotine soon
reached the plateau, and the Chouans,
w^ho had hid themselves anew, pounced
on their prej'- with greedy haste. The
silent traveler slipped to the coach floor
and shrunk out of sight, trjang- to look
like a parcel of goods.

"Aha!" cried Coupiau from his box.

pointing at his peasant passenger. "You
have scented this patriot, have you ? He
has a bag full of gold."

But the Chouans greeted his words with
a roar of laughter, and shouted "Pille-
Miche ! Pille-Miche ! Pille-Miche ! "

In the midst of the hilarity which Pille-
Miche himself, as it were, echoed, Coupiau
climbed shamefacedly from his box. But
when the famous Cibot, nicknamed Pille-
Miche, helped his neighbor to get down,
a respectful murmur was raised. "'Tis
Abbe Gudin ! " cried several, and at this
honored name every hat went off. The
Chouans bent the knee before the priest
and begged his blessing, which he gave
them with solemnity.

"Hew^ould outwit Saint Peter himself,
and filch the keys of Paradise ! ' ' said the
rector, clapping Pille-Miche on the shoul-
der. " But for him the Blues would have
intercepted us." But then, seeing the
young lad3% the Abbe Gudin went to talk
to her a few paces apart. Marche-a-Terre,
who had promptly opened the box of the
cabriolet, discovered with savage glee a
bag whose shape promised rouleaux of
gold. He did not waste much time in
making the division, and each Chouan
received the part that fell to him with
such exactitude that the partition did not
excite the least quarrel. Then he came
forward to the young lady and the priest,
offering them about six thousand francs.

" May I take this with a safe conscience.
Monsieur Gudin ? " said she, feeling in
need of some approval to support her.

"Why, of course, madame ! Did not
the Church formerly approve the confis-
cation of the Protestants' goods ? Much
more should she approve it in the case of
the Revolutionists who renounce God, de-
stvoj chapels, and persecute religion."
And he added example to precept by ac-
cepting Avithout the least scruple the new
kind of tithe which Marche-a-Terre offered
him. "Besides," said he, "I can now
devote all my goods to the defense of
God and the king. My nephew has gone
off with the Blues."

Meanwhile, Coupiau was bewailing his
fate, and declaring that he was a ruined
man.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

''Come with us," said Marche-a-Terre ;
''you shall have your share."

" But they will think that I have let
mj^self be robbed on purpose if I return
without any violence having- been ofTered
me."

"Oh, is that all?" said Marche-a-
Terre.

He g-ave the word, and a volley riddled
the turg-otine. At this sudd(in discharg-e
there came from the old coach so lament-
able a howl that the Chouans, naturally
superstitious, started back with fright.
But Marche-a-Terre had caught sight of
the pallid face of the silent passeng-er ris-
ing- from, and then falling back into, a
corner of the coach body.

" There is still a fowl in your coop,"
he whispered to Coupiau, and Pille-Miche,
who understood the remark, winked know-
ingly.

"Yes," said the driver, "but I make
it a condition of my joining you that you
shall let me take the good man safe and
sound to Fougeres. I swore to do so by
the H0I3' Saint of Aura3\"

"Who is he? " asked Pille-Miche.

"I cannot tell you," answered Cou-
piau.

" Let him alone," said Marche-a-Terre,
jogging Pille-Miche 's elbow; "he has
sworn by Saint Anne of Auray, and he
must keep his promise. But," continued
the Chouan, addressing Coupiau, " do
not you go down the hill too fast ; we
will catch j'^ou up on business. I want to
see your passenger's phiz, and then we
will give him a passport."

At that moment a horse's gallop was
heard, the sound nearing rapidly from
the Pilgrim side, and soon the young
chief appeared. The lady hastily con-
cealed the bag she held in her hand.

" You need have no scruple in keeping
that money," said the young man, draw-
ing her arm forward again. " Here is a
letter from your mother which I found
among those waiting for me at the Vi-
vetiere." He looked by turns at the
Chouans who were disappearing in the
woods and the coach which was descend-
ing the valley of the Couesnon, and added,
" For all the haste I made, I did not come

up in time. Heaven grant I may be de-
ceived in my suspicions."

" It is my poor mother's money ! " cried
the lady, after opening the letter, the
first lines of which drew the exclamation
from her. There was a sound of stifled
laughter from the woods, and even the
young chief could not help laughing as he
saw her clutching the bag containing her
own share of the plunder of her own
money. Indeed, she began to laugh
herself.

"Well, marquis," said she to the chief,
" God be praised ! At any rate I come
off blameless this time."

" Will you never be serious, not even
in remorse ? " said the young man.

She blushed and looked at the marquis
with an air so truly penitent that it dis-
armed him. The abbe politely, but with
a rather doubtful countenance, restored
the tithe which he had just accepted, and
then followed the chief, who was making
his way to the b3''-path by which he had
come. Before joining them the young
lady made a sign to Marche-a-Terre, who
came up to her.

" Go and take up your position in front
of Mortagne," she said, in a low voice.
" I know that the Blues are going to send
almost immediately a great sum in cash
to Alencon to defray the expenses of pre-
paring for war. If I give up to-day's
booty to our comrades, it is on condition
that they take care to make up my loss.
But above all things take care that the
Gars knows nothing of the object of this
expedition ; he would very likely oppose
it. If things go wrong, I will appease
him."

"Madame," said the marquis, whose
horse she mounted behind him, giving her
own to the abbe, " my friends at Paris
write to bid us look to ourselves, for the
Republic will try to fight us underhand,
and by trickery."

" They might do worse," said she.
"The rascals are clever. I shall be able
to take a part in the war, and find oppo-
nents of my own stamp."

"Not a doubt of it," cried the marquis.
" Pichegru bids me be very cautious and
circumspect in making acquaintances of

THE CHOUANS.

every kind. The Republic does me the
honor of thinking- me more dangerous
than all the Vencleans put together,
and counts on m}^ foibles to get hold of
me."

" Would you distrust me ? " she said,
patting his heart with the hand by which
she clung to him.

''If I did, would you be there, ma-
dame ? " answered he, and turned toward
her his forehead, which she kissed.

''Then, "said the abbe, ''we have more
to fear from Fouche's police than from
the battalions of mobiles, and the Anti-
Chouans ? "

"Exactly, your reverence."

"Aha!" said the lady, "Fouche is
going to send women against you, is he ?
I shall be ready for them," she added, in
a voice deeper than usual, and after a
slight pause.

Some three or four gunshots off from
the waste plateau which the leaders were
now leaving, there was passing at the
moment one of those scenes which, for
some time to come, became not uncom-
mon on the highways. On the outskirts
of the little village of the Pilgrim, Pille-
Miche and Marche-a-Terre had once more
stopped the coach at a spot Avhere the
road dipped. Coupiau had left his box
after a slight resistance ; and the silent
passenger, extracted from his hiding-
place by the two Chouans, was on his
knees in a broom thicket.

" Who are you ? " asked Marche-a-
Terre, in a sinister tone.

The traveler held his peace till Pille-
Miche recommenced his examination with
a blow from the butt of his gun.

"I am," he said, glancing at Coupiau,
" Jacques Pinaud, a poor linen merchant."
But Coupiau, who did not think that he
broke his word hy so doing, shook his
head. The gesture enlightened Pille-
Miche, who took aim at the traveler,
while Marche-a-Terre laid before him in
plain terms this alarming ultimatum :

" You are too fat for a poor man with
a poor man's cares. If you give us the
trouble of asking your real name once
more, m^'^ friend Pille-Miche here will earn
the esteem and gratitude of yowc heirs by

one little gun-shot. Who are you ? " he
added, after a brief interval.

"I am D'Orgemont, of Fougeres."

" Aha ! " cried the Chouans.

"J did not tell your name, M. d'Orge-
mont," said Coupiau. "I call the Holy
Virgin to witness that I defended you
bravely."

"As you are Monsieur d'Orgemont, of
Fougeres," went on Marche-a-Terre, with
a mock-respectful air, '■' you shall be let
go quite quietly. But as you are neither a
good Chouan nor a true Blue (though you
did bu3^ the estates of Juvigny Abbej'),
3'ou shall pay us," said the Chouan, in
the tone of a man who is counting up his
comrades, " three hundred crowns of six
francs each as a ransom. That is not too
much to pay for the privilege of being
neutral."

" Three hundred crowns of six francs !"
repeated the luckless banker, Pille-Miche,
and Coupiau in chorus, but each in very
different tones.

"Alas ! my dear sir," said D'Orgemont,
" I am a ruined man. Tlie forced loan of
one hundred millions levied by this devil-
ish Republic, which assesses me at terrible
rates, has drained me dry."

" And pray, how much did the Republic
ask of 3"0U ? "

"A thousand crowns, dear sir," said
the banker, in a lamentable tone, hoping
to be let off something-.

" If the Republic borrows such large
sums from 3^ou, and forces you. to paj''
them, you must see that your interest lies
with us, whose government is less ex-
pensive. Do you mean to sa}^ that three
hundred crowns is too much to pa^^ for
3'"our skin? "

" But where am I to get them ? "

"Out of your strong-box," said Pille-
Miche ; " and take care your crowns are
not clipped, or we will clip your nails in
the fire for you."

" But where am I to paj^ them ? " asked
D'Orgemont.

" Your country house at Fougeres is
close to the farm of Gibarry, where dwells
my cousin Galope - Chopine, otherwise
called Long Cibot. You shall pay them
to him," said Pille-Miche.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" But that is not business/' said D'Orge-
mont.

"What do we care for that?" rephed
Marche-a-Terre. "Remember that if the
crowns are not paid to Galope-Chopine in
fifteen days' time, we will pay you a little
visit which will cure you of gout, if you
have got it in your feet. As for you,
Coupiau," continued he, turning- to the
conductor, "j^our name henceforth shall
be Mene-a-Bien." And with these words
the two Chouans departed, and the trav-
eler climbed up again into the coach,
which Coupiau, whipping up his steeds,
drove rapidly toward Fougeres.

"If you had been armed," said Cou-
piau, " we might have made a little bet-
ter fight of it."

"Silly fellow," said D'Orgemont, "I
have got ten thousand francs there," and
he pointed to his great shoes. "Is it
worth fighting when one has such a sum
on one as that ? "

Mene-a-Bien scratched his ear and
looked backward, but all trace of his
new friends had disappeared.

Hulot and his soldiers halted at Ernee
to deposit the wounded in the hospital of
the little town ; and then, without any
further inconvenient incident interrupting
the march of the Republican force, made
their way to Mayenne. There the com-
mandant was able next daj^ to put an end
to his doubts about the progress of the
mail ; for the townsfolk received news of
the robbery of the coach.

A few days later the authorities brought
into Mayenne numbers of patriot con-
scripts, sufficient to enable Hulot to fill
up the ranks of his demi-brigade. But
there soon followed disquieting reports
as to the insurrection. There was com-
plete revolt at every point where, in the
last war, the Chouans and Vendeans had
established the principal centers of their
outbreak. In Brittany, the Royalists had
seized Pontorson, so as to open communi-
cations with the sea. They had taken the
little town of Saint James, between Pon-
torson and Fougeres, and seemed dis-
posed to make it for the time their place
of arms, a headquarters of their maga-
zines and of their operations, from which

without danger they could correspond
both with Normandy and Morbihan. The
inferior leaders were scouring these dis-
tricts with the view of exciting the par-
tisans of monarchy, and arranging, if
possible, a systematic effort. These mach-
inations were reported at the same time
as news from La Vendee, where similar
intrigues were stirring up the country,
under the direction of four famous lead-
ers, the Abbe Vernal, the Comte de Fon-
taine, Monsieur de Chatillon, and Mon-
sieur Suzannet. The Chevalier deValois,
the Marquis d'Esgrignon, and the Trois-
villes acted, it was said, as their agents
in the department of the Ome. But the
real chief of the extensive scheme which
was unfolding itself, slowly but in an
alarming fashion, was "The Gars," a
nickname given by the Chouans to the
Marquis de Montauran as soon as he had
landed.

The information sent to the Govern-
ment by Hulot turned out correct in
every particular. The authority of the
chief sent from abroad had been at once
acknowledged. Indeed, the marquis was
acquiring sufficient influence over the
Chouans to enable him to give them a
glimmering of the true objects of the
war, and to persuade them that the ex-
cesses of which they had been guilty were
tarnishing the noble cause to which they
devoted themselves. The bold temper,
the courage, the coolness, the ability of
this young lord revived the hopes of the
Republic's enemies, and administered so
lively an impulse to the gloomy fanati-
cism of the district, that even lukewarm
partisans labored to bring about results
decisive in favor of the stricken monarch3\
Meanwhile, Hulot received no answer to
the repeated demands and reports which
he kept sending to Paris, and this as-
tounding silence boded beyond doubt
some crisis in the fortunes of the Re-
public.

"Can it be now," said the old chief
to his friends, " with the Government as
it is with men who are dunned for money ?
do they put all demands in the waste-
paper basket ? "

But before long there spread the rumor

THE CHOUANS.

of the return, as if by enchantment, of
General Bonaparte, and of the events
of the 18th Brumaire, and the militar}'^
commanders in the West were not slow
to understand the silence of the ministers.
Nevertheless, these commanders were only
the more impatient to get rid of the re-
sponsibility which weig-hed on them, and
felt a lively curiosity to know what meas-
ures the new Government would take.
When they learned that General Bona-
parte had been appointed First Consul of
the Republic, the soldiers felt keen pleas-
ure, seeing- for the first time one of their
own men promoted to the manag-ement of
affairs. All France, which idolized the
young general, trembled with hope, and
the national energy revived. The capi-
tal, wear}'- of dullness and gloom, gave
itself up to the festivals and amusements
of which it had so long been deprived.
The earlier acts of the consulate disap-
pointed no expectations, and Freedom
felt no qualms. Soon the First Consul
addressed a proclamation to the inhabi-
tants of the West, one of those eloquent
allocutions directed to the masses which
Bonaparte had, so to say, invented, and
which produced in those days of prodig-
ious patriotism effects altogether miracu-
lous. His voice echoed through the world
like that of a prophet ; for as 3'^et no one
of these manifestoes had failed to be con-
firmed by victor3^ Thus it ran :

**' Dwellers in the West : —

" For the second time an impious war
has set your departments in a flame.

^'The authors of these troubles are
traitors who have sold themselves to
the English, or brigands who seek in
civil disorder nothing but occasion and
immunity for their crimes.

*' To such men Government can neither
show clemencj^ nor even make a declara-
tion of its own principles.

*' But there are some citizens still dear
to their country who have been seduced
\iy the artifices of these men, and these
citizens deserve enlightenment and the
communication of the truth.

" Some unjust laws have been decreed
and put in execution ; some arbitrary

acts have disturbed the citizens' sense of
personal safety and their liberty of con-
science ; everywhere the rash insertion of
names in the list of emigrants has done
harm to patriots : in short, the great prin-
ciples of social order have been violated.

''The consuls therefore make known
that, freedom of worship having been de-
creed by the Constitution, the law of the
11th Prairial, 3'ear III., which grants to
all citizens the use of edifices intended for
religious worship, will be put in force.

"The Government will show merc}^: it
will extend to the repentant an entire and
absolute indemnity. But it will strike
down all those who after this announce-
ment dare to continue resistance to the
sovereignty of the people."

" Quite paternal, is it not ? " said Hu-
lot, after this consular allocution had
been publicly read; "yet, you will see,
not one Royalist brigand will be con-
verted b^' it."

The commandant was right, and the
proclamation did nothing but attach each
partisan more strongly to his own party.
A few daj'^s later, Hulot and his colleagues
received re-enforcements ; and the new
Minister of War sent information that
General Brune had been appointed to
the command of the forces in the West
of France, while Hulot, whose experi-
ence was well known, had provisionat
authority in the departments of Orne
and Mayenne. Soon a hitherto unknown
activity set all the springs of administra-
tion working. A circular from the Min-
ister of War and the Minister of General
Police announced that vigorous measures,
the execution of which was intrusted to
the heads of the military, had been taken
to stifle the insurrection at its source. But
the Chouans and the Vendeans had al-
ready profited by the sluggishness of the
Republic to raise the country and to gain
complete possession of it. Accordingly, a
new consular proclamation was launched,
addressed this time to the troops :

" Soldiers : —

•' ' There are now in the West no enemies
but bandits, emigrants, and the hirelings
of England.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

*' The army consists of more than sixty
thousand g-allant men : let me learn soon
that the rebel chiefs are no more. Glory
is to be g-ained by toil : who would be
without it if it were to be won b^^ keeping-
to barracks in the cities ?

" Soldiers, no matter what j^our rank
in the army may be, the gratitude of the
nation awaits yow ! To deserve it you
must brave the inclemency of the seasons,
ice, snow, the bitter cold of night ; you
must surprise your enemies at break of
day, and put the wretches, the scandal
of France, to the sword !

" Let your campaign be brief and suc-
cessful ; give no mercA^ to the bandits,
but observe the strictest discipline.

" National Guards ! let the effort of
3^our arms be joined to that of the troops
of the line.

" If you know of any men among you
who are partisans of the bandits, arrest
them ! Let them find nowhere an}' shelter
from the pursuing soldier ; and if there
be an}' traitors who dare to harbor and
defend them, let both perish together ! "

"What a fellow!" cried Hulot. '-'It
is just as it was in Italy : he rings the
bell for mass, and says it, all by liimself.
That is the way to talk."

''Yes; but he talks by himself and in
his own name," said Gerard, who was
beginning to dread what might come of
the 18th Brumaire.

" Odds, sentries and sentry-boxes ! "
said Merle. "What does that matter,
since he is a soldier ? "

A few paces off, some of the rank and
file were clustering round the proclama-
tion which was stuck on the wall. Now,
as not a man of them could read, they
gazed at it, some indifferently, others
curiously, while two or three scanned
the passers-by for a citizen who looked
learned.

"Come, Clef-des-Coeurs," said Beau-
Pied mockingly to his comrade, "what
does that rag there say ? "

"It is easy to guess," answered Clef-
des-Coeurs. And as he spoke all looked
at the pair, who were always ready to
play each his part.

"Look there!" continued Clef-des-
Coeurs, pointing to a rough cut at the
head of the proclamation, where for some
days past a compass had replaced the
level of 1793. "It means that we fellows
have got to step out. They have stuck
a compass* open on it for an emblem."

" M}' boy, don't play the learned man.
it is not 'emblem,' but 'problem.' I
served first with the gunners," vSaid Beau-
Pied, "and the officers were busy about
nothing else."

" 'Tis an emblem ! " " 'Tis a problem!"
"Let us have a bet on it." "What?"
" Your German pipe." "Done ! "

"Ask your pardon, adjutant, but is it
not ' emblem,' and not 'problem ? ' " said
Clef-des-Coeurs to Gerard, who was
thoughtfully following Hulot and Merle.

" 'Tis both one and the other," said he,
gravely.

" The adjutant is making game of us,"
said Beau-Pied. " The paper means that
our General of Italy is made Consul (a
fine commission !) and that we shall get
greatcoats and boots ! "

A NOTION OF FOUCHE'S.

Toward the end of the month of Bru-
maire, while Hulot was superintending
the morning drill of his demi-brigade, the
whole of which had been drawn together
at Mayenne by orders from headquarters,
an express from Alencon delivered to him
certain dispatches, during the reading of
which very decided vexation showed itself
on his face.

"Well, then, to business!" cried he,
somewhat ill-temperedly, thrusting the
papers in the crown of his hat. " Two com-
panies are to set out with me and march
toward Mortagne. The Chouans are
about there. You will come with me,"
said he to Merle and Gerard. "May
they make a noble of me if I understand

* This refers to the French idiom, ouvrir le com-
pas, meaning " Stir the stumps," "Step out."

THE CH0UAN8.

a word of my dispatches ! I dare say I
am only a fool. But never mind ! let us
g-et to work ; there is no time to lose."

" Why, commandant, is there any very
savage beast in the game-hag* there ? "
asked Merle, pointing to the official envel-
ope of the dispatch.

"God's thunder! there is nothing at
all, except that they are*hothering us ! "

When the commandant let " slip this
militarj^ expression (or rather for which,
as mentioned before, we have substituted
it), it always pointed to bad weather; and
its various intonations made up, as it were,
a series of degrees which acted as a ther-
mometer of their chief's temper to the
deini-brigade. Indeed, the old soldier's
frankness had made the interpretation so
easy that the sorriest drummer-boy in the
regiment soon knew his Hulot by heart,
tlianks to mere observation of the changes
in the grimace with which the comman-
dant cocked his cheek and winked his qxq.
This time the tone of sullen wrath with
which he accompanied the word made his
two friends silent and watchful. The ver^'^
pock-marks which pitted his martial vis-
age seemed to deepen, and his complexion
took a browner tan. It had happened
that his miglity plaited pigtail had fallen
forward on one of his epaulets when he
put on his cocked hat, and Hulot jerked
it back with such rage that the curls were
all disordered. Yet, as he stood motion-
less, with clenched fists, his arms folded
on his breast, and his mustache bristling,
Gerard ventured to ask him, *^ Do we start
at once ? "

"Yes, if the cartridge-boxes are full,"
growled Hulot.

"They are."

' ' Shoulder arms ! File to the left ! For-
ward ! March ! " said Gerard, at a sign
from tlie chief.

The drummers placed themselves at the
head of the two companies pointed out by
Gerard : and as the drums began to beat,
the commandant, who had been plunged
in thought, seemed to wake up, and left
the town, accompanied by his two friends,
to whom he did not address a word. Merle
and Gerard looked at each other several
times without sqeaking, as if to ask. "Will

he sulk with us long?" and as they
marched, they stole glances at Hulot,
who was still growling unintelligible words
between his teeth. Several times the sol-
diers heard him swearing ; but not one of
them opened his lips, for, at the right
time, they all knew how to observe the
stern discipline to which the troops who
had served under Bonaparte in Italy had
become accustomed. Most of them were,
like Hulot himself, relics of the famous
battalions that capitulated at Mayence
on a promise that they should not be
employed on the frontiers, and who were
called in the army the "Mayengais; " nor
would it have been easj' to find officers
and men who understood each other
better.

On the day following that on which
they set out, Hulot and his friends found
themselves at early morning on the Alen-
Qon road, about a league from that city,
in the direction of Mortagne, where the
road borders meadows watered by the
Sarthe, Over these a succession of pict-
uresque landscapes opens to the left, while
the right side, composed of thick woods
which join on to the great forest of Menil-
Broust, sets off (if we may use the paint-
er's term) the softer views of the river.
The footpaths at the edge of the road are
shut in by ditches, the earth of which,
constantly- turned up toward the fields,
produces high slopes crowned by ajoncs,
as they call the thorny broom throughout
the West, This shrub, which branches
out in thick bushes, affords during the
winter capital fodder for horses and cattle;
but, before its harvest, the Chouans used
to hide behind its dark-green tufts. These
slopes and their ajoncs, which tell the
traveler that he is drawing near Brittany,
made this part of the road at that time as
hazardous as it is still beautiful.

The dangers which were likeh^ to be met
in the journej' from Mortagne to Alen§on,
and from Alengon to Mayenne, were the
cause of Hulot's expedition ; and at this
very point the secret of his T\Tath at last
escaped him. He was acting as escort to
an old mail-coach drawn by post-horses,
whose pace the weariness of his own sol-
diers kept to a slow walk. The companies

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

of Blues (forming part of the garrison of
Mortagne) which had escorted this
wretched vehicle to the limits of their
own appointed district, where Hulot had
come to relieve them, Avere alread}' on their
way home, and appeared afar off like
black dots. One of the old Republican's
own companies was placed a few paces
behind the coach, and the other in front
of it. Hulot, who was between Merle
and Gerard, about half-waj^ between the
coach and the vanguard, suddenly said to
them:

" A thousand thunders ! Would you
believe that the general packed us off
from Mayenne to dance attendance on
the two petticoats in this old wagon ? "

"But, commandant," answered Ge-
rard, ''when we took up our post, an
hour ago, with the citizenesses, you bowed
to them quite politelj'^ ! "

*■' There is just the shame of it ! Don't
these Paris dandies request us to show the

greatest respect to their d d females ?

To think that they should insult good and
brave patriots like us by tying us to the
tail of a woman's skirt ! For my part,
you know, I run straight myself, and do
not like dodgings in others. When I
saw Danton Math his mistresses, Barras
with his, I told them, ' Citizens, when the
Republic set yo\i to govern, she did not
mean to license the games of the old
regime.' You will reply that women —
oh ! one must have women, of course !
Brave fellows deserve women, and good
women, too. But it is no use chattering
when there is mischief at hand. What
was the good of making short work of
the abuses of the old days, if patriots are
to start them afresh ? Look at the First
Consul: there is a man for you; no women
about him, alwaj^s attending to his busi-
ness. I would bet the left side of my
mustache that he knows nothing of the
absurd work we are made to do here."

''Upon my word, commandant," an-
swered Merle, laughing, "I caught just a
glimpse of the young lady hidden in the
coach, and it is my opinion that it is no
shame for any man to feel, as I do, a
longing to approach that carriage and
exchange a few words with the travelers."

"Beware, Merle," said Gerard; "the
dames are accompanied b}^ a citizen clever
enough to catch you in a trap."

"Who do you mean? t'h2bt incroyahle,
whose little eyes are constantly shifting
from one side to the other as if he saw
Chouans everj'where ? that musk-scented
idiot, whose legs are so short you can
scarcely see them, and who, when his
horse's legs are hidden by the carriage,
looks like a duck with its head protrud-
ing from a game pie ? If that boob^^
prevents me caressing his pretty nightin-
gale— "

"Duck, nightingale! Oh! my poor
Merle, you were alwaj^s feather-headed.
But look out for the duck : his green eyes
appear to me as treacherous as those of
a viper, and as keen as those of a woman
who pardons her husband his infidelities.
I am less suspicious of the Chouans than
I am of those lawyers whose figures look
like lemonade bottles."

" Bah ! " retorted Merle, gayly, "with
the permission of the commandant, I will
run the risk. That woman has eyes like
stars, and one may well venture every-
thing to gaze into them."

" Our comrade is caught," said Gerard
to the commandant; "he is beginning to
talk nonsense."

Hulot made a grimace, shrugged his
shoulders, and answered : " Before tak-
ing the soup, I advise him to taste it."

"Dear old Merle," said Gerard, judg-
ing from his lagging steps that he
was maneuvering to gradually reach the
coach, " what good spirits he has ! He
is the only man who could laugh at the
death of a comrade without being taxed
with want of feeling."

" He is the true type of a French sol-
dier," remarked Hulot, gravely.

" Oh 1 he is one who wears his epau-
lets upon his shoulders to let the people
see that he is a captain," exclaimed Ge-
rard, laughing; "as if rank made any
difference."

The carriage toward which the officer
was making his way, contained two wo-
men, one of whom appeared to be the
servant of the other.

A thin, dried-up little man galloped

THE CHOUANS.

sometimes before, sometimes behind the
carriage, but although he seemed to ac-
company the two privileged travelers, no
one saw him address a word to them.
This silence, a mark of contempt, or
respect, the numerous pieces of luggage,
and the band-boxes of the one whom the
commandant called a princess — all, even
to the costume of the attendant cavalier,
again roused Hulot's bile. The costume
of this unknown presented an exact pict-
ure of the fashion which at that time
called forth the caricatures of the In-
croyables. Imagine a person muffled in
a coat so short in front that there showed
beneath five or six inches of the waist-
coat, and with skirts so long behind that
they resembled a codfish tail, a term then
commonly employed to designate them.
An immense cravat formed round his
neck such innumerable folds that the
little head, emerging from a labyrinth of
muslin, almost justified Captain Merle's
kitchen simile.

The stranger wore tight breeches, and
boots a la Suwarrow ; a huge white and
blue cameo was stuck, as a pin, in his
shirt. Two watch-chains hung in parallel
festoons at his waist ; and his hair, hang-
ing in corkscrew curls on each side of the
face, almost hid his forehead. Finally,
as a last touch of decoration, the collars
of his shirt and his coat rose so high that
his head presented the appearance of a
bouquet in its paper wrapping. If there
be added to these insignificant details,
which formed a mass of disparities with
no ensemble, the absurd contrast of his
yellow breeches, his red waistcoat, his
cinnamon-brown coat, a faithful portrait
will be given of the height of fashion at
which dandies aimed at the beginning of
the Consulate. Preposterous as the cos-
tume was, it seemed to have been in-
vented as a sort of touchstone of elegance
jo show that nothing can be too absurd
for fashion to hallow it. The rider ap-
peared full thirty j^ears old, though he
was not in reality more than twenty -two
— an appearance due perhaps to hard
living, perhaps to the dangers of the
time. Yet, though he was dressed like
a mountebank, his air announced a cer-

tain polish of manners which revealed
the well-bred man. No sooner did the
captain approach the carriage than the
dand}^ seemed to guess his purpose, and
facilitated it by checking his horse's
pace ; Merle, who had cast a sarcastic
glance at him, being met by one of those
impassive faces which the vicissitudes of
the Revolution had taught to hide even
the least 'emotion. As soon as the ladies
perceived the slouched corner of the cap-
tain's old cocked hat, and his epaulets, an
angelically sweet voice asked :

" Sir officer ! will you have the kindness
to tell us at what point of the road we
are? "

A question from an unknown traveler,
and that traveler a woman, always has a
singular charm, and her least word seems
to promise an adventure ; but if the lady
appears to ask protection, rehing on her
weakness and her ignorance of facts, where
is the man who is not slightly inclined to
build a castle in the air, with a happy
ending for himself ? So the words, "Mon-
sieur I'officier," and the ceremonious form
of the question, excited a strange disturb-
ance in the captain's heart. He tried to
see what the fair traveler was like, and
was completely baffled, a jealous veil hid-
ing her features from him ; he could hardly
see even the eyes, though they flashed
through the gauze like two onyx stones
caught by the sun.

" You are now a league distant from
Alencon, madame," said he.

" Alencon, already ?" And the unknown
lady threw herself, or let herself fall
back in the carriage, without further
reply.

" Alencon ? " repeated the other girl, as
if waking from sleep; ''you will see our
countrj'^ again — "

She looked at the captain, and held her
peace. But Merle, finding himself de-
ceived in his hope of seeing the fair
stranger, set himself to scan her com-
panion. She was a girl of about six-and-
twenty, fair, well shai^ed, and with a
complexion showing the clear skin and
brilliant tints which distinguish the avo-
men of Valognes, Bayeux, and the district
around Alencon. The glances of her blue

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

eyes did not speak wit, but a resolute
temper, mingled with tenderness. She
wore a g-own of common stuff, and her
hair plainly caught up under a cap, in the
st^-le of the Pays de Caux, gave her face
a touch of charming- simplicity.

Nor was her g-eneral air, thoug-h it
lacked the conventional distinction of
society, devoid of the dig-nit}^ natural
to a modest j^oung- girl who can survey
her past life without finding anything to
repent in it. At a glance Merle could dis-
cover in her a country blossom which,
though transplanted to the Parisian hot-
houses, where so many scorching rays are
concentrated, had lost nothing of its
bright purity or of its rustic freshness.
The 3-oung girl's unstudied air, and her
modest looks, told hi in that she did not
desire a listener; and he had no sooner
retired than the two fair strangers be-
gan, in a low voice, a conversation
whereof his ear could scarcelj'' catch the
bare sound.

"You started in such a hurry," said
the country girl, '' that you scarcely took
time to dress j^ourself . You are a pretty
figure ! If we are going farther than
Alencon, we really must make a fresh
toilet there."

** Oh, oh, Francine !" cried the stranger.

"Yes?"

" That is the third time you have tried
to fish out the end and object of our
journey."

" Did I say the very least thing to de-
serve that reproach ? "

*•' Oh ! I saw through your little device.
Innocent and simple as you used to be, you
have learned a few tricl^s in my school.
You have already taken a dislike to direct
questioning, and you are right, child ; of
all known manners of extracting informa-
tion, it is, to my thinking, the silliest."

"Well, then," went on Francine, "as
nothing can escape 3'ou, confess, Marie,
would not your behavior excite the curi-
osity of a saint ? Yesterday you had not
a penny, to-day your pockets are full of
gold. They have given you at Mortagne
the mail-coach which had been robbed,
and its guard killed ; you have an escort
of Government troops, and you have in

your suite a man whom I take to be your
evil angel."

"What! Corentin?" said the young
stranger, marking her words by a couple
of changes of voice, full of contempt —
contempt which even extended to the
gesture with which she pointed to the
rider. "Listen, Francine," she contin-
ued ; " do you remember Patriot, the mon-
key whom I taught to imitate Danton,
and who amused us so much ? "

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Well; were you afraid of him?"

"He was chained up."

" Well, Corentin is muzzled, child."

"We used," said Francine, "to play
with Patriot for hours together, to be
sure ; but it never ended without his
pla3nng us some ugl}" trick ; " and with
these words she fell back in the carriage,
close to her mistress, took her hands and
caressed them coaxingly, saying to her in
affectionate tones :

" But you know what I mean, Marie,
and 3^ou will not answer me. How is it
that in twenty -four hours after those fits
of sadness which grieved me, oh ! so much,
you can be madly merry, just as you
were when joxx talked of killing yourself ?
Whence this change ? I have a right
to ask j'^ou to let me see a little of your
heart. It is mine before it is any one's ;
for never will you be better loved than
I love you. Speak, mademoiselle."

"Well, Francine, do you not see the
reasons of my ga^^ety all round us ? Look
at the 3^ellowing tufts of those distant
trees ; there are not two alike — at a dis-
tance one might think them a piece of old
tapestry. Look at those hedge-rows,
behind which we may meet with Chouans
every moment. As I look at these broom
bushes I think I can see gun-barrels. I
love this constant peril that surrounds us.
Wherever the road grows a little gloomy
I expect that we shall hear a voUej^ in a
moment ; and then my heart beats, and
a new sensation stirs me. Nor is it either
the tremor of fear or the fluttering of
pleasure ; no ! it is something better ; it
is the working of all that is active in me —
it is life. Should I not be merry when I
feel my life once more alive ? "

THE CHOUANS.

" Ah ! cruel girl, you will say nothing- ?
Holy Virgin !«" cried Francine, lifting her
eyes sorrowfully to heaven, " to whom
will she confess if she is silent to me ? "

'' Francine," said the stranger gravely,
" I cannot reveal m3'^ business to you. It
is something terrible this time."

" But why do evil when you know that
you are doing it ? "

'■' What would you have ? I catch my-
self thinking as if I were flft}^ and acting
as if I were fifteen. You have always
been my common sense, poor girl ! but in
this business I must stifle my conscience.
And yet," she said, with a sigh, after an
interval, " I cannot succeed in doing so.
Now, liow can you ask me to set over my-
self a confessor so stern as you are ? "

And she patted her hand genth*.

" And when did I ever reproach you
witli what you have done ? " cried Fran-
cine. "Evil itself is charming in 3'ou.
Yes ; Saint Anne of Aura}' herself, to
whom I pra3" so hard for you, would give
3'ou pardon for all. Besides, have I not
followed 3'ou on this journey without the
least knowledge whither you are going ? "
and she kissed her mistress's hands affec-
tionately.

" But," said Marie, "you can leave me
if your conscience — "

"Come, madame, do not talk like
that," said Francine, making a grimace
of vexation. "Oil! will you not tell
me?"

" I will tell you nothing," said the
young lady firmly ; " only be assured of
this : I hate my enterprise even worse
than I hate the man whose gilded tongue
expounded it to me. I will be so frank
witli you as to confess that I would never
have submitted to their will if I had not
seen in the matter, shameful farce as it
IS, a mixture of danger and of romance
which tempted me. Besides, I did not
Avish to leave this earth of ours without
having tried to gather flowers, of which
I have still some hope, were I to perish
in the attempt. But remember, as some-
thing to redeem my memory, that had I
been happy, the sight of their guillotine
ready to drop on my head would never
have made me take a part in this tragedy
Balzac — c

— for tragedy as well as farce it is. And
now," she continued with a gesture of
disgust, " if they changed their minds
and counter-ordered the plan, I would
throw myself into the Sarthe tliis mo-
ment, and it would not be a suicide ; for
I have never 3'et lived."

" Oh ! Holy Virgin of Aura}- ! pardon
her!"

"' What are 3'OU afraid of ? 3'Ou know
that the dull alternations of domestic life
leave my passions cold. That is ill in a
woman ; but my soul has gained the habit
of a higher kind of emotion, able to sup-
port stronger trials. I might have been
like you, a gentle creature. Why did I
rise above or sink below the level of my
sex ? All ! what a happy woman is.
General Bonaparte's wife ! I am sure to
die young, since I have already come to
the point of not blanching at a pleasure
party where there is blood to drink, as
poor Danton used to say. But forget
what I am saying : it is the woman fiftj^
years old in me that spoke. Thank God !
the girl of fifteen will soon make her ap-
pearance again."

The country maid shuddered. She alone
knew the impetuous and ungoverned char-
acter of her mistress. She alone was ac-
quainted with the strangenesses of her
enthusiastic soul, with the real feelings of
the woman who, up to this time, had seen
life float before her like an intangible
shadow, despite her constant effort to
seize and fix it. After lavishing all her
resources with no return, she had remained
untouched by love. But, stung b}' a multi-
tude of unfulfilled desires, weary of fights
ing without a foe, she had come in her
despair to prefer good to evil when it
offered itself in the guise of enjoyment,
evil to good when there was a spice of
romance in it, ruin to easy-going medioc-
rity as the grander of the two, the dark
and mysterious prospect of death to a life
bereft of hope or even of suffering. Never
was such a powder magazine ready for
the spark ; never so rich a banquet pre-
pared for love to revel in ; never a daugh-
ter of Eve with more gold mingled through-
out her clay. Francine, like an earthly
providence, kept a Avatch over this strange

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

being-, whose perfections slie worshiped
and whose restoration to the celestial
choir from which some sin of pride seemed
to have banished her as an expiation, she
regarded as the accomplishment of a
heavenly mission.

** There is Alengon steeple," said the
rider, drawing- near the carriage.

" I see it," answered the 3'oung lady
dryly.

'•'Very well," quoth he, retiring with
signs of obedience not the least absolute
for his disappointment.

'^ Faster ! faster ! " said the lady to the
postilion ; " there is nothing to fear now.
Trot or gallop if you can ; are we not in
Alencon streets ? "

• As she passed the commandant, she
cried to him in her sweet voice : '■ ' We
shall meet at the inn, conmiandant ;
come and see me there."

**Just so j" replied the commandant.
" At the inn ! come and see me ! that
is the way the creatures talk to a demi-
brigadier." And he shook his fist at the
carriage which was rolling rapidly along
the road.

" Don't complain, commandant," laugh-
ed Corentin, who was tr\ang to make his
horse gallop so as to catch the carriage
up. " She has your general's commission
in her sleeve."

''Ah!" growled Hulot to his friend;
" I will not let these gentry make an ass
of me ! I would rather pitch my general's
uniform into a ditch than gain it in a wo-
man's chamber. What do these geese
mean ? do you understand the thing,
you fellows?"

"Well, yes," said Merle; "I under-
stand that she is the prettiest woman I
ever saw. I think you have mistaken the
phrase. Perhaps it is the First Consul's
wife?"

" Bah ! " answered Hulot. " The First
Consul's wife is' an old woman, and this
is a young one. Besides, my orders from
the minister tell me that her name is
Mademoiselle de Verneuil. She is a ci-
devant. As if I did not know it ! they
all played that game before the Revolu-
tion. You could become a demi-brigadier
then in two crotchets and six quavers ;

3^ou only had to say ' My soul ! ' to tliem
prettily two or three times."

While each soldier stirred his stumps
(in the commandant's phrase), the ugl3^
vehicle which acted as mail-coach had
quickly gained the hotel of " The Three
Moors," situated in the middle of the high
street of Alencon. The clatter and rattle
of the shapeless carriage brought the host
to the door-step. Nobody in Alencon ex-
pected the chance of the mail-coach put-
ting up at " The Three Moors ;" but the
tragedy which had happened at Mortagne
made so many people follow it that the
two travelers, to evade the general curi-
osity, slipped into the kitchen, the in-
variable antechamber of all western inns ;
and the host was about, after scanning
the carriage, to follow them, when the
postilion caught him by the arm.

" Attention ! Citizen Brutus," said he;
"there is an escort of Blues coming. As
there is neither driver nor mail-bags, 'tis
I who am bringing you the citizenesses.
They will pay you, no doubt, like ci-devant
princesses, and so — "

" And so we will have a glass of wine
together in a minute, vaj boy," said the
host. ••

After glancing at the kitchen, black-
ened \yy smoke, and its table stained \)y
uncooked meat. Mademoiselle de Verneuil
fled like a bird into the next room, for she
liked the kitchen sights and smells as little
as the curiosity of a dirty man-cook and
a short stout woman Avho were staring
at her.

"What are we to do, wife ? " said the
innkeeper. "Who the devil would have
thought that we should have company
like this in these hard times ? This lady
will get out of patience before I can serve
her a decent breakfast. Faith ! I have
a notion : as they are gentlefolk, I will
propose that they should join the person
upstairs, eh? "

But when the host looked for his new
guest he only found Francine, to whom
he said in a low tone, and taking her aside
to the back of the kitchen, which looked
toward the yard, so as to be out of ear-
shot : " If the ladies would like, as I doubt
not, to eat in a private room, I have a deli-

THE OHOUAJSrS.

cate meal all ready for a lady and lier son.
The travelers," added he with an air of
mysterj^ ''are not likely to object to share
their breakfast with you. They are peo-
ple of quality."

But he had hardly finished his sentence
when he felt a sUght tap from a whip-
handle on his back, and turning- sharply
round, he saw behind him a short, strong--
Ij'-built man who had noiselessly issued
from a neighboring- room, and whose ap-
pearance seemed to strike terror into the
plump landlady, the cook, and the scul-
lion. The host himself grew pale as he
turned his head round ; but the little man
shook the hair which completely covered
his forehead and eyes, stood on tip-toe to
reach the host's ear, and said: ''You
know what an\' imprudence or any tale-
bearing means ? and what is the color of
our money when we pay for such things ?
We don't stint it."

And he added to his words a gesture
which made a hideous commentary on
them. Although the host's portly per-
son prevented Francine from seeing the
speaker, she caught a word or two of
the sentences whicli he had whispered,
and remained thunderstruck as she heard
the harsh tones of the Braton's voice.
While all besides were in consternation,
she darted toward the little man ; but he,
whose movements had the celerity of a
wild animal's, was already passing out
by a side door into the yard. And Fran-
cine thought she must have been mis-
taken, for she saw nothing but what
seemed the black and tan skin of a
middle-sized bear. Startled, she ran to
the window, and through its smoke-
stained glass gazed at the stranger, who
was making for the stable with halting
steps. Before entering it he sent a glance
of his black eyes to the first floor of the
inn, and then to the stage-coach, as if he
wished to give a hint of importance to
some friend about the carriage. In spite
of the goatskins, and thanks to this gest-
ure, which revealed his face, Francine was
able to recognize by his enormous whip
and his gait — crawling, though agile
enough at need — the Chouan nicknamed
Marche-a-Terre. And she could descry

him, though not clearly, across the dark
stable, where he la}^ down in the straw,
assuming a posture in which he could
survey everything that went on in the
inn. Marche-a-Terre had curled himself
up in such a way that at a distance — nay,
even -close at hand — the cleverest spy
might have easilj^ taken him for one of
the big carter's dogs that sleep coiled
round with mouth on paw. His behavior
showed Francine that he had not recog-
nized her; and in the ticklish circum-
stances wherein her mistress was placed,
she hardl}'^ knew w^hether to be glad or
sorry for it.

But the mysterious relations between
the Chouan 's threat and the offer of the
host — an offer common enough with inn-
keepers, who like to take toll twice on the
same goods — 'Stimulated her curiosity.
She left the blurred pane through which
she had been looking at the shapeless
mass wiiich in the darkness indicated
Marche-a-Terre 's position, returned to-
ward the innkeeper, and perceived him
looking like a man who has put his foot
in it, and does not know how to draw it
back. Tlie Chouan's gesture had struck
the poor man cold. No one in the West
was ignorant of the cruel ingenuity of
torture with which the King's Huntsmen
punished those suspected of mere indis-
cretion, and the host felt their knives
already at his throat. The cook stared
with horrified glance at the hearth where
they not seldom roasted the feet of those
w^ho had given information against them.
The plump little landlady held a kitchen
knife in one hand, a half-cut apple in the
other, and gazed aghast at her husband,
while, finally, the scullion tried to make
out the meaning of this silent terror,
which he did not understand. Francine's
curiosity was naturally kindled by this
dumb show, where the chief actor, though
not present, was in everyone's mind and
sight. The girl felt rather j)leased at the
Chouan's terrible power, and though her
simple character did not comport with the
usual tricks of a waiting'-maid, she had
for the moment too great an interest in
unraveling the secret not to make the
best of her game.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" Well, mademoiselle accepts your of-
fer/' she said gravel3^ to the host, Avho
started as if suddenly awakened by the
words.

''What offer?" asked he, with real
surprise.

"What offer?" asked Mademoiselle de
Verneuil.

"What offer? " asked a fourth person-
ag:e, who happened to be on the lowest
step of the staircase, and Avho bounded
lig-htly into the kitchen.

" Why, to breakfast with your people
of qualJt}'," said Francine impatiently.

" Of quality ?" repeated the person who
had come from the stairs, in an ironical
and satiric tone. "My fine fellow, that
seems to me an innkeeper's joke, and a bad
one. But if it is this young citizeness
that you want to give us as guest, one
would be a fool to refuse, my good man,"
said he, looking at Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil. And he added, clapping the stu-
pefied host on the shoulder, ' ' In my
mother's absence I accept,"

The giddy grace of youth hid the in-
solent pride of these words, which natur-
ally drew the attention of all the actors
in the scene to the new arrival. Then
the host assumed the air of a Pilate trying
to wash his hands of the death of Christ,
stepped back two paces toward his plump
spouse, and said in her ear, " I call .you to
witness, that if any harm happens, it is
not my fault. But," added he still lower,
"to make sure, go and tell Monsieur
Marche-a-Terre all about it."

The traveler, a young man of middle
height, wore a blue coat and long black
gaiters, which rose above his knees, over
breeches also of blue cloth. This plain
uniform, devoid of epaulets, was that of
the students of the Ecole Polytechnique.
At a glance Mademoiselle de Verneuil
could distinguish under the sober costume
an elegant shape and the^e ne sais quoi
which announces native nobility. The
young man's face, not striking at first
sight, soon became noticeable owing to a
certain conformation of feature which
showed a soul capable of great things.
A brown complexion, fair curly hair, a
finely-cut nose, motions full of ease — all.

in short, declared in him a course of life
guided by lofty sentiments and the habit
of command. But the most unmistakable
sjmiptoms of his talents were a chin of the
Bonaparte tj'pe, and a lower lip which
joined the upper with such a graceful
curve as the acanthus leaf under a Co-
rinthian capital describes. Nature had
clothed these two features with an irre-
sistibly winning grace.

"The young man looks, for a Republi-
can, remarkablj^ like a gentleman," said
Mademoiselle de Verneuil to herself. To
see all this at a glance, to be seized with
the desire of pleasing, to bend her head
gracefully to one side, smile coquettishlj',
and dart one of those velvet glances
which would rekindle a heart dead to
love, to drop over her almond-shaped
black eyes deep lids whose lashes, long
and bent, made a brown line on her
cheek, to devise the most melodious
tones wnth which her voice could infuse
a subtle charm into the commonplace
phrase, "We are very much obliged to
you, sir,"^all this maneuvering did not
take her the time which it takes to de-
scribe it. Then Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
addressing the host, inquired after her
room, jDcrceived the staircase, and dis-
appeared up it with Francine, leaving the
stranger to settle for himself whether
the reply implied acceptance or refusal.

"Who is the woman ? " said the stu-
dent of the Ecole Poly technique briskly,
to the motionless and ever more stupefied'
host.

" 'Tis the citizeness Verneuil," replied
Corentin, in a sour tone, scanning the
young man jealousW, "and she is a ci-
devant. What do you want with her ? "

The stranger, who was humming a Re-^
publican song, lifted his head haughtily
toward Corentin. The two young men
glared at each other for a moment like
two gamecocks on the point of fighting ;
and the glance Avas the seed of an eternal
and mutual hatred. Corentin 's green
eyes announced spite and treacher}'^ as
clearly as the soldier's blue ones promised
frankness. The one was born to noble
manners, the other had nothing but ac-
quired insinuation. The one towered.

THE CHOUANS.

the other crouched. The one commanded
respect, and the other tried to obtain it.
The motto of the one should have been
" Gain the day ! " of the other, " Share
the booty ! "

''Is Citizen du Gua Saint-Cyr here ? "
said a peasant who entered.

**"What do you want with him?" said
the j'oung- man, coming- forward.

The peasant bowed low, and handed
him a letter, w^hich the cadet threw into
the fire after he had read it. By way of
answ^er he nodded, and the man disap-
peared.

'' You come from Paris, no doubt, citi-
zen," said Corentin, coming- toward the
stranger with a certain easiness of man-
ner, and with an air of suppleness and
conciliation which seemed to be more than
the Citizen du Gua could bear.

''Yes," he answ^ered drj^ly.

" And of course you have a commission
in the artillery ? "

" No, citizen ; in the navy."

"Ah!" said Corentin carelessly, "then
3"ou are going to Brest? "

But the young sailor turned abruptly
on his heel without deigning to answer,
and soon disappointed the fond hopes
which his face had inspired in Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil. He busied himself in
ordering his breakfast with the levity
of a child, cross-examined the host and
hostess as' to their receipts, wondered at
provincial ways like a Parisian just ex-
tracted from his enchanted shell, gave him-
self the airs and megrims of a coquette,
and, in short, showed as little strength
of character as his face and manners had
at first promised much. Corentin smiled
with pity when he saw him make faces as
he tasted the best cider in Normandy.

" Bah ! " cried he ; " how can you people
drink that stuff ? there is food and drink
both in it. The Republic may well be shy
of a country where they make the vintage
with blows of a pole, and shoot travelers
from behind a hedge on the high roads.
Don't put doctor's stuff like that on the
table for us ; but give us some good Bor-
deaux, white and red too. And be sure
there is a good fire upstairs. These good
folk seem to be quite behind the times in

matter of civilization. Ah ! " he went on
with a sigh, "there is only one Paris in
the world, and great pity it is that one
can't take it to sea with one. Why, you
spoil-sauce ! " cried he to the cook, "you
are putting vinegar in that fricasseed
chicken when j'ou have got lemons at
hand. And as for 30U, Mrs. Landlady,
you have given us such coarse sheets that
I have not slept a wink all night."

Then he began to play with a large cane,
going with childish exactitude through the
evolutions w'hich, as they were j^erformcd
with greater or less finish and skill, in-
dicated the higher or lower rank of a
young man in tlie army of Incroyables.

"And 'tis with dandies like that," said
Corentin confidentially to the host, scan-
ning his face as he spoke, " that the}'' hope
to pick up the Republic's navy ! "

"That fellow," whispered the young
man in the hostess's ear, "is a spy of
Fouche's. ' Police ' is written on his face,
and I could swear that the stain on his
chin is Paris mud. But two can play — "

As he spoke, a h\(\.y toward whom the
sailor ran, with every mark of outward
respect, entered the inn kitchen. " Dear
mamma ! " he said, "come here, I pray
you. I think I have mustered some
guests in your absence."

" Guests ! " she answered; "w^hat mad-
ness ! "

"'Tis Mademoiselle de Verneuil," he
replied, in a low voice.

"She perished on the scaffold after the
affair at Savenay, ' ' said his mother sharp-
ly to him ; " she had gone to Le Mans to
rescue her brother the Prince of Loudon."

"You are mistaken, madame,'' said
Corentin, gently, but laying a stress on
the w^ord madame ; " there are two
Demoiselles de Verneuil. Great house*
always have several branches."

The strange lady, surprised at this
familiar address, recoiled a step of two as
if to survey this unexpected interlocutor ;
she fixed on him her black eyes full of
that quick shrewdness which comes so
naturally to w^omen, and seemed trying
to find out with what object he had just
testified to the existence of Mademoiselle
de Verneuil. At the same time, Corentin,

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

who had been privately' studying- the lady,
denied her the pleasures of maternity,
while granting- her those of love. He
was too g-allant to allow even the happi-
ness of possessing- a son twenty years old
to a lady whose dazzling skin, whose
arched and rich eyebrows, with eyelashes
still in good condition, attracted his ad-
miration, while her luxuriant black hair,
parted in bands on her forehead, set off
the freshness of a face that showed men-
tal power. Some faint wrinkles on the
forehead, far from proclaiming age, be-
trayed the passions of j^outh, and if the
piercing eyes were a little dimmed, the
affection might have come either from
the fatigues of travel or from a too fre-
quent indulgence in pleasure.

Lasth'-, Corentin noticed that the
stranger was wrapped in a mantle of
English stuff, and that the shape of her
bonnet, apparently also foreign, did not
agree with any of the fashions then called
a la Orecque, which still ruled Parisian
toilets. Now, Corentin was one of those
people who are characteristicalh^ inclined
to the constant suspicion of ill rather than
good, and he immediately conceived doubts
as to the patriotism of the two travelers.
On her side, the lad}', who had also and
with equal swiftness taken observations
of Corentin's person, turned to her son
with a meaning look, which could be
pretty faithfully worded, "Who is this
odd fish ? is he on our side? " To which
unspoken question the young sailor re-
plied with a look and gesture signifying
" Faith ! I know nothing at all about
him, and I doubt him more than \-ou
do." Then, leaving it to his mother to
guess the riddle, he turned to the hostess
and said in her ear, " Try to find out who
this rascal is — whether he is really in the
young lady's train, and why."

''So," said Madame du Gua, looking
at Corentin, "you are sure, citizen, that
there is a Mademoiselle de Verneuil liv-
ing?"

"She has as certain an existence in
flesh and blood, madame, as the Citizen
du Gua Saint-Cyr."

Th'e answer had a touch of profound
irony, which the lady alone understood ;

and anybody else would have been put
out of countenance by it. Her son di-
rected a sudden and steady gaze at
Corentin, who pulled out his watch
coolly, without appearing to dream of
the anxiety which his answer produced.
But the ladj^, disquieted and desirous
of knowing at once whether the phrase
meant mischief, or whether it was a
mere chance utterance, said to Corentin,
in the most natural wa}^ in the world :

" Good heavens ! how unsafe the roads
are ! We were attacked beyond Mor-
tagne by Chouans, and my son was
nearl}^ killed in defending me. He had
two balls through his hat ! "

" What, madame ? you were in the
coach v/hich the brigands robbed in spite
of the escort, and which has just brought
us here ? you ought to know the carriage,
then. Wh3% they told me, as I went
through Mortagne, that there were two
thousand Chouans present at the attack
on the coach, and that every soul in it,
even the passengers, had perished. This
is the wa}^ people write histor}'- ! "

The gossiping tone which Corentin af-
fected, and his simple air, made him look
like a frequenter of Little Provence who
had learned with sorrow the falsity of
some bit of political news.

"Alas! madame," he went on, "if
travelers get their throats cut so near
Paris, what must be the danger of the
roads in Brittany ? Faith ! I'll go back to
Paris myself without venturing further ! "

"Is Mademoiselle de Verneuil young
and pretty?" asked the lad^-, struck by
a sudden thought and addressnig the hos-
tess. But as she spoke the host cut short
the conversation, which was almost J)ain-
fully interesting to the three speakers, \)j
announcing that breakfast was read3^
The young sailor offered his hand to his
mother with an affectation of familiarity.
This confirmed the suspicions of Corentin,
to whom he said aloud, as he made for
the stair :

" Citizen, if you are in the company of
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, and if she ac-
cepts mine host's proposal, make j'ourself
at home."

Although these words were spoken in a

THE CHOUANS.

cavalier fashion, and not very oblig-inglj^,
Corentin went upstairs.

The 3' oung- man pressed, the lad^^'s hand
hard ; and when the Parisian was some
half-dozen steps behind, Iiq whispered,
"See what ing-lorious risks your rash
plans expose us to ! if we are found out,
how can we escape ? and what a part
3^0 u are making- me play ! "

The three found themselves m a pretty
large room, and it did not need great ex-
perience of travel in the West to see that
the innkeeper had lavished all his re-
sources, and provided unusual luxuries
for the reception of his guests. The
table was laid with care, the heat of a
large fire had driven out the damp, and
the linen, the chairs, and the covers were
not intolerably dirty. Therefore Coren-
tin could see that the host had, as the
vernacular has it, turned his house inside
out to please the strangers.

''That means," said he to himself,
" that these people are not what the^''
pretend. This young fellow is a keen
liand ; I thought he was a fool, but now
I take him to be quite a match in sharp-
ness for mj^'self."

The young sailor, his mother, and Co-
rentin waited for Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, while the host went to inform her
that they were ready ; but the fair trav-
eler did not make her appearance. The
student of the Ecole Polytechnique, guess-
ing that ^e might be making objections,
left the room humming the song, "Veil-
Ions au salut de I'empire," and went to-
ward Mademoiselle de Verneuil's chamber,
stimulated by a desire to conquer her
scruples, and to bring her with him.
Perhaps he wished merely to resolve the
suspicions which disturbed him ; perhaps
to tr}" upon this stranger the fascination
which every man prides himcelf on being
able to exert over a pretty woman. '• If
that is a Republican," thought Corentin,
as he saw him leave the room, "may I
be hanged ! his very shoulders move like
a courtier's. And if tliat is his mother,"
continued he, looking at Madame du Gua,
" I am the pope ! I have got hold of some
Chouans ; let us make sure of what their
quality is."

The door soon opened, and the young
sailor entered, leading by the hand Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, whom he ushered to
the table with an air self-satisfied, but
full of courtesy. The hour which had
passed away had not been time lost iu
the devil's service. With Francine's as-
sistance. Mademoiselle de Verneuil had
arrayed herself for battle in a traveling
costume more dangerous perhaps than a
ball-dress itself. The simplicity of it had
the attractive charm resulting from the
art with which a woman, fair enough to
dispense with ornaments altogether,
knows how to reduce her toilet to the
condition of a merely secondary charm.
She wore a green dress exquisitel}'' cut,
the frogged spencer purposely showing
her shape to an extent almost unbecom-
ing in a young girl, and not concealing
either her willowy w^aist, her elegant
bust, or the grace of her movements.
She entered with the agreeable smile
naturally indulged in by women who can
show between their rosy lips an even
range of teeth as clear as porcelain, and
in their cheeks a pair of dimples as fresh
as those of a child. As she had laid aside
the traveling wrap which had before con-
cealed her almost entirely from the sail-
or's gaze, she had no difficulty in setting
at work the thousand little innocent
seeming tricks by which a woman sets
off and exhibits for admiration the beau-
ties of her face and the graceful carriage
of her' head .

Her air and her toilet matched so well,
and made her look so much ^^ounger, that
Madame du Gua thought she might be
going too far in giving her twenty years.
So coquettish a toilet, one so evidently"
made with the desire of pleasing, might
naturally excite the young man's hopes.
But Mademoiselle de Verneuil merely
bowed to him with a languid inclination
of the head, hardly turning toward him,
and seemed to drop his hand in a fashion
so easy and careless that it put him com-
pletely out of countenance. The strangers
could hardly attribute this reserve either
to distrust or to coquetry ; it seemed ra-
ther a natural or an assumed indifference,
while th^ innocent air of the traveler's

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

face made it impenetrable. Nor did she
let any determination toward conquest
appear ; the pretty, seductive manner
which had already deceived the young-
sailor's self-love seemed a gift of nature.
So the strang-er took his own chair with
something like vexation.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil took Fran-
cine by the hand, and addressing Ma-
dame du Gua, said in an insinuating
voice : *• Madame, will ^-ou be so good as
to permit this maid of mine, whom I look
on rather as a friend than as a servant,
to eat with us ? In these storm}^ times
devoted service can only be repaid by af-
fection. Nay, is it not all that we have
left ? "

Madame du Gua replied to this last
phrase, pronounced in a low voice, with a
half-courtes\% rather stiff in manner, and
betraying her disappointment at meeting-
so pretty a woman. Then, leaning- to-
ward her son's ear, '^Ho!" said she,
"^stormy times,' 'devotion,' 'madame,'
and 'servant ! ' She cannot be Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil ; she must be some girl
sent bj' Fouche."

The g-uests were about to take their
places, when Mademoiselle de Verneuil's
eyes fell on Corentin. He was still mi-
nutely scanning- the two strang-ers, who
appeared<iuncomfortable enough under his
gaze.

'•Citizen," she said, "I hope you are
too well bred to dog- my steps in this wa}'.
When the Republic sent my family to the
scaffold, it was not magnanimous enoug-h
to appoint a guardian over me. Although
with unheard-of and chivalrous g-allantr^^
you have attached yourself to me against
my -will," and she heaved a sig-h, "I am
resolved not to allow the cares of g-uard-
ianship which you lavish on me to be a
cause of inconvenience to yourself. I am
in safet}' here ; jow. may leave me as I
am."

And she darted at him a steady g'lance
of contempt. Corentin did not fail to un-
derstand her. He checked a smile which
almost curled the corners of his cunning
lips, and bowed to her in the most respect-
ful style.

" Citizeness," said he, "it will always

be a happiness to me to obey you. Beauty
is the onlj' queen to whose service a true
Republican may willingly submit."

As she saw him leave the room. Made-
moiselle de yerneuil's eyes g-leamed with
joy so unaffected, and she directed to-
ward Fran cine a meaning- smile express-
ing- so much satisfaction, that Madame du
Gua, though her jealousy had made her
watchful, felt inclined to discard the sus-
picions with which Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil's extreme beauty had inspired her.
"Perhaps she is really Mademoiselle de
Verneuil," whispered she to her son.

"And her escort?" replied the young-
man, whom pique inspired with prudence.
"Is she a prisoner or a protegee, a friend
or foe of the Government ? "

Madame du Gua winked slightly, as
though to say that she knew how to dis-
cover this secret. But the departure of
Corentin seemed to soften the mistrust of
the sailor, whose face lost its stern look.
He bent on Mademoiselle de Verneuil
g-lances which rather showed an im-
moderate passion for women in g-eneral
than the respectful ardor of dawning-
love. But the young- lady only became
more circumspect in her demeanor, and
reserved her amiability for Madame du
Gua. The 3'oung- man, sulking- by him-
self, endeavored in his vexation to. affect
indifference in his turn. But Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil appeared not to notice
his behavior, and showed hersrff ing-enu-
ous but not timid, and reserved without
prudery. Thus this party of apparent
incompatibles showed considerable cool-
ness one to another, producing even a
certain awkwardness and constraint, de-
structive of the pleasure which both
Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the 3^oung-
sailor had promised themselves. But
women possess such a freemasonry of
tact and manners, such close community
of nature, and such lively desire for the
indulg-ence of sensibilit}^, that they are
always able to break the ice on such occa-
sions. The two fair g-uests, suddenly and
as though \>y common consent, beg-an
g-entl^" to rail}'' their solita^ry cavalier, and
to vie with each other in jests and little
attentions toward him; their agreement

THE CHOUANS.

In so doing" putting them on easy terms,
so that words and looks which, while the
constraint lasted, would have had some
special meaning-, lost their importance.
In short, half an hour had not i)assed he-
fore the two women, already sworn foes
at heart, became in appearance the best
frie^nds in the world. Yet the young"
sailor found himself as much vexed by
Mademoiselle de Verneuil's ease as he
had been by her reserve, and he was so
chag"rined that, in a fit of silent ang"er, he
reg"retted ha\ing shared his breakfast
with her.

"Madame," said Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil to Madame du Gua, ''is your son
always as g"rave as he is now?"

"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I was
asking" mj^self what is the g"ood of a fleet-
ing happiness. The secret of my sadness
lies in the vi\idness of my enjoyment."

"Compliments of this sort," said she,
laug"hing, " smack rather of the court
than of the Ecole Polytechnique."

" Yet he has but expressed a very
natural feeling", mademoiselle," said Ma-
dame du Gua, who had her reasons for
wishing to keep on terms with the stran-
ger.

"Well, then, laugh a little," said
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, with a smile,
to the young man. "What do you look
like when you weep, if what you are
pleased to call happiness makes you look
so solemn ? "

The smile, accompanied as it was by a
glance of provocation, which was a little
out of keeping with her air of innocence,
made the 3'oung man pluck up hope.
But, urged by that nature which always
makes a woman go too far, or not far
enough. Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who
one moment seemed actually to take pos-
session of the young man by a glance
sparkling with all the promises of love,
the next met his gallantries with cold
and severe modesty — the common device
under which women are wont to hide
their real feelings. Once, and once only,
when each thought the other's ej^elids
were drooping, they exchanged their real
thoughts. But they were as quick to ob-
scure as to communicate this light, Avhich,

as it lightened their hearts, also disturbed
their composure. As though ashamed of
having* said so much in a single glance,
the^' dared not look again at each other.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, anxious to alter
the stranger's opinion of her, shut herself
up in cool politeness, and even seemed
impatient for the end of the meal.

"You must have suffered much in
prison, mademoiselle?" said Madame du
Gua.

"Alas ! madame, it does not seem to
me that I am out of prison yet."

" Then, is 3'our escort intended to guard
or watch you, mademoiselle ? Are you an
object of affection or of suspicion to the
Republic ? "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil felt instinct-
ively that Madame du Gua wished her
little good, and was put on her guard \)j
the question. " Madame," she answered,
" I am reall^^ not myself quite sure of the
nature of my relations with the Republic
at this moment."

"Perhaps you inspire it with terror,"
said the 3^oung man, half ironicall}'.

"We had better respect mademoiselle's
secrets," said Madame du Gua.

"Oh! madame, there is not much in-
terest in the secrets of a young girl who
as yet knows nothing of life save its
misfortunes."

"But," answered Madame du Gua, in
order to keep up a conversation which
might tell her what she wished to know.
" the First Consul seems to be excellently
disposed. Do they not say that he is
going to suspend the laws against emi-
grants ? "

" Yes, madame," said she, with perhaps
too much eagerness ; " but, if so, why
are Vendee and- Brittany being roused
to insurrection ? Why set France on
fire ? "

This generous and apparentlj'^ self-re-
proachful cvy startled the sailor. He
gazed scrutinizingly at Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, but could not descry any ex-
pression of enmity or the reverse on her
face. Its delicate covering of bright skin
told no tales, and an unconquerable curi-
osity helped to give a sudden increase
to the interest which strong desire had

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

already made him feel in this strang-e
creature.

''But," she went on, after a pause,
" are you g'oing- to Mayenne, madame ? "

" Yes, mademoiselle," replied the young-
man with an air as if to say, ''What
then ? "

"Well, madame," continued Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil, "since 3'our son is in
the Republic's service — "

She pronounced these words with an
air of outward indifference ; but fixing" on
the two strangers one of those furtive
g-lances of which women and diplomatists
have the secret, she continued, "You
must be in dread of the Chouans, and
an escort is not a thing- to be despised.
Sihce we have already become as it
were fellow-travelers, come with me to
Mayenne." '

Mother and son hesitated, and seemed
to consult. each other.

"It is perhaps imprudent," said the
j^oung- nian, "to confess that business of
the g-reatest importance requires our pres-
ence to-night in the neighborhood of Fou-
geres, and that we have not yet found a
.conveyance ; but ladies are so naturally
g-enerous that I should be ashamed not to
show confidence in you. Nevertheless,"
he added, "before putting ourselves into
your hands we have a right to know
whether we are likely to come safe out of
them. Are you the mistress or the slave
of your Republican escort ? Excuse a
young sailor's frankness, but I am unable
to help seeing something rather singular
in your position."

"We live in a time, sir, when nothing
that occurs is not singular; so, believe
me, you may accept without scruple.
Above all," added she, laying stress on
her words, " you need fear no treachery
in an offer made to you honestly by a
person who does not identify herself with
political hatreds."

"A journey so made will not lack its
dangers," said he, charging- his g-lance
with a meaning- which gave, point to this
commonplace reply.

" What more are you afraid of ?" asked
she, with a mocking smile; "i can see
no danger for anj' one."

"Is she who speaks the same woman
who just now seemed to share mj' desires
in a look ? " said the young- man to him-
self. " What a tone ! she must be lajang-
some trap for me."

At the very same moment the clear,
piercing- hoot of an owl, which seemed to
have perched on the chimney-top, quiv-
ered through the air like a sinister warn-
ing.

"What is that?" said Mademoiselle
de Verneuil. "Our journey will not be-
g-in with lucky omens. But how do you
get owls here that hoot in full day-time ?"
asked she, with an astonished look,

" It happens sometimes," said the young-
man, coolly. "Mademoiselle," he con-
tinued, " may we not bring- you bad luck ?
was not that your thoug-ht ? Let us, then,
not be fellow-travelers."

He said this with a quiet reticence of
manner which surprised Mademoiselle de
Verneuil.

"Sir," she said, with quite aristocratic
insolence, "I have not the least desire to
put any constraint on you. Let us keep
the very small amount of liberty which
the Republic leaves us. If madame was
alone, I should insist — "

A soldier's heav^^ tread sounded in the
corridor, and Commandant Hulot soon
entered with a sour countenance.

"Ah ! colonel, come here ! " said Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, smiling, and point-
ing to a chair near her. " Let us attend,
since things will so have it, to affairs of
State. But wh}^ don't you laug-h ? What
is the matter with you ? Have we Chou-
ans here?"

But the commandant stood ag-ape at
the young- strang-er, whom he considered
with extraordinary attention.

"Mother, will you have some more
hare ? Mademoiselle, you are eating-
nothing," said the young- sailor, busying-
himself with his gnests, to Francine.

But Hulot's surprise and Mademoiselle
de Verneuil's attention were so unmistak-
ably serious that willful misunderstanding-
of them would have been dangerous. So
thej-^oung man went on abruptly, " What
is the matter, commandant ? do you hap-
pen to know me ? "

THE CHOUANS.

"Perhaps so," answered the Repub-
lican.

'' Indeed, I think I have seen you at
the school."

"1 never went to any school," replied
as abruptl}^ the commandant ; '' and what
school do you come from ? "

"The Ecole Polytechnique."

"Ah! yes; from the barrack where
they try to hatch soldiers in dormitories,"
answered the commandant, whose hatred
for officers who had passed through this
scientific seminary was ungovernable.
" But what service do you belong to ? "

"The navy."

"All!" said Hulot, laughing sardoni-
call}' ; "have you heard of many pupils of
that school in the navy? It sends out,"
said he, in a serious tone, "' only officers
in tire artiller3'' and the engineers."

But the young man did not blanch.

"I was made an exception," said he,
"because of the name I bear. All our
family have been sailors."

" Ah ! " said Hulot, " and what is your
family name, citizen ? "

"DaGua Saint-Cyr."

" Then, you were not murdered at
Mortagne ? ' '

"We had a narrow escape of it," inter-
rupted Madame du Gua eagerly. " My
son received two bullets."

"And have you got papers?" said
Hulot, pacing no attention to the mo-
ther.

"Perhaps a'ou want to read them?"
asked the young sailor in an impertinent
tone. His sarcastic blue eyes were study-
ing by turns the gloomy face of the com-
mandant and Mademoiselle de Verneuil's
countenance.

" Pra}^, does a young monkey like you
want to make a fool of me ? Your papers
at once, or off with you ! "

" There ! there ! my excellent sir, I am
not a nincorai30op. Need I give you any
answer ? Who are you ? "

" The commandant of the department,"
replied Hulot.

"Oh, then, my situation maj'' become
serious, for I shall have been taken red-
handed." And he held out a glass of
Bordeaux to the commandant.

" I am not thirstj^" answered Hulot.
"Come! your papers."

At this moment, hearing the clash of
arms and the measured tread of soldiers
in the street, Hulot drew near the win-
dow with an air of satisfaction Avhich
made Mademoiselle de Verneuil shudder.
This symptom of interest encouraged the
young man, whose face had become cold
and proud. Dipping in his coat-pocket,
he drew from it a neat pocket-book and
offered the commandant some papers,
which Hulot read slow^lj'^, comparing the
description with the appearance of the
suspicious traveler. During this exam-
ination the owl's hoot began again, but
this time it was easy to trace in it the
tone and play of a human voice. The
commandant gave the young man back
his papers wath a mocking air.

" That is all very well," said he, "but
you must come with me to the district
office. I am not fond of music."

" Why do you take him there ? " asked
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, in an altered
tone.

"Young woman," said the comman-
dant, making his favorite grimace, "that
is no business of 3'ours."

But Mademoiselle de Verneuil, no less
irritated at the soldier's tone than at his
words, and most of all at the humiliation
to which she was subjected before a man
w^ho had taken a fancy to her, started
up, and dropped at once the modest,
ingenue air which she had maintained
hitherto. Her face flushed and her eyes
sparkled.

" Tell me, has this young man com-
plied wnth the law's demands? " she con-
tinued, not raising her voice, but with a
certain quiver in it.

" Yes, m appearance," said Hulot ironi-
cally.

" Then, you will be good enough to let
h*im alone in appearance,^' said she.
"' Are you afraid of his escaping you ?
You can escort him with me to Mayenne,
and he will be in the coach with his lady
mother. Not a word : I will have it so.
What ! " she went on, seeing that Hulot
was still indulging in his favorite grim-
ace ; " do you still think him a suspect ?"

,THE HUMAN COMEDY.

''Well, yes, a little."

" What do you want to do with him ? "

" Nothing but cool his head with a little
lead. He is a feather-brain," said the
commandant, still ironically.

'' Are you joking-, colonel ? '' cried Made-
moiselle de Verneuil.

'•' Come, my fine fellow," said the com-
mandant, nodding- to the sailor, "come
along- ! "

At this impertinence of Hulot's, Made-
moiselle de Verneuil recovered her com-
posure, and smiled.

'•'Do not stir," said she to the young-
man, with a dignified gesture of protec-
tion.

'• What a beautiful head ! " whispered
he to his mother, Avho bent her brows.

Annoyance and a mixture of irritated
but mastered feelings shed indeed fresh
beauties over the fair Parisian's coun-
tenance. Francine, Madame du Qua, and
Iter son had all risen. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil sprang between them and the
commandant, who had a smile on his face,
and quickly tore open two fastenings of
her spencer. Then, with a precipitate
action, blinded by the passion of a woman
whose self-love has been wounded, and as
greedy of the exercise of poAver as a child
is of trying his new toy, she thrust toward
Hulot an open letter.

"Read that ! " she said to him with a
sneer.

And she turned toward the 3'oung man,
at whom, in the excitement of her victory,
she darted a glance where love mingled
v/ith malicious triumph. The brows of
both cleared, their faces flushed with
pleasure, and their souls were filled with
a thousand conflicting emotions.* By a
single look, Madame du Gua on her side
showed that, not without reason, she set
down this generous conduct of Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil's much more to love
than to charity. The fair traveler "at
first blushed, and dropped her eyelids
modestly, as she divined the meaning of
this feminine expression, but in the face
of this kind of accusing menace she raised
her head again proudly and challenged all
e^^es. As for the commandant, he read
with stupefaction a letter bearing the full

ministerial countersign, and commanding
all authorities to obey this mysterious
person. Then he drew his sword, broke
it across his knee, and threw down the
fragments.

"Mademoiselle," said he, "no doubt
you know what you have to do. But a
Republican has his own notions and his
own pride. I am not good at obeying
where pretty girls command. My resig-
nation shall be sent in to the First-Consul
to-night, and you will have somebody else
than Hulot to do your bidding. Where I
cannot understand I stand still ; especially
when it is my business to understand."

There was a moment's silence, but it
was soon broken by the fair Parisian, who
stepped up to the commandant, held out
her hand, and said :

" Colonel, though .your beard is I'ather
long, you may kiss this, for 3^ou are a
man ! "

"I hope so, mademoiselle," said he, de-
positing clumsily enough a kiss on this
remarkable young woman's hand. "As
for you, my fine fellow," he added, shak-
ing his finger at the j'oung man, "3'ou
have had a nice escape ! "

" Commandant," said the stranger,
laughing, "it is time the joke should end.
I will go to the district office with you if
you like."

" And will you bring your invisible
whistler, Marche-a-Terre, with you ? "

"Who is Marche-a-Terre?" said the
sailor, with every mark of unaffected sur-
prise.

" Did not somebody'' whistle just now ?"

"And if they did," said the stranger,
"what have I to do with the whistling, if
3^ou please ? I supposed that the soldiers
whom you had ordered up to arrest me,
no doubt were letting 3'ou know of their
arrival."

" You really thought that ? "

" Why, 3^es, eg-ad ! But why don't you
drink your claret ? It is very good . ' '

Surprised at the natural astonishment
of the sailor, at the extraordinary levity
of his manner, at the youth of his face,
which was made almost childish by his
carefully curled fair hair, the comman-
dant hovered between different suspicions.

THE OHOUANS.

Then his glance fell on Madame du Gua,
who was trying to interpret the exchang-e
of looks between her son and Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, and he asked her abruptlj^ :

" Your ag-e, citizeness ? "

" Ah, sir officer ! the laws of our Re-
public are becoming" ver^' merciless. I
am thirtj'^-eight."

*'May I be shot if I believe a word of
it I Marche-a-Terre is here — he whistled
— and you are Chouansin disguise ! God's
thunder ! I will have the whole inn sur-
rounded and searched ! "

At that very moment a whistle, of a
broken kind, but sufficiently like that
which had been heard, rose from the inn
yard, and interrupted the commandant.
He rushed into the corridor — luckily
enough, for it prevented him from seeing
the pallor which his words had caused on
Madame du Gua's cheek. But he found
the whistler to be a postilion who was
putting the coach -horses to ; and laying
aside his suspicions, so absurd did it seem
to him that Chouans should risk them-
selves in the very center of Alencon, he
came back crestfallen.

" I forgive him, but he shall dearly pay
later the time he has made us pass here,"
whispered the mother in her son's ear,
as Hulot entered the room.

The excellent officer's embarrassed
countenance showed the struggle which
his stern sense of duty was carrying on
with his natural kindness. He still looked
sulk^'" ; perhaps because he thought he
had made a blunder ; but he took the
glass of claret, and said :

" Comrade, excuse me, but your school
sends the arm}'' such hoy^ for officers."

" Then, have the brigands officers more
boN'ish still ? " laughingly asked the
sailor, as he called himself.

" For whom did you take my son ? "
asked Madame du Gua.

" For the Gars, the chief sent to the
Chouans and the Vendeans by the London
Cabinet — ^the man whom they call the
Marquis de Montauran.''

The commandant still scrutinized atten-
tively the faces of these two suspicious per-
sons, who gazed at each other with the
peculiar looks which are natural to the

self-satisfied and ignorant, and which may
be interpreted hx this dialogue : *' Do
you know Avhat he means ? " '•' No, do
you ? " " Don't know anything about it."
" Then, what does he mean ? He's dream-
ing! " And then follows the sly, jeering
laugh of a fool who thinks himself tri-
umphant.

The sudden alteration in manner of
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed
struck dumb at hearing the name of
the Royalist general, was lost on all
except Francine, who alone knew the
scarcely distinguishable changes of her
young mistress's face. The commandant,
completely driven from his position,
picked up the pieces of his sword, stared
at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose ebul-
lition of feeling had found the weak place
in his heart, and said to her :

'' As for you, mademoiselle, I do not un-
sa}' what I have said. And to-morrow
these fragments of my sword shall fmd
their wa}' to Bonaparte, unless — "

" And what do I care for Bonaparte,
and 3'our Republic, and the Chouans, and
the king, and the Gars ? " cried she,
hardly checking a display of temper
which was in doubtful taste.

Either actual passion or some unknown
caprice sent flashes of color through her
face, and it was easy to see that the girl
would care nothing for the whole world
as soon as she had fixed her affections on
a singie human being. But with equal
suddenness she forced herself to be once
more calm, when she saw that the Avhole
audience had bent their looks o)i her as
on some consummate actor. The com-
mandant abruptly left the room, but
Mademoiselle de Verneuil followed him,
stopped him in the passage, and asked
him in a grave tone :.

^•Have you, then, really strong- reasons
for suspecting this young man of being
the Gars ? ' *

'•'God's thunder! mademoiselle, the
fellow who travels with you came to
warn me that the passengers in the
mail had been assassinated by the Chou-
ans, which I knew before. But what t
did not know wr.s the name of the dead
travelers. It was Du Gua Saint-Cvr."

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" Oh ! if Corentin is at the bottom of
it," said she, with a contemptuous gest-
ure, "I am surprised at nothing-,"

The commandant retired without dar-
ing- to look at Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
whose perilous beauty already' made his
heart beat. ''Had I waited a minute
long-er," he said to himself as he went
downstairs, "1 should have been fool
enoug-h to pick up my sword in order to
escort her."

When she saw the young- man's ej'es
riveted on the door by which Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil had left the room, Ma-
dame du Gua whispered to him, "What!
always the same ? Women will certainly
be your ruin. A doll like that makes you
forg-et everything- ! Whj'^ did you allow
her to breakfast with us? What sort
of a person is a daughter of the house
of Verneuil who accepts invitations from
strangers, is escorted by Blues, and dis-
arms them with a letter which she carries
like a billet-doux in her bosom ? She is
one of the loose women by whose aid
Fouche hopes to seize you, and the let-
ter she showed was given to her in order
to command the services of the Blues
against yourself ! "

**But, madame," said the 3'oung man,
in a tone so sharp that it cut the lady to
the heart and blanched her cheeks, "her
generosity gives the lie to your theory.
Pray remember that we are associated by
nothing save the king's business. After
you have had Charette at your feet, is
there another man in the world for you ?
Have 3'ou another purpose in life than to
avenge him ? "

The lady stood whelmed in thought
like a man who from the beach sees the
shipwrecl^ of his fortune and covets it
only the more ardently. But as Made-
moiselle de Verneuil re-entered, the young
sailor exchanged with her a smile and
a glance instinct with gentle raillery.
Doubtful as the future might be, short-
lived as might be their intimacy, hope
told none the less her flattering tale.
Swift as it was, the glance could not es-
cape the shrewdness of Madame du Gua,
who understood it well. Her brow clouded
lightly but immediatel}^, and her face

could not hide her jealous thoughts.
Francine kept her gaze on this lady ;
she saw her eyes flash, her cheeks flush ;
she thought she could discern the counte-
nance of one inspired by some hellish
fancy, mastered by some terrible revul-
sion of thought. But lightning is not
swifter, nor death more sudden, than was
the flight of this expression ; and Madame
du Gua recovered her cheerfulness of look
with such self-command that Francine
thought she must have been under a
delusion. Nevertheless, recognizing in
the woman a masterfulness of spirit at
least equal to that of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, she shuddered as she foresaw
the terrible conflicts likely to occur be-
tween two minds of the same temper,
and trembled as she saw Mademoiselle
de Verneuil advance toward the j^oung
officer, casting on him a passionate and
intoxicating glance, drawing him toward
herself with both hands, and turning his
face to the light with a gesture half
coquettish and half malicious.

"ISTow tell me the truth," said she,
trying to read it in his eyes. " You are
not the Citizen Du Gua Saint-Cyr ? "

''Yes, I am, mademoiselle."

" But his mother and he were killed the
day before jxsterday ! "

"I am extremely sony," said he,
laughing ; " but however that is, I am all
the same your debtor in a fashion for
which I shall ever be most grateful to
you, and I onh^ wish I were in a position
to prove m}'' gratitude."

" 1 thought I had saved an emigrant;
but I like you better as a Republican."

Yet, no sooner had these words, as if
by thoughtlessness, escaped her lips, than
she became confused ; she blushed to her
very eyes, and her whole bearing showed
a del iciously naive emotion. She dropped
the officer's hands as if reluctantly, and
urged, not by any shame at having clasped
them, but by some impulse which was too
much for her heart, she left him intoxi-
cated with hope. Then she seemed sud-
denly to reproach herself with this free-
dom, authorized though it might seem to
be by their passing adventures of travel,
resumed a conventional behavior, bowed

THE CHOUANS.

to her two fellow-travelers, and, dis-
appearing with Francine, sought their
apartment. As they reached it, Francine
entwined her fingers, turned the palms of
her hands upward with a twist of the
arms, and said, gazing at her mistress :

''Ah ! Marie, how much has happened
in a little time ! Who but you would have
adventures of this kind ? "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil threw herself
with a hound onFrancine's neck. " Ah I"
said she, "this is life ! I am in heaven ! "

"In bell, it may be," said Francine.

"Oh ! hell if 3'ou like," said Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil merrily. " Here, give
me your hand. Feel my heart, how it
beats. I am in a fever. I care nothing
for the whole world. How often have I
seen that man in my dreams ! What a
beautiful head he has ! what a flashing
eye ! "

" Will he love 3"0U ? " asked the simple,
straightforward peasant girl, in a low-
ered tone, her face dashed with sad-
ness.

" Can you ask such a question ? " said
Mademoiselle de Verneuil. *' But tell me,
Francine," she added, assuming an air
half serious and half comic, "is he so
very hard to please ? "

"Yes, but will he love you always?"
replied Francine, with a smile.

Both girls looked at each other for a
time surprised, Francine at showing so
much knowledge of life, Marie at perceiv-
ing for the first time a promise of hap-
piness in an amorous adventure. So she
remained silent, like one who leans over
a precipice, the depth of which he would
gauge by waiting for the thud of a pebble
that he has cast in carelessly enough at
first.

"Ah! that is m^' business," said she,
with the gesture of a gambler who plaj-s
his last stake. "I have no pity for a
forsaken woman ; she has onh^ herself
to blame if she is deserted. I have no
fear of keeping, dead or alive, the man
whose heart has once belonged to me.
But," she added after a moment's si-
lence, and in a tone of surprise, "how
do you come to be so knowing as this,
Francine ? "

"Mademoiselle," said the young girl
eagerh', "I hear steps in the passage."

"Ah," said she, listening, "it is not
he; but," she continued, "that is your
answer, is it ? I understand. I will wait
for your secret, or guess it."

Francine was right. The conversation
was interrupted by three taps at the door;
and Captain Merle, on hearing the ' ' Come
in ! " which Mademoiselle de Verneuil ad-
dressed to him, quickly entered. The
captain made a soldierlj'" bow to the lady,
venturing to throw a glance at her at the
same time, and was so dazzled by her
beauty that he could find nothing to say
to her but " Mademoiselle, I am at your
orders."

" Have you become my guardian in
virtue of the resignation of the chief of
3'our demi - brigade ? that is what they
call your regiment, is it not ? "

"My superior officer is Adjutant-Major
Gerard, by whose orders I come."

"Is your commandant, then, so much
afraid of me ? " asked she.

"Pardon me, mademoiselle. Hulot
fears nothing; but you see, ladies are
not exactly in his way, and it vexed him
to find his general wearing a kerchief."

"Yet," retorted Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, " it was his duty to obey his chiefs.
I like obedience, I warn 3'ou, and I will not
have people resist me."

"That would be difficult," answered
Merle.

" Let us take counsel together," said
Mademoiselle de Verneuil. " You have
some fresh men here. They shall escort
me to Mayenne, which I can reach this
evening. Can we find other troops there
so as to go on without stopping ? The
Chouans know nothing of our little ex-
pedition ; and by traveling thus at night
we shall have very bad luck indeed if we
find them in numbers strong enough to
attack us. Come, tell me, do you think
this feasible? "

"Yes, mademoiselle."

" What sort of a road is it from May-
enne to Fougeres ? "

"A rough one; the going is all up and
down — a regular squirrel's country."

"Let us be off, then," said she; "and

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

as there is no dang-er in going- out of
Alencon, you set out first. We shall
easily catch you up."

"One would think she was an officer of
ten years' standing-/' said Merle to him-
self, as he Avent out. " Hulot is wrong-.
The girl is not one of those who draw their
rents from down feathers. Odds car-
tridges ! If Captain Merle wishes to he-
come an adjutant-major, he had hotter
not mistake Saint Michael for the devil."

While Mademoiselle de Verneuil was
conferring- with the captain, Franciiie
had left the room, intending- to examine
through a passag-o window a certain spot
in the courtyard, whither, from the mo-
ment she had entered the inn, an irresist-
ible curiosity had attracted her. She
g-azed at the straw in the stable with such
pn'ofound attention that you mig-ht have
thou|3fht her deep in prayer before a statue
of the Virg-in. Very soon she perceived
Madame du Gua making- her way toward
Marche-a-Terre as caref ullj' as a cat afraid
of wetting- her paws. The Chouan no
sooner saw the lady than he rose and ob-
served toward her an attitude of the
deepest respect — a sing-ular circumstance,
which roused Francine's curiosity still
more. She darted into the yard, stole
along the wall so as not to be seen by
Madame du Gua, and tried to hide herself
behind the stable door. By stepping on
tip-toe, holding her breath, and avoiding
the slightest noise, she succeeded in post-
ing herself close to Marche-a-Terre with-
out exciting his attention. ''And if,"
said the strange lady to the Chouan,
" after all these inquiries, jon find that it
is not her name, shoot her without mercy,
as 3'ou would a mad dog."

"■ I understand," answered Marche-a-
Terre.

The lady retired, and the Chouan, re-
placing his red woolen cap on his head,
remained standing, and was scratching
his ear after the fashion of puzzled men,
when he saw Francine stand before him,
as if by enchantment.

"Saint Anne of Auray I " cried he,
suddenly dropping his whip, folding his
bands, and remaining in a state of ecs-
tasy. His coarse face was tinged with a

slight flush, and his eyes flashed like dia-
monds lost in the mud.

"Is it really Cottin's wench ? " he said,
in a low voice, that none but himself
could hear. " Ah, but you are brave ! "
(godaine), said he, after a pause. This
odd word, godain, or godaine, is part of
the patois of the district, and supplies
lovers with a superlative to express the
conjunction of beauty and finer3^

"I should be afraid to touch 3^ou,"
added Marche-a-Terre, who nevertheless
advanced his broad hand toward Fran-
cine, as if to make sure of the weight of
a thick gold chain which surrounded her
neck andT fell down to her waist.

"You had better not, Pierre," an-
swered Francine, inspired by the feminine
instinct which makes a woman tjTannize
whenever she is not tj-rannized over.

She stepped haughtily back, after en-
joying the Chouan 's surprise. But she
made up for the harshness of her words
by a look full of kindness, and drew near
to him again.

"Pierre," said she, "that lady was
talking to you* of my young mistress,
was she not? "

Marche-a-Terre stood dumb, with a
struggle g'oing on his face like that at
dawn between light and darkness. Ho
gazed by turns at Francine, at the great
whip which he had let fall, and at the gold
chain which seemed to exercise over him
a fascination not less than that of the
Breton girl's face. Then, as if to put an
end to his own disquiet, he picked up his
whip, but said no word.

" Oh ! " said Francine, who knew his
inviolable fidelity, and wished to dispel his
suspicions, "it is not hard to guess that
this lady bade you kill my mistress."

Marche-a-Terre dropped his head in a
significant manner, Avhich was answer
enough for " Cottin's wench."

"Well, Pierre, if the least harm hap-

* Marche-a-Terre, in his awe at Francine's
finery, and she, in her desire to play the lady,
have used vous, which the original italicizes.
Both adopt the familiar tu henceforth. But the
second person sing-ular is so awkward in ordinary
English, that it seems better adjusted, with this
warning, to the common use.

THE CHOUAKS.

pens to her, if a hair of her head is in-
jured, we have looked our last at one
another here for time and for eternity !
I shall be in Paradise then, and 3'ou in
hell ! ';

ISTo deuioniac just about to undergo ex-
orcism in form by the church was ever
more ag-itated than Marche-a-Terre by
this prediction, pronounced with a confi-
dence which gave it a sort of certainty.
The expression of his eyes, charged at
first with a savage tenderness, then struck
by a fanatical sense of duty as imperious
as love itself, turned to ferocity, as he
perceived the masterful air of the innocent
girl who had once been his love. But
Francine interpreted the Chouan's silence
in her own fashion.

''You will do nothing forme, then?"
she said, in a reproachful tone.

At these words the Chouan cast on his
mistress- a glance as black as a raven's
wing.

" Are 3^ou 3'our own mistress ?" growled
he in a tone that Francine alone could
understand.

''Should I be where I am?'' said she
indignantly-. "But what are you doing
here ? You are still Chouanning, j^ou are
prowling along the highways like a mad
animal trying to bite. Oh, Pierre ! if 3-0U
were sensible j^ou would come with me.
This pretty young lady (who, I should
tell you, was brought up at our house at
home), has taken care of me. I have
two hundred good livres a year. Made-
moiselle has bought me Uncle Thomas's
great house for five hundred crowTis, and
I have two thousand livres saved from
my wages."

But her smile and the list of her riches
made no impression on Marche-a-Terre 's
stolid air. " The rectors have given the
word for war," said he; "every Blue we
lay low is good for an indulgence."

" But perhaps the Blues will kill you ! "

His only answer was to let his arms
drop by his sides, as if to apologize for
the smallness of his offering to God and
the king.

"And what would become of me?"
asked the young girl sorrowfully.

Marche-a-Terre ga,zed at Francine as

if stupefied : his eyes grew in size, and
there dropped from them two tears, which
trickled in parallel lines down his hair}-
cheeks on to his goatskin raiment, while
a dull groan came from his breast.

" Saint Anne of Auray I Pierre, is this
all you have to say to me after seven
years' parting ? How you have changed I"

" I love you still, and alwa^^s ! " an-
swered the Chouan rough^\

" jSTo," she whispered, " the king comes
before me.'"

" If you look at me like that," he said,
" I must go."

" Good-bj^ ! thenj" she said sadly.

"Good-by ! " repeated Marche-a-Terre.
He seized Francine's hand, squeezed it,
kissed it, crossed himself, and plunge*^
into the stable like a dog that has just
stolen a bone.

" Pille-Miche," said he to his comrade,
" I cannot see mj^ way. Have you got
your snuff-mull ? "

"Oh! ere bleu! . . . what a fine
chain ! " answered Pille-Miche, groping
in a pocket under his goatskin. Then he
held out to Marche-a-Terre one of the lit-
tle conical horn boxes in w^hich Bretons
put the finely powdered tobacco which
they grind for themselves during the long
winter evenings. The Chouan raised his
thumb so as to make in his left hand the
hollow wherein old soldiers measure their
pinches of snuff, and shook the mull
(whose tip Pille-Miche had screwed off)
hard. An impalpable powder fell slowly
through the little hole at the point of this
Breton implement. Marche-a-Terre re-
peated the operation, without speaking,
seven or eight times, as if the powder
possessed the gift of changing his
thoughts. All of a sudden he let a
gesture of despair escape him, threAv
the mull to Pille-Miche, and picked up a
rifle hidden in the straw.

"It is no good taking seven or eight
pinches like that right off," said the mis-
erly Pille-Miche.

' ' Forward ! * ' cried Marche - a - Terre
hoarsely. "There is work to do." And
some thirty' Chouans who were sleeping
under the mang-ers and in the straw lifted
their heads, saw Marche-a-Terre stand-

THE HUMAN COMEDY

mg, and promptly disappeared by a door
opening" on to gardens, whence the fields
could be reached.

When Francine left the stable, she
found the coach ready to start. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil and her two fellow-
travelers had already got in, and the
Breton girl shuddered as she saw her
mistress facing the horses, by the side of
the woman wljo had just given orders for
her death. The ''suspect" placed him-
self opposite to Marie; and as soon as
Francine had taken her place, the heavy
vehicle set off at a smart trot.

The sun had already dispelled the gray
mists of an autumn morning, and its ra3's
gave to the melancholy fields a certain
iively air of holiday youth. It is the
wont of lovers to take these atmospheric
changes as omens ; but the silence which
for some time prevailed among the trav-
elers struck Francine as singular. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil had recovered her
air of indifference, and sat with lowered
eyes, her head slightly leaning to one
side, and her hands hidden in a kmd of
mantle which she had put on. If she
raised her eyes at all it was to view the
landscape which, shifting rapidh^, fiitted
past them. Entertaining" no doubt of
admiration, she seemed willfully to refuse
opportunity for it ; but her apparent non-
chalance indicated coquetry rather than
innocence. The touching purity which
gives so sweet an accord to the varying
expressions in which tender and weak
souls reveal themselves, seemed power-
less to lend its charm to a being whose
strong feelings destined her as the pre^'"
of stormy passion. Full, on his side, of
the jo3^ which the beginning of a flirta-
tion gives, the stranger did not as yet
. trouble himself with endeavoring to har-
monize the discord that existed between
the coquetrj'- and the sincere enthusiasm
of this strange girl. It was enough for
him that her feigned innocence permitted
him to gaze at will on a face as beautiful
in its calm as it had just been in its agi-
tation. We are not prone to quarrel with
that which gives us delight. It is not
easy for a prett^'- woman in a carriage to
withdraw from the gaze of her compan-

ions, whose eyes are fixed on her as if
seeking an additional pastime to beguile
the tedium of travel. Therefore, con-
gratulating himself on being able to sat-
isfy the hunger of his rising passion with-
out its being possible for the strange lady
either to avoid his eyes or be offended at
their persistence, the young officer studied
to his heart's content, and as if he had
been examining a picture, the pure and
dazzling lines of her face.

Now the day brought out the pink
transparence of the nostrils and the
double curve which formed a junction
between the nose and the upper lip.
Now a paler sunbeam played on the
tints of the complexion — pearly-white
under the eyes and round the mouth,
roseate on the cheeks, creamy toward
the temples and on the neck. He ad-
mired the contrasts of light and shade
produced by the hair wiiich surrounded
the face with its raven tresses, giving it
a fresh and passing grace ; for with wo-
man everything is fugitive. Her beauty
of to-day is often not that of yesterday,
and it is lucky for her, perhaps, that it is
so. Thus the self-styled sailor, still in
that age when man enjoys the nothings
that make up the whole of love, watched
delightedly the successive movements of
the eyelids and the ravishing plaj^ which
each breath gave to the bosom. Some-
times, his will and his thoughts in unison,
he spied a harmony between the expres-
sion of the eyes and the faint movements
of the lips. Each gesture showed him a
new soul, each movement a new facet in
this young girl. If a thought disturbed
her mobile features, if a sudden flush
passed over them, if they were illumined
by a smile, his delight in endeavoring to
guess the mysterious lady's secrets was
infinite. The whole of her was a trap for
soul and sense at once, and their silence,
far from raising a barrier between the
exchange of their hearts, gave their
thoughts common ground. More than
one glance in which her eyes met the
stranger's told Marie de Verneuil that
this silence might become compromising ;
aiid she accordingly put to Madame du
Gua some of the trivial questions which

THE OHOUANS.

start a conversation, though she could
not keep the son out of her talk with the
mother.

''How, madame," said she, '"'could
you make up your mind to send 3'our
son into the navy ? is not this a sentence
of perpetual anxiety on yourself ? "

" Mademoiselle, it is the lot of women —
I mean of mothers — to tremble always for
their dearest treasures."

" Your son is very like you ! "

"Do you think so, mademoiselle?"

This unconscious indorsement of the
ag"e which Madame du Gua had assig'ned
to herself, made the young- man smile,
and inspired his so-called mother with
fresh annoyance. Her hatred grew at
every fresh glance of love which her son
threw at Marie. Whether they spoke or
were silent, everj^thing kindled in her a
hideous rage, disguised under the most
insinuating manners,

"Mademoiselle," said the stranger,
"you are wrong. Sailors are not more
exposed to danger than other w\arriors.
Indeed, there is no reason for women to
hate the navy ; for have we not over the
land services the immense advantage of
remaining faithful to our sweethearts?"

"Yes, because you cannot help it," re-
plied Mademoiselle de Verneuil, laughing.

"It is a kind of faithfulness, all the
same," said Madame du Gua in a tone
which was almost somber.

But the conversation became livelier,
and occupied itself with subjects of no in-
terest to anj^ but the three travelers, for
in such a situation persons of intelligence
are able to give a fresh meaning to mere
commonplaces. But the talk, frivolous
as it seemed, which these strangers chose
to interchange, hid the desires, the pas-
sions, the hopes which animated them.
Marie's constantly wide-awake subtlety
and her aggressive wit taught Madame
du Gua that only slander and false deal-
ing could §-ive her advantage over a rival
as redoubtable in intellect as in beaut3^
But the travelers now caught up their
escort, and their vehicle began to move
less rapidly. The young sailor saw in
front a long stretch of ascent, and sug-
gested to Mademoiselle de Verneuil that

she should get out and walk. His good
manners and attentive politeness appar-
ently had their effect on the fair Parisian,
and he felt her consent as a compliment.

" Is madame of our mind ? " asked she
of Madame du Gua. '•' Will she join our
walk?"

" Coquette ! " said the ladj^ as she
alighted. '

Marie and .the stranger walked together,
but with an interval between them. The
sailor, alread^^ a prey to tyrannous desire,
was eager to dispel the reserve which she
showed toward him, and the nature of
which he did not fail to see. He thought
to do so by jesting with the fair stranger
under cover of that old French gayety —
that spirit, now frivolous, now grave, but
always chivalrous though often mocking
— which was the note of the more distin-
guished men among the exile aristocracy.
But the lively Parisian girl rallied the
young Republican so maliciously^, and con-
trived to insinuate such a contemptuous
expression of reproach for his attempts
at frivolity, while showing a marked
preference for the bold and enthusiastic
ideas which in spite of himself shone
through his discourse, that he could not
miss the waj' to Avin her. The talk there-
fore changed its character, and the stran-
ger soon showed that the hopes inspired
by his expressive countenance w^ere not
delusive. Each moment he found new dif-
ficulties in comprehending the siren, with
whom he fell more and more in love, and
was obliged to suspend his judgment in
reference to a girl who seemed to amuse
herself by contradicting each opinion that
he formed of her. Enticed at first by the
contemplation of her physical beauty, he
felt himself now attracted towaad her un-
known mind by a curiosity which Marie
took pleasure in kindling.

The' conversation little \iy little assumed
a character of intimacy very foreign to
the air of indifference which Mademoiselle
de Verneuil tried unsuccessfull3'' to infuse
into it. Although Madame du Gua had
followed the lovers, they had uncon-
sciousl^" walked quicker than she did,
and were soon some hundred paces ahead.
The handsome couple trod the fine gravel

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

of the road, delig^hted like children in
keeping step as their paces sounded light-
ly, happy in the rays of light which
wrapped them as in spring sunshine, and
in breathing together the autumnal per-
fume, so rich in vegetable spoils that it
seemed a food brought by the winds to
nourish the melancholy of young love.*
'Although both agreed in seeming to see
nothing but an ordinary cl;ance in their
momentary connection, the heavens, the
scene, and the season gave their emotion
a touch of seriousness which had the air
of passion. They began to praise the
beauty of the day ; then the3^ talked of
their strange meeting, of the approaching
breach of so pleasant an acquaintance, of
the ease with which one becomes intimate
while traveling with people who are lost
to sight almost as soon as seen. After
this remark the young man availed him-
self of the unspoken leave which seemed
to be granted him to edge in some tender
confidences, and endeavored to risk a
declaration in the style of a man accus-
tomed to the situation.

'• Have you noticed, mademoiselle," said
he, " how little feeling cares to keep in
the beaten track during these terrible
times of ours ? Are not all our circum-
stances full of surprise and of the inex-
plicable ? We men of to-da}' love, we
hate, on the strength of a single glance.
At one moment we are united for life,
at another we part with the swiftness of
those Avho march to death. We are al-
ways in a hurry, like the nation itself in
its tumults. In the midst of danger men
join hands more quickh^ than in the jog-
trot of ordinary life, and in these latter
days at Paris all have known, as if on a
battle-^ld, what a single hand-clasp can
tell.-'

''Men felt the need of living hard and
fast,"' she answered, '' because there was
but a short time to live." And then,
glancing at her young companion in a
way which seemed to foretell the end
of their brief journey, she said, a little

*Tliis, I fear, is what Balzac's own countrymen
would call galimatias. But it is what Balzac
wrote.

maliciouslj'' : " For a young man who is
just leaving the school, \ou are well up
in the affairs of life."

"What do you really think of me?"
said he, after a moment's silence. " Tell
me your opinion without sparing."

"1 suppose you wish to purchase the
right of giving me yours of me ? " she
replied, laughing.

''That is no answer," said he, after a
brief pause. . " Take care ! silence itself
is often a repl^^."

"But have I not guessed everything
you meant to say to me ? You have said
too much as it is."

"Oh! if we understand each other,"
said he, vv^ith a laugh, "you have given
me more than I dared hope."

She smiled so graciously that it seemed
as if she accepted the courteous challenge
with which all men love to threaten a wo-
man. So the}' took it for granted, half
seriously, half in jest, that they never
could be to each other anything else than
that which they were at the moment.
The young man might abandon himself,
if he liked, to a hopeless passion, and
Marie might mock it. So, having thus
erected between them an imaginary bar-
rier, they appeared both eager to profit
b}' the rash license for which thej had
bargained. Suddenlj^ Marie struck her
foot against a stone, and stumbled.

"Take my arm," said the stranger.

" I must needs do so, you giddy-pate,"
said she. " You would be too proud if I
refused ; I should seem to be afraid of
you."

"Ah! mademoiselle," ansv/ered he,
pressing" her arm that she might feel
the beating of his heart, " you will make
me proud of this favor."

" Well, the ease with which I consent
will disj^el your illusions."

" Would 3'ou protect me already against
the danger of the feelings which you 3'our-
self inspire ? "

" Pray leave off trjingto entangle me,"
said she, " in these little boudoir fancies,
these word-puzzles of my lady's chamber.
I do not like to see in a man of your char-
acter the kind of wit that fools can have.
See ! we are under a lovely sky, in the

THE CHOUANS.

open country; before us, above us, all is
grand. You mean to tell me that I am
beautiful, do you not ? Your ej^es have
told me that already, and besides, I know
it, Nor am I a woman who is flattered
by compliments. Would you perchance
talk to me of your feelings ? " she said,
with an ironic stress on the word, "'Do
you think me sill}^ enough to believe in a
sudden sympathj^ strong- enough to throw
over a whole life the masterful memory of
a single morning ? *'

•'^Not of . a morning," answered he,
*^M)at of a beautiful woman who has
shown herself a generous one as well."

"You forget," she rejoined, with a
laugh, "attractions greater than these.
I am a stranger to you, and my name,
my qualitx', m^j position, m^' self-posses-
sion in mind and manners — all inust seem
extraordinary to you."

'•'You are no stranger to me," cried
he ; " I have divined you already', and I
would have nothing added to your per-
fections, except a little more faith in the
love whiciryou inspire at first sight ! "

"Ah ! mj'^ poor boy of seventeen, 3"ou
talk of love already ? " said she, smiling,
"Well, so be it. . . . 'Tis a topic of
conversation between man and woman,
like the weather at a morning call. So
let us take it. You will find in me no
false modesty and no littleness of mind,
I can listen to the word ''love' without
blushing. It has been said to me so
often, with no heart-accent in it, that it
has become almost meaningless, I have
heard it in theaters, in books, in society,
everywhere. But I have never met any-
thing which corresponded in fact to the
magnificent sentiments which it implies."

" Have you tried to find it ? "

"Yes."

The word was said with such unreserve
that the young man started and stared
at Marie as if he had changed his m'ind
suddenly as to her character and station.

" Mademoiselle," said he, with ill-con-
cealed emotion, "are you a girl or a wo-
man, an angel or a fiend ? "

"I am both," replied she, laughing.
"' Is there not always something angelic
and something diabolic as well in a young

girl who has never loved, who does not
love, and who perhaps will never love? "

"And yet you are happj' ? " said he,
with a greater freedom of tone and man-
ner, as if he already thought less respect-
fully of her who had delivered him.

"Oh!" she said. "Happy? No I
When I meditate by myself, and feel my-
self mastered b^^ the social conventions
which make me artificial, I envy the
privileges of men. But when I reflect on
all the means which Nature has given us
to surround you, to wrap 3'ou in the
meshes of an invisible power which none
of 3'ou can resist, then my part in this
comedy here below looks more promising
to me. And then, again, it seems to me
wretched, and I feel that I should despise
a man if he were the dupe of ordinary
allurements. To be brief, at one time I
see the yoke we bear, and it pleases me,
then it seems horrible, and I revolt. At
another I feel that aspiration of self-sacri-
fice which makes woman so fair and noble
a thing, onl\' to experience afterward a
devouring desire of power. Perhaps it is
but the natural figlit of the good and e\al
principle which makes up the life of all
creatures that on earth do dwell. Both
angel and fiend — you have said it ! It is
not to-day that I came to know my double
nature. Yet we- women know our weak-
ness better than you do. Do we not pos-
sess an instinct which makes us look in
everything toward a perfection too cer-
tainl^-^ impossible of attainment? But,"
she added, with a sigh, and a glance to-
ward heaven, "what ennobles us in our
own eyes — "

" Is what ? " said he.

"Why,-' said she, "that we all of us,
more or less, maintain the struggle against
our fated incompleteness,"

"' Mademoiselle, why should we part
to-night ? "

" Ah I " she said, with a smile at the
fieiy glance which the ^oung man darted
on her, " we had better get into the car-
riage ; the open air is not good for us,"

Marie turned sharply on her heel, and
the stranger followed, pressing her arm
with a vigor which was hardly respeiftful,
but which expressed at once adoration and

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

t N^rannous desire. She quickened her steps;
the sailor perceived that she wished to
avoid a perhaps inopportune declaration,
but this onh' increased his fervor, and
setting- all to the touch in order to gain
a first favor from the girl, he said to her
with an arch look :

''Shall I tellj^ou a secret ? "'

"Tell it at once, if it concerns your-
self."

" I am not in the service of the Republic.
Whither are you going? I will go too."

As he spoke, Marie trembled violently,
drew her arm from his, and covered her
face with both hands to veil, it might be
a flush, it might be a pallor, which changed
her appearance. But she uncovered it
almost immediately, and said in a tender
tone : ''You have begun, then, as you
would have finished, by deceiving me ? "

"Yes," he said.

At this answer she turned her back on
the bulky vehicle toward which they were
advancing, and began almost to run in the
opposite direction.

"But," said the stranger, "just now
the air did not agree with you ! "

"Oh ! it has changed," said she grave-
ly, and still walking on, a prey to storm^^
thoughts.

"You are silent? " asked the stranger,
whose heart was full of the sweet fiutter
of apprehension which the expectation of
pleasure brings with it.

" Oh ! " she said shortly, " the tragedy
has been prompt enough in beginning."

" What tragedy do you mean ? " asked
he. She stopped and scanned the cadet
from head to foot, with an expression
compact of fear and interest both ; then
she hid the feelings which agitated her
under an air of profound calm, showing
that, for a young girl, she had no small
experience of life.

'•'Who are you?" she said. "But I
know — when I saw aou, I suspected it :
you arc the E,03^alist chief they call the
Gars. The ex-bishop of Autun is right
in telling us always to believe in presenti-
ments of evil."

" What concern have you in knowing
thaJt person ? "

" What concern could he have in hiding

himself from me, who have already saved
his life ? "

She spoke with a forced laugh, and
went on : "It was prudent of me to hin-
der 3"our declaration of love. Know, sir,
that I hate ^'ou ! I am a Republican, you
a Royalist ; and I would give you up if
xn.j word were not pledged to you, if I
had not already saved 3'ou once, and if — "

She stopped. This violent flux and re-
flux of thought, this struggle which she
cared no longer to hide, gave the stranger
some uneasiness, and he tried, but in vain,
to sound her intention.

" Let us part at once ; I will have it so.
Good-bj^ ! " she said, and turning abrupt-
ly she made a step or two ; but then came
back.

" No ! " she continue^, " vny interest
in learning who you are is too great.
Hide nothing from me and tell me the
truth. Who are you ? For are you just
as much a cadet of the school as you are
a boy of seventeen — "

" I am a sailor, ready to quit the sea,
and follow you whithersoever your fancy
guides me. If I am fortunate enough to
excite your curiosity by anything- myste-
rious about me, I shall take good care
not to put an end to it. What is the
good of mixing up the serious concerns of
every-day life with the life of the heart in
which we were beginning to understand
each other so well ? "

" Our souls might have understood each
other," she said graveh'. "But, sir, I
have no right to claim your confidence.
You will never know the extent of 3'our
obligations to me ; and I shall hold my
peace."

They walked some distance without
uttering a word.

"You seem to take a great interest in
my life," said the stranger.

"Sir," she said, "I beg you tell me
3'^our real name, or say nothing ! You
are childish," she added, with a shrug of
her shoulders, " and I am sorry for you.'"

The fair traveler's persistency' in trying
to divine his secret made the self-styled
sailor hesitate between prudence and his
desires. The vexation of a woman whom
we covet is a powerful attraction : her

THE CHOUANS.

very submission is as conquering- as her
ang"er; it attacks so many chords in a
man's heart that it penetrates and sub-
jugates the heart itself. Was Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil merelj"- trying- a fresh
trick of coquetry? In spite of his pas-
sion, the stranger had self-command
enough to be mistrustful of a woman who
was so desperately set on tearing" from
him a secret of life and death.

" Why," he said, taking' her hand,
which she had let him take in absence
of mind, ''why has ray indiscretion,
Avhicli seemed to give a future to this
day, destro3"ed its charm instead ? " But
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed in
distress, was silent. "How have I hurt
you?" he went on, "and how can I
soothe 3'ou? "

" Tell me your name."

Then the two walked in silence, and
they made some progress thus. Sud-
denly Mademoiselle de Verneuil halted,
like a person who has made up her mind
on a point of importance :

'• Marquis of Montauran," said she with
dignity, and yet not quite successfully dis-
guising- an agitation that made her feat-
ures quiver nervously, " whatever it may
cost me, I am happy to be able to do you
a service. We must part here. The es-
cort and the coach are too necessary to
your safety for you to refuse either one
or the other. Fear nothing- from the Re-
publicans : all these soldiers, look j'ou,
are men of honor, and the adjutant will
faithfully execute the orders which I am
about to give him. For my part, I can
easily regain Alencon with my maid ;
some soldiers will accompany us. Heed
me well, for your life is at stake. If be-
fore 3-0U are in safety you meet the hide-
ous dand}" whom you saw at the inn, fly,
for he will g-ive you up at once. For me — "
She paused. " For me, I plunge back with
l^ride into the pettj- cares of life." And
then she went on in a low voice, and
choking- back her tears, "Good-by, sir!
May you be happy ! Good -by I " And
she beckoned to Captain Merle, who was
just reaching- the brow of the hill.

The 3^oung man was not prepared for
so sudden an ending-.

" Wait ! " he cried, with a kind of de-
spair, cleverh^ enough feigned. The g-irl's
strange whim surprised the stranger so
much that, though he would at the mo-
ment have laid down his life for her, he f
devised a most reprehensible trick in or-
der at once to hide his name and to sat-
isf}'' Mademoiselle de Verneuil's curiosity.

" You have nearly guessed it," he said.
"I am an emigrant, under sentence of
death, and I am called the Vicomte de Bau-
van. Love of my country has brought
me back to France, to m}' brother's side.
I hope to have my name erased from the
list hj the aid of Madame de Beauharnais,
now the First Consul's wife ; but if I do
not succeed in this, then I will die on my
natal soil, fig-hting- by the side of my
friend Montauran. My first object is to
go and see, with the aid of a passport
which he has given me, whether any of
va.y estates in Brittany remain to me."

As the young noble spoke. Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil examined him with her
keen eye. She tried to doubt the truth
of his words; but, lulled into credulous
confidence, she slowly regained her serene
expression, and cried, "Sir ! is what 3'ou
are telling me true ? "

" Perfectly true," replied the stranger,
whose standard of honor in dealing with
women did not appear to be high.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil drew a deep
sigh like one who comes back to life.

" Ah ! " cried she, " I am quite happy."

" Then do you hate mj- poor Montauran
very much? "

"No," said' she. "You cannot under-
stand me. I could not wish you to be
exposed to dang-ers against which I will
try to defend him, since he is your friend."

" Who told you that Montauran is in
dang-er ? "

" Wh}', sir, even if I did not come from
Paris, where every one is talking of his
enterprise, the commandant at Alencon
said enough to us about him, I should
think."

"Then I must askj'^ou how you can pre-
seiwe him from danger? "

" And suppose I do not choose to an-
swer ? " said she, with the air of disdain
under which women know so well how

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

to conceal their emotions. "What rig-ht
have 3^ou to know my secrets ? "

"The rig-ht which belongs to a man
who loves you."
1 "What, already?" she said. "No,

sir, you do not love me ! You see in me
an object of passing- g-allantry, that is
all. Did I not understand you at once ?
Could any one who has been accustomed
to g-ood. society make a mistake, in the
present state of manners, when she heard
a cadet of the Ecole Pol^^technique pick
his words, and. disg-uise as clumsih' as you
did, the breeding- of a g-entleman under
a Republican outside ? Wh}^ your very
hair has a trace of powder, and there is
an atmosphere of g-entility about you
which any woman of fashion must per-
ceive at once. Therefore, trembling- lest
my overseer, who is as sharp as a wo-
man, should recog-nize 3^ou, I dismissed
him at once. Sir, a real Republican offi-
cer, who had just left the Ecole Pol;\'tech-
nique, would not fancy himself about to
make a conquest of me, or take me for a
pretty adventuress. Permit me, Monsieur
de Bauvan, to lay before you some slig-ht
considerations of woman's wit on this
point. Are you so young- as not to know
that of all creatures of our sex the most
difficult to conquer is she whose price is
quoted in the market, and who is already
weary of pleasure ? Such a woman, thej'
say, requires immense efforts to win her,
and yields only to her own caprices. To
try to excite affection in her is the neplus
ultra of coxcombry. Putting- aside this
class of women, with whom you are g-al-
lant enough (since they are all bound to
be beautiful) to rank me, do you not un-
derstand that a g-irl, young-, well-born,
beautiful, witty (you allow me all these
gifts), is not ■ for sale, and can be won
' only in one way — by loving her*? You
understand me ? If she loves and chooses
to stoop to folly, she must at least have
some greatness of feeling to excuse her.
Pardon me this lavishness of logic, so
rare with those of our sex. But for the
sake of your happiness, and," she added,
with a bow, "' of mine, I would not have
either of us deceived as to the other's
real worth, nor would I have you think

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, be she angel
or fiend, woman or girl, capable of
being caught with commonplace gal-
lantries."

"Mademoiselle," said the pretended
viscount, whose surprise, thoia^h he con-
cealed it, was immense, and who at once
became a man of the finest manners, " I
beg you to believe that I take ^'ou for a
ver}' noble person, great of heart, and full
of lofty sentiments, or for a kind girl, just
as you choose."

" That is more than I ask for, sir," she
said, laughing. ' ' Leave me my incognito.
Besides, I wear my mask better than you
do, and it jDleases me to keep it on, were
it only for the purpose of knowing" whether
people who talk to me of love are sin-
cere. . . . Therefore, do not play too
bold strokes with me. Listen, sir," she
added, grasping his arm firmly, "if 3-ou
could convince me that you love me trulj',
no power on earth should tear us asunder.
Yes ! I would gladly throw in my lot
with some man's g-reat career, wed with
some huge ambition, share some high
thoughts. Noble hearts are not incon-
stant, for fidelity is one of their strong
points. I. should be loved always, always
happy. But I should not be always ready
to make myself a ladder whereon my be-
loved might mount, to sacrifice mj^self
for him, to bear all from him, to love him
always, even when he had ceased to love
me. I have never yet dared to confide to
another heart the wishes of my own, the
passionate enthusiasm which consumes
me ; but I maj^ say something of the sort
to ,you, since we shall part as soon as 3^ou
are in safety."

"Part? Never!" he cried, electrified
b3^ the speech of this energetic soul, that
seemed wrestling with mighty thoughts.

" Are 3'ou 3- our own master ? " re-
plied she, with a disdainful glance, which
brought hhn to his level.

" M3^ own master ? Yes, except for my
sentence of death."

"Then," she said, with a voice full of
bitter feeling, " if all this were not a
dream, how fair a life were ours ! But if
I have talked follies, let us do none. When
I think of all that you should be if 3^ou

THE CHOUAXS.

are to rate me at my just worth, every-
thing* seems to me doubtful."

•'"'And I should doubt of nothing- if you
would be mine."

" Hush ! "she cried, hearing- these words
spoken with a true accent of passion.
" The fresh air is g-etting* really too much
for \'0u ; let us g-o to our chaperons."

The coach was not long- in catching- the
couple up ; they took their seats once
more, and for some leagues journeyed in
profound silence. But if both had g-ath-
ered matter for abundant thought, their
eyes were no long-ei' afraid of meeting-.
Both seemed equally concerned in watch-
ing each other and in hiding- important
secrets, but both felt the mutual attrac-
tion of a desire which, since their conver-
sation, had acquired the streng-th and
range of a passion; for each had recog--
nized in the other qualities which prom-
ised in their eyes jet livelier delights — it
mig-ht be from conflict, it mig-ht be from
union. Perchance each of them, already
launched on an adventurous career, had
arrived at that strange condition of mind
when, either out of mere weariness or as
a challenge to fate, men simply decline to
reflect seriously on their situation, and
abandon themselves to the chapter of ac-
cidents as they pursue their object, pre-
cisely because exit seems hopeless, and
they are content to wait for the fated
ending. Has not moral, like physical
nature, gulfs and ab3^sses, where strong
minds love to plung-e at the risk of life,
as a gambler loves to stake his whole
fortune ?

The young- noble and Mademoiselle de
A'erneuil had, as it were, a glimpse of
such ideas as these, which both shared,
after the conversation of which they were
the natural sequel ; and thus they made
a sudden and vast stride in intimacy, the
sympathy of their souls following- that
of their senses. Nevertheless, the more
fatally they felt themselves drawn each
to the other, the more interest they took
in mutual study, were it only to aug-ment,
by the result of unconscious calculation,
the amount of their future joys. The
young- mdn, still astonished at the strang-e
g-irl's depth of thoug-ht, asked himself

first how she managed to combine so
much acquired knowledge with so much
freshness and youth. Xext he thought
that he could discern a certain strong de-
sire of appearing- innocent in the extreme
innocence with which Marie endeavored
to imbue her ways ; he suspected her of
feig-ning, found fault with himself for his
delig-ht, and tried to see in the strange
lady nothing- but a clever actress. He
wass rig-ht. Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
like all ^^oung- women who have g-one
much into society, increased her apparent
reserve the warmer were her real feelings,
and assumed in the most natural way in
the world the prudish demeanor under
which women are able to veil their most
violent desires. All of them would, if
they could, present a virg-in front to pas-
sion ; and if \A\Qy cannot, their semblance
of it is still a homage paid to their love.
The 3'oung- noble thoug-ht all this rapidly
enoug-h, and it pleased liim. For both, in
fact, this exchang-e of study was sure to
be an advance in love ; and the lover soon
came, by means of it, to that phase of
passion when a man finds in the very
faults of his mistress reasons for loving-
her more.

The pensiveness of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil lasted longer than the emi-
grant's; it might be that her lively
fancy made her look forward to a long-er
future. The young man merely obeyed
a single one of the thousand feeling-s
which his man's life was sure to make
him experience ; the g-irl saw her whole
life before her, and delig-hted in arrang-ing-
it in beaut\% in filling- it Avith happiness,
with honor, with noble sentiment. Happy
in her own thoug-hts, as much enamored
of her dreams as of reality, of the future
as of the present, Marie tried to hark
back, so as to clinch her hold of the
young- man's heart — an instinctive move-
ment with her, as with all women. She
had made up her mind to surrender en-
tirely ; but she still wished, so to say, to
hag-g-le over details. She would have
willingly revoked everything that she
had done — in speech, in glance, in ac-
tion— during- the past, so as to make it
harmonize with the dignity of a woman

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

who is loved. And so her e^^es exhibited
now and then a kind of affright, as she
thoug-ht of the past conversation in which
she had tal^en so liig-h a ground. But as
she looked on his face — so full of vigor —
she thought that such a being must be
generous as he was strong ; and felt her-
self happy in a lot fairer than that of
most other women, in that she had found
a lover in a man with a character of his
own — a man who, despite the sentence of
death hanging over his liead, had come
of his own accord to stake it, and to make
Avar against the Republic. The thought
of unshared dominion over such a soul
soon presented the color of all actual
things quite differently to her.

There was the difference of a dead and
a living universe between the time when,
some five hours earlier, she had made up
her face and voice to serve as baits for
this gentletnan, and the present moment,
when a look of hers could overcome him.
Her cheerful laughs, her ga^"- coquetries,
hid a depth of passion which presented it-
self, like misfortune, with a smile. In the
state of mind in which Mademoiselle de
Verneuil then was,* outward existence
seemed to her a mere phantasmagoria.
The coach passed villages, valleys, hills,
whereof no impiession charged her mem-
ovy. She came to Mayenne ; the soldiers
of the escort were relieved. Merle spoke
to her, she answered, she crossed the city,
she began her journey afresh ; but faces,
houses, streets, landscapes, men, slipped
by her like tlie unsubstantial shapes of a
dream. Night fell. But Marie traveled
on under a starry heaven, wrapped in
soft light, along the Fougeres road, with-
out even thinking that the face of the
sky had changed, without even knowing
what Mayenne meant, what Fougeres, or
whither she was going. That she might
in a few hours be parted from the man
she had chosen, and who, as she thought,
had chosen her, did not enter her thoughts
as possible. Love is the only passion
which knows nothing of past or future.
If at times her thoughts translated them-
selves into words, the words which es-
caped her were almost destitute of mean-
ing. Yet still they echoed in her lover's

heart like a promise of delight. Both
witnesses of this birth of passion saw
that it grew with terrible rapidity.
Francine knew Marie as well as the
strange lady knew the young man ; and
tlieir knowledge of the past filled them
with silent expectation of some alarming
catastrophe. Nor, as a matter of fact,
were they long in seeing the end of the
drama to which Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil had given, perhaps unconsciously,
the ominous name of tragedy.

The four travelers had journeyed about
a league beyond Mayenne, when they
heard a horseman galloping at the top
of his speed toward them. He had no
sooner caught up the carriage than he
stooped to gaze at Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, who recognized Corentin. This
sinister person permitted himself a mean-
ing gesture, the familiar nature of which
was a kind of insult, and disappeared,
after striking her blood cold with this
vulgar signal. The incident seemed to
strike the . emigrant disagreeably, and
certainl}^ did not escape his so-called
mother; but Marie touched him lightly
and, b^^ a glance, seemed to implore a
refuge in his heart, as if it were the onh^
asylum open to her on earth. The young
man's brow cleared as he felt the pleasur-
able influence of the gesture, in which his
mistress had revealed, as though by over-
sight, the extent of her attachment. A
fear which she did not understand had
banished all her coquetrj', and for an in-
stant love showed himself unveiled ; they
seemed not to dare to speak, as if for fear
of breaking the sweet spell of the moment.
Unluckily, the watchful eye of Madame
du Gua was in their midst ; and she, like
a miser presiding at a feast, seemed to
count their morsels and dole them out
their space of life. Given up to their
happiness, the two lovers arrived, with-
out consciousness of the long journey
they had made, at that part of the road
which is at the bottom of the valley of
Ernee, the first of the three hollows form-
ing- the scene of the events which open
our histor\\ There Francine perceived,
and pointed out to her mistress, some
singular figures which seemed to flit like

THE CffOUANS.

shadows across the trees and amid the
ajoncs v/hich surrounded the fields. But
when the carriage came within range of
these shadows, a volley of musketry (the
balls passing- over their heads) told the
travelers that there was a solid reality in
these apf)aritioiis. The escort had fallen
into an ambuscade.

At this lively fusillade Captain Merle
felt a regret as lively, that he had shared
the miscalculation of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, who, in her belief that a quick
march by night would be exposed to no
danger, had only allowed him to take
some threescore men. Under Gerard's
orders the captain at once divided his
little force into two columns, so as to take
the two sides of the road, and each officer
set out at a brisk run across the fields of
broom and ajoncs, desirous to engage the
enemy without even waiting to discover
their numbers. The Blues began to beat
these thick bushes to left and to right
with a valor by no means tempered with
discretion, and replied to the Chouans'
attack by a well-sustained fire into the
broom-tufts whence the hostile shots
came. Mademoiselle de Verneuil's first
impulse had been to leap from the coach
and run back, so as to put as long a space
as possible between herself and the battle-
field ; but then, ashamed of her fear, and
influenced by the natural desire to show
nobly in the eyes of a beloved object, she
stood motionless, and tried to watch the
combat calml3\ The emigrant followed
her movements, took her hand and placed
it on his heart,

'•' I was afraid,'' she said, smiling, ''^but
now — '^

At that moment her maid exclaimed
in a fright, *' Marie! take care!" But
Francine, who had made as though to
spring from the carriage, felt herself
stopped by a strong hand, the enormous
weight of which drew a sharp cry from
her. But when she turned her head and
recognized the face of Marche-a-Terre, she
became silent.

"To your mistake, then," said the
stranger to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, '' I
shall owe the discovery of secrets the
sweetest to the heart. Thanks to Fran-

cine, I learn that 3'ou bear the lovely name
of Marie — Marie, the name which I have
always invoked in my moments of sor-
row I Marie, the name that I shall hence-
forth invoke in my joy, and which I can
never mention without sacrilegiously min-
gling religion and love. Yet can it be a
crime to love and pray at the same time?"
As he spoke each clutched the other's hand
tight, and they gazed in silence at each
other, the very excess of their feeling de-
priving them of the ability to express it.
"There is no danger for you," said
Marche-a-Terre roughly to Francine, in-
fusing into his voice, naturally harsh and
guttural, a sinister tone of reproach, and
emphasizing his words in a manner which
struck the innocent peasant with terror.
Never before had the poor girl seen feroc-
ity in the looks of Marche-a-Terre. Moon-
light seemed the only suitable illumina-
tion for his aspect ; and the fierce Breton,
his bonnet in one hand, his heavy rifle in
the other, his form huddled together like
a gnome's, and wrapped in those floods
of pallid light which give such weird out-
lines to all shapes, looked a creature of
fairy -land rather than of the actual world.
The appearance, and the reproach it ut-
tered, had also a ghost-like rapidit3^ He
turned abruptlj^ to Madame du Gua and
exchanged some quick words with her, of
which Francine, who had almost forgot-
ten her Low-Breton, could catch nothing.
The lady appeared to be giving repeated
commands to Marche-a-Terre, and the
brief colloquy ended by an imperious
gesture with which she pointed to the
two lovers. Before obeying, Marclie-a-
Terre cast a final glance at Francine;
he seemed to pity her, and to wish to
speak to her; but the Breton girl under-
stood that her lover's silence was due to
orders. The man's tanned and rugged
skin seemed to wrinkle on his forehead,
and his eyebrows were strongly con-
tracted. "Was he resisting a fresh order
to kill Mademoiselle de Verneuil? The
grimace no doubt made him look more
hideous than ever to Madame du Gua ;
but the flash of his eye took a gentler
meaning for Francine, who, guessing
from it that her woman's will could still

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

master the energy of this wild man, hoped
still to reig-n, under God, over his savage
heart. The sweet converse in which
Marie was eng-ag-ed was interrupted by
Madame du Gua, who came up and
caiig-ht hold of her, uttering- a cry as if
there were some sudden dangrer. But
her real object was merely to g-ive one of
the members of the Alencon Royalist
committee, whom she recognized, an
opportunity of speaking freely to the
emigrant.

" Do not trust the girl you met at ' The
Three Moors.' "

Having whispered these words in the
3'oung man's ear, the Chevalier de Va-
lois, mounted on a Breton ponj^, disap-
peared in the broom from which he had
just emerged. At the same moment the
musketry swelled into a rolling fire of as-
tonishing briskness, but no close fighting
took place.

''Adjutant," said Clef -des-Coeurs, "may
it not be a feigned attack, in order to carry
off our travelers, and put them to ran-
som? "

"The devil take me if you have not hit
it ! " cried Gerard, hastening back to the
road.

But at the same time the Chouans' fire
slackened, for the real object of the skir-
mish had been to effect the communication
which the chevalier had made to the
young man. Merle, who saw them mak-
ing off in no great numbers across the
hedges, did not think it worth while to
entangle himself in a struggle which
could not be profitable, and might be
dangerous ; while Gerard with an order
or two reformed the escort on the road,
and began his march once more, having"
suffered no losses. The captain had an
opportunitj'' of offering his hand to Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, that she might take
her seat, for the young nobleman re-
mained standing as if thunderstruck.
Surprised at this, the Parisian girl got
in without accepting the Republican's
courtesy. She turned toward lier lover,
saw his motionless attitude, and was
stupefied at the change which the cheva-
lier's mysterious words had produced.
The young emigrant came slowly back,

and his air showed a deep sense of dis-
gust.

"Was I not right?" whispered Ma-
dame du Gua in his ear, as she walked
Avith him back to the carriage; "we are
certainly in the hands of a creature who
has entered into a bargain for ^^^our life.
But since she is fool enough to fall in love
with 3^ou, instead of attending to her busi-
ness, do not 3^ourself behave childishly,
but feign love for her, till we have reached
the Vivetiere. When we are once there —
But can he be actually in love with her
already ? " said she to herself, seeing the
young man motionless in his place, like
one asleep.

The coach rolled almost noiselessly along
the sand}^ road. At the first glance that
Mademoiselle de Verneuil cast around
her, all seemed changed. Death was
alread}^ creei^ing upon her love. There
was nothing, perhaps, but a mere shade of
difference, but such a shade, in the eyes
of a loving woman, affords as great a
contrast as the liveliest colors. Francine
had understood by March e-a-Terre's look
that the destiny of Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, over which she had bidden him
watch, was in other hands than his ; and
she exhibited a pale countenance, unable
to refrain from tears, when her mistress
looked at her. The unknown lady hid
but ill, under feigned smiles, the spite of
feminine revenge, and the sudden change
which her excessive attentions toward
Mademoiselle de Verneuil infused into her
attitude, her voice, and her features, was
of a nature to give alarm to a sharp-
sighted person. So Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil instinctively shuddered, asking her-
self the while, " Why did I shudder ? she
is his mother;" and then she trembled
all over as she suddenly said to herself,
"But is she really his mother?" She
saw before her an abyss which was finally
illuminated by a last glance which she
cast at the stranger. " The woman loves
him ! " she thought, "But whj^ load me
with attentions, after showing me so
much coolness ? Am I lost ? Or is she
afraid of me ? "

As for the emigrant, he grew red and
pale by turns, and preserved a. calm ap-

THE CHOUANS.

pearance only by dropping' liis eyes so as
to h^de the singular emotions which dis-
turbed him. The ag-reeable curve of his
lips was spoiled by their being- tig'htlj'-
pinched, and his complexion yellowed
with the violence of his stormy thoug"hts.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil could not even
discover whether there was any love left
amid this rage. But the road, which at
this spot was lined with trees, became
dark, and prevented the silent actors in
this drama from questioning* each other
with their e^'es. The sig-hing- of the wind,
the rustle of the tufted trees, the meas-
ured pulse of the escort's tramp, gave
the scene that solemn character which
quickens the heart's beats. It was not
possible for Mademoiselle de Verneuil to
seek long in vain for the cause of the
chang-e. The remembrance of Corentin
passed like lightning across her mind,
and brought with it the image, as it
were, of her true destiny, suddenly ap-
pearing- before her. For the first time
since the morning she reflected seriously
on her position. Till that moment she
had simply let herself enjoy the happiness
of loving without thinking- either of her-
self or of the future. Unnble any longer
to endure her anguish, she waited with
the g-entle patience of love for one of the
young man's glances, and returned it
with one of such lively' supplication, with
a pallor and a shudder possessing- so
thrilling an eloquence, that he wavered.
But the catastrophe was only the more
thorough.

''Are you ill, mademoiselle ? " he
asked.

The voice without a touch of. kindness,
the question itself, the look, the gesture,
all helped to convince the poor girl that
the incidents of the day had been part of
a soul-mirage, which was vanishing- like
the shapeless wreck which the wind car-
ries away.

" Am I ill ? " she replied, with a forced
laugh. *•' I was going- to put the same
question to you."

'■ I thought you understood each other,"
said*Madame du Gua, with assumed good-
humor.

But neither the 3'oung nobleman nor

Mademoiselle de Verneuil answered. She,
doubly offended, was indignant at finding-
her mighty beauty without might. She
knew well enoug-h that at any moment
she pleased she could learn the enig-ma
of the situation ; but she felt little curios-
ity to penetrate it, and, for the first time,
perhaps, a woman recoiled before a se-
cret. Human life is sadly prolific of cir-
cumstances where, in consequence it may
be of too deep a study, it maj^ be of some
sudden disaster, our ideas lose all co-
herence, have no substance, no reg-ular
starting--point ; where th*e present finds
all the bonds cut which unite it to the
future and the past. Such was Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil's state. She reclined,
her head bent, in the back of the car-
riage, and lay like an uprooted shrub,
speechless and suttering. Sue looked at
no one, wrapped herself in grief, and
abode with such persistence in the strange
world of grief where the unhappy take
refuge, that she lost sight of things
around. Ravens passed, croaking, OA-er
the heads of the party, but thoug-h, like
all strong minds, she kept a corner of her
soul for superstitions, she paid no atten-
tion to them. The travelers journeyed
for some time in total silence.

'' Parted alread3^ ! " thought Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil to herself. " Yet noth-
ing round me has told tales! Can it.be
Corentin ? He has no interest in doing-
so. Who has arisen as my accuser? I
had scarcely begun to be loved, and lo I
the horror of desertion is already upon
me. I sowed affection and I reap con-
tempt. Is it my fate, then, always to
come in sig-ht of happiness and always to
lose it ? "

She was feeling a trouble strange to
her- heart, for she loved really and for the
first time. Yet she was not so much given
up to her grief but that she could find
resources against it in the pride natural
to a 3'oung and beautiful woman. She
had not published the secret of her love —
a secret which tortures will often fail to
draw forth. She rallied ; and, ashamed
of giving the measure of her passion by
her silent suffering, she shook her head
gayly, showed a smiling face, or rather a

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

smiling- mask, and put constraint on her
voice to disguise its altered tone.

"Where are we ?" she asked of Captain
Merle, who still kept his place at a little
distance from the coach.

" Three leag-ues and a half from Fou-
g-eres, mademoiselle."

"Then, we shall g-et there soon?" she
said, to tempt him to enter on a conver-
sation in which she intended to show the
young captain some favor.

" These leagues," answered Merle, over-
joyed, " are not very long- in themselves ;
but in this coantry they take the liberty
of never coining- to an end. When you
reach the summit of the ridge we are
climbing, you will perceive a valley like
that which we shall soon quit, and on the
horizon you will then see the summit of
the Pilgrim.* Pray God, the Chouans
may not try to play a return match
there ! Now you can understand that in
g-oing up and down like this, one does not
make much progress. From the Pilgrim
you will then see — "

As he spoke, the emigrant started a
second time, but so slig-htly that only
Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed the
start.

"What is the Pilg-rim?" asked the
young' lady briskly, interrupting- the
captain's lecture on Breton topograph3\

"It is," answered Merle, "' a hilltop
which gives its name to the valley of
Maine, whereupon we are g'oing- to enter,
and which separates that province frOm
the valley of the Couesnon. At the other
end of this valley is Fougeres, the first
town in Brittany. We had a fight there,
at the end of Vend emia ire, with the Gars
and his brigands. We were escorting-
isome conscripts, who, to save themselves
from leaving their country, wanted to kill
us on the border line. But Hulot is an
ug-ly cjastomer, and he gave them — "

" Then, you must have seen the Gars ?"
asked she. " What sort of a man is he ? "

And as she spoke she never took her
piercing and sarcastic glance off the
pretended Viscount de Bauvan.

"Well, reall}', mademoiselle," said
Merle, who was doomed to be inter-
rupted, "he is so like the Citizen du

Gua that if he did not wear the uniform
of the Ecole Polytechnique, I would bet
tliat it is he."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil g-azed at the
young- man, who, cool and motionless,
continued to reg-ard her with contempt.
She saw nothing- in him that could betray
a feeling of fear ; but she let him know
by a bitter smile that she was discovering-
the secret he had so dishonorably kept.
And then, in a mocking- voice, her nostrils
quivering- with joy, her head on one side,
so as to look at Merle and examine the
3'Oung- noble at the same time, she said
to the Republican :

"The First Consul, captain, is very
much concerned about this chief. He is
a bold man, the^y saj'^ ; only, he has a
habit of too giddily undertaking- cer-tain
enterprises, especially when women are
concerned."

" That is just what we reckon upon,"
said the captain, " to pay off our score
with him. Let us get hold of him for only
a couple of hours, and we will put a little
lead into his skull. If he met us, the g-en-
tleman from Coblentz would do the same
by us, and send us to the dark place, and
so one good turn deserves another."

"Oh!" said the emigrant, "there is
nothing- to fear. Your soldiers will never
get as far as the Pilgrim — they are too
weary — and, if you please, they can rest
but a step from here. My mother alig-hts
at the Vivetiere, and there is the road to
it some gunshots off. These two ladies
will be glad to rest ; they must be tired
after coming without a halt from Alencon
here. And since mademoiselle," said he,
turning with forced politeness toward
her, "has been so g-enerous as to im-
part to our journey at once safety and
enjoyment, she will perhaps condescend
to accept an invitation to sup with my
mother? What is more, captain," he
added, addressing Merle, "the times are
not so bad but that a hogshead of cider
may turn up at the Vivetiere for 3'our men
to tap. The Gars can hardly have made
a clean sweep ; at least, my mother thinks
so—"

" Your mother ? " interrupted Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil, ironically catching him

THE CHOUANS.

up, and making- no reply to the unusual
Invitation which was made to her.

''Has the evening- made my age in-
credible to you, mademoiselle ? " answered
Madame du Gua. ''I was unfortunate
enough to be married very young; my
son was born when I was fifteen — "

" Surely you mistake, madame ; do you
not mean thirty ? "

Madame du Gua grew pale, as she had
to swallow this insult ; she would have
given much for vengeance, but found
herself obliged to smile, for she was anx-
ious at any price, even that of suffering
the most biting epigrams, to find out
what the girl's real intentions were, and
so she pretended not to have understood.

'' Tlie Chouans have never had a more
cruel leader than the Gars, if we are to
believe the reports about him," said she,
addressing Francine and her mistress at
the same time.

''Oh! I do not think him cruel," an-
swered Mademoiselle de Verneuil; "but
he knows how to tell falsehoods, and
seems to me very credulous. Now, a
partisan chief should be no one's dupe."

"You know him, then?" asked the
young emigrant, coldly.

"No," she replied, with a disdainful
glance at him; " I thought I knew him — "

" Oh ! mademoiselle, he is certainly a
keen hand," said the captain, shaking
his head, and giving to the word he used
(malin), bj^ an expressive gesture, the
special shade of meaning which it then
had and has now lost. " These old stocks
sometimes throw otf vigorous suckers.
He comes from a country where the ci-
devants are, they say, not exactly in
clover ; and men, you see, are like med-
lars— they ripen on the straw. If the
fellow keeps his wits about him, he may
give us a long- dance. • He has found out
the way to meet our free companies with
light companies, and to neutralize all the
Government's attempts. If we burn a
Royalist village, he burns two belonging
to Republicans. He is carrying on opera-
tions over an immense area ; and thus
obliges us to employ a great number of
troops at a moment when we have none
to spare. Oh ! he knows his business."

" He is the assassin of his country ! "
said Gerard, interrupting the captain with
a deep voice.

"But," said the young noble, "if his
death will deliver the country, shoot him
as soon as you can."

Then he plunged his glance into Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's soul, and there
passed between them one of those scenes
without words whose dramatic vivacity
and intangible finesse speech can very im-
perfectlj'^ render. Danger makes men in-
teresting, and when it is a question of life
and death, the vilest criminal always ex-
cites a little pit3\ Therefore, though
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now con-
fident that her scornful lover was this
redoubted chief, she would not ascertain
the fact at the moment by procuring his
execution. She had another curiosity to
satisfy, and preferring to make her pas-
sion the standard of her faith or doubt,
began a ga,me of hazard with danger.
Her glance, steeped in treacherous scorn,
triumphantlj' pointed out the soldiers to
the young chief, and, while holding up
the image of his peril before him, she took
pleasure in impressing on him the painful
thought that his life depended on a word,
and that her lips were on the point of
opening to pronounce it. Like an Indian
savage, she seemed to put the very linea-
ments of her eneni}' to the question as he
was bound to the stake, and shook her
tomakawk delicately, as though relishing-
a vengeance innocent in effect, and pun-
ishing like a mistress who still loves.

"Had I a son like yours," she said to
the strange lady, who was in evident
alarm, "I should begin to wear mourn-
ing for him on the day when I exposed
him to danger. ' '

She received no answer, and though she
turned her head a score of times, first to-
ward the officers, and then sharply back
toward Madame du Gua, she could not
catch between her and the Gars any se-
cret signal which assured her of a corre-
spondence which she at once suspected
and wished not to suspect — so pleasant is
it to a woman to remain undecided in a
life and death struggle when the word of
decision is hers. The young general wore

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the calmest of smiles, and endured with-
out flinching- the torture to which Made-
moiselle de Verneuil put him. His atti-
tude, and the expression of his features,
spoke a man careless of the danger to
which he had knowing-lj^ exposed himself,
and now and then he seemed to say :
"Here is an opportunity of aveng-ing-
your wounded vanity. Seize it ! I should
be in despair at having- to relinquish my
contempt for you." Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil on her side scrutinized the chief from
the height of hervantag-e with, in appear-
ance, a mixture of insolence and dig-nity —
in appearance only, for at the bottom of
her heart she admired his cool intrepidity.
Delig-hted at discovering that her lover
bore an ancient name (for privilege of this
kind pleases all women), she felt an added
pleasure at meeting him in a situation
where, defending a cause ennobled b,y mis-
for-tune, he was wrestling with all the
might of a strong soul against the Re-
public which had so often prevailed, and
at seeing him grappling with danger and
showing the prowess which has such
power over women's hearts. So she
tried him afresh a score' of times, fol-
lowing perhaps the instinct which leads
a woman to plaj'' with her victim as a cat
plays with the captured mouse.

" On what legal authority do you doom
the Chouans to death ? " asked she of
Merle.

'•' Why, on that of the law of the 14th
of l-ast Fructidor, which outlaws the
revolted departments and establishes
courts-martial in them," replied the Re-
publican.

" What is the immediate reason which
gives me the honor of your attention ? "
said she to the young chief, who was ex-
amining her carefully.

' • It is a feeling which a gentleman can-
not express to any woman, whosoever she
be," answered the Marquis of Montauran,
in a low voice, stooping- toward her. " It
was worth Avhile," added he aloud, "^ to
live at this time, in order to see girls *

* There is no word in which Frencli has a moi'e
unfair advantage over its translators than the
double sense of fille, which can be used indiffer-
ently in the same breath as simply " girl," and as

playing the executioner, and outvying
him in their ax-play."

She gazed at Montauran ; then, de-
lighted at receiving a public insult from
the man at the moment when his life was
in her hands, she said in his ear, with a
laugh of gentle mockery, "Your head is
not good enough. No executioner would
care for it, and I will keep it for myself."

The astonished marquis stared for some
time at this strange girl, whose love was
still the lord of all, even of the most
stinging insults, and who took her ven-
geance by pardoning an offense which
women never forgive. His eyes lost
something of their cold severity, and a
touch of melancholy suffused his features.
His passion was already stronger than he
himself knew. Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
contented with this pledge, slight as it
was, of the reconciliation she had sought,
gave the chief a tender look, threw at
him a smile which was very like a kiss,
and then lay back in the carriage, un-
willing- to play any more tricks with the
future of this comedy of happiness, and
thinking that she had knitted his bonds
afresh by the smile. She was so beautiful !
She was so cunning in making the course
of love run smooth ! She was so accus-
tomed to take everything in sport, to
walk as chance chose ! She was so fond
of the unforeseen and the storms of life !

In accordance wath the marquis's orders,
the carriage shortly after left the high-
wa}^, and made for the Vivetiere along a
hollow lane shut in by high slopes planted
with apple trees, which turned it into a
ditch rather than a road . The travelers
left the Blues behind them to make their
slow^ way to the manor-house, whose gray
roofs appeared and disappeared by turns
between the trees of the lane, where not
a few soldiers had to fall out to wrench
their shoes from the tenacious cla3^

" This looks very much like the road to
Paradise ! " Cried Beau-Pied.

Thanks to the postilion, who knew his
way, no long time passed before Made-
conveying a gross insult. It may not be an en-
viable privilege, but it exists. The somewhat
similar play on mauvaise Ute ' below ' is less
idiomatic.

THE CHOUANS.

moiselle de Verneuil saw the Chateau de
la Vivetiere. The house, perched on a
kind of promontory, was defended and
surrounded by two deep ponds, which left
no way of access but by following- a narrow
causeway. The part of the peninsula on
which the building-s and the gardens la^^
was further protected for a certain dis-
tance behind the chateau by a wide moat,
receiving the overflow of the ponds with
which it communicated. It was thus in
fact an almost impregnable island, and an
invaluable refuge for any leader, since he
could not be surprised except by treachery.
As she heard the rusty hinges of the g-ate
creak, and passed under the pointed arch
of the gateway, which had been in ruin
since the late war. Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil put her head out, and the sinister
colors of the picture which met her eyes
almost effaced the thoughts of love and of
coquetry with which she had been lulling
herself. The carriage entered a large
courtyard, almost square in shape, and
inclosed by the steep banks of the ponds.
These wild embankments, bathed by
waters covered with huge green patches,
were unadorned save by leafless trees of
aquatic species, whose stunted trunks and
huge tufted heads, rising above rushes
and brushwood, resembled grotesque stat-
ues. These uncomely hedg'es seemed en-
dowed with life and speech as the frogs
left them croaking, and the water-hens,
awaked by the noise of the coach, flut-
tered flapping over the surface of the
ponds. The court^^ard, surrounded by
tall, withered grass, by ajoncs, by dwarf
and climbing shrubs, was destitute of all
appearance of neatness or splendor. The
chateau itself appeared to have been long
deserted ; the roofs seemed crumbling
under their weight of vegetation ; the
walls, though built of the solid schistous
stone which the soil supplies in abundance,
were full of cracks to which the ivy clung.
Two wings, connected at right angles
by a lofty tower, and facing the pond,
made up the whole chateau, whose doors
and blinds hanging rotten, whose rusty
balustrades and shattered windows
seemed likely to fall at the first breath
of tempest. The night breeze whistled
Balzac — d

through the ruins, to which the moon
with its uncertain light lent the character
and semblance of a huge specter. The
colors of this blue and gray granite, con-
trasted with the black and yellow schist,
must have been seen in order to recognize
the truth of the image which this dark
and empty carcass suggested. Its stones
wrenched asunder, its unglazed casements,
its crenelated tower, its roofs open to the
sky, gave it exactly the air of a skeleton ;
and the very birds which took to flight
hooting gave an additional stroke to this
vague resemblance. Some lofty fir trees,
planted behind the house, waved their
dark foliage above the roof, and some
yews, originally trained to give ornament
to the corners, now framed it with melan-
choly drapery-like funeral palls. Lastly,
the shape of the doors, the rude style of
the ornamentation, the lack of uniformity
in the buildings, were all characteristic of
one of those feudal manor-houses whereon
Brittany prides herself ; and not without
reason, perhaps, inasmuch as they enrich
this Gaelic country with a sort of history
in monuments of the shadowy times pre-
ceding the general establishment of the
monarch3^ Mademoiselle de Verneuil, in
whose fancy the word " chateau " always
took the shape of a conventional type,
was struck by the funereal aspect of the
picture, jumped lightly from the coach
and stood alone, gazing- full of alarm,
and wondering what she had better do.
Francine heard Madame du Gua give
a sigh of joy at finding herself out of
reach of the Blues, and an involuntary
cry escaped her when the gate was shut
and she found herself caged in this kind of
natural fortress. Montauran had darted
quickly to Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
guessing the thoughts that occupied her.

"This chateau," said he, with a touch
of sadness, ''has been shattered by war,
as the projects I built for our happiness
have been shattered by you."

" How so ? " she asked, in deep surprise.

"Are you 'a woman, young, beautiful,
noble, and witty ? ' " he said, with a tone
of irony, repeating to her the words
which she had said to him so coquettishly
in their conversation on the road.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

** Who has told you the contrary ? "

** Some trustworthy friends, who take
an interest in my safety and are watch-
ing to counterplot treachery."

" Treachery !" she said, in a sarcastic
tone. "Are Alencon and Hulot so far
off ? You seem to lack memorj^, an awk-
ward defect for a partisan chief. But
from the moment when friends," she
added, with studied insolence, ''reig-n in
your heart with such omnipotence — he
content with your friends. There is
nothing- comparable to the pleasures of
friendship. Farewell ! I will not set foot
within these walls, nor shall the soldiers
of the Republic." .

She darted toward the gate with an
impulse of scorn and wounded pride, but
her action disclosed a nobility of feeling
and a despair which entirely changed the
ideas of the marquis, who felt the pain of
renouncing his desires too much not to be
imprudent and credulous. He too was
already in love ; and neither of the lovers
had any desire to prolong their quarrel.

"Add one word and I will believe you,"
he said in a beseeching tone.

"One word ? " she said ironically, and
with clinched lips. " One word ? Will
not even one gesture do ? "

"Scold me at least/' said he, trying to
seize a hand which she drew away, "if
indeed you dare to sulk with a rebel
chief who is now as mistrustful and
somber as just now he was confiding
and gay."

Marie looked at the marquis without
anger, and he added :

" You have my secret, and I have not
yours."

But at these words her brow of alabas-
ter seemed to darken. Marie cast an
angry look at the chief, and answered,
" My secret ? Never ! "

In love, every word and every look has
its momentary eloquence, but on this oc-
casion Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave no
precise indication of her meaning, and
clever as Montauran was, the riddle of
the exclamation remained unsolved for
him, though her voice had betrayed some
extraordinary emotion which must have
strongly tempted his curiosity.

"You have," he said, "an agreeable
manner of dispelling suspicion."

" Do you still entertain any ? " she said,
looking him up and down as much as to
say, "Have you any rights over me?"

"Mademoiselle," answered the j'oung
man, with an air at once humble antl
firm, " the power which you exercise over
the Republican troops, this escort — "

"Ah ! 3-ou remind me. Shall I and my
escort," asked she, with a touch of irony,
"will your protectors, I should saj^ be in
safety here ? "

"Yes, on the faith of a gentleman.
Whoever you are, you and yours have
nothing to fear from me."

This pledge was given with an air of
such sincerity and generosity that Made-
moiselle de Verneuil could not but feel
fully reassured as to the fate of the Re-
publicans. She was about to speak, when
the arrival of Madame du Gua silenced
her. This lady had been able either to
hear or to guess part of the conversation
between the lovers, and was not a little
anxious at finding them in a posture
which did not display the least unkindly
feeling. When he saw^ her, the marquis
offered his hand to Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, and started briskly toward the
house as if to rid himself of an unwelcome
companion.

" I am in their way," said the strange
lady, remaining motionless where she
stood, and gazing at the two reconciled
lovers as they made their w^ay slowly
toward the entrance-stairs, where they
halted to talk as soon as they had put a
certain distance between her and them-
selves. "Yes ! yes ! I am in their w^ay,"
she went on, speaking to herself; "but
in a little time the creature shall be no
more in mine ! By Heaven ! the pond
shall be her grave. Shall I not keep your
' faith of a gentleman ' for you ? Once
under water, what has any one to fear F
Will she not be safe there ? "

She was gazing steadily at the clear
mirror of the little lake on the right when
suddenly she heard the brambles on the
bank rustle, and saw by moonlight the
face of March e-a-Terre rising behind
the knotty trunk of an old willow. Only

THE CHOUANS.

those who knew the Chouan could have
made him out in the midst of this crowd
of pollarded stumps, among which his
own form easily confounded itself. Ma-
dame du Gua first threw a watchful look
around her. She saw the postilion leading-
his horses off to a stable in the wing of
the chateau which faced the bank where
Marche-a-Terre was hidden ; while Fran-
cine was making her way toward the two
lovers, who at the moment had forgotten
everything on earth. Then the strange
lady stepped forward with her finger on
her lips to insist on complete silence;
after which the Chouan understood rather
than heard the following words :

" How many of you are here ? "

"Eighty-seven."

"They are only sixty-five."

" Good ! " said the savage, with fero-
cious satisfaction.

Then the Chouan, who kept an eye on
Francine's least movement, dived behind
the willow bark as he saw her turn back
to look for the female foe of whom she
was instinctively watchful.

Seven or eight persons, attracted by
the noise of the carriage-wheels, showed
themselves on the top of the front stair-
way, and cried, " 'Tis the Gars ! 'Tis he !
Here he is ! " At this cry others ran up,
and their presence disturbed the lovers'
talk. The Marquis of Montauran ad-
vanced hastil}'^ toward these gentlemen,
and bade them be silent with a command-
ing gesture, pointing out to them the
head of the avenue where the Republican
troops were debouching. At sight of the
well-known blue uniforms faced with red
and the flashing bayonets, the astounded
conspirators cried :

" Have you come to betra}' us ? "

'' If I had I should hardly warn you of
the danger," answered the marquis, smil-
ing bitterly. "These Blues," he con-
tinued, after a pause, " are the escort of
this young lady, whose generosity has
miraculously^ delivered us from the dan-
ger to which we had nearly fallen victims
in an inn at Alencon.. We will tell 3'ou
the story. Mademoiselle and her escort
are here on my parole, and must be re-
ceived as friends."

Madame du Gua and Francine having
arrived at the steps, the marquis gal-
Ian tl}^ presented his hand to Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil. The group of gentle-
men fell back into two rows, in order
to give them passage, and all strove to
distinguish the stranger's features; for
Madame du Gua had already heightened
their curiosity by making some private
signals. Mademoiselle de Verneuil be-
held in the first apartment a large
table handsomel}^ laid for some score of
guests. This dining-room communicated
with a large salon in which the company
was shortly collected. Both chambers
were in harmony with the spectacle of
ruin which the exterior of the chateau
presented. The wainscot, wrought in
polished walnut, but of rough, coarse,
ill-finished workmanship in very high re-
lief, was wrenched asunder and seemed
ready to fall. Its dark hue added yet
more to the melancholy aspect of rooms
without curtains or mirrors, where a few
pieces of ancient and ramshackle furni-
ture matched with the general effect of
dilapidation. Marie saw maps and plans
Ijdng unrolled on a large table, and in the
corners of the room piles of swords and
rifles. The whole bore witness to an im-
portant conference between the Chouan
and Vandean chiefs. The marquis led
Mademoiselle de Verneuil to a vast worm-
eaten armchair which stood by the fire-
place, and Francine placed herself behind
her mistress, leaning on the back of the
venerable piece of furniture.

"You will excuse me for a moment,
that I may do my duty as host? " said
the marquis, as he left the couple and
mixed in the groups which his guests
formed.

Francine saw the chiefs, in consequence
of a word from Montauran, hastily hiding
their maps, their arms, and everything
that could excite the suspicions of the
Republican officers ; while some laid aside
broad belts which contained pistols and
hangers. The marquis recommended the
greatest possible discretion, and went out
with apologies for the necessity of looking
after the reception of the troublesome
guests that chance was giving him.

100

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who had put
her feet to the fire, endeavoring to warm
them, allowed Montauran to leave with-
out turning- her head, and thus disap-
pointed the expectation of the company,
who were all anxious to see her. The gen-
tlemen gathered round the unknown lady,
and while she carried ©n with them a con-
versation sotto voce, there was not one
who did not turn round more than once
to examine the two strangers.

**You know Montauran," she said,
" he fell in love with the girl at first sight;
and 3'ou can quite understand that the
best advice sounded suspicious to him
when it came from my mouth. Our friends
at Paris, and Messieurs de Valois and
d'Esgrignon of Alencon as well, have all
warned him of the snare that is being
laid for him by throwing some baggage
at his head ; and 3^et he takes up with the
first he meets — a girl who, according to
my information, has stolen a great name
in order to disgrace it," and so forth.

This lady, in whom the reader must
have already recognized the woman who
decided the Chouans on attacking the
turgotine, shall keep henceforward in our
historj^ the appellation which helped her
to escape the dangers of her journey by
Alencon. The publication of her real
name could only offend a distinguished
family, already deeply grieved at the
misconduct of a daughter whose fate has
moreover been the subject of another
drama than this. But the attitude of
inquisitiveness which the company took
soon became impertinent and almost hos-
tile. Some harsh exclamations reached
Francine's ear, and she, after whispering
to her mistress, took refuge in the em-
brasure of a window. Marie herself rose,
turned toward the insulting group, and
cast on them dignified and even scornful
glances. Her beauty, her elegant man-
ners, and her haughtiness, suddenly
changed the disposition of her enemies,
and gained her a flattering murmur of
admiration, which seemed to escape them
against their will. Two or three men,
whose exterior showed those habits of
politeness and gallantry which are learned
in the exalted sphere of a court, drew

near Marie with a good grace. But the
modesty of her demeanor inspired them
with respect ; no one dared to address
her, and she was so far from occupying
the position of accused, that she seemed
to be their judge. Nor had these chiefs
of a war undertaken for God and the king
much resemblance to the fancy portraits
of them which she had amused herself with
drawing. The struggle, great as it really
was, shrunk and assumed mean propor-
tions in her ej'es when she saw before her,
with the exception of two or three vigor-
ous faces, mere country squires destitute
of character and vivacit3^ Marie dropped
suddenly from poetry to plain prose. The
countenances about her gave a first im-
pression rather of a desire to intrigue
than of the love of glor3% It was self-
interest that had reallj^ called these
gentlemen to arms ; and if they became
heroic on actual service, here they showed
themselves in their natural colors.

The loss of her illusions made Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil uajust, and prevented
her from recognizing the sincere devo-
tion which made some of these men so
remarkable. Yet most of them certainlj-
showed a want of distinction in manner,
and the few characteristic heads which
were notable among them were robbed
of grandeur by the formal etiquette of
aristocracy. Even though Marie was
liberal enough to grant shrewdness and
acuteness of mind to these persons, she
found in them a complete lack of the
magnificent simplicity to which she was
accustomed in the successful men of the
Republic. This nocturnal assembly, held
in the ruined fortalice, under grotesque
architectural devices which suited the
faces well enough, made her smile as she
chose to see in it a picture symbolizing the
monarchy. Soon there came to her the
delightful thought that at any rate the
marquis played the most important part
among these folk, whose only merit in
her eyes was their devotion to a lost
cause. She sketched in fancy the form
of her lover among- the crowd, pleased
herself with setting him off against them,
and saw in their thin and meager person-
alities nothing but tools of his great de-

THE OHOUANS.

101

signs. At this moment the marquis's
steps rang- in the neig'hboring room ; the
conspirators suddenly melted into sepa-
rate g-roups, and the whispering ceased.
Like school-boys who had been planning-
some trick during their master's absence,
they eag-erly feig-ned g-ood behavior and
silence. Montauran entered, and Marie
had the happiness of admiring- him among-
these men of whom he was the young-est,
the handsomest, the first.

As a king- does amid his courtiers, he
went from group to g-roup, distributing-
slight nods, hand-shakes, g-lances, words
of intelligence or reproach, playing- his
part of party chief with a grace and
coolness difficult to anticipate in a young
man whom she had at first taken for a
mere g-iddy-pate. The marquis's presence
put an end to the inquisitiveness which
had been busy with Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, but Madame du Gua's ill-nature
soon produced its effect. The Baron du
Guenic (surnamed Ulntime), who, among-
all these men assembled by matte fs of
such g-rave interest, seemed alone entitled
\)y his name and rank to use familiarity
with Montauran, took his arm, and led
him aside.

"Listen, my dear marquis," said he;
" we are all in pain at seeing- you about
to commit an eg-reg-ious piece of folly."

" What do you mean by that ? "

" Do you know where this girl comes
from, who she reall}'' is, and what her
designs on you are ? "

" My dear L'Intime, be it said between
ourselves, my fancy will have passed by
to-morrow morning."

" Granted ; but how if the bag-gage
gives you up before daybreak ? "

" I will answer 3^ou when you tell me
why she has not done so already," re-
plied Montauran, assuming in jest an
air of coxcombry.

**Why, if she likes you, she probably
would not care to betray jou %il\ her
fancy, too, has 'passed.' "

''My dear fellow, do look at that
charming girl. Observe her waj's, and
then saj^, if you dare, that she is not a
lad3'. If she cast favoring eyes on you,
would you not in your inmost soul feel

some respect for her ? A dame whom we
know has prejudiced you against her.
But after the conversation we have had,
if I found her to be one of the wantons
our friends speak of, I would kill her."

" Do you think," said Madame du Gua,
breaking into the talk, '•' that Fouche is
fool enough to pick up the girl he sends
against you at a street-corner ? He has
proportioned her charms to your ability.
But if 3'^ou are blind your friends must
keep their eyes open to watch over 3'OU."

" Madame," answered the Gars, dart-
ing an angry glance at her, " take care
not to attempt an3rthing against this
young person, or against lier escort,
otherwise nothing shall save you from
my vengeance. I will have the young
lad3'' treated with the greatest respect,
and as one who belongs to me. We
have, I believe, some connection with
the Verneuils."

The opposition with which the marquis
met had the usual effect of similar ob-
stacles on 3'oung people. Although he
had in appearance treated Mademoiselle
de Verneuil ver3'- cavalierh', and had made
believe that his passion for her was a
mere caprice, he had just, in an impulse
of pride, taken a long step forward. After
making the lady's cause his, he found his
honor concerned in her being respectfully
treated ; so he went from group to group
giving assurances, after the fashion of a
man dangerous to cross, that the stranger
was really Mademoiselle de Verneuil ; and
forthwith all murmurs were silenced.
When Montauran had re-established a
kind of peace in the salon and had satis-
fied all exigencies, he drew near Made-
moiselle de Verneuil with an eager air,
and whispered to her :

"These people have deprived me of some
minutes of happiness."

"I am glad to have you near me," an-
swered she, laughing. " I warn you that
I am curious ; so do not be too tired of my
questions. Tell me fii-st who is that good
man who wears a green cloth waistcoat?"

'' 'Tis the well-known Major Brigaut, a
man of the Marais, comrade of the late
Mercier, called La Vendee."

"And who is the fat, red-faced priest

102

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

with whom he is just now talking- about
me? " went on Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

"You want to know what they are
sa^'ing"? "

" Do I want to know ? Do 3'ou call
that a question?"

" But I cannot tell you without insult-
ing- you."

''^ As soon as you allo^v me to be in-
sulted without exacting vengeance for the
insults proffered me in yonv house, fare-
well, marquis ! I will not stay a moment
long-er here ; as it is, I am ashamed of
deceiving these poor Republicans who are
so loyal and confiding; " and she made
some steps, but the marquis followed
her.

*^My dear Marie, listen to me. On my
honor, I silenced their unkind words before
knowing whether they are true words or
false. Nevertheless, in my situation, when
our allies in theGovernment oflB.ces at Paris
have warned me to mistrust every kind of
woman 1 meet on my path, telling- me at
the same time that Fouche has made up
his mind to employ some street-walking
Judith against me, my best friends may
surel}'- be pardoned for thinking that you
are too beautiful to be an honest wo-
man— "

And as he spoke the marquis plunged
his eyes into those of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, who blushed, and could not keep
back her tears.

"1 deserved this insult," she said. " I
would fain see you sure that I am a worth-
less creature, and yet know myself loved;
then I should doubt you no more. For
mj part, I believed you when you deceived
me, and j^ou disbelieve me when I speak
the truth. Enough of this, sir," she said,
frowning-, and with the paleness of ap-
proaching death on her face ; " adieu ! "

She dashed from the room with a de-
spairing movement ; but the young- mar-
quis said in her ear, ''Marie! my life is
yours ! "

She stopped and looked at him. " No !
no 1 " she said. ''I am g-enerous. Fare-
well ! I thoug-ht not, as I came with .you,
of my past or of your future . I was m ad ! "
'- What ! you leave me at the moment
when I offer you mj-^ life ? "

" You are offering it in a moment of
passion, of desire — "

'' But without regret, and forever ! "
said he.

She re-entered the room, and to hide his
emotion the marquis continued their con-
versation : " The fat man whose name
you asked me is a redoubtable person.
He is the Abbe Gudin, one of those Jesuits
who are certainly headstrong enough,
and perhaps devoted enough, to remain in
France notwithstanding the edict of 1763,
which banished them. He is a fire-brand
of war in these districts, and the organ-
izer of the association called the Sacrod
Heart. Accustomed to make religion his
tool, he persuades the affiliated members
that they will come to life again, and
knows how to keep up their fanaticism by
clever prophecies. You see, one has to
make use of each man's private interest
to gain a great end. In that lies the
whole secret of politics."

''And the other, in a green old age —
the muscular man whose face is so repul-
sive ? There ! the man dressed in a tat-
tered lawyer's gown."

" Lawyer ! he aspires to the rank of
marechal de camp. Have you never
heard speak of Longuy ? "

"What! 'tis he?" said Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, affrighted. "You emploj''
such men as that ? "

"Hush! he might hear you. Do 3'ou
see the other, engaged in criminal con-
versation with Madame du Gua ? "

"The man in black, who looks like a
judge?"

" He is one of our diplomatists, La Bil-
lardiere, son of a counselor in the Breton
Parliament, whose real name is something
like Flamet, but he is in the princes' con-
fidence."

" And his neighbor, who is just now
clutching his clay pipe, and who rests
all the fingers of his right hand on the
wainscot like a clown?" said Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil, with a laugh.

" You have guessed him, by heavens !
'Tis a former game-keeper of the lady's
defunct husband. He commands one of
the companies with which I meet the
mobile battalions. He and Marche-a-Terre

THE CHOUANS.

103

are perhaps the most conscientious ser-
vants that the king- has hereabouts."

" But she — who is she ? "

"She," continued the marquis, "she is
the last mistress that Charette had. She
has great influence on all these people."

"Has she remained faithful to him ? "

Bat the marquis made no other answer
than a slig-ht grimace, expressing doubt.

" Do 3'ou think well of her ? "

"Really, you are very inquisitive."

"She is my enemy, because she no longer
can be my rival," said Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, laughing. " I forgive her her
past slips ; let her forgive me ujine. And
the officer with the mustaches ? "

" Pardon me if I do not name him. He
wants to get rid of the First Consul b^'
attacking him arms in hand. Whether
he succeeds or not, you will hear of him
some day. He will be famous."

"And you have come to take command
of people like that ?" she said with horror.
" These are the king's defenders ! Where,
then, are the gentlemen, the great lords ?"

"Well," said the marquis, somewhat
tauntingly, " they are scattered about all
the courts of Europe. Who else is enlist-
ing kings, cabinets, armies in the service
of the House of Bourbon, and urging them
against this Republic, which threatens all
monarchies with death, and social order
with complete destruction ? "

"Ah !" she said, with generous emotion,
"be to me henceforth the pure source
whence I may draw such further ideas as
I must learn. I have no objection to that.
But allow me to think that you are the
only noble who does his dutj' b3'- attacking
France with Frenchmen, and not with
foreign aid. I am a woman, and I feel
that if a child of mine struck me in anger,
I could pardon him ; but if he looked on
while a stranger tore me to pieces, I
should regard him as a monster."

"You will always be a Republican,"
said the marquis, delightfully intoxicated
by the glowing tones which confirmed his
hopes.

" A Republican ? I am not that any
more. I could not esteem you if you
were to submit to the First Consul,"
she went on; "but neither would I see

you at the head of men who put a corner
of France to pillage, instead of attacking
the Republic in front. For whom are
you fighting ? What do you expect from
a king restored .to the throne by your
hands ? Once upon a time a woman un-
dertook this same glorious task ; and the
king, after his deliverance, let her be
burned alive ! These royal folk are the
anointed of the Lord, and there is danger
in touching consecrated things. Leave
God alone to place, displace, or replace
them on their purple seats. If you have
weighed the reward which will come to
you, you are ten times greater in my
eyes than I thought you ; and if so, you
may trample me under your feet if you
like; I will gladly permit 3'ou to do so."

"You are charming! Do not teach
your lessons to these gentlemen, or I
shall be left without soldiers."

" Ah ! if you would let me convert you,
we would go a thousand miles hence."

"These men whom you seem to de-
spise," replied the marquis in a graver
tone, "will know how to die in the strug-
gle, and their faults will be forgotten ;
besides, if my attempts meet with some
success, will not the laurels of triumph
hide all else? "

" You are the only man here who seems
to me to have anything to lose."

" I am not the only one," said he, with
real modesty ; " there are two new Ven-
dean chiefs. The first, whom you heard
them call Grand-Jacques, is the Comte
de Fontaine ; the other is La Billardiere,
whom I have pointed outto^'ou already."

" And do you forget Quiberon, where
La Billardiere played a very singular
part ? " said she, struck by a sudden
memorj".

' ' La Billardiere took on himself a great
deal of responsibility ; believe me, the ser-
vice of princes is not a bed of roses."

"Ah! you make me shudder," cried
Marie. "Marquis!" she went on, in a
tone seemingly indicating a reticence,
the mystery of which concerned him
personallj^, " a single instant is enough
to destroy an illusion and to unveil
secrets on which the life and happiness
of many men depend — " She stopped

104

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

herself, as if she feared to say too much,
and added : " I would fain know that the
Republican soldiers are safe,"

''I will be prudent," said he, smiUng-,
to disg-uise his emotion; ''but speak to
me no more of your soldiers. I have
answered for them already, on my honor
as a g-entleman."

" And after all, what rig-ht have I to
lead you ? " said she ; " be you always
the master of us two. Did I not tell you
that it would put me to despair to be
mistress of a slave ? "

''My lord marquis," said Major Brig-aut,
respectfully interrupting this conversa-
tion, "will the Blues stay long here?"

"The3^ will go as soon as they have
rested," cried Marie.

The marquis, directing- inquiring- looks
toward the company, saw that there was
a flutter among- them, left Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, and allowed Madame du Gua
to come and take his place by her side.
This lady wore a mask of laughing perfidy,
which even the young- chief's bitter smile
did not disturb. But at the same moment
Francine uttered a cry which she herself
promptly checked. Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil, astonished at seeing- her faithful
country maid flj'ing toward the dining--
room, turned her gaze on Madame du
Gua, and her surprise increased as she
noted the pallor which had spread over
the face of her enemy. Full of curiosity
to know the secret of this abrupt depart-
ure, she advanced toward the recess of
the window, whither her rival followed
her, with the object of removing- the sus-
picions which her indiscretion might have
excited, and smiled at her with an inde-
finable air of malice, as, after both had
cast a glance on the lake and its land-
scape, they returned together to the fire-
place ; Marie without having seen any-
thing- to justif}^ Francine's flight, Madame
du Gua satisfied that her orders were
obeyed.

The lake, at the edge of which Marche-
^-Terre, like a spirit conjured up by the
lady, had appeared in the court, ran to
join the moat surrounding the g-ardens
in a series of misty reaches, sometimes
broadening- into ponds, sometimes con-

tracted like canals in a park. The steeply
shelving- bank which these clear waters
washed was but some fathoms distant
from the window. Now Francine, who
had been absorbed in watching the bluck
lines sketched b\' the heads of some old
willows on the face of the waters, w^as
g-azing- half absently at the regnlar curves
which the light breeze gaA^e to their
branches. Suddenly it seemed to her
,that she saw one of these shapes moving-
on the watery mirror, with the irregular
and wilfull motion which shows animal
life; the form was vague enoug'h, but
seemed to be human.

Francine at first set her vision down to
the shadowy outlines w^hich ihe moon-
lig-ht produced through the bi'anches ;
but soon a second head showed itself, and
then others appeared in the distance, the
small shrubs on the bank bent and rose
again sharply, and Francine perceived in
the long line of the hedge a gradual mo-
tion like that of a mig-hty Indian serpent
of fabulous contour. Next, diA'^ers pomts
of light flashed and shifted their position
here and there among the brooms and
the tall brambles. Marche-a-Terre's be-
loved redoubled her attention, and in
doing so she seemed to recognize the
foremost of the black figures which were
passing- along- this animated shore. The
man's shape was very indistinct, but the
beating- of her heart assured her that it
w^as really Marche-a-Terre whom she saw.
Convinced by a gesture, and eag-er to
know whether this mysterious movement
hid some treachery or not, she darted to-
ward the court3'ard, and when she had
reached the middle of this green expanse,
she scanned by turns the tw^o wings and
the two banks without observing any
trace of this secret movement in the bank
which faced the uninhabited part of the
building. She strained her ear, and
heard a slight rustle like that which the
steps of a wild beast might produce in the
silent woods ; she shuddered, but she did
not tremble. Young and innocent as she
still was, curiositj^ quicklj' suggested a
trick to her. She saw the carriage, ran
to it, hid herself in it, and only raised her
head with the caution of the hare in

THE CHOUANS,

105

whose ears the echo of the far-off hunt
resounds. Then she saw Pille-Miche com-
ing' out of the stable. The Chouan was
accompanied by two peasants, all three
carrying- trusses of straw ; these the^-
spread out in such a manner as to make
a long" bed of litter before the deserted
wing- and parallel to the bank with the
dwarf trees, where the Chouans were
moving with a silence which g'ave evi-
dence of the preparation of some hideous
stratagem.

" You are g"iving them as much straw
as if they were really g-oing- to sleep here.
Enough, Pille-Miche, enoug-h ! " said a
low, harsh voice, which Francine knew.

" Will fhey not sleep there ?" answered
Pille - Miche, emitting a foolish guffaw.
" But are you not afraid that the Gars
will be ang-ry ? " he added, so low that
Francine could not hear him.

" Well, suppose he is ang-ry," replied
Marche-a-Terre under his breath : " we
shall have killed the Blues all the same.
But," he went on, '* there is a carriage
which we two must run in."

Pille-Miche drew the coach b}' the pole
and Marchc-a-Terre pushed one of the
wheels so smartly that Francine found
herself in the barn, and on the point of
being- shut up there, before she had had
time to reflect on her position. Pille-
Miche went forth to help in bring-ing- in
the cask of cider which the marquis had
ordered to be served out to the soldiers
of the escort, and Marche-a-Terre was
passing- b^' the coach in order to g-o out
and shut the door, when he felt himself
stopped by a hand which caught the long-
h-air of his goatskin. He met certain eyes
whose sweetness exercised magnetic power
over him, and he stood for a moment as
if bewitched. Francine jumped briskly
out of the carriage, and said to him in
the aggressive tone which suits a vexed
woman so admirably.

" Pierre, what was the news you brought
to that lady and her son on the highway ?
"What are they doing here ? Why are you
hiding ? I will know all ! "

At these words the Chouan's face took
an expression which Francine had never
known him to wear. The Breton led his

innocent mistress to the door-step, and
there turning her face toward the white
blaze of the moon, he answered, staring
at her with a terrible look :

*' Yes, Francine, I will tell you, by my
damnation ! but oxi\j when 3'ou have
sworn on these beads," and he drew an
old rosarj^ from underneath the goatskin,
'' on this relic which you know," he went
on, **to answer me truly one single ques-
tion."

Francine blushed as she looked at the
beads, which had doubtless been a love-
token between them.

" On this it was," said the Chouan, with
a voice full of feeling, " that you swore — "
but he did not finish. The peasant girl
laid her hand on the lips of her wild
lover to silence him.

" Need I swear ? " said she.

He took the young girl gently b}^ the
hand, gazed at her for a minute and went
on : '* Is the 3'^oung lady whom you serve
really named Mademoiselle de Verneuil ? "

Francine stood with her arms hanging
by her sides, her e^'elids drooping, her
head bent. She was pale and speechless.

" She is a wanton ! " continued Marche-
a-Terre in a terrible voice. As he spoke
the pretty hand tried to cover his lips
once more ; but this time he started \'io-
lently back, and the Breton girl saw be-
fore her no longer a lover, but a wild
beast in all the savagery of its nature.
The Chouan's eyebrows were fiercelj^ con-
tracted, his lips were drawn back, and
he showed his teeth like a dog at bay
in his master's defense. "1 left you a
flower, and I find you carrion ! Ah ! why
did we ever part ? You have come to
betray us — to dehver up the Gars ! "

His v/ords were rather bellowings than
articulate speech. But though Francine
was in terror at this last reproach, she
summoned courage to look at his fierce
face, raised eyes as of an angel to his,
and answered calmly : " I will stake my
salvation that that is false. These are
the notions of your ladj'^ there ! "

He lowered his e3^es in turn. Then she
took his hand, turned toward him with
a caressing movement, and said : "■ Pierre,
what have we to do with all this ? Listen

106

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

to me : I cannot tell how 3^011 can under-
stand anji^hing- of it, for I understand
nothing- ! But remember that this fair
and noble young- lady is my benefactress,
that she is yours too, and that we live
like two sisters. No harm must ever
happen to her when we are by, at least
in our life-time. Swear to me that it
shall be so. I have no one here to trust
to but you ! "

" I am not master here ! " replied the
Chouan, sulkily, and his face darkened.
She took hold of his great flapping- ears
and twisted them g-ently, as if she was
playing with a cat.

^'Well," said she, seeing- him look less
stern, " promise me that you will use
all the power j^ou have in the service of
our benefactress."

He shook his head, as if doubtful of
success, and the g-esture made the Breton
girl shudder. At this critical moment
the escort reached the causewa.y. The
tramp of the soldiers and the rattle
of their arms woke the echoes of the
courtyard, and seemed to decide Marche-
a-Terre.

"I will save her — perhaps," he said to
his mistress, ''if you can manage to
make her stay in the house ; " and he
added, " Stay you by her there, and
observe the deepest silence ; if not, I
answer for nothing ! "

" I promise," she answered in her
affright.

" Well, then, go in. Go in at once,
and hide your fear from everybody,
even your mistress."

"Yes."

She pressed the hand of the Chouan,
who looked at her with a fatherly air
while she flitted lig-htly as a bird to the
entrance steps. Then he plunged into
the hedge like an actor who runs into
the wing-s when the curtain rises on a
tragedy.

" Do you know. Merle, that this place
looks to me just like a mousetrap ! "
said Gerard, as he reached the chateau.

"1 see it myself," said the captain,
thoughtfully.

The two officers made haste to post
sentries so as to make sure of the g-ate

and the causeway; then they cast mis-
trustful looks at the banks and the
surrounding- landscape.

''Bah! " said Merle, "we must either
enter this old barrack with confidence
or not g-o in at all."

" Let us g-o in," said Gerard.

The soldiers, dismissed from the ranks
\)j a word of their leaders, quickly stacked
their muskets and pitched the colors in
front of the bed of straw, in the midst
whereof appeared the cask of cider. Then
they broke into groups, and two peasants
began to serve out butter and rye-bread
to them. The marquis came to receive
the two officers, and conducted them to
the salon ; but when Gerard had mounted
the steps and had g-azed at the two wing-s
of the building where the old larches
spread their black boughs, he called Beau-
Pied and Clef-des-Coeurs to him,

" You two are to explore the g-ardens
between you, and to beat the hedg-es. Do
3'ou understand ? Then you will post a
sentry by the stand of colors."

" May we light our fire before beg-in-
ning- the hunt, adjutant ?" said Clef-des-
Coeurs ; and Gerard nodded.

"Look you, Clef-des-Coeurs," said Beau-
Pied, "the adjutant is wrong to run his
head into this wasp's-nest. If Hulot was
in command he would never have jammed
himself up. We are in a kind of stew-
pan ! "

"You are a donkey," replied Clef-des-
Coeurs. " Why, can't you, the king of
all sly fellows, guess that this watch-box
is the chateau of that amiable young- lady
after whom our merrj^ Merle, the most
accomplished of captains, is whistling ?
He will marry her ; that is as clear as a
well-polished bayonet. She will do the
demi-brigade credit, a woman like that ! "

"True," said Beau-Pied; "and you
mig-ht add that this cider is g-ood. But
I can't drink in comfort in front of these
beastty hedg-es. I seem to be always see-
ing before me Larose and Vieux-Chapeau
as they tumbled into the ditch on the
Pilgrim. I shall remember poor Larose's
pig-tail all my life. It wagg-ed like a
knocker on a street door."

"Beau-Pied, my friend, you have too

THE CHOUANS.

107

much imagination for a soldier. You
ought to make song-s at the National In-
stitute."

**If I have too much imagination/'' re-
plied Beau-Pied, "you have got none. It
will he some time before they make you
consul ! "

A laugh from the soldiers put an end
to the conversation, for Clef-des-Coeurs
found he had no cartridge in his box as
an answer to his adversary.

" Are you going to make your rounds ?
I will take the right hand," said Beau-
Pied.

''All right, I wiU take the left," an-
swered his comrade ; "but wait a minute
first. I want to drink a glass of cider ;
my throat is gummed up like the stick-
ing-plaster on Hulot's best hat."

Now, the left-hand side of the garden,
which Clef-des-Coeurs thus neglected to
explore at once, was unluckily that very
dangerous banlc where Francine had seen
men moving. All is chance in war.

As Gerard entered the salon and bowed
to the company, he cast a penetrating
glance on the men of whom that eompan3^
was composed. His suspicions returned
upon his mind with greater strength than
ever ; he suddenly went to Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, and said to her in a low tone,
"I think 3'ou had better withdraw quick-
\y ; we are not safe here."

" Are 3'ou afraid of an^'thing in my
house?" she asked, laughing. "You
are safer here than 30U would be at
Mayenne."

A woman always answers confidently
for her lover ; and the two officers were
less anxious.

The companj^ immediately went into
the dining-room, in spite of some casual
mention of a somewhat important guest
who was late. Mademoiselle de Verneuil
was able, thanks to the usual silence at
the beginning of dinner, to bestow some
attention on this assembly, which in its
actual circumstances was curious enough,
and of which she was in a manner the
cause, in virtue of the ignorance which
women, who are accustomed to take
nothing seriously, carr}- into the most
critical incidents of life. One fact sud-

denly struck her — that the two Repub-
lican officers dominated the whole com-
pany by the imposing character of their
countenances. Their long hair drawn
back from the temples, and clubbed in
a huge pigtail behind the neck, gave to
their foreheads the pure and noble out-
line which so adorns youthful heads.
Their threadbare blue uniforms, with the
worn red facings, even their epaulets,
flung back in marching, and showing (as
they were wont to do throughout the
army, even in the case of generals) evi-
dence of the lack of great-coats, made a
striking contrast between these martial
figures and the company in which they
were.

" Ah ! there is the nation, there is lib-
erty ! " thought she; then, glancing at
the Royalists, ' ' and there is a single man,
a king, and privilege ! "

She could not help admiring the figure
of Merle, so exactly did the lively soldier
answer to the tj^pe of the French warrior
who can whistle an air in the midst of
bullets, and who never forgets to pass a
joke on the comrade who makes a blun-
der. Gerard, on the other hand, had a
commanding presence, grave and cool.
He seemed to possess one of those trul^"^
Republican souls who at the time thronged
the French armies, and, inspiring them
with a spirit of devotion as noble as it was
unobtrusive, impressed on them a charac-
ter of hitherto unknown energy-.

" There is one of those wiio take long
views," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil;
"they take their stand on the present,
and dominate it ; they destroy the past,
but it is for the good of the future."

The thought saddened her, because it
did not apply to her lover, toward whom
she turned, that she might avenge herself
by a fresh feeling of admiration on the
Republic, which she already began to hate.
As she saw the marquis surrounded by
men, bold enough, fanatical enough, and
gifted with sufficient power of speculating
on the future, to attack a vigorous Re-
public, in the hope of restoring a dead
monarchy, a religion laid under interdict,
princes errant, and privileges out of date,
she thought, " He at least looks as far as

108

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the other, for, amid the ruins where he
ensconces himself, he is striving to make
a future out of the past."

Her mind, feeding- full on fancies, wav-
ered between the new Tuins and the old.
Her conscience indeed warned her one
man was fighting* for a single individual,
the other for his country ; but that senti-
ment had carried her to the same point
at which others arrive by a process of
-reasoning — to the acknowledgment that
the king is the country.

The marquis, hearing the step of a man
in the salon, rose to go and meet him.
He recognized the belated guest, who,
surprised at his compan3^, was about to'
speak. But the Gars hid from the Re-
publicans the sign w^hich he made desir-
ing- the new-comer to be silent and join
the feast. As the two ofQcers studied
the countenances of their hosts, the sus-
picions which they had first entertained
revived. The Abbe Gudin's priestly garb
and the eccentricity of the Chouans' attire,
alarmed their prudence ; they became
more Avatchful than ever, and soon made
out some amusing contrasts between the
behavior and the language of the guests.
While the Republicanism which some
show^ed was exaggerated, the waj's of
others were aristocratic in the extreme.
Some glances which they caught passing
between the marquis and his guests,
some phrases of double meaning indis-
creetl}'- uttered, and, most of all, the full
round beards which adorned the throats
of several guests, and which were hidden
awkwardly enough by their cravats, at
last told the two officers a truth which
struck both at the same moment. They
communicated their common thought to
each other by a single interchange of
looks ; for Madame du Gua had dex-
terously divided them, and they were
confined to e3'e-language. Their situa-
tion made it imperative tliat they should
behave warily, for they knew^ not whether
they were masters of the chateau or had
fallen into an ambuscade — whether Made-
moiselle de Verneuil was the dupe or the
accomplice of tliis puzzling adventure.

But an unforeseen event hastened the
catastrophe before they had had time to

estimate its full gravity. The new guest
was one of those high-complexioned per-
sons, squarely built throughout, who lean
back as the}'' walk, who seem to make a
commotion in the air around them, and
who think that every one will take more
looks than one as they pass. Despite his
rank, he had taken life as a joke which
one must make the best of ; but though
a worshiper of self, he was good-natured,
polite, and intelligent enough after the
fashion of those country g'entlemen who,
having finished their education at court,
return to their estates, and will not admit
the idea that they can even in a score of
years have grown rust^^ there. Such men
make a grave blunder with perfect self-
possession, say silly things in a w-ittj''
way, distrust good fortune with a great
deal of shrewdness, and take extraordi-
nary pains to get themselves into a mess.
When, by pl^dng knife and fork in the
style of a good trencherman, he had
made up for lost time, he cast his eyes
over the company. His astonishment was
redoubled as he saw the two officers, and
he directed a questioning glance at Ma-
dame du Gua, who by way of sole reply
pointed Mademoiselle do Verneuil out to
him. When he saw the enchantress
w'hose beauty was already beginning to
stifle the feelings which Madame du Gua
had excited in the company's minds, the
portly stranger let slip one of those in-
solent and mocking smiles which seem
to contain the whole of an equivocal story.
He leaned toward his neighbor's ear,
saying two or three words, and these
words, which remained a secret for the
officers and Marie, journeyed from ear
to ear, from lip to lip, till they reached
the heart of him on whom they were to
inflict a mortal wound. The Vendean
and Chouan chiefs turned their glances
with merciless curiosity on the Marquis
of Montauran, while those of Madame du
Gua, flashing with joy, traveled from the
marquis to the astonished Mademoiselle
de Verneuil. The officers interrogated
each other anxiously but mutely, as they
w^aited for the end of this strange scene.
Then, in a moment, the forks ceased to
play in every hand, silence reigned in the

THE CHOUANS.

109

hall, and all eyes were concentrated on
the Gars. A frig-htful burst of rag-e
flushed his face with ang-er, and then
bleached it to the color of wax. The
young chief turned to the g-uost from
whom this train of slow match had
started, and said in a voice that seemed
muffled in crape :

" Death of my life ! Count, is that
true ? "

^' On my honor," said the count, bow-
ing gravely.

The marquis dropped his eyes for a
moment, and then, raising them quickly,
directed them at Marie, who viias watch-
ing- the struggle, and received a deadly
g-lance.

"1 would g"ive my life," said he in a
low tone, " for instant vengeance ! "
' The mere movement of his lips inter-
preted this phrase to Madame du Gua,
and she smiled on the young man as one
smiles at a friend whose misery will soon
be over. The scorn for Mademoiselle de
Verneuil which was depicted on qxqyj
face put the finishing touch to the wrath
of the two Republicans, who rose ab-
ruptly.

'^ What do you desire, citizens ? " asked
Madame du Gua.

" Our swords, citizeness," said Gerard
with sarcasm. *

" You do not need them at table," said
the marquis coldly.

*' No ; but we are about to pla^^ a game
which you know," answered Gerard.*
" We shall have a little closer view of
each other than we had at the Pilgrim ! "

The assembly was struck dumb ; but at
the same moment a volley, discharged
with a regularity appalling to the offi-
cers, crashed out in the courtyard. They
darted to the entrance steps, and thence
they saw some hundred Chouans taking
aim at a few soldiers wlio had survived
tlie first volle3^, and shooting them down
like hares. The Bretons had come forth
from the bank where Marche-a-Terre had
posted them — a post occupied at the peril

* The text has here en reparaissant, " reappear-
ing-." It has not beea said that Gerard had left
the room, nor could he well have done so. The
words are probably an oversight.

of their lives, for as they executed their
movement, and after the last shots died
away, there was heard above the groans
of the dying the sound of some Chouans
falling into the water with the splash of
stones dropping into an abyss. Pille-
Miche leveled his piece at Gerard, and
Marche-a-Terre covered Merle.

"Ciaptain," said the marquis coolly to
Merle, repeating the words which the
Republican had uttered respecting- him-
self, "you see, men are like medlars,
they ripen on straiv." And Avith a
wave of his hand he showed him the
whole escort of Blues stretched on the
blood-stained litter, where the Chouans
were dispatching the living and stripping
the dead with incredible rapidity. "I
was right in telling you that your sol-
diers would not reach the Pilgrim,"
added the marquis; "^also I think your
head will be full of lead before mine is.
What say you ? ' '

Montauran felt a hideous desire to sate
his rage, and his irony toward the van-
quished, the savagery, and even the
treachery of this military execution,
which had been carried out without his
orders, but for which he thus made him-
self responsible, corresponded with the
secret wishes of his heart. In his fury he
would have annihilated France itself, and
the murdered Blues, with the two officers
who were still alive, though all were inno-
cent of the crime for which he was de-
manding vengeance, were in his hands like
the cards which a desperate gamester
tears with his teeth.

*' I would rather perish thus than tri-
umph like you ! " said Gerard, and as he
saw his men lying naked in their blood,
he cried, " You have foully murdered
them ! "

''Yes, sir, as Louis XVI. was mur
dered," replied the marquis sharply.

"Sir," replied Gerard haughtily, ''there
is a mystery in the trial of a king which
you will never comprehend."

"What ! bring a king to trial ! " cried
the mai'quis excitedly.

" What ! bear arms against France ! "
retorted Gerard in a tone of disdain.

" Nonsense ! " said the marquis.

110

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" Parricide ! " cried the Republican.

"Reg-icide ! " returned the other.

" What ! " said Merle, merrily enoug-h,
" are you seizing* the moment of your
death to band}^ arg-uments ? "

"You sa}'- well," said Gerard, C00II3'",
turning" once more toward the marquis.
" Sir, if it is your intention to kill us, do
us at least the favor to shoot us at once."

"How like j^ou !" struck in the captain;
** always in a hurry to have done ! My
good friend, when a man has a long-
journey to make, and is not likely to
breakfast next day, he takes time with
his supper."

But Gerard, without a word, walked
swiftly and proudly to the wall. Pille-
Miche took aim at him, and seeing- the
marquis motionless, he took his chief's
silence for an order, fired, and the adju-
tant-major fell like a tree. Marche-a-
Terre ran forward to share this new
booty with Pille-Miche, and they wran-
gled and g-rumbled like two hungry ra-
vens over the still warm corpse.

"If 3''0U wish to finish your supper,
captain, you are free to come with me,"
said the marquis to Merle, whom he wished
to keep for exchange.

The captain went mechanically into the
house with the marquis, saying in a low
tone, as if reproaching- himself, "It is
that devil of a wench who is the cause
of this ! What will Hulot say ? "

"Wench!" said the marquis, with a
stifled cry ; " then she is really and truly
a wench ? "

It might have been thought tliat the
captain had dealt a mortal blow to Mon-
tauran, who followed him pale, gloomy,
disordered, and with tottering steps.
Meanwhile there had passed in the din-
ing-room another scene, which in the ab-
sence of the marquis took so sinister a
character that Marie, finding herself with-
out her champion, might reasonably be-
lieve in the death-warrant she saw in her
rival's eyes. At the sound of the volley
every guest had risen save Madame du
Gua.

"Do not be alarmed," said she; "'tis
nothing. Our folk are only killing the
Blues ! " But as soon as she saw that

the marquis had left the room, she started
up. "This j'oung lady here," she cried,
with the calmness of smothered fury,
"came to carry off the Gars from us.
She came to try and give him up to the
Republic!"

" Since this morning- I could have given
him up twenty times over," replied Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, "and I saved his
life instead."

But Madame du Gua dashed at her
rival like a flash of lightning. In her
blind excitement she wrenched open the
flimsy frogs on the spencer of the girl
(who wa^taken unawares by this sudden
assault), violated with brutal hand the
sacred asylum where the letter was hid-
den, tore the stuff, the trimmings, the
corset, the chemise, naj^ even made the
most of this search so as to slake her
jealous hatred, and so ardently and
cruelly mauled the panting breast of her
rival that she left on it the bloody traces
of her nails, feeling a delight in subject-
ing her to so vile a profanation. As
Marie feebh' attempted to withstand the
furious woman, her hood became unfast-
ened and fell, her hair burst its bonds and
rolled down in wavy curls, a modest blush
glowed on her face, and then two tears
made their moist and burning way down
her cheeks, leaving her bright e3'es
brighter still. In short, the disorder of
the struggle exposed her shuddering to
the gaze of the guests, and the most
callous judges must have believed her
innocent as they saw her suffer.

Hatred is so blind that Madame du Gua
did not notice that no one listened to her,
as in her triumph she cried out, " See,
gentlemen ! have I slandered the horrid
creature ? "

"Not so very horrid," whispered the
portly guest who had been the cause of the
misfortune; "for ray part, I am uncom-
monly fond of horrid things like that ! "

"Here," continued the vindictive Ven-
dean lady, " is an order, signed * Laplace,'
and countersigned 'Dubois."" At these
names some persons raised their heads in
attention. " And this is its tenor," went
on Madame du Gua : " ' Citizen comman-
dants of the forces of all ranks, district

THE CHOU-ANS.

Ill

administrators, procurators, syndics, and
so forth, in the revolted departments, and
especially' those of the places where the
ci-devant Marquis de Montauran, hrig-and-
chief, surnamed the Gars, may be found,
are to afford succor and help to the citi-
zeness Marie Verneuil, and to obey any
orders which she may g-ive them, each m
such matters as concern him, etc., etc' "

"To think of an opera girl taking- an
illustrious name in order to soil it with
such infamy ! " she added. The companj^
showed a movement of surprise.

"■ The game is not fair if the Republic
employs such pretty women ag-ainst us ! "
said the Baron du Guenic, pleasantly.

"Especially girls who have nothing
left to stake," rejoined Madame du Gua.

"Nothing-?" said the Chevalier du
Vissard. "Wh3% mademoiselle has re-
sources which must bring- her in a plen-
teous income ! "

' ' The Republic must be in verj' merry
mood to send ladies of pleasure to lay
traps for us ! " ci-ied Abbe Gudin.

" But, unluckih^^, mademoiselle looks
for pleasures which kill," said Madame
du Gua, with an expression of hideous
joy, which denoted the end of her jokes.

"How^ is it, then, that you are still
alive, madame ? " said the victim, regain-
ing' her feet after repairing- the disorder
of her dress. This stinging epigram pro-
duced some respect for so undaunted a
martyr, and struck silence on the com-
pany. Madame du Gua saw flitting- over
the chief's lips a sarcastic smile which
maddened her ; and not perceiving- that
the marquis and the captain had come in,
"Pille-Miche," she said to the Chouan,
" take her awaj^ she is vay share of the
spoil, and I g-ive her to you. Do Avith her
whatever you like."

As she spoke the word "whatever,"
the company shuddered, for the frig-htful
heads of Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre
showed themselves behind the marquis,
and the meaning- of the intended punish-
ment appeared in all its horror.

Francine remained standing-, her hands
clasped, her eyes streaming, as if thun-
derstruck. But Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
who in the face of dang-er recovered all

her presence of mind, cast a look of dis-
dain at the assembly, repossessed herself
of the letter which Madame du Gua held,
raised her head, and with eyes dry, but
flashing- fire, darted to the door where
stood Merle's sword. Here she met the
marquis, cold and motionless as a statue.
There was no plea in her favor on, his face
with its fixed and rigid features. Struck
to the heart, she felt life become hateful.

So, then, the man who had shown her
such affection had just listened to the jeers
which had been heaped upon her, and had
remained an unmoved witness of the out-
rage she had suffered when those beauties
which a woman keeps as the privilege of
love had been subjected to the common
g-aze. She might perhaps have pardoned
Montauran for his contemptuous feelings;
she was indig-nant at having- been seen by
him in a posture of disgrace. She darted
at him a glance full of half-irrational
hatred, and felt terrible desires of ven-
g-eance springing- up in her heart. With
death dog-ging her steps, her impotence
choked her. As it were a whirlwind of
madness rose to her brain, her boiling-
blood made her see everything around in
the glare of a conflagration ; and then,
instead of killing- herself, she seized the
sword, flourished it at the marquis, and
drove it on him up to the hilt. But the
blade slipped bet^.reen his arm and his
side ; the Gars caught Marie b}^ the wrist
and dragged her from the room, assisted
by Pille-Miche, who threw himself on the
mad woman at the moment when she tried
to kill the marquis. At this spectacle
Francine uttered piercing- cries. " Pierre !
Pierre! Pierre !" she shrieked in piteous
tones, and as she cried she followed her
mistress.

The marquis left the company to its
astonishment, and went forth, shutting
the door after him. When he reached
the entrance steps ^he was still holding-
the girl's wrist and clutching it convul-
sivel}^, while the nervous hands of Pille-
Miche nearl3^ crushed the bones of her
arm ; but she felt only the burning g-rasp
of the young- chief, at whom she directed
a cold g-aze.

"Sir," she said, "you hurt me."

112

THE HUMAN COMEDY

But the only answer of the marquis
was to stare for a moment at her.

•'Have you, then, something' to take
base vengeance for, as well as that
woman ? "' she said ; and then seeing- the
corpses stretched on the straw, she cried
with a sudder, " The faith of a gentle-
man ! ha ! ha ! ha ! " and after this
burst of hideous laughter, she added, ''A
happy day ! "

"Yes, a happy one," he answered,
"and one without a morrow ! "

He dropped Mademoiselle de Verneuil's
hand, after gazing* with a long", last look
at the exquisite creature whom he could
hardl}' bring himself to renounce. Neither
of these lofty spirits would bend. The
marquis perhaps expected tears ; but the
g-irl's eyes remained proudl}'^ dry. He
turned bruskly away, leaving Pille-Miche
his victim.

" Marquis ! " she said, " God will hear
me, and I shall praj'- Him to g-ive you a
happy day without a morrow ! "

Pille-Miche, who was somewhat em-
barrassed with so fair a prey, drew her
off gently, and with a mixture of respect
and contempt. The marquis sighed, re-
turned to the chamber, and showed his
g-uests the face as of a dead man whose
eyes have not been closed.

That Captain Merle should still be there
was unintelligible to the actors in this
tragedy ; and they all looked at him with
surprise, their looks questioning- each
other. Merle observed the Chouans' as-
tonishment, and still keeping up his part,
he said to them, with a forced smile :

" I hardly think, gentlemen, that you
will refuse a g-lass of wine to a man who
is about to take his last journe3^" At
the very- same minute at which these
words were spoken, with a Gallic g-ayety
which ought to have pleased the Ven-
deans, Montauran reappeared, and his
pale face and glazed ej^es chilled all the
gnests.

"You shall see," said the captain,
" that the dead man will set the living-
ones g-oing."

"Ah!" said the marquis, with the
g-esture of a man suddenly awakening-,
" you are there, my dear court-martial ? "

And he handed him a bottle of vin de
grave as if to fill his glass.

" Ah ! no, thanks, citizen marquis. I
might lose my head, you see."

At this sallj^ Madame du Gua said to
the g-uests, smiling :

" Come, let us excuse him the dessert."

" You are ver^' severe in your revenge,
madame," said the captain. "You for-
g-et my murdered friend, who is waiting"
for me. I bide tryst."

" Captain," said the marquis, throwing-
his g-love to him, "you are a free man.
There, that will be your passport. The
King-'s Huntsmen know that one must not
kill down all the g-ame."

"Life, by all means ! " answered Merle.
"But you are wrong-. I give you my
word that I shall plaj' the game strictly
with you. You will g-et no quarter from
me. Clever as you may be, you are not
Gerard's equal, and thoug-h 3" our head
will never make amends to me for his, I
must have it, and I will have it."

"Whj^was he in such a hurry?" re-
torted the marquis.

" FarcAvell ! I could have drunk with
my owm executioners, but 1 cannot stay
with the murderers of my friend," said
the captain, disappearing, and leaving-
the guests in astonishment.

"Well, g-entlemen, what do 3'ou sixy
now of the aldermen, the doctors, the
lawyers, who govern the Republic ? " said
the Gars coolly.

" God's death ! marquis," answered
the Count de Bauvan, "whatever you
ma}'- say, they are very ill-mannered. It
seems to me that that fellow insulted
us."

But the captain's sudden retirement
had a hidden motive. The girl who had
been the subject of so much contumeh''
and humiliation, and who perhaps was
falling a victim at the very moment, had,
during the scene, shown him beauties so
difficult to forget, that he said to himself
as he went out : '

" If she is a wench, she is no common
one ; and I can do with her as a wife."

He doubted so little his ability to save
her from these savages that his first
thought after receiving- his own life had

THE CHOUANS.

113

been to take her forthwith under his pro-
tection. Unluckil\% when he arrived at
the entrance, the captain found the court-
yard deserted. He looked around him,
listened in silence, and heard nothing- but
the far-off laughter of the Chouans, who
were drinking- in the gardens while shar-
ing their booty. He ventured to look
round the fatal wing in front of which
his men had been shot down, and from
the cot-ner, by the feeble light of a few
candles, he could distinguish the various
groups of the King's Huntsmen. Neither
Pille-Miche nor Marche-a-Terre nor the
young lady was there ; but at the same
moment he felt the skirt of his coat
gently pulled, and turning, he saw Fran-
cine on her knees.

"Where is she?" said he.

''I do not know. Pierre drove me
away, telling me not to stir."

" Which way have they gone ? "

''That way," said she, pointing to the
causeway. The captain and Francine
then saw in this direction certain sha-
dows thrown b}^ the moonlight on the
waters of the lake, and they recognized
feminine outlines whose elegance, indis-
tinct as they were, made both their
hearts beat.

''Oh, it is she ! " said the Breton girl.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil appeared to
be quietly standing in the midst of a
group whose attitudes indicated discus-
sion.

" Thej'' are more than one ! " cried the
captain. "Never mind ; let us go." •

" You will get yourself killed to no
profit," said Francine.

•'I have died once to-da^'" already,"
answered he lightlj''. And both bent
their steps toward the dark gateway
behind which the scene was passing. In
the midst of the way Francine halted.

" No ! I will go no farther ! " said she
gently. " Pierre told mc not to meddle.
I know him ; and we shall spoil all. Do
what you like, Mr. Officer, but pray de-
part. If Pierre were to see you with me,
he would kill you."

At that moment Pille-Miche showed
himself outside the gate, sav/ the cap-
tain, and cried, leveling his gun at him :

" Saint Anne of Auray ! the rector of
Antrain was right when he said that the
Blues made bargains with the devil !
Wait a bit ; I will teach you to come
alive again, I will ! "

" Ah ! but I have had my life given
me," cried Merle, seeing the threat.
"Here is your chief's glove."

"Yes ! that is just like a ghost ! " re-
torted the Chouan. "/ won't give you
your life. Ave Maria !'^

He fired, and the bullet hit the captain
in the head and di'opped him. When
Francine drew near Merle she heard him
murmur these words : "I had rather stay
with them than return without them I "

The Chouan plunged on the Blue to
strip him, saying : " The good thing
about these ghosts is that fhej come
alive again with their clothes on." But
when he saw, after the capta in 's gesture
of showing the chief's glove, this sacred
passport in his hand, he stood dum-
founded. "I would I were not in the
skin of my mother's son ! " he cried, and
vanished with the speed of a bird.

To understand this meeting, which
proved so fatal to the captain, it is neces-
sary to follow Mademoiselle de Verneuil.
When the marquis, overcome with de-
spair and rage, abandoned her to Pille-
Miche, at that moment Francine convul-
sively caught Marche-a-Terre 's arm, and
reminded him with tears in her eyes of
the promise he had made her. A few
paces from them, Pille-Miche was drag-
ging off his victim, just as he would have
hauled after him any worthless burden.
Marie, with streaming hair and bowed
head, turned her e^'es toward the lake ;
but, held back b^^ a grasp of steel, she
was obliged slowly to follow the Chouan,
who turned more than once either to look
at her or to hasten her steps, and at each
turn some festive thought sketched on
his face a horrible smile.

"Isn't she smart ? ^Wie cried, with
clums}' emphasis.

As she heard these words, Francine
recovered her speech.

" Pierre ! " she said.

"Well?"

"Is he going to kill mademoiselle ? "

114

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

"Not at once," answered Marclie-a-
Terre.

'^'^But she will not take it quietly, and
if she dies, I will die ! "

"^Ah! very well — you are too fond of
her. Let her die ! " said Marche-a-Terre.

*' If we are ever rich and happy, it is to
her that we shall owe our happiness. But
what does that matter ? Did you not
promise to save her from all evil ? "

" I will try ; but stay you there, and do
not budge."

Marche-a-Terre's arm was at once re-
leased, and Francine, a prey to the most
terrible anxiety, waited in the court^'ard.
March^-a-Terre rejoined his comrade at
the moment when Pille-Miche had entered
the barn and had forced his victim to g-et
into the carriag-e. He now demanded the
help of his mate to run it out.

"What are .you going- to do with all
this ? " asked Marche-a-Terre.

"Well, the Grande-Garce has given
me the woman ; and all she has is
mine."

" That is all very well as to the car-
riage— you will make some money of it ;
but the woman will scratch your eyes
out."

Pille-Miche laughed loudly, and replied :

"Why,* I shall carry her to my place,
and tie her hands."

"Well, then, let us put the horses to,"
said Marche-a-Terre ; and a moment later,
leaving his comrade to guard the prey, he
brought the carriage out of the door on
to the causeway. Pille-Miche got in by
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, but did not
notice that she was gathering herself up
for a spring into the lake.

"Hullo! Pille-Miche," cried Marche-a-
Terre, suddenl}".

"What?"

"I will buy your whole booty from
you."

" Are you joking? " asked the Chouan,
pulling his prisoner toward him by her

* Balzac has put some jargon in Pille-Miche's
mouth. He is said to have written "Les Chouans"
on the spot ; but quien, itou, etc., are not, I
think, Breton, and are suspiciously identical with
the words in the famous patois-scenes in Moliere's
"Don Juan."

skirts as a butcher might pull a calf try-
ing to escape.

"Let me see her : I will make you a
bid."

The unhapp3" girl was obliged to alight,
and stood between the two Chouans, each
of whom held her by a hand, staring at
her as the elders must have stared at Su-
sanna in her bath.

"Will you take," said Marche-a-Terre,
heaving a sigh, " will you take thirty good
livres a year ? "

" You mean it ? "

"Done!" said Marche-a-Terre, hold-
ing out his hand.

"And done ! There is plenty in that
to get Breton girls with, and smart ones,
too ! But whose is the carriage to be? "
said Pille-Miche, thinking better of it.

" Mine ! " said Marche-a-Terre, in a ter-
rific tone of voice, exhibiting the kind of
superiority over all his mates which was
given him by his ferocious character.

" But suppose there is gold in the car-
riage ? "

" Did you not say ' Done ' ? "

"Yes, I did."

" Well, then, go and fetch the postilion
who lies bound in the stable,"

" But suppose there is gold in — "

"Is there?" asked Marche-a-Terre
roughl}' of Marie, jogging her arm.

" I have about a hundred crowns,"
answered Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

At these words the two Chouans ex-
changed looks.

"Come, good friend, let us not quarrel
about a Blue girl," whispered Pille-Miche
to Marche-a-Terre. " Let us tip her into
the pond with a stone round her neck, and
share the hundred crowns ! "

"' I will give 3^ou them out of m^' share
of D'Orgemont's ransom," cried Marche-
a-Terre, choking down a grow^l caused by
this sacrifice.

Pille-Miche, with a hoarse cry of joy,
went to fetch the postilion, and his alac-
rity brought bad luck to the captain, who
met him. When Marche-a-Terre heard
the shot, he rushed quickly to the spot,
where Francine, still aghast, was praying
b3" the captain's body, on her knees and
with clasped hands, so much terror had

THE CHOUANS.

115

the sight of the murder struck into
her.

"Run to 3-our mistress," said the Chou-
an to her abruptly ; " she is saved."'

He himself hastened to fetch the pos-
tilion, returned with the speed of light-
ning-, and, as he passed again by the body
of Merle, caught sight of the Gars' glove
still clutched convulsively in the dead
man's hand.

"O ho!" cried he, " Pille-Miche has
struck a foul blow there ! He is not sure
of living- on his annuity!" He tore the
glove away, and said to Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, who had already taken her
place in the coach b}'^ Francine's side,
" Here ! take this glove. If any one at-
tacks you on the way, cry ' Oh ! the
Gars ! ' show this passport, and no harm
will happen to 3'ou. Francine," he add-
ed, turning to her and pressing her hand
hard, "^we are quits with this woman.
Come with me, and let the devil take
her ! "

"You would have me abandon her now?^^
answered Francine, in a sorrowful tone.

Marche-a-Terre scratched his ear and
his brow ; then lifted his head with a sav-
age look in his eyes.

"You are right!" he said. "1 will
leave 3'ou to her for a week. If after
that you do not come with me—" He
did not finish his sentence, but clapped
his palm fiercely on the muzzle of his
rifle, and after taking aim at his mistress
in pantomime, he made off without wait-
ing for a reply.

The Chouan had no sooner gone than a
voice, which seemed to come from the
pond, cried in a low tone, "Madame!
madame ! " The postilion and the two
women shuddered with horror, for some
corpses had floated up to the spot. But
a Blue, who had been hidden behind a
tree, showed himself.

" Let me get up on your coach-box, or
I am a dead man," said he. "That
damned glass of cider that Clef-des-
Coeurs would drink has cost more than
one pint of blood ! If he had done hke
me, and made his rounds, our poor fel-
lows would not be there floating like
barges."

While these things went on without, the
chiefs who had been delegated from La
Vendee, and those of the Chouans, were
consulting, glass in hand, under the presi-
dency of the Marquis of Montauran. The
discussion, which was enlivened b}^ fre-
quent libations of Bordeaux, became of
serious importance toward the end of the
meal. At dessert, when a common plcui
of operations had been arranged, the
Ro3'alists drank to the health of the
Bourbons ; and just then Pille-Miche's
shot gave, as it were, an echo of the
ruinous war which these gay and noble
conspirators wished to make on the Re-
public. Madame du Gua started ; and
at the motion, caused by her delight at
thinking herself relieved of her rival, the
company looked at each other in silence,
while the marquis rose from table and
went out.

"After all, he was fond of her," said
Madame du Gua sarcasticalh^ " Go and
keep him company, Monsieur de Fontaine.
He will bore us to extinction if we leave
him to his blue devils."

She went to the window looking on
the courtyard to try to see the corpse of
Marie, and from this point she was able
to descry, by the last rays of the setting
moon, the coach ascending the avenue
with incredible speed, while the veil of
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, blown out by
the wind, floated from within it. Seeing
this, Madame du Gua left the meeting in
a rage. The marquis, leaning on the en-
trance balustrade, and plunged in somber
thought, was gazing at about a hundred
and fifty Chouans, who, having- concluded
the partition of the booty in the gardens,
had come back to finish the bread and
the cask of cider promised to the Blues.
These soldiers (new style), on whom the
hopes of the Monarchy rested, were drink-
ing in knots ; while on the bank which
faced the entrance seven or eight of them
amused themselves with tying stones to
the corpses of the Blues, and throwing
them into the water. This spectacle,
added to the various pictures made up
by the strange costume and savage phy-
siognomies of the reckless and barbarous
gars, was so singular and so novel to

116

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Monsieur de Fontaine, who had had be-
fore him in the Vendean troops some ap-
proach to nobility and discipline, that he
seized the occasion to sa^' to the Marquis
of Montauran :

"■ What do you hope to make of brutes
like these ? "

"Nothing much you think, my clear
count? " answered the Gars.

" Will they ever be able to maneuver
in face of the Republicans ? "

^' Never!"

" Will they be able even to comprehend
and carry out your orders? "

"Never! "

"Then, what good will they do jovl ? "

" The good of enabling me to stab the
Republic to the heart ! " answered the
marquis in a voice of thunder. " The
good of giving me Fougeres in three da^^s,
and all Brittany in ten! Come, sir!"
he continued, in a milder tone ; "' go 3'ou
to La Vendee. Let D'Autichamp, Suzan-
net, the Abbe Bernier, make only as much
haste as I do ; let them not treat with the
First Consul, as some would have me fear;
and," he squeezed the Vendean's hand
hard, "in twenty days we shall be within
thirty leagues of Paris ! "

"' But the Republic is sending against us
sixty thousand men and General Brune !"

" What, sixt}' thousand, really ? " said
the marquis with a mocking laugh . ' ' And
what will Bonaparte make the Italian
campaign with ? As for General Brune,
he is not coming. Bonaparte has sent
him against the English in Holland ; and
General Hedouville, the friend of our friend
Barras, takes his place here. Do j^ou
understand me ? "

When he heard the marquis speak thus,
Monsieur de Fontaine looked at him with
an arch and meaning air, which seemed
to reproach with not himself understand-
ing the hidden sense of the words ad-
dressed to him. The two gentlemen from
this moment understood each other per-
fectly ; but the young chief answered the
thoughts thus expressed by looks with an
indefinable smile.

" Monsieur de Fontaine, do you know
my arms ? Our motto is, Persevere unto
death."

The count took Montauran's hand, and
pressed it, saying: " I was left for dead
at the Four- Ways, so you are not likely
to doubt me. But believe my experience ;
times are changed."

"They are, indeed," said La Billar-
diere, who joined them ; ' ' you are young,
marquis. Listen to me. Not all your
estates have been sold — "

" Ah ! can you conceive devotion with-
out sacrifice ? " said Montauran.

" Do j'^ou know the king well ? " said
La Billardiere.

"I do."

" Then, I admire you."

" King and priest are one ! " answered
the young chief, "' and I fight for the
faith ! "

They parted, the Vendean convinced of
the necessity of letting events take their
course, and keeping his beliefs in his
heart ; La Billardiere to return to Eng-
land, Montauran to fight desperately, and
to force the Vendeans, bj^ the successes of
which he dreamed, to join his enterprises.

The course of events had agitated Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's soul with so many
emotions that she dropped exhausted,
and as it were dead, in the corner of the
carriage, after giving the order to drive
to Fougeres. Francine imitated her mis-
tress's silence, and the postilion, who was
in dread of some new adventure, made
the best of his way to the high road, and
soon reached the summit of the Pilgrim.
Then Marie de Verneuil crossed in the
dense white fog of early, morning the
beautiful and spacious valley of the
Couesnon, where our story began, and
liardly noticed from the top of the hill
the schistous rock whereon is built the
town of Fougeres, from wliich the trav-
elers were still some two leagues distant.
Herself perished with cold, she thought
of the poor soldier who was behind the
carriage, and insisted, despite his refusals,
on his taking the place next Francine.
The sight of Fougeres drew her for a
moment from her reverie ; and besides,
since the guard at the gate of Saint
Leonard refused to allow unknown per-
sons to enter the town, she was obliged
to produce her letter from the Govern-

THE CHOUAXS.

117

ment. She found herself safe from all
hostile attempts when she had entered
the fortress, of which, at the moment,
its inhabitants formed the sole g-arrison ;
hut the postilion could find her no better
resting-place than the auberge de la
Poste.

'•'Madame," said the Blue whom she
had rescued, "if you ever want a saber
cut administered to anj'^ person, my life
is yours. I am good at that. M}^ name
is Jean Faucon, called Beau-Pied, ser-
geant in the first company of Hulot's
boys, the seventy-second demi-brig-ade,
surnamed the Mayengaise. Excuse my
presumption, but I can only offer you a
serg-eant's life, since, for the moment,
I have nothing else to put at your ser-
vice." He turned on his heel and went
his way, whistling-.

"The lower one goes in society," said
Marie bitterly, "the less of ostentation
one finds, and the more of generous senti-
ment : a marquis returns me death for
life ; a serg-eant — but there, enough of
this ! "

When the beautiful Parisian had be-
stowed herself in a well-warmed bed, her
faithful Francine expected, in vain, her
usual affectionate g-ood-night ; but her
mistress, seeing her uneasy, and still
standing, made her a sign, full of sad-
ness :

' " They call that a day, Francine ! "
she said. "I am ten years older."

Next morning", as she was g-etting up,
Corentin presented himself to call upon
Marie, who permitted him to enter, say-
ing to Francine : " My misfortune must
be immense ; for I can even put up with
the sig-ht of Corentin."

Nevertheless, when she saw the man
once more, she felt for the thousandth
time the instinctive repugnance which
two years' acquaintance had not been
able to check.

"Well?" said he, with a smile; "I
thought 3''ou were going to succeed. Was
it not he whom you had g-ot hold of ? "

"Corentin," she said slowly, with a
pained expression, " saj'' nothing- to me
about this matter till I speak of it m}'-
self."

He walked up and down the room, cast-
ing- sidelong looks at Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, and trying- to divine the secret
thoughts of this singular girl, whose
g-lance was of force enough to disconcert,
at times, the cleverest men. " I foresaw
your defeat," he went on, after a min-
ute's silence. "If it pleases you to make
your headquarters in this town, I have
already acquainted myself with matters.
We are in the very heart of Chouanism.
Will you stay here ? "

She acquiesced with a nod of the head,
which enabled Corentin to guess with
partial truth the events of the night
before.

"I have hired you a house which has
been confiscated, but not sold. They are
much behindhand in this country, and
nobody dared to buy the place, because
it belongs to an emigrant who passes for
being- ill-tempered. It is near Saint Leo-
nard's Church, and 'pon honor, there is
a lovel\' view from it. Something may
be done with the cabin, which is con-
venient. Will you come there ? "

" Immediately," cried she.

" But I must have a few hours more to
g-et thing-s clean and in order, so that j'ou
ma}^ find them to yo\iv taste."

" What does it matter ? " said she. " I
could live, without minding- it, in a clois-
ter or a prison. Nevertheless, pray man-
ag-e so that I may be able to rest there
this evening in the most complete solitude.
There ! leave me. Your presence is intol-
erable. I wish to be alone with Francine,
with wlioni I can perhaps g-et on better
than with myself. Farewell ! Go ! do
g-o!"

These words, rapidly spoken, and dashed
by turns with coquetry, tyrann^^ , and pas-
sion, showed that she had recovered com-
plete tranquillity. Sleep had no doubt
slowly expelled her impressions of the
day before, and reflection determined her
on veng-eance. If, now and then, some
somber thoug-hts pictured themselves on
her face, they only showed the faculty
which some women have of burying- the
most passionate sentiments in their souls,
and the dissimulation which allows them
to smile graciously while they calculate

118

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

a victim's doom. She remained alone,
studying liow she could g-et the marquis
alive into her hands. For the first time
she had passed a portion of her life as she
could have wished ; but nothing- remained
with her of this episode hut one feeling —
that of thirst for vengeance, vengeance
vast and complete. This was her sole
thought, her single passion. Francine's
words and attentions found her dumb.
She seemed to be asleep with her eyes
open, and the whole long day passed with-
out her making sign, by a single gesture
or action, of that outward life which
reveals our thoughts. She remained
stretched on an ottoman which she had
constructed out of chairs and pillows.
Only at night-time did she let fall, care-
lessly, the following words, looking at
Francine as she spoke :

*' Child, I learned yesterday that one
may live for nothing but love ; and to-
day I learn that one may die for nothing
but vengeance. Yes ! to find him where-
ever he may be, to meet him once more,
to seduce him and make him mine, I
would give my hfe ! But if in the
course of a few da^^s I do not find,
stretched at my feet in abject humility,
this man who has scorned me — if I do
not make him my slave — I shall be less
than nothing — I shall be no more a wo-
man— I shall be no more mj^self ! "

The house which Corentin had sug-
gested to Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave
him opportunity enough to consult the
girl's inborn taste for luxur^^ and ele-
gance. He got together everj^thing
which he knew ought to please her,
with the eagerness of a lover toward
his mistress, or better still, with the
obsequiousness of a man of importance
who is anxious to ingratiate himself with
some inferior of whom he has need. Next
daj'' he came to invite Mademoiselle de
Verneuil to take up her quarters in these
improvised lodgings.

Although she did little or nothing but
change her uncomfortable ottoman for a
sofa of antique pattern which Corentin
had managed to discover for her, the
fanciful Parisian took possession of the
bouse as though it had been her own

propertj^. She showed at once a royal
indifference for everything, and a sudden
caprice for quite insignificant objects of
furniture, which she at once appropriated
as if they had been old favorites ; traits
common enough, but still not to be re-
jected in painting exceptional characters.
She seemed as though she had already
been familiar with this abode in dreams,
and she subsisted on hatred there as she
might have subsisted in the same place
on love.

''At any rate," said she to herself, " I
have not excited in him a feeUng of the
pity which is insulting and mortal. I do
not owe him my life. Oh ! first, sole, and
last love of mine, what an ending is
yours ! " Then she made a spring on the
startled Francine. " Are you in love ?
Yes ! yes ! I remember that you are.
Ah ! it is lucky for me that I have beside
me a woman who can enter into my feel-
ings. Well, my poor Francine, does not
man seem to you a horrible creature ?
Eh ? He said he loved me, and he could
not stand the feeblest tests. Why, if the
whole world had repulsed him, my heart
should have been his refuge ; if the uni-
verse had accused him, I would have
taken his part. Once upon a time I saw
the world before me full of beings who
went and came, all of them indifferent to
me; it was melancholy, but not odious.
Now, what is the world without him ?
Shall he live without me to be near him,
to see him, to speak to him, to feel him,
to hold him — to hold him fast ? Rather
will 1 butcher him mj'self as he sleeps ! "

Francine gazed at her in horror and
silence for a minute. "Kill the man
whom one loves ? " she said in a low
voice.

" Yes, when he loves no longer ! "

But after this terrible speech she hid
her face in her hands, sat down, and was
silent.

On the next day a man presented him-
self abruptly before her without being
announced. His countenance was stern.
It was Hulot, and Corentin accompanied
him. She raised her eyes, and .shud-
dered.

"Have you come," she said, "to de-

THE CHOUAXS.

119

rnand account of your friends? They
are dead ! "

'•' I know it/' answered Hulot ; " but it
was not in the Republic's service."

" It was for uiy sake, and by my fault,"
she replied. •' You are about to speak to
nie of the country. Does the country re-
store life to those who die for her ? Does
she even aveng-e them? I shall aveng-e
these ! " she cried. The- mournful image
of the catastrophe of ^vhich she had been
victim had suddenly risen before her, and
the g-racious creature in whose eyes mod-
esty was the first artifice of woman strode
like a maniac with convulsive step toward
the astonished commandant.

" In return for these massacred soldiers
I will bring- to the ax of your scaffolds a
head worth thousands of heads ! " she
said. " Women are not often warriors ;
but old as you are, you may learn some
tricks of war in my school. I will hand
over to your baj^onets his ancestors and
himself, his future and his past. As I
was kind and true to him, so now I will
be treachei'ous and false. Yes, comman-
dant, I will lure this young" noble into my
embraces, and he shall quit them onl^^ to
take his death journej'. I will take care
never to have a rival. The Avretch has
pronounced his own sentence, ' A day
without a morrow ! ' We shall both be
avenged — your Republic and I. Your
Republic ! " she continued, in a voice
whose strange variations of tone alarmed
Hulot. ''But shall the rebel die for hav-
ing borne arms against his country ?
Shall France steal my vengeance from
me ? Nay ; how small a thing is life !
One death atones for only one crime.
Yet, if he has but one life to give, I
shall have some hours in which to show
him that he loses more than life. Above
all, commandant (for you will have the
killing of him)," and she heaved a sigh,
*' take care that nothing betrays n\y
treason, that he dies sure of m.y fidelity ;
that is all I ask of you. Let him see noth-
ing but me — me and my endearments !"

She held her peace ; but, flushed as
was her face, Hulot and Corentin could
see that wrath and fury had not entirely
extinguished modesty. Marie shuddered

violently as she spoke the last words ;
they seemed to echo in her ears as if she
could not believe that she had uttered
them ; and she gave a naive start, with
the involuntary gesture of a woman
whose veil drops.

''But 3^ou had him in your hands!"
said Corentin.

"It is very likely," said she bitterly.

" Wh}" did 3^ou stop me when I had got
him ? " asked Hulot.

••' Eh, commandant ? We did not know
that it would prove to be he."

Suddenly the excited woman, who was
pacing the I'oom hastily, and flinging
flaming glances at the spectators of the
storm, became calm.

"I had forgotten mj^self," she said, in
a masculine tone. " What is the good of
talking ? We must go and find him."

"Go and find him!" said Hulot.
" Take care, my dear child, to do noth-
ing of the kind. We are not masters of
the country districts, and if a'ou venture
out of the town, you will be kUled or
taken before you have gone a hundred
yards."

"Those who are eager for vengeance
take no count of danger," she said, dis-
dainfully dismissing from her presence
the two men, whose sight struck her with
shame.

"What a woman ! " said Hulot, as he
went out with Corentin. " What a no-
tion it was of those police fellows in
Paris ! But she will never give him up
to us," he added, shaking his head.

" Oh, yes, she will," replied Corentin.

"Don't you see that she loves him?"
rejoined Hulot.

" That is exactly the reason. Be-
sides," said Corentin, fixing his eyes on
the astonished commandant, " I am here
to prevent her making a fool of herself ;
for in my opinion, comrade, there is no
such thing as love worth three hundred
thousand francs."

When this diplomatist, who did not lie
abroad, left the soldier, Hulot gazed after
him, and as soon as he heard the noise of
his step no longer, he sighed and said to
himself :

" Then it is sometimes a lucky thing

120

THE HUMAK COMEDY.

to be only a fool like me ? — God's thun-
der ! If I meet the Gars we will fight
it out hand to hand, or my name is not
Hulot ; for if that fox there broug-ht him
before me as judge, now that they have
set up courts-martial, I should think my
conscience in as sorry a case as the shirt
of a recruit who is g-oing" throug-h his bap-
tism of fire ! "

The massacre at the Vivetiere, and his
own eag"erness to avenge his two friends,
had been as influential in making- Hulot re-
sume command of his demi-brigade as the
answer in which a new minister, Berthier,
iiad assured him that his resignation could
not be accepted under the circumstances.
With the ministerial dispatch there had
come a confidential note, in which, with-
out informing- him fully of Mademoiselle
de Verneuil's mission, the minister wrote
that the incident, which lay quite outside
warlike operations, need have no obstruc-
tive effect on them. " The share of the
military leaders in this matter should be
limited," said he, '^'to g-iving the honor-
able citizeness such assistance as oppor-
tunity afforded." Therefore, as it was
reported to him that the Chouan move-
ments indicated a concentration of their
forces on Fougeres, Hulot had secretly
brought up, by forced marches, two bat-
talions of his demi-brigade to this impor-
tant place. The danger his country ran,
his hatred of aristocracy, whose partisans
were threatening a great extent of ground,
and his private friendship, had combined
to restore to the old soldier the fire of his
youth.

" And this is the life I long-ed to lead ! "
said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, when she
found herself alone With Francine. " Be
the hours as swift as thej^ may, they are
to me as centuries in thoug-ht."

Suddenl}'^ she caught Francine's hand,
and in a tone like that of the robin which
first gives tongue after a storm, slowly
uttered these words: "I cannot help it,
child ; I see always before me those
charming- lips, that short and gently up-
turned chin, those eyes full of fire. I
hear the ' hie-up ' of the postilion. In
short, I dream ; and why, when I wake,
is my hatred so strong ? "

She drew a long sigh, rose, and then for
the first time bent her eyes on the coun-
tr^^ which was being- delivered over to
civil war b}^ the cruel nobleman whom,
without allies, she designed to attack.
Enticed by the landscape, she went
forth to breathe the open air more
freely, and if her road was chosen by
chance, it must certainly have been by
that black magic of our souls which
makes us g-round our hopes on the ab-
surd that she was led to the public walks
of the town. The thoug-hts conceived
under the influence of this charm not
seldom come true; but the foresight is
then set down to the power which men
call presentiment — a power unexplained
but real, which the passions find always
at their service, like a flatterer who,
amid his falsehoods, sometimes speaks
the truth.

III.

A DAY WITHOUT A MORROW.

As the concluding- events of this history
had much to do with the disposition of the
places in which thej^ occurred, it is indis-
pensable to describe these places minutely ;
for otherwise the catastrophe would be
hard to comprehend.

The town of Foug-eres is partly seated
on a schistous rock, which might be
thought to have fallen forward from the
hills inclosing the great valley of the
Couesnon to the west, and called by dif-
ferent names in different places. In this
direction the town is separated from these
hills by a gorg-e, at the bottom of Avhich
runs a small stream called the Nancon ;
the eastward side of the rock looks to-
ward the same landscape which is en-
joyed from the summit of the Pilg-rim ;
and the western commands no view Init
the winding vallej^ of the Nancon. But
there is a spot whence it is possible to
take in a segment of the circle made b^''
the great valley, as well as the agreeable
windings of the small one which de-
bouches into it. This spot, which was
chosen by the inhabitants for a prome-

THE CHOUANS.

121

nade, and to which Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil was making- her way, was the precise
stag"e on which the drama beg-un at the
Yivetiere was to work itself out ; and so,
picturesque as the other quarters of
Foug-eres may be, attention must be ex-
clusivelj'^ devoted to the details of the
scene which discovers itself from the
upper part of the promenade.

In order to g"ive an idea of the appear-
ance which the rock of Foug-eres has
when viewed from this side, we may
compare it to one of those hug-e towers
round which Saracen architects have
wound, tier above tier, wide balconies
connected with others by spiral stair-
cases. The rock culminates in a Gothic
church, whose steeple, smaller spirelets,
and buttresses, almost exactly complete
the sug-ar-loaf shape. Before the g-ate of
this church, which is dedicated to Saint
Leonard, there is a small, irreg-ularl.y
shaped square, the earth of which is held
up by a wall thrown into the form of
a balustrade, and communicating* b}' a
flight of steps with the public walks.
This esplanade runs round the rock like
a second cornice, some fathoms below the
Square of Saint Leonard, and affords a
wide, tree-planted space, which abuts on
the fortifications of the town. Next,
some score of yards below the walls and
rocks which support this terrace itself,
due partly to the chance lie of the schist,
and partly to patient industry, there is
a winding" road called the Queen's Stair-
case, wroug-ht in the rock, and leading- to
a bridge built over the Nancon by Anne
of Brittany. Last of all, under this road,
which holds the place of a third cornice,
there are gardens descending in terraces
to the river bank, and resembling the tiers
of a stage loaded with flowers.

Parallel to the promenade, certain
lofty rocks, which take the name of the
suburb whence they rise, and are called
the hills of Saint Sulpice, stretch along
the river and sink in a gentle slope toward
the great valley, wherein the}' curve
sharph'- toward the north. These rocks,
steep, barren, and bare, seem almost to
touch the schists of the promenade; in
some places they come within gunshot of

' the in, and they protect from the north-
erly winds a narrow valley some hundred
fathoms deep, where the Nan con, split into
three arms, waters a meadow studded with
buildings and pleasantly wooded.

Toward the south, at the spot where
the town, properly so called, ends and the
Faubourg Saint Leonard begins, the rock
of Fougeres makes a bend, grows less
scarped, diminishes in height, and winds
into the great valley, following the course
of the river, which it thus pushes close to
the hills of Saint Sulpice, and making a
narrow pass, whence the water escapes in
two channels and empties itself into the
Couesnon. This picturesque group of
rocky heights is called the Nid-aux-Crocs;
the glen which it forms is named the
Valley of Gibarr}^, and its fat meadows
supply a great part of the butter known
to epicures under the name of Prevala^'^e
butter.

At the spot where the promenade abuts
on the fortifications there rises a tower
called the Papegaut's Tower, and on the
other side of this square building (on the
summit of which is the house where Made-
moiselle de "Verneuil was lodged), there
rises sometimes a stretch of wall, some-
times the rock itself, when it happens to
present a sheer face ; and the part of the
town which is seated on this impregnable
and lofty pedestal makes, as it were, a
huge half-moon, at the end of which the
rocks bend and sweep away, to give pas-
sage to the Nangon. There lies the gate
of Saint Sulpice, leading to the faubourg
of the same name. Then, on a granite
tor commanding three valleys where
man}^ roads meet, rise the ancient crene-
lated towers of the feudal castle of Fou-
geres, one of the hugest of the buildings
erected by the dukes of Brittany, with
walls fifteen fathoms high and fifteen
feet thick. To the east it is defended by
a pond, whence issues the Nancon to fill
the moats and turn the mills between the
drawbridge of the fortress and the Porte
Saint Sulpice ; to the west it is protected
by the scarped masses of granite on which
it rests.

Thus from the walks to this splendid
relic of the Middle Ages, swathed in its

122

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

cloak of ivy and decked out with towers j*
square or round, in each of which a whole
reg-iment could be lodged, the castle, the
town, and the rock on which it is huilt, all
protected by straight curtains of wall or
scarps of rock dressed sheer, make a huge
horseshoe of precipices, on the face of
which, time aiding- them, the Bretons have
wrought some narrow paths. Here and
there bowlders project like ornaments ;
elsewhere "^vater drips from cracks out of
which issue stunted trees. Further off,
slabs of granite, at a less sharp angle
than the others, support grass which at-
tracts the goats. And everywhere the
briars, springing from moist crevices,
festoon the black and rugged surface with
rosy garlands. At the end of what looks
like a huge funnel the little stream winds
in its meadow of perpetual greener}^, softly
disposed like a carpet.

At the foot of the castle, and amid
some knolls of granite, rises the church
dedicated to Saint Sulpice, which gives its
name to the suburb on the other side of
the Nangon. This suburb, lying, as it
were, at the foot of an abyss, with its
pointed steeple far less in height than the
rocks, which seem about to fall on the
church itself, and its surrounding hamlet,
are picturesquely watered by some af-
fluents of the Nancon, shaded b}^ trees
and adorned with gardens. These cut
irregularly into the half-moon made by
the walks, the town, and the castle, and
produce by their details a graceful con-
trast to the solemn air of the amphi-
theater which the^^ front. Finally, the
whole of Fougeres, with its suburbs and
churches, with the hills of Saint Sulpice
themselves, is framed in by the heights
of Rille, which form part of the general
fringe of the great valley of the Couesnon.

Such are the most prominent features
of this natural panorama, whose main
character is that of savage wildness, soft-
ened here and there by smiling passages,
by a happy mixture of the most imposing
works of man with the freaks of a soil
tormented by unlooked-for contrasts, and
distinguished by an unexpectedness which
produces surprise, astonishment, and al-
most confusion. In no part of France does

the traveler see such contrasts, on such a
scale of grandeur, as those which are
offered by the great basin of the Coues-
non and the valleys which lurk between
the rocks of Fougeres and the heights
of Rille. These are of the rare kind of
beauties, where chance is triumphant, and
which yet lack none of the harmonies of
nature. Here are clear, limpid, running
waters ; mountains clothed with the lux-
uriant vegetation of the district ; dark
rocks and gay buildings ; strongholds
thrown up by nature, and granite towers
built by man ; all the tricks of light and
shade, all the contrasts between different
kinds of foliage, in which artists so much
delight; groups of houses, where an ac-
tive population swarms; and desert spaces,
where the granite will not even tolerate
the blanched mosses which are wont to
cling to stone — in short, all the sugges-
tions which can be asked of a landscape,
grace and terror, poetr3' full of ever new
magic, sublime spectacles, charming pas-
torals. Brittanj'- is there in full flower.

The tower called the Papegaut's
Tower, on which the house occupied by
Mademoiselle de Verneuil stands, springs
from the very bottom of the precipice
and rises to the staircase which runs cor-
nice-wise in front of Saint Leonard's
Church. From this house, which is
isolated on three sides, the eye takes in
at once the great horseshoe, which starts
from the tower itself, the winding glen
of the Nangon, and Saint Leonard's
Square. It forms part of a range of
buildings, three centuries old, built of
wood, and lying parallel to the north
side of the church, with which thej^ make
a blind alley, opening on a sloping street
which skirts the church and leads to the
gate of Saint Leonard, toward which
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now de-
scending.

Marie naturally did not think of going
into the square in front of the church,
below which she found herself, but bent
her steps toward the w^alks. She had no
sooner passed the little green gate in front
of the guard, which was then established
in Saint Leonard's gate tower, than her
emotions were at once subdued to silence

THE CffOUAJVS.

123

by the splendor of the view. She first
admired the great section of the Coues-
non Valley, which her eyes took in from
the top of the Pilgrim to the plateau over
which passes the Vitre road. Then she
rested them on the Nid-aux-Crocsand the
windings of the Gibarry Glen, the crests
of which were bathed by the misty light
of the setting sun. She was almost
startled at the depth of the Nancon Val-
ley, whose tallest poplars scarcely reached
the garden walks underneath the Queen's
Staircase. One surprise after another
opened before her as she went, until she
reached a point whence she could perceive
both the great valle}' across the Gibarry
Glen and the charming landscape framed
b^' the horseshoe of the town, by the rocks
of Saint Sulpice, and b}' the heights of
Rille.

At this hour of the day the smoke from
the houses in the suburb and the valle^-s
made a kind of cloud in the air, which only
allowed objects to be visible as if through
a bluish canopy. The garish tints of day
began to fade ; the firmament became
pearl-gray in color ; the moon threw her
mantle of light over the beautiful abj^ss,
and the whole scene had a tendency to
plunge the soul into reverie, and help it
to call up beloved images. Of a sudden
she lost all interest in the shingled roofs
of the Faubourg Saint Sulpice, in the
church, whose aspiring steeple is lost in
the depths of the valley, in the hoary
draperies of ivy and clematis that clothe
the walls of the old fortresg, across which
the ]!^ancon boils under the mill-wheels,
in the whole landscape. The setting sun
in vain flung gold dust and sheets of crim-
son on the iDretty houses scattered about
the rocks, by the waters, and in the mea-
dows, for she remained gazing motionless
at the cliffs of Saint Sulpice. The wild
hope which had led her to the walks had
miraculously come true. Across the ajoncs
and the broom that grew on the opposite
heights she thought she could distinguish,
des^Dite their goatskin garments, several
of the guests at the Vivetiere. The Gars,
whose least movement stood out against
the soft light of sunset, w^as particularly
conspicuous. A few paces behind the

principal group she saw her formidable
foe, Madame de Gua. For an instant
Mademoiselle de Verneuil thought she
must be dreaming, but her rival's hate
soon gave her proof that the dream was
alive. Her rapt attention to the marquis's
slightest gesture prevented her from ob-
serving that Madame du Gua was care-
fully taking aim at her with a long fowl-
ing-piece. Soon a gunshot woke the echoes
of the mountain, and a bullet w^histling
close to Marie showed her her rival's
skill.

*'She leaves her card upon me1 " said
she to herself, with a smile.

At the same moment numerous cries
of '"'Who goes there?" resounded from
sentinel to sentinel, from the castle to
the gate of Saint Leonard, and warned
the Chouans of the watchfulness of the
men of Fougeres, inasmuch as the least
vulnerable part of their ramparts was so
well guarded.

"'Tis she; and 'tis he!" thought
Marie. To go and seek the marquis, to
follow him, to surprise hira, were thoughts
which came to her like flashes of light-
ning. " But I am unarmed ! " she cried,
and she remembered that at the time of
leaving Paris she had put in one of her
boxes an elegant dagger, which had once
been worn by a sultana, and with which
she chose to provide herself on her way to
the seat of war, like those pleasant folk
who equip themselves with note-books to
receive their impressions of travel. But
she had then been less induced by the
prospect of having blood to shed, than
by the pleasure of wearing a pretty
gemmed kandjar, and of placing with
its blade, as clear as the glance of an
eye. Three days earlier, when she had
longed to kill herself in order to escape
the horrible punishment which her rival
designed for her, she had bitterlj'- re-
gretted having left this weapon in her
box. She quickly went home, found the
dagger, stuck it in her belt, drew a large
shawl close round her shoulders and waist,
wrapped her hair in a black lace mantilla,
covered her head with a flapping Chouan
hat belonging to one of the servants, and,
with the presence of mind which passion

124

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

sometimes lends, took the marquis's glove
whicli Marche-a-Terre had g-iven her for
a passport. Then, replying to Francine's
alarms, ''What would 3'ou have? I
would go to seek him in hell ! ' ' she re-
turned to the promenade.

The Gars was still on the same spot,
but alone. Judging from the direction
of his telescope, he appeared to be exam-
ining with a soldier's careful scrutinj^ the
different crossings over the Nancon, the
Queen's Staircase, and the road which,
starting from the gate of Saint Sulpice,
winds past the church and joins the
highway under the castle guns. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil slipped into the by-
paths traced by the goats and their herds
on the slopes of the promenade, reached
the Queen's Staircase, arrived at the bot-
tom of the cliff, crossed the Nancon, and
traversed" the suburb. Then guessing,
like a bird in the desert, her way across
the dangerous scarps of the Saint Sulpice
crags, she soon gained a slippery path
traced over granite blocks, and in spite
of the broom, the prickly ajoncs, and the
screes with which it bristled, she set her-
self to climb it with a degree of energy
which it may be man never knows, but
which woman, when hurried on by passion,
may for a time possess. Night overtook
her at the moment when, having reached
the summit, she was looking about, by
help of the pale moon's rays, for the road
which the marquis must have taken.
Persevering but fruitless explorations,
and the silence which prevailed in the
country, showed her that the Chouans
and their chief had withdrawn. The
exertion which passion had enabled her
to make flagged with the hope which had
inspired it. Finding herself alone, be-
nighted and in the midst of a country
unknown to her and beset by war, she
began to reflect ; and Hulot's warning
and Madame du Gua's shot made her
shudder with fear.

The stillness of night, so deep on the
hills, allowed her to hear the smallest
falling leaf even a great way off, and such
slight'noises kept vibrating in the air as
though to enable her^ to take sad meas-
ure of the solitude and the silence. In the

upper sky the wind blew fresh, and drove
the clouds violently before it, producing
waves of shadow and light, the effects of
which increased her terror by giving a ,
fantastic and hideous appearance to the
most harmless objects. She turned her
eyes to the houses of Fougeres, whose
homely lights burned like so many earthly
stars ; and suddenly she had a distinct
view of the Papegaut's Tower. The dis-
tance which she must travel in order to
return to it was nothing; but the road
was a precipice. She had a good enough
memory of the depths bordering the nar-
row path b}' which she had come to know
that she was in more danger if she re-
traced her steps to Fougeres than if she
pursued her adventure. The thought oc-
curred to her that the marquis's glove
would free her night walk from all danger
if the Chouans held the country ; her only
formidable foeAvas Madame du Gua. As
she thought of her, Marie clutched her
dagger, and tried to make her way to-
ward a house whose roof she had seen
by glimpses as she reached the crags of
Saint Sulpice. But she made slow prog-
ress, for the majestic gloom which
weighs on a being who is alone in the
night in the midst of a wild district,
where lofty mountain-tops bow their heads
on all sides, like a meeting of giants, was
new to her.

The rustle of her dress caught by the
ajoncs made her start more than once,
and more than once she hurried, slacken- '
ing her pace again as she thought that
her last hour -sf as come. But before long
the surroundings took a character to
which the boldest inen might have suc-
cumbed, and threw Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil into one of those panics which bear
so hardly on the springs of life, that every-
thing, strength or weakness, takes a touch
of exaggeration in different individuals.
At such times the feeblest show an extra-
ordinary^ strength, and the strongest go
mad Avith terror. Marie heard, at a short
distance, curious noises, at once distinct
and confused, just as the night w^as at
once dark and clear. They seemed to
show alarm and tumult, the ear straining
itself in vain to comprehend them. They

THE CHOUANS.

125

rose from the bosom of the earth, which
seemed shaken under the feet of a vast
multitude of men marching". An interval
of lig-lit allowed Mademoiselle de Verneuil
to see, a few paces from her, a long- file
of g-hastly fig-ures, swajdng- like ears in a
cornfield, and slipping- along- like g-hosts,
but she could only just see them, for the
darkness fell ag-ain like a black curtain,
and hid from her a terrible picture full of
yellow, flashing- eyes. She started briskly
backward and ran to the top of a slope,
so as to escape three of the terrible shapes
who were coming- toward her.

" Did you see him ? " asked one.

"I felt a cold blast as he passed near
me," answered a hoarse voice.

''For me, I breathed the damp air and
smell of a graveyard," said the third.

"Was he white? " went on the first.

"Why," said the second, "did he alone
of all those who fell at the Pilg-rim come
back?"

"Why," said the third, " why are those
who belong- to the Sacred Heart made
favorites ? For my part, I would rather
die without confession than wander as he
does, without eating- or drinking-, without
blood in his veins or flesh on his bones."

"Ah!"

This exclamation, or rather cry of hor-
ror, burst from the g-roup as one of the
three Chouans pointed out the slender
form and pale face of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, who fled with terrifying- speed,
and without their hearing- the least noise.

"He is there!" "He is here!"
" Where is he ? " " There ! " " Here ! "
"Heisg-one!" "No!" "Yes!" "Do
jou see him ? " The words echoed like
the dull plash of waves on the shore.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil stepped bold-
ly out in the direction of the house,
and saw the indistinct forms of a multi-
tude of persons who fled, as she ap-
proached, with sig-ns of panic terror. It
was as thoug-h she was carried along- by
an unknown power, whose influence was
too much for her ; and the lightness of
her body, which seemed inexplicable, be-
came a new subject of alarm to herself.
These forms, which rose in masses as she
came near, and as if they came from be-

neath the ground where they appeared to
be stretched, uttered groans which were
not in the least human.

At last she gained, with some difficult}',
a ruined garden whose hedges and gates
were broken through. She was stopped
by a sentinel ; but she showed him her
glove, and, as the moonlight shone on
her face, the rifle dropped from the Chou-
an's hands as he leveled it at Marie, and
he uttered the same hoarse cry which was
echoing all over the country. She could
see a large range of buildings where some
lights indicated inhabited rooms, and she
reached the walls without finding any
obstacle. Through the very first window
to which she bent her steps, she saw Ma-
dame du Gua with the chiefs who had
been assembled at the Vivetiere. Losing
her self-command, partly at the sight,
partly through her sense of danger, she
flung herself sharply back on a small
opening guarded by thick iron bars, and
distinguished, in a long vaulted apart-
ment, the marquis, alone, melancholy,
and close to her. The reflections of the
fire, before which he was sitting in a
clumsN' chair, threw on his face ruddy
flickers which gave the whole scene the
character of a vision. Trembling, but
otherwise motionless, the poor girl clung
close to the bars, and in the deep silence
which prevailed she hoped to hear him
if he spoke. As she saw him dejected,
discouraged, pale, she flattered herself
that she was one of the causes of his sad-
ness. And then her wrath changed to
pity, her pity to affection ; and she felt
all of a sudden that what had brought
her there was not merely vengeance. The
marquis turned his head and stood aghast
as he saw, as if in a cloud, the face of
Mademoiselle de Verneuil ; he let shp a
gesture of scorn and impatience as he
cried, " Must I, then, see this she-devil
always, even when I am awake?"

The profound disdain which he had con-
ceived for her drew from the poor git-1 a
frenzied laugh, which made the young
chief start ; he darted to the casement,
and Mademoiselle de Verneuil fled. Siie
heard close behind her the steps of a man
whom she thought to be Montauran -, and

126

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

in order to escape him, nothing seemed to
her an obstacle. She could have scaled
walls and flown in the air, she could have
taken the road to hell itself, in order to
avoid reading- once more in letters of fire
the words " He despises ,you ! " which
were written on the man's forehead, and
which her inner voice shouted to her, as
she went, with trumpet sound. After
going- she knew not whither, she stopped,
feeling a damp air penetrate her being.
Frightened at the steps of more persons
than one, and urged by fear, she ran down
a staircase which led her to the bottom of
a cellar. When she had reached the low-
est step she hearkened, trying to distin-
guish the direction which her pursuers
were taking ; but though there was noise
enough outside, she could hear the doleful
groanings of a human voice, which added
to her terror. A flash of light which
came from the top of the stair made her
fear that her persecutors had discovered
her retreat ; and her desire to escape them
gave her new strength. She could not
easily explain to herself, when shortly
afterward she collected her thoughts, in
what way she had been able to climb
upon the dwarf wall where she bad hidden
herself. She did not even at first perceive
the cramped position which the attitude
of her body inflicted on her. But the
cramp became unbearable before long;
for she looked, under a vaulted arch,
like a statue of the crouching Venus
stuck by an amateur in too narrow a
niche. The wall, which was pretty wide
and built of granite, formed a partition
between the stairway itself and a cellar
from whence the groans came. Soon she
saw a man whom she did not know, cov-
ered with goatskins, descending beneath
her, and turning under the vaulting with-
out giving any sign of hasty search.

Impatient to know whether any chance
of safety would present itself. Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil anxiously waited for the
light w^hich t^^e stranger carried to lighten
the cellar, on whose floor she perceived a
shapeless but living heap, which was mak-
ing endeavors to reach a certain part of
the wall hy a violent succession of move-
ments, resembling the irregular writhings

of a carp stranded on the bank. A small
torch of resin soon diffused its bluish and
uncertain light in the cellar. Despite the
romantic gloom which Mademoiselle de
Verneuil's imagination shed upon the
vaults as they re-echoed the sounds of
dolorous supplication, she could not help
perceiving the plain fact that she was in
an underground kitchen, long disused.
When the light was thrown upon the
shapeless heap, it became a short and
very fat man, whose limbs had all been
carefully tied, but who seemed to have
been left on the damp flags without
further attention by those who had seized
him. At sight of the stranger, who held
the torch in one hand and a fagot in the
other, the prisoner muttered a deep groan,
which had so powerful an effect on Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's feelings that she
forgot her own terror, her despair, and
the horrible cramped position of her limbs,
which were stiffening from being doubled
up, and did all she could to remain motion-
less. The Chouan threw his fagot into
the fire-place after trjnng the strength of
an old pot-hook and chain which hung
down a tall iron fire-back, and lighted
the wood with his torch. It was not
without terror that Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil then recognized the cunning Pille-
Miche, to whom her rival had delivered
her up, and whose face, with the flame
flickering on it, resembled the grotesque
manikins that the Germans carve in box-
wood. The wail which had escaped the
captive brought a huge smile on his
countenance, which was furrowed with
wrinkles and tanned by the sun.

" You see," he said to the victim, " that
Christians like us do not break their word
as you do. The fire here wall take the
stiffness out of your legs, and your hands,
and your tongue. But there ! there ! I
can't see a dripping-pan to put under your
feet : they are so plump, they might . put
the fire out. Your house must be very
ill furnished that a man cannot find where-
withal to serve its master properly when
he warms himself ! "

The sufferer uttered a sharp yell, as if
he hoped to make himself heard outside
the vaults, and bring a deliverer.

THE CHOUANS.

12-;

*' Oh ! 3''ou can sing^ to 3'our heart's con-
tent, Monsieur d'Orgemont ! They have
all g-one to bed upstairs, and Marche-a-
Terre is coming* after me. He will shut
the cellar door."

As he spoke, Pille-Miche sounded with
his rifle-butt the chimney-piece, the flags
that paved the kitchen floor, the walls,
and the stoves, to try and find the hiding-
place where the miser had put his gold.
The Starch was conducted with such skill
that D'Orgemont held his breath, as if he
feared to have been betrayed by some
frightened servant ; for, though he had
not made a confidant of any one, his ways
of life might have given occasion to
shrew^d inferences. From time to time
Pille-Miche turned sharply round to look
at his victim, as if he were playing the
children's game where the^^ try to guess,
by the unguarded expression of some one
who has hidden a given object, whether
they are "w^arm"or "^'cold." D'Orge-
mont pretended a certain terror as he
saw the Chouan striking the stoves,
which returned a hollow sound, and
seemed to wash tlius to amuse Pille-
Miche's credulous greed for a time. At
that moment three other Chouans, plung-
ing into the staircase, made their appear-
ance suddenty in the kitchen.

'* Marie Lambrequin has come alive
again ! " said Marche-a-Terre, with a
look and gesture which showed that all
other matters of interest grew trifling
beside such important news.

'•' I am not surprised at that," an-
swered Pille-Miche. "He used to take
the communion so often ! You would
have thought that le bon Dieu was his
private property."

" Yes ! But," said Mene-a-Bien, "that
did him as much good as shoes do to a
dead man. It seems he had not received
absolution before the affair at the Pil-
grim ; he had played the fool with Go-
guelu's girl, and thus was caught in
mortal sin. So Abbe Gudin says that
he will have to wait for two months as
a ghost before coming back really and
truly. We all of us saw him pass before
us — pale, and cold, and unsubstantial,
and smelling of the graveyard."

" And his reverence says, that if the
ghost can get hold of any one, he will
carry him off as his mate," added the
fourth Chouan. This last speaker's gro-
tesque figure distracted Marche-a-Terre
from the rehgious musings into which
he had been plunged by a miracle, which,
according to Abbe Gudin, fervent faith
might repeat for the benefit of every
pious defender of church and king.

"You see, Galope-Chopine," said he to
the neophyte, with some gravity, "what
are the consequences of the slightest short-
coming in the duties ordered b}" our holy
religion. Saint Anne of Auray bids us
have no merc\' for the smallest faults
among ourselves. Your cousin Pille-
Miche has begged for you the place of
overeeer of Fougeres ; the Gars consents
to intrust 3'ou with it, and j^ou will be
well paid. But j^ou know what meal we
bake traitor's cake of?"

"Yes, Master Marche-a-Terre."

" And you know why I say this to you ?
There are people who say that you are
too fond of cider and of big penny-pieces.
But you must not try to make pickings ;
you must stick to us, and us only."

"Saving your reverence,Master Marche-
a-Terre, cider and pennj'^-pieces are two
good things, which do not hinder a man
from saving his soul."

" If m}" cousin makes any mistake,"
said Pille-Miche, "it will only be through
ig-norance."

" No matter how a misfortune comes,"
cried Marche-a-Terre, in a voice which
made the vault quiver, "I shall not miss
him. You will be surety for him," he
added, turning to Pille-Miche; "for if
he does wrong I shall ask ^n account of
it at the lining of 3-our goatskins."

" But, ask your pardon. Master Marche-
a-Terre," replied Galope-Chopine, "has
it not happened to you more than once to
believe that Anti-Chuins are Chuiiis ? " ,

"My friend," said Marche-a-Terre
dryh^, "don't make tha,t mistake again,
or I will sliver you like a turnip. As for
the messengers of the Gars, they will
have his glove ; but since that business
at the Vivetiere the Grande-Garce puts
a green ribbon in it."

128

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Pille-Miche jogged his comrade's elbow-
sharply, pointing to D'Orgemont, who
pretended to he asleep ; but both Marche-
a-Terre and Pille-Miche himself knew^ by
experience that nobody- had yet gone to
sleep at their fireside. And though the
last words to Galope-Chopine had been
spoken in a low tone, since the victim
might have understood them, the four
Chouans all stared at him for a moment,
and no doubt thought that fear had de-
prived him of the use of his senses. Sud-
denly, at a slight sign from Marche-a-
Terre, Pille-Miche took off D'Orgemont's
shoes and stockings, Mene-a-Bieu and
Galope-Chopine seized him round the body
and carried him to the fire. Then Marche-
a-Terre himself took one of the cords that
had bound the fagot and tied the miser's
feet to the pot-hook. These combined
proceedings, and their incredible swift-
ness, made the victim utter cries which
became heartrending when Pille-Miche
brought the coals together under his
legs.

" My friends ! my good friends ! " cried
D'Orgemont ; "yow. will hurt me ! I am
a Christian like yourselves ! "

" You lie in your throat ! " answered
Marche-a-Terre. '^ Your brother denied
God. As for 3^ou, you bought Juvignj^
Abbey. Abbe Gudin says tliat we need
feel no scruple as to roasting renegades."

" But, brethren in God, I do not refuse
to pay you."

" We gave von a fortnight. Two
months have passed, and here is Galope-
Chopine, who has not received a far-
thing."

"You received nothing, Galope-Cho-
pine ? " asked the miser despairingly.

*' Nothing, Monsieur d'Orgemont," an-
swered Galope-Chopine, alarmed.

The yells, which had changed into a
continuous growl, like a man's death-
rattle, began again w^ith unheard-of vio-
lence, but the four Chouans, as much
used to this spectacle as they were to see-
ing their dogs walk without shoes, gazed
so coolly at D'Orgemont as he writhed
and howled, that they looked like trav-
elers waiting by an inn fire till the roast
was done enough to eat.

*' I am dying ! I am dying ! " said the
victim, '■' and you w^ill not get my
money ! "

Despite the energy of the yells, Pille-
Miche noticed that the fire had not yet
caught the skin ; and they poked the
coals very artisticall}^, so as to make
them blaze up a little, wiiereat D'Orge-
mont said in a broken voice :

" M3' friends ! Unbind me. . . . What
do you want? A hundred crowns? A
thousand ? Ten thousand ? A hundred
thousand ? I offer two hundred crowns!"

The voice w^as so pitiful that Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil forgot her owai danger
and allowed an exclamation to escape her.

" Who spoke ? " asked Marche-a-Terre.

The Chouans cast startled glances
round them ; for, brave as they were be-
fore the deadly mouths of gun§, they
could not stand a ghost. Pille-Miche
alone listened with un distracted attention
to the confession w^hich increasing pain
wrung from his victim.

" Five hundred crowns ? . . . Yes ! I
will give them ! " said the miser.

"Bah! Where are they?" observed
Pille-Miche calmly.

"What? They are under the first
apple-tree. . . . Holy Virgin ! At the
end of the garden — on the left. . . .
You are brigands ! robbers ! Ah ! I am
dying. . . . There are ten thousand
francs there ! "

"I won't have francs," said Marche-a-
Terre; "they must be livres. The Re-
public's crowns have heathen figures on
them w^hich will never pass."

"' They are in livres, in good louis d'or.
Untie me ! untie me ! You know^ where
my life is — that is to say, my treasure."

The four Chouans looked at each other,
considering which of them could be trusted
to go and unearth the money. But by
this time their cannibal barbarity had so
horrified Mademoiselle de Verneuil, that,
without knowing whether or no the part
which her pale face marked out for her
would suffice to preserve her from danger,
she boldly cried in a deep-toned voice :
" Do you not fear the wrath of God ?
Untie him, savages ! "

The Chouans raised their heads, saw in

THE CHOUANS.

129

the air eyes which flashed like two stars
and fled in terror. Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil jumped down into the kitchen, flew
to D'Org-emont, pulled him so sharply
from the fire that the fagot cords gave
way, and then, drawing- her dagger, cut
the bonds with which he was bound.
When the miser stood up, a free man,
the first expression on his face was a
laugh — one of pain, but still sardonic.
" Go to the apple-tree ! Go, brigands ! "
he said. "Aha! I have outwitted them
twice. They shall not catch me a third
time 1 "

At the same moment a woman's voice
sounded without. " A ghost ? " cried Ma-
dame du Gua. ■'•'Fools! 'Tis she! A
thousand crowns to him who brings me
the harlot's head ! "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned pale,
but the miser smiled, took her hand, drew
her under the chimney-mantel, and pre-
vented her from leaving any trace of her
passage \iy leading her so as not to dis-
turb the fire, which filled but a small
space. He touched a spring, the iron
fire-back rose, and when their common
foes re-entered the cellar, the heavj^ door
of the hiding-place had alreadj^ noiselessl}'^
closed. Then the Parisian girl under-
stood the carp-like wrigglings which she
had seen the luckless banker make.

" There, madame ! " cried Marche-a-
Terre. "The ghost has taken the Blue
for his mate I "

The alarm must have been great, for so
deep a silence followed these words that
D'Orgemont and his fair companion heard
the Chouans whispering " Ava Sancta
Anna Auriaca gratia plena, Dominus
tecum," etc.

" The fools are praying ! " cried D'Or-
gemont.

"Are you not afraid," said Mademoi-
selle de Yerneuil, interrupting her com-
panion, " of discovering our — "

A laugh from the old miser dissipated
her fears. " The plate is bedded in a slab
of granite ten inches thick. We can hear
them, and they cannot hear us."

Then taking his liberatress's hand
gently, he led her toward a crack whence
came puffs of fresh air ; and she under-
Balzac — E

stood that the opening had been worked
in tlie chimney.

"Ah!" went on D'Orgemont, "the
devil ! My legs smart a little. That
' Filly of Charette,' as they call her at
Nantes, is not fool enough to contradict
her faithful followers ; she knows well
enough that if they were less brutishly
ignorant, they would not fight against
their own interests. There she is, pray-
ing too ! It must be good to see her
saying her Ave to Saint Anne of Auray !
She had much better rob a coach so as to
pay me back the four thousand francs she
owes me. With costs and interest it comes
to a good four thousand seven hundred
and eighty, besides centimes."

Their prayer finished, the Chouans rose
and went out.

But old D'Orgemont clutched Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's hand, to warn her
that there was still danger.

" No, madame ! " cried Pille-Miche,
after some minutes' silence, " you may
stay there ten years. They will not come
back!".

" But she has not gone out ; she must
be here," said Charette's Filly, obsti-
nately.

" No, madame, no ! they have flown
through the walls. Did not the devil
carrj'- off a priest who had taken the oath
in that very place before us ? "

"What, Pille-Miche! do not you, who
are as much of a miser as he is, see that
the old skinflint might very well have
spent some thousands of livres on making
a recess with a secret entrance in the
foundations of these vaults ? "

The miser and the 3^oung girl heard
Pille-Miche give a great laugh.

"' Right ! very right ! " said he.

" Stay here I " said Madame du Gua ;
"' wait for them when they go out. For
one gunshot I will give you all you can
flnd in our usurer's treasury. If you wish
me to forgive you for having sold the girl
when I told 3'ou to kill her, obe}^ me ! "

"Usurer!" said old D'Orgemont;
"and yet I charged her no more than
nine per cent. 'Tis true that I had a
mortgage as security. But there ! you
see how grateful she is. Come, madame.

130

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

if God punishes us for doing- ill, the devil
is there to punish us for doing good ; and
man, placed between the two without
knowledge of futuritA^, has alwa^^s given
me the idea of a problem of proportion
in which x is an undiscoverable quantity."

He heaved a hollow sigh which was a
characteristic of his, the air which passed
through his larynx seeming to encounter
and strike on two old and slack fiddle-
strings. But the noise which Pille-Miche
and Madame du Gua made as they once
more sounded the walls, the vaulted ceil-
ing, and tlie pavement, seemed to reassure
D'Orgemont, who seized his deliverer's
hand to help her in climbing a narrow
corkscrew staircase worked in the thick-
ness of a granite Avail. When they had
climbed some score of steps the feeble
glimmer of a lamp shone above their
heads. The miser stopped, turned toward
his comiDanion, gazed at her face as he
would have scrutinized, handled, and re-
handled a bill which was risky to dis-
count, and uttered once more his boding
sigh.

"By placing you here," he said, "I
have paid you back in full the service you
did me. Therefore I do not see whj^ I
should give you — "

*' Sir ! leave me here. I ask nothing of
you," she said.

Her last words, and perhaps the disdain
which her beautiful face expressed, reas-
sured the little old man, for he answered,
sighing again :

"Ah ! I have done too much alreadj^'by
bringing you here not to go on with it."

He helped Marie politely to climb some
steps of rather puzzling arrangement, and
ushered her, half with a good grace, half
reluctantly, into a tiny closet, four feet
square, lighted by a lamp which hung
from the vaulting. It was easy to see
that the iniser had made all his arrange-
ments for spending more than one day in
this retreat if the events of the civil war
forced him to do so.

" Do not go close to the wall, the white
will come off," said D'Orgemont suddenlj^
and with considerable haste he thrust his
hand between the young girl's shawl and
the wall, which seemed to have just been

re-whitened. But the old miser's gesture
produced an effect quite contrary to that
which he intended. Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil instantly looked straight before her,
and saw in a corner a sort of erection, the
shape of which drew from her a cry of
terror, for she could divine that a human
form had been j)lastered over and stood
up there. D'Orgemont imposed silence
on her with a terrifying look, but his little
china-blue eyes showed as much alarm as
his companion's.

" Sill}'' girl ! do you think I murdered
him? 'Tis my brother," said he, with a
melancholy A-ariation on his usual sigh,
"the first rector who took the oath. This
Avas the only refuge where he was safe
from the rage of the Chouans and of the
other priests. That they should perse-
cute a worthy man, so well conducted !
He was my elder brother, and none but
he had the patience to teach me decimal
notation. Ah I he Avas a good priest, and
a saving ; he knew Iioav to lay up ! 'Tis
four years since he died, of what disease
I knoAV not ; but look you, these priests
have a habit of kneeling from time to
time to praA', and perhaps he could not
accustom himself to standing here as I
do. I bestoAved him there ; anywhere else
thcA^ Avould have unearthed him. Some
day I may be able to bury him in holy
ground, as the poor man (Avho only took
the oaths for fear) used to say,"

A tear dropped from the little old
man's dry e^'^es, and his red Avig looked
less ugly thenceforward to the young
girl. She averted her eyes out of secret
reverence for his sorrow ; but in spite
of his emotion, D'Orgemont repeated,
"Don't go near the AA^all, you will — "

Nor did his e^^es take themseh^es off
those of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, as
though he hoped thus to preA^ent her
bestowing more particular attention on
the side walls of the closet, where the
air, half exhausted, gave scanty play to
the lungs. Yet Marie succeeded in steal-
ing" a g-lance from the surA^eillance of her
Argus; and from the odd bumps on the
walls she came to the conclusion that the
miser had built them up himself Avith bags
of silver and gold. For a moment's space

THE CHOUANS.

131

D'Orgemont had plunged into a fantastic
kind of ecstasy. The pain -which his
scorched legs gave him, and his alarm
at perceiving a human being in the midst
of his treasures, were legible in every
wrinkle ; but at the same time his dried-
up eyes expressed by their unaccustomed
luster the liberal passion which was caused
in him by the dangerous vicinity of his
deliveress, whose pink and white cheeks
were a magnet to kisses, and whose vel-
vety black e^'es made the blood flow so
hotly through his heart, that he knew
not whether it presaged life or death.

•'•'Are you married?" he asked her in
a quivering voice.

" No I " she answered with a smile.

''I am worth something," he said,
heaving Ids sigh, '•' though I am not as
rich as they all say. A girl like you
ought to like diamonds, jewels, equi-
pages and .gold ! "he added with a scared
look round him ; ''I have all that to give
after my death ; and if 3'ou liked — "

The old man's eye showed so much
calculation, even in this fleeting moment
of passion, that as she shook her head
negatively. Mademoiselle de Verneuil
could not help thinking- that the miser's
desire for her hand came chieflj'- from the
wish to bury his secret in the heart of a
second self.

"Money!" she said, throwing at
D'Orgemont a sarcastic glance which at
once vexed and pleased hmi, "money is
nothing to me. You would be thrice as
rich as you are if all the money I have
refused were there."

"Don't touch the w — !"

•'And yet nothing was asked of me in
return but a kind glance," she added,
with pride unbelievable.

" You were wrong ; it was a very good
bargain. Why, think — "

'• Think 1/ow," interrupted Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, •• that I have just heard yon-
der the sound of a voice one accent of
which is more precious to me than all
your riches ! "

"You do not know them — "

But before the miser could hinder her,
Marie displaced with a finger touch a
small colored print of Louis XV. on horse-

back, and suddenly saw beneath her the
marquis, who was busily loading a blunder-
buss. The opening, hidden by the little
panel on which the print was pasted, no
doubt corresponded to some decoration on
the ceiling of the neighboring chamber,
which appeared to be the Roj'ahst gen-
eral's bedroom. D'Orgemont, with ex-
treme precaution, pushed the old print
back and looked sternly at the damsel.

" Speak not a word, if you love your
life ! You have cast yowc grapling,"
whispered he after a pause, " on a prett}^
vessel enough. Do you know that the
Marquis of Montauran has a hundred
thousand livres a year in leaseholds which
have not ^-et been sold ? Now, a consular
decree which I have read in the Ille-et-
Vilaine ' Sunda}' Times ' * has just put
a stop to sequestrations. Aha ! You
think the Gars there a prettier man, do
you not ? Your eyes flash like a pair of
new louis d'or."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil's glances had
gained animation as she heard the well-
known voice sound once more. Since she
had been in her present situation, stand-
ing, as it were, plunged in a gold and
silver mine, the elasticity of her spirit,
which had given way under the pressure
of events, had renewed its vigor. She
seemed to have taken a sinister resolve,
and to see her way to put it in execution.

" There is no recovery from such scorn
as this," she was saying to herself, " and
if it is written that he shall no more love
me, I will kill him ! no other woman shall
have him ! "

"No, abbe ! no," cried the young chief,
whose voice now reached them ; "it must
be so."

" M}" lord marquis," objected Abbe
Gudin, in a haught}'- tone, "you will
scandalize all Brittany if you give this
ball at Saint James. Preachers, and not
dancers, are wanted to put our villages in
motion. You must get fusees, not fid-
dles."

" Abbe, 3' on are clever enough to know

* In original " Primidi de I'llle-et-Vilaine,"
Primidi being the first day in each decade of that
Republican calender which was one of the oddest
recorded childishnesses of democracy.

132

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

• that without a general assembly of our
partj^ I cannot find out what I can
undertake with them. No kind of es-
pionage (which, by the way, I hate)
seems to me more convenient for the
examination of their countenances, and
the discovery of tlieir minds, than a
dinner. We will make them talk, glass
in hand."

Marie started as she heard the words,
for she conceived the idea of going to this
ball and avenging herself there.

"Do you think I am a fool that you
preach to me against dancing ? " went on
Montauran. " Would you not j^ourself
figure in a chaconne with all the good
will in the world to get re-established
under j'^our new name of Peres de la Foi ?
Can you be ignorant that Bretons go
straight from the mass to the dance?
Can you be ignorant again that H^'de de
Neuville and D'Andigne had an interview
five days ago with the First Consul on the
question of restoring His Majestj'^ Louis
XVIII. ? If I am getting ready now to
try so rash a coup de main, my sole rea-
son is that I may throw the weight of our
hob-nailed shoes in the scale of this ne-
gotiation. Can you be ignorant that all
the Vendean chiefs, even Fontaine, talk
of surrender ? Ah ! sir, it is clear that the
princes have been deceived as to the state
of France. The devotion of which people
talk to them is official devotion. Only,
abbe, if I have dipped my foot in blood, I
will not plunge in it up to vay waist with-
out knowing what I am about. I have
devoted myself to the king's service, and
not to that of a parcel of hotheads, of
men head over ears in debt like Rifoel,
of chauffeurs, of — "

" Sa}'^ at once, sir," interrupted the
Abbe Gudin, " of abbes who take tithes
on the highway to maintain the war ! "

" Wh3^ should I not say it ? " answered
the marquis sharply ; "I will say more :
the heroic age of La Vendee is past ! "

*'My lord marquis, we shall be able to
do miracles without you."

''Yes! miracles like Marie Lambre-
quin's," said the marquis, laughing.
" Come, abbe, do not let us quarrel. I
know that you are not careful of your

own skin, and can pick off a Blue as well
as say an oremus. With God's help, I
hope to make you take a part, miter on
head, at the king's coronation."

These last words must have had a
magical effect on the abbe, for the ring of
a rifle was heard, and he cried, ''M^^ lord
marquis ! I have fifty cartridges in my
pocket, and my life is the king's ! "

" There is another of my debtors," said
the miser to Mademoiselle de Verneuil ;
"I am not speaking of a wretched five or
six hundred crowns that he owes me, but .
of a debt of blood which I hope will be
paid some da}^. The accursed Jesuit can
never have such bad luck as I wish him.
He had sworn my brother's death, and
he roused the whole country against him.
And why ? Because the poor fellow
feared the new laws ! "

Then, after putting his ear to a certain
spot in the hiding-place, "The brigands
are making off — the whole pack of them,"
said he; "thex"^ are going to do some
other miracle. Let us hope that they
will not try to bid me good-by as they ••
did last time, by setting fire to the house."

Some half-hour later (during which time
Mademoiselle de Verneuil and D'Orge-
mont gazed at each other as each might m
have gazed at a picture) the rough, coarse
voice of Galope-Chopine cried, in a low
tone, "There is no more danger. Mon-
sieur d'Orgemont ! but this time I earned
my thirtj^ crowns well ! "

"My child," said the miser, "swear
that you will shut jour eyes."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil covered her
eyelids with one of her hands ; but to
make surer still the old man blew out the
lamp, took his deliveress by the hand,
and helped her to take five or six steps in
an awkward passage. At the end of a
minute or two he gently removed her
hand from her eyes, and she found her-
self in the room which Montauran had
just quitted, and which was the miser's
own.

"My dear child," said the old man,
" A'ou can go (do not stare round you like
that). You are no doubt without money
— here are ten crowns for you ; there are
clipped ones among them, but they will

THE CHOUANS.

133

pass. When you come out of the g-arden
you will find a path leading- to the town,
or as they say now, to the district. But
the Chouans are at Foug-eres, and it is
unlikeW that you will be able to enter
there directly ; so you may have need, of
a safe resting-place, Mark well what I
am going- to say to you, and onl}^ make
use of it in the extremit}^ of danger. You
will see on the road which leads by the
Gibarry Valle^^ to the Nid-aux-Crocs, a
farm where Long Cibot, called Galope-
Chopine, dwells. Go in, say to his wife,
' Good-day, Becaniere ! ' and Barbette
will hide you. If Galope-Chopine finds
you out, he will take j^ou for the g-host if
it is night, or ten crowns will tame him if
it is da3\ Good-b^'^ ! we are quits. But
if you chose," said he, pointing with a
sweep of the hand to the fields surround-
ing- his house, " all that should be yours I "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil cast a g-rate-
ful glance on this odd being, and suc-
ceeded in drawing from him a sigh of
unusually varied tone,

"Of course, 3"ou will pay me my ten
crowns ? (please observe that I say noth-
ing about interest). You can pay them
in to my credit with Master Patrat, the
Fougeres notary — who, if you chose,
would, draw up our marriage contract,
my lovely treasure ! Farewell ! "

*' Farewell ! " said she, with a smile
and a wave of her hand.

"If you want money," he cried after
her, " I will lend it you at five per cent !
yes, at five merely ! did I say five ? " but
she had g-one, " She seems aniceg-irl,"
added D'Org-emont ; "still, I will change
the trick of my chimney." Then he took
a twelve-pound loaf and a ham, and went
back to his hiding--X)lace,

When Mademoiselle de Verneuil stepped
out in the open country she felt as thoug-h
new born ; and the cool morning refreshed
her face, which for some hours past
seemed to her to have been stricken by
a burning atmosphere. She tried to find
the path which the miser had indicated,
but since moonset the darkness had be-
come so intense that she was obliged to
g-o at a venture. Soon the fear of falling
among- the cliffs struck a chill to her

heart and saved her life ; for she made a
sudden stop with the presentiment that
another step would find the earth yawn-
ing- beneath her. The cooler breeze which
kissed her hair, the ripple of the waters,
as well as her own instinct, g-ave her a
hint that she had come to the end of the
rocks of Saint Sulpice. She threw her
arms round a tree, and waited for the
dawn in a state of lively anxiety, for she
heard a noise of weapons, of horses, and
of human tong-ues. She felt thankful to
the night which protected her from the
danger of falling into the hands of the
Chouans if they VQ2b\\y, as the miser had
said, were surrounding- Fougeres.

Like bonfires suddenly kindled by nig-ht,
as a signal of liberty, some g-leams of faint
purple ran along the mountain-tops, the
lower slopes retaining- a bluish tinge in
contrast with the dewy clouds fioating-
over the valleys. Soon a crimson disk
rose slowly on the horizon ; the skies g-ave
answering light ; the ups and downs of the
landscape, the steeple of St. Leonard's,
the rocks, the meadows, which had been
buried in shadow, reappeared little by
little, and the trees on the hilltops showed
their outlines in the nascent blaze. Rising-
with a g-racef ul bound, the sun shook him-
self free from his ribbons of flame-color,
of ochre, and of sapphire. His lively lig-ht
sketched harmonies of level lines from hill
to hill, and flowed from vale to vale. The
g-loom fled, and day overwhelmed all nat-
ure. A sharp breeze shivered through
the air ; the birds sang- ; on all sides life
awoke. But the girl had hardlj'- had
time to lower her gaze to the main body
of this striking- landscape when, b\^ a
phenomenon common enough in these
well-watered countries, sheets of mist
spread themselves, filling- the valleys,
climbing the tallest hills, and burying-
the fertile basin in a cloak, as of snow.
And soon Mademoiselle de Verneuil could
fancy that she saw before her one of
those seas of ice wherewith the Alps are
furnished. Then the cloudy air became
billowy as the ocean, and sent up dense
waves which, softly swinging- to and fro,
undulating- and even whirling- rapidly,
dyed themselves with bright rosy hues

134

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

from the rays of the sun, with here and
there clear patches hke lakes of liquid
silver. Suddenly the north wind, breath-
ing- on the phantasmag-oria, blew the fog-
away, leaving- a heavy dew on the turf.

Then Mademoiselle de Verneuil could
see a hug-e brown mass installed on the
rocks of Fougeres. Seven or eight hun-
dred armed Chouans were swarming- in
the Faubourg- Saint Sulpice like ants in an
ant-heap, .and the precincts of the castle,
where were posted three thousand men,
who had come up as if by enchantment,
were furiousl3^ attacked. The town, de-
spite its grassy ramparts and its ancient,
g-rizzled towers, mig-ht have succumbed
in its sleep, if Hulot had not been on the
watch. A battery, concealed on a height
\ymg in the hollow of the ramparts, re-
plied to the first fire of the Chouans by
taking- them in flank on the road leading-
to the castle, which was raked and swept
clean by g*rape-shot. Then a company
made a sortie from the Porte Saint Sul-
pice, took advantag-e of the Chouans'
surprise, formed on the roadwa^^, and
beg-an a murderous fire on them. The
Chouans did not even attempt resistance
when they saw the ramparts of the castle
covered with soldiers, as if the scene-
painter's art had suddenly drawn long-
blue lines round them, while the fire of the
fortress protected that of the Republican
sharp-shooters. However, another party
of Chouans, having made themselves
masters of the little valley of the Nancon,
had climbed the rocky paths and reached
the promenade, to which they mounted,
the goatskins which covered it giving it
the appearance of thatch browned by
time. At the same moment heavy firing
was heard in that part of the town which
looks toward the valley of the Couesnon.
It was clear that Fougeres was com-
pletely surrounded and attacked on all
sides. A conflagration which showed it-
self on the east face of the rock, gave evi-
dence that the Chouans were burning the
suburbs ; but the showers of sparks which
came from the shingled or broom-thatched
roofs soon ceased, and columns of black
smoke showed that the fire was going
out.

Once more gray and white clouds hid
the scene from Mad moiselle de Verneuil,
but the wind soon blew away this powder-
fog. The Republican commander had al-
ready changed the direction of his battery,
so as successively to rake the Nancon
Valley, the Queen's Staircase, and the
rocks, as soon as he had seen from the
top of the promenade the complete success
of his earlier orders. Two guns placed by
the guard-house of the Porte Saint Leo-
nard mowed down the swarms of Chouans
which had carried that position, while the
Fougeres National Guard, which had
hastily mustered in the church square,
put the finishing touch to the rout of the
enem3^ The fight did not last half an
hour, and did not cost the Blues a hun-
dred men. The Chouans, beaten crush-
ingly, were already retiring in every di-
rection under the orders of the Gars,
whose bold stroke failed, though he knew
it not, as a direct consequence of the affair
at the Vivetiere, which had brought Hulot
so secretly back to Fougeres. The guns
had only come up that very night; for the
mere news that ammunition was on its
way would have been enough to make
Montauran abandon an enterprise which
was certain of defeat as soon as blown
upon. Indeed, Hulot was as ardentl^^ de-
sirous of giving the Gars a smart lesson,
as the Gars could be of succeeding- in his
dash, so as to influence the decisions of
the First Consul. At the first cannon-shot
the marquis saw" that it would be madness
to go on, out of vanity, with a surprise
which was already a failure. So, to avoid
useless loss of his Chouans, he promptly
sent half a dozen messengers with instruc-
tions to effect a retreat at once on all
sides. The commandant, catching sight
of his foe surrounded by numerous ad-
visers, Madame du Gua among the num-
ber, tried to send them a volley on the
rocks of Saint Sulpice. But the position
had been too skillfull^" chosen for the
young chief not to be out of danger. So
Hulot suddenly changed his tactics, and
became the attacker instead of the at-
tacked. At the first movement which
disclosed the marquis's intentions, the
company posted under the castle walls

THE CHOUANS.

135

set to work to cut off the retreat, by
seizing the upper passes into the Nancon
Valley.

Despite her hatred, Mademoiselle de
Verneuil could not help taking the side
of the men whom her lover commanded ;
and she turned quicklj^ toward the other
end to see if it was free. But there she
saw the Blues, who had no doubt gained
the day on the other side of the town, re-
turning from the Couesnon Vallej^ by the
Gibarry Glen, so as to seize the ISTid-aux-
Crocs and the part of the rocks of Saint
Sulpice where lay the lower exit of the
Nangon Valley. Thus the Chouans, shut
up in the narrow meadow at the bottom
of the gorge, seemed as if they must
perish to the last man, so exact had
been the foresight of the old Republican
leader, and so skillfully had his measures
been taken. But at these two spots the
cannon which had served Hulot so well
lost their efiicac3% a deperate liand-to-
hand struggle took place, and, Fougeres
once saved, the affair assumed the char-
acter of an engagement to which the
Chouans were well used. Mademoiselle
de Verneuil at once understood the pres-
ence of the masses of men she had seen
about the country, the meeting of the
chiefs at D'Orgemont's house, and all
the events of the night ; though she
could not conceive how she had managed
to escape so man}^ dangers. The enter-
prise, prompted by despair, interested
her in so lively a manner that she re-
mained motionless, gazing at the ani-
mated pictures before her eyes. Soon
the fight below the Saint Sulpice crags
acquired a new interest for her. Seeing
that the Blues had nearly mastered the
Chouans, the marquis and his friends flew
to their aid in the Nancon Valle3\ The
foot of the rocks was covered by a multi-
tude of knots of furious men, where the
game of life and death was pla3-ed on
ground and with arms much more favor-
able to the Goatskins.

Little by little the moving arena spread
itself farther out, and the Chouans, scat-
tering, gained the rocks \)y the help of
the bushes which grew here and there.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was startled to

see, almost too late, her enemies once
more upon the heights, where they
fought furiously to hold the dangerous
paths which scaled them. As all the
outlets of the high ground were held by
one party or the other, she was afraid of
finding herself surrounded, left the great
tree beliind which she had kept herself,
and took to flight, hoping to proflt by
the old miser's directions. When she
had hurried a long way on the slope of
the heights of Saint Sulpice toward the
great Couesnon Valley, she perceived a
cow-shed some way oft", and guessed that
it belonged to the house of Galope-Cho-
pine, who was likely to have left his wife
alone during the fight. Encouraged by
this guess. Mademoiselle de Verneuil
hoped to be well received in the house,
and to be able to pass some hours there,
till it might be possible for her to return
without risk to Fougeres. To judge from
appearances, Hulot was going to win.
The Chouans fled so rapidly that she
heard gunshots all roui;id her, and the
fear of being hit by some bullet made her
quickly gain the cottage whose chimney
served her as a landmark. The path she
had followed ended at a kind of shed, the
roof of which, thatched with broom, was
supported b^^ four large tree-trunks with
the bar-k still on. A cobbed wall formed
the end of the shed, in which were a
cider press, a threshing-floor for buck-
wheat, and some plowing gear. She
stopped and leaned against one of the
posts, without making up her mind to
cross the muddy swamp serving as court-
yard to the house, which, like a true Pa-
risian, she had taken for a cow-stall.

The cabin, protected fi*om the north
wind by an eminence which rose above
the roof and against which it rested, was
not without touches of poetry, for ash-
suckers, briars, and the flowers of the
rocks wreathed their garlands round it.
A rustic stair wrought between the shed
and the house allowed the inhabitants to
go and breathe a purer air on the rock-
top. At the left of the cottage the hill
sloped sharply down, and laid open to
view a series of flelds, the nearest of
which, no doubt, belonged to the farm.

136

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

These fields gave the effect of a pleasant
woodland, divided by banks of earth
which were planted with trees, and the
nearest of which helped to surround the
courtyard. The lane which led to the
fields was closed by a hug-e tree-trunk,
half rotten, a kind of Breton gateway, the
name of which may serve later as text for
a final digression on local color. Between
the stair wrought in the schist and the
lane, with the swamp in front and the
hanging rock behind, some granite blocks,
roughly hewn, and piled the one on the
other, formed the four corner-stones of
the house and held up the coarse bricks,
the beams, and the pebbles of which the
walls were built. Half the roof was
thatched with broom instead of straw,
and the other half was shingled with
slate-shaped i^ieces of wood, giving prom-
ise of an interior divided in two parts ;
and in fact one, with a clumsy hurdle as
a door, served as stall, while the owners
of the house inhabited the other. Though
the cabin owed to the neig'hborhood of the
town some conveniences which were com-
pletely wanting a league or two further
off, it showed well enough the unstable
kind of life to which war and feudal cus-
toms had so sternly subjected the man-
ners of the serfs, so that to this day many
peasants in these parts give the term
•' abode " onl}^ to the chateau which their
landlord inhabits.

After examining the place with aston-
ishment which may easily be imagined.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed here
and there in the courtyard mud some
pieces of granite so arranged as to serve
as stepping stones toward the house —
a mode of access not devoid of danger.
But as she heard the roll of the musketry
drawing audibly nearer, she skipped from
stone to stone, as if crossing a brook, to
beg for shelter. The house was shut in
by one of those doors which are in two
separate pieces, the lower of solid and
massive wood, while the upper is filled by
a shutter serving as window. Many
shops in the smaller French towns exhibit
this kind of door, but much more orna-
mented, and provided in the lower part
with an alarm-bell. The present speci-

men opened with a wooden latch worthy
of the Golden Age, and the upper part
was never shut except at night, for this
was the only opening b^^ which the light
of day could enter the room. There was,
indeed, a roughly -made casement ; but
its glass seemed to be composed of bottle
ends, and the leaden latticing which held
them occupied so much of the space that
it seemed rather intended to keep light
out than to let it in. When Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil made the door swing on
its creaking hinges, whiffs of an appalling
ammoniacal odor issued to meet her from
the cottage, and she saw that the cattle
had kicked through the interior partition.
Thus the inside of the farm — for farm it
was — did not match ill with the outside.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking- her-
self whether it was possible that human
beings could live in this deliberate state
of filth, Avhen a small, ragged boy, ap-
parently about eight or nine years old,
suddenly showed his fresh white and red
face, plump cheeks, bright eyes, teeth like
ivory, and fair hair falling in tresses on
his half-naked shoulders. His limbs were
full of vigor, and his air had that agree-
able wonder and savage innocence which
makes children's eyes look larger than
nature. The boy was perfectl3^ beautiful.

''Where is your mother ? " said Marie,
in a gentle voice, and stooping to kiss his
eyes.

When he had had his kiss, the child
slipped awa}'^ from her like an eel, and dis-
appeared behind a dunghill which lay be-
tween the path and the house on the rise
of the hill. Indeed, Galope-Chopine, like
many Breton farmers, was accustomed,
by a system of cultivation which is char-
acteristic of them, to jmt his manure in
elevated situations, so that when it comes
to be used the rain has deprived it of all
its virtues. Left to her own devices in the
dwelling for a moment or two, Marie was
not long in taking stock of its contents.
The room in which she waited for Bar-
bette was the onlj'' one in the house ; the
most prominent and stately object in it
was a huge chimney-piece, the mantel of
which was formed of a slab of blue granite.
The etymology of the word justified itself

THE CHOUANS.

137

by a rag" of green serge edged with a pale-
green ribbon, and cut out in rounds, hang-
ing down the slab, in the midst of which
stood a Virgin in colored plaster. On the
pedestal of the statue Mademoiselle Ver-
neuil read two verses of a sacred poem
ver}^ jDopular in the country :

" I am God's mother, full of grace,
And the protectress of this place."

Behind the Virg-in, a hideous picture,
blotched with red and blue by way of
coloring, presented Saint Labre. A bed,
also of g-reen serge, of the shape called
tomb-shaped, a roug-h cradle, a wheel,
some clumsy chairs, and a carved dresser,
furnished with some utensils, completed,
with a few exceptions, the movable prop-
erty of Galope-Chopine. In front of the
casement there was a long- chestnut-wood
table, with two benches in the same wood,
to which such lig-ht as came throug-h the
g-lass g-ave the tint of old mahog-any.
An enormous cider cask, under whose
spile Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed
some yellowish mud, the moisture of
which was slowl}^ rotting- the floor,
thoug-h it was composed of fragments
of granite set in red clay, showed that
the master of the house well deserved
his Chouan nickname (Galope-Chopine,
"tosspot"). Mademoiselle de Verneuil
lifted her eyes as if to relieve them of this
spectacle, and then it seemed to her that
she saw all the bats in the world — so
thick were the spiders' webs which hung
from the ceiling. Two Imge pichefs full
of cider stood on the long table. These
vessels are a kind of jug of brown earth,
the curious pattern of which is found in
more than one district of France, and
which a Parisian can imagine bj'- fanc}'-
ing the jars in which epicures serve up
Brittany butter, with the belly some-
what swollen, varnished here and there
in patches and shaded over with dark
yellow like certain shells. The jugs end
in a sort of mouth not unlike that of a frog
taking in air above water. Marie's atten-
tion had fixed on these pitchers, but the
noise of the fighting, which sounded more
and more distinct, urged her to seek a
place more suitable for hiding without

waiting for Barbette, when the woman
suddenly appeared .

'•' Good da}^, Becaniere ! " said she to
her, suppressing an involuntary smile,
as she saw a face which was not unlike
the heads that architects place as orna-
ments over the keystones of window-
arches.

" Aha I 3'ou come from D'Orgemont,"
answered Barbette, with no great air of
alacrity.

" Where are you going to put me ? for
the Chouans are coming ! "

" There ! " said Barbette, equally as-
tounded at the beauty and the strange
dress of a creature whom she dared not
take for one of her own sex. " There !
in the priest's hole."

She led her to the head of her own bed
and made her go into the alcove. But
they were both startled by hearing a
stranger plashing through the swamp.
Barbette had scarcely time to draw a
bed-curtain and wrap Marie up in it,
when she found herself face to face with
a fugitive Chouan.

" Old woman ! Avhere can one hide
here? I am the Comte de Bauvan."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil shuddered as
she recognized the voice of the guest whose
words — ^few as they were, and secret as
they had been kept from her — had brought
about the disaster at the Vivetiere,

" Alas ! monseigneur, you see there is
nothing of the kind here. The best I can
do is to go out and keep watch. If the
Blues come, I will warn you. If I stayed
here, and they found me with 3^ou, they
would burn my house."

And Barbette left the room ; for she
was not clever enough to adjust the
claims of two mutual enemies who were,
thanks to her husband's double part,
equally entitled to the use of the hiding-
place.

" I have two shots still to fire, " said the
count despairingh^, " but they have got
in front of me already. Never mind ! I
shall be much out of luck if, as they come
back this waj', they take a fancy to look
under the bed ! "

He put his gun gently down by the bed-
post where Marie was standing wrapped

138

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

in the green serg-e, and he stooped to
make sure that he could find room under
the bed. He must infallibly have seen
the feet of the concealed girl, but in this
supreme moment she caught up his gun,
leaped briskly into the open hut, and
threatened the count, who burst out
laughing as he recognized her ; for in
order to hide herself, Marie had discarded
her great Cliouan hat, and her hair fell
in thick tufts from underneath a lace net.

''Don't laugh, count I you are my pris-
oner ! If you make a single movement
you shall know what an offended woman
is capable of."

While the count and Marie were star-
ing at each other with very different feel-
ings, confused voices shouted from the
rocks, " Save the Gars ! Scatter your-
selves ! Save the Gars ! Scatter 3'our-
selves ! "

Barbette's voice rang over the tumult
outside, and was heard in the cottage
with very different sensations \)y the two
foes ; for she spoke less to her son than
to them.

" Don't you see the Blues ? " cried Bar-
bette, sharpl3% "Are you coming here,
wicked little brat ! or shall I come to
you ? Do you want to be shot ? Get
away quickl}^ ! "

During these details, which took little
time, a Blue jumped into the swamp.
" Beau-Pied !" cried Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil to him.

Beau-Pied ran in at her voice, and took
rather better aim at the count than his
deliveress had done.

" Aristocrat ! " said the sly soldier,
" don't stir, or I will demolish you like
the Bastille in two jiffies ! "

"Monsieur Beau-Pied." continued Made-
moiselle de Verneuil in a coaxing tone,
" you will answer to me for this prisoner.
Do what 3^ou like with him ; but you must
get him safe and sound to Fougeres for
me.

''Enough, madame ! "

" Is the road to Fougeres clear now ? "

" It is safe enough, unless the Chouans
come alive again."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil armed herself
gayly with the light fowling-piece, smiled

sarcasticallj^ as she said to her prisoner,
" Good-b3% Monsieur le Comte ; we meet
again," and fled to the path, after put-
ting on her great hat once more.

''I see," said the count bitterly, "a
little too late, that one ought never to
make jests on the honor of women who
have none left."

"Aristocrat !" cried Beau-Pied harshly,
" if you don't want me to send you to that
ci-devant paradise of yours, say nothing
against that fair lady ! "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil returned to
Fougeres by the paths which connect the
crags of Saint Sulpice and the Nid-aux-
Crocs. When she reached this latter
eminence and was hastening along the
winding path which had been laid in the
rough granite, she admired the beautiful
little valley of the Nancon, just before so
noisy, now perfectly quiet. From wiiere
she was the valley looked like a green
lane. She entered the town by the gate
of Saint Leonard, at which the little path
ended. The townsmen — still alarmed by
the fight, which, considering the gun-
shots heard afar off, seemed likely to last
throughout the day — Avere awaiting the
return of the National Guard in order to
learn the extent of their losses. When
the men of Fougeres saw the girl in her
strange costume, her hair disheveled, a
gun in her hand, her shawl and gown
whitened by contact with walls, soiled
with mud and drenched with dew, their
curiosity was all the more vividly excited
in that the power, the beaut}', and the
eccentricity of the fair Parisian already
formed their staple subject of conversa-
tion.

Francine, a prey to terrible anxiety,
had sat up for her mistress the whole
night, and when she saw her she was
about to speak, but was silenced by a
friendly gesture.

"I am not dead, child," said Marie.
"Ah ! when I left Paris I pined for ex-
citing adventures — I have had them,''
added she, after a pause. But when
Francine was about to go and order break-
fast, remarking to her mistress that she
must be in great need of it. Mademoiselle
de Verneuil cried, " Oh, no I A bath I

THE CHOUANS.

139

a bath first ! The toilet before all." And
Francine was not a little surprised to hear
her mistress ask for the most elegant and
fashionable dresses which had been packed
up. When she had finished her breakfast,
Marie sat about dressing- with all the
elaborate care which a woman is wont to
bestow on this all-important business when
she has to show herself in the midst of a
ball-room to the e^^es of a beloved object.
The maid could not understand her mis-
tress's mocking ga^^ety. It was not the
joy of loving- (for no woman can mistake
that expression) ; it was concentrated
spite, which boded ill. Marie arranged
the curtains of the window, whence the
e3'e fell on a magnificent panorama ; then
she drew the sofa near the fire-place, set
it in a light favorable to her face, bade
Francine get flowers so as to give the
room a festal appearance, and when they
were brought, superintended their disposal
in the most effective manner. Then, after
throwing a last glance of satisfaction on
her apartment, she told Francine to send
to the commandant and ask for her pris-
oner.

^he stretched herself voluptuously on
the couch, half for the sake of resting,
half in order that she might assume an
attitude of frail elegance, which in certain
women has an irresistible fascination.
Her air of languid softness, the provok-
ing arrangement of her feet, the tips of
which just peeped from the skirt of her
gown, the abandon of her body, the bend
of her neck, even the angle formed by her
taper fingers, which hung from a cushion
like the petals of a tuft of jasmine, made
up, with her glances, a harmony of al-
lurement. She burned some perfumes to
give the air that soft influence which is so
powerful on the human frame, and which
often smootlies the way to conquests
which women wish to gain without ap-
parently inviting them. A few moments
latei- the old soldier's heavy step echoed
in the antechamber.

'•Well ! commandant, where is my cap-
tive?"

" I have just ordered out a picket of
twelve men to shoot him as one taken
arms in hand."

" What ! you have settled the fate of
my prisoner ?" she said. "Listen, com-
mandant ! I do not think, if I may
trust your face, that the death of a man
in cold blood is a thing particularly de-
lightful to you. Well, then, give me back
my Chouan, and grant him a reprieve,
for which I will be responsible. I assure
you that this aristocrat has become in-
dispensable to me, and that he will help
in executing our projects. Besides, to
shoot a man like this, who is playing at
Chouannerie, would be as silly a thing
as to send a volley at a balloon, which
needs only a pin-prick to shrivel it up.
For God's sake, leave cruelty to aristo-
crats ; Republics should be generous.
Would you not, if it had lain with you,
have pardoned the victims of Quiberon
and many others ? There, let your twelve
men go and make the rounds, and come
and dine with me and my prisoner. There
is only another hour of daylight, and you
see," added she, with a smile, '"'if you
are not quick, my toilet will miss its
eft'ect."

''But, mademoiselle — " said the com-
mandant in surprise.

" Well, what ? I know what you mean.
Come, the count shall not escape a'ou.
Sooner or later the plump butterfly will
burn his wings in 3^ our platoon fire."

The commandant shrugged his shoul-
ders slightly, like a man who is forced to
obey, willy-nill^'^, the wishes of a pretty
woman, and came back in half an hour,
followed by the Comte de Bauvan.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil pretended to
be caught unawares by her guests, and
showed some confusion at being seen by
the count in so careless an attitude. But
as she saw in the nobleman's eyes that
her first attack had succeeded, she rose
and devoted herself to her company with
the perfection of grace and politeness.
Nothing forced or studied in her posture,
her smile, her movements, or her voice, be-
traj^ed a deliberate design. Everything
was in harmony, and no exaggeration
suggested that she was affecting the
manners of a society in which she had
not lived. When the Royalist and the
Republican had taken their seats, she

140

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

bent a look of severity on the count.
He knew women well enoug-h to be aware
that the insult of which he had been
g-uilty was likely to be rewarded with
sentence of death. But though he sus-
pected as much, he preserved the air,
neither g-ay nor sad, of a man who at
any rate does not expect any such tragic
ending-. Soon it seemed to him absurd
to fear death in the presence of a beautiful
woman, and finally Marie's air of severity
began to put notions in his head.

'''Who knows," thought he to himself,
*'if a count's coronet, still to be had, ma}^
not please her better than a marquis's that
is lost ? Montauran is a dry stick enough,
while I — " and he looked at himself with
. satisfaction. "'So^x, the least that I can
g-ain is to save my head I "

But his diplomatic reflections did not
do him much good. The liking which he
had made up his mind to feig'n for Made-
moiselle de Verneuil became a violent
fancy which the dangerous girl took
pleasure in stimulating.

" Count," she said, '' you are wry prison-
er, and I have the right to dispose of you.
Your execution will not take place with-
out my consent, and, as it happens, I am
too full of curiosity to let you be shot
now."

''But suppose I were to be obstinately
discreet?" answered he, merrily.

' ' With an honest woman perhaps 3-0U
might; but with a 'wench!' Come,
come ! count, that would be impos-
sible."

These words, full of bitter irony, were
hissed out (as Sully says, speaking- of the
Duchess of Beaufort) from so sharp a beak
that the nobleman in his surprise merely
g-azed at his ferocious adversary.

"Come," she went on mockingly, "not
to contradict you, I will be, like these
creatures, 'a kind girl.' To begin with,
here is j^our g-un ; " and she handed him
his weapon with a gesture of g-entle sar-
casm.

" On the faith of a gentleman, made-
moiselle, you are acting — "

'•Ah ! " she said, breaking in, "I have
had enough of the faith of gentlemen. That
was the assurance on which I entered the

Vivetiere. Your chief swore to me that
I and mine should be safe there ! "

" Infamous ! " cried Hulot, with froA\Ti-
ing brows.

"It was Monsieur le Comte's fault,"
she said, pointing to him. " The Gars
certainly meant quite sincerely to keep
his word ; but this gentleman threw on
me some slander or other which confirmed
all the tales that ' Charette's Filly' had
been kind enough to imagine."

"Mademoiselle," said the count, dis-
ordered, " if my head were under the ax,
I could swear that I said but the truth — "

" In saying what ? "

"That you had been the — "

" Out with the word ! — the mistress — "

" Of the Marquis (now Duke) of Lenon-
court, who is one of my friends," said the
count.

"Now, I might let you go to execu-
tion," said Marie, unmoved in appearance
b}^ the deliberate accusation of the count,
who sat stupefied at the real or feigned
indifference which she showed toward the
charge. But she went on, with a laugh,
"Dismiss forever from your mind the
sinister image of those pellets of lead !
for you have no more offended me than
this friend of yours whose — what is it ? —
fie on me ! — you would have me to haA'e
been. Listen, count, have you not visited
my father, the Duke de Verneuil ? Eh ? "

Thinking, no doubt, that tlie confidence
which she was about to make was of too
great importance for Hulot to be admit-
ted to it. Mademoiselle de Verneuil beck-
oned the count to her and said some words
in his ear. Monsieur de Bauvan let slip
a half-uttered exclamation of surprise,
and looked Avith a puzzled air at Marie,
who suddenly completed the memory to
which she had appealed b}^ leaning against
the chimney-piece in a child's attitude of
innocent simplicity. The count dropped
on one knee.

" Mademoiselle ! " he cried, " I implore
3'ou to grant me pardon, however un-
worthy I may be of it."

" I have nothing to forgive," she said.
"You are as far from the truth now in
your repentance as you Avere in your
insolent supposition at the Vivetiere.

THE CH0UAN8.

141

But tlicse secrets are above your under-
standing. Know onh'', count," added
she, gravely, "that the Duke de Ver-
neuil's daughter has too much loftiness of
soul not to take a lively interest in you."

" Even after an insult ? " said the count,
with a sort of regret.

"Are not some persons too highh^
placed to be within the reach of insult ?
Count, I am one of them."

And as she spoke these words the girl
assumed an air of noble pride, which over-
awed her prisoner and made the whole
comedy much less clear to Hulot. The
commandant put his hand to his mus-
tache as though to twist it up, and looked
with a somewhat disturbed air at Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, who gave him to
understand by a sign that she was mak-
ing no change in her plan.

"Now," she said, after an interval,
"let us talk. Francine, give us lights,
child."

And she brought the conversation very
cleverly round to that time which a few
short years had made the cmcien regime.
She carried the count back to this period
so well by the vivacity of her remarks
and her sketches, she supplied him with
so man}' occasions of showing his wit by
the complaisant ingenuity with which she
indulged him in repartees, that he ended
by thinking to himself that he had never
been more agreeable, and, his j-outh re-
stored by the notion, he tried to com-
municate to this alluring person the good
opinion which he had of himself. The
malicious girl took delight in tr^ang upon
him all the devices of her coquetry, and
was able to play the game all the more
skillfully that for her it was a game, and
nothing more. And so at one moment
she let him believe that he had made a
quick advance in her favor; at another,
as though astonished at the liveliness of
her feelings, she showed a coldness which
charmed the count, and helped sensibly
to increase his impromptu j^assion. She
behaved exactly like an angler who from
time to time pulls up his line to see if a
fish has bitten. The poor count allowed
himself to be caught by the innocent man-
ner in which his deliveress had accepted a

compliment or two, neatly turned enough.
The emigration, the Republic, Brittany,
the Cliouans, were things a thousand
miles away from his thoughts. Hulot sat
bolt upright, motionless and solemn as the
god Terminus. His want of breeding in-
capacitated him entirely for this stjde of
conversation. He had, indeed, a shrewd
suspicion that the two speakers must be
very droll people, but his intelligence could
soar no higher than the attempt to under-
stand them so far as to be sure that they
were not plotting against the Republic
under cover of ambiguous language.

" Mademoiselle," said the count, " Mon-
tauran is well-born, well-bred, and a pretty
fellow enough ; but he is absolutely igno-
rant of gallantry. He is too young to have
seen Versailles. His education has been
a failure, and instead of playing mischiev-
ous tricks, he is a man to deal dagger-
blows. He can love fiercely, but he will
never acquire the perfect flower of man-
ners by which Lauzim, Adhemar, Coignj^
and so many others were disting'uished.
He does not possess the pleasing talent of
saying to women those pretty nothings
which after all suit them better than ex-
plosions of passion, whereof they are soon
tired. Yes ! though he be a man who has
been fortunate enough with the sex, he
has neither the ease nor the grace of the
character."

"' Idid not fail to perceive it," answered
Marie.

"Aha ! " said the count to himself, "that
tone and look meant that we shall soon be
on the very best terms together; and,
faith I in order to be hers, I will believe
anything she wishes me to believe ! "

Dinner being announced, he offered his
hand to her. Mademoiselle de Verneuil
did the honors of the meal with a polite-
ness and tact which could onh' have been
acquired by a court education and in the
polished life of the court.

"' You hnd better go," said she to Hulot,
as they rose from the table ; "you would
frighten him ; while if we are alone I shall
soon find out what I want to know. He
has come to the pitch Avhere a man. tells
me everything he thinks, and sees every-
thing through my eyes."

142

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" And afterward ?" asked the comman-
dant, as if demanding- the extradition of
his prisoner.

" Oh ! he must be free," said she, " free
as air ! "

" Yet he was caught with arms in his
hands."

''No," said slie, with one of the jesting-
sophistries which women love to oppose
to peremptory reason, "1 had disarmed
him before. Count," she said to the
nobleman, as she re-entered the room,
" I have just begg-ed your freedom ; but
nothing for nothing ! " she added, with a
smile and a sidelong motion of her head,
as if putting questions to him.

" Ask me for anything, even my name
and my honor ! " he cried in his intoxica-
tion. "I lay all at your feet!" and he
darted forward to grasp her hand, en-
deavoring to represent his desire as
gratitude. But Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil was not a girl to mistake the two ;
and therefore, smiling all the while, so as
to give some hope to this new lover, but
stepping back a pace or two, she said,
''Will you give me cause to repent my
trust ? "

"A girl's thoughts run faster than a
woman's," he replied, laughing.

"A girl has more to lose than a
woman."

" True ; those who carr3^ treasures
should be mistrustful."

"Let us drop this talk," said she, " and
speak seriously. You are going to give a
ball at Saint James. I have been told
that 3"ou have established there yowo
stores, your arsenals, and the seat of
your government. When is the ball ? "

"To-morrow night."

"You will not be surprised, sir, that a
slandered woman should wish, with a
woman's obstinacy, to obtain a signal
reparation for the insults which she has
undergone in the presence of those who
witnessed them. Therefore, I will go to
your ball. I ask you to grant me your
protection from the moment I appear there
to the moment I leave. I will not have
your word," said she, noticing that he
was placing his hand on his heart. "I
hate oaths ; the^^ are too like precautions.

Simply tell me that you will undertake to
hold my person scathless from all criminal
or shameful attempt. Promise to redress
the wrong you have done me by announc-
ing that I am really the Duke de Vemeuil's
daughter, and by holding your tongue
about all the ills I owed to a lack of pa-
ternal protection. We shall then be quits.
What ? Can a couple of hours' protection
given to a lady at a ball be too heavy a
ransom ? Come ! you are worth no more!"
But she took all the bitterness out of her
words with a smile.

"What do you ask, then, for my gun's
ransom ? " said the count with a laugh.

" Oh ! more than for yourself."

"What?"

" Secrecy. Believe me, Bauvan, only
women can detect women. I know that
if 3' ou say a word I may be murdered on
the road. Yesterday certain bullets gave
me warning of the danger I have to run
on the highway. That lady is as clever
at the chase as she is deft at the toilet.
No waiting -maid ever undressed me so
quickly. For Heaven's sake ! " she said,
" take care that I have nothing of that
kind to fear at the ball."

"You will be under my protection
there ! " said the count proudly. " But,"
he asked with some sadness, " are j'ou
going to Saint James for Montauran's
sake?"

" You want to know more than I know
myself ! " she said with a laugh, adding,
after a pause, "Now go! I will myself
escort you out of the town ; for you all
wage war like mere savages here."

" Then, you care a little for me? " cried
the count. " Ah, mademoiselle, allow me
to hope that you will not be insensible to
my friendship, for I suppose I must be con-
tent with that, must I not ? " he added,
with an air of coxcombr3\

"Go away, yon conjurer!" said she,
with the cheerful expression of a woman
who confesses something that compro-
mises neither her dignity nor her secrets.

Then she put on a jacket and accom-
panied the count to the Nid-aux-Crocs.
When she had come to the end of the
path, she said to him, "Sir! observe the
most absolute secrecy, even with the mar-

THE CHOUANS.

143

quis," and she placed her fing-er on her
lips. The count, emboldened by her air
of kindness, took her hand (which she let
him take as though it were the greatest
favor) and kissed it tenderly.

"Oh! mademoiselle," cried he, seeing-
himself out of all dang-er, '-'count on me
in life and in death. Thoug-h the grati-
tude I owe you is almost equal to that
Avhich I owe my mother, it will be very
difficult for me to feel toward you only
respect."'

He darted up the path, and when she
had seen him gain the crags of Saint Sul-
pice, Marie nodded her head with a satis-
fiea . ir, and whispered to herself, "The
fat fellow has given me more than his life
for his life. I could make him my creat-
ure at very small expense. Creature or
creator, that is all the difference between
one man and another ! "

She did not finish her sentence, but cast
a despairing glance to heaven, and slowly
made her way back to the Porte Saint
Leonard, where Hulot and Corentin were
waiting for her.

" Two days more ! " she cried, " and — "
but she stopped, seeing that she and
Hulot were not alone — "and he shall fall
under your guns," she whispered to the
commandant. He stepped back a pace,
and gazed, with an air of satire not easy
to describe, on the girl whose face and
bearing showed not a touch of remorse.
There is in women this admirable quality,
that the}'- never think out their most
blameworthy actions. Feeling carries
them along ; they are natural even in
their very dissembling, and in them alone
crime can be found without accompany-
ing baseness, for in most cases "they
know not Avhat they do."

" I am going to Saint James, to the
ball given by the Chouans, and — "

"But," said Corentin, interrupting her,
" it is five leagues off. Would you like
me to go with you?"

" You are vcr}^ busy," said she to him,
" with a subject of which I never think —
with yourself ! "

The contempt wliich Marie showed for
Corentin pleased Hulot particularh*, and
he made his grimace as she vanished

toward Saint Leonard's. Corentin fol-
lowed her with his eyes, showing in his
countenance a silent consciousness of the
fated superiority which, as he thought,
he could exercise over this charming
creature, by governing the passions on
which he counted to make her one day
his. When Mademoiselle de Verneuil got
home she began eagerly to meditate on
her ball-dresses. Fiancine, accustomed
to obey without ever comprehending her
mistress's objects, rummaged the band-
boxes, and proposed a Greek costume —
everything at that time obeyed the Greek
influence. The dress which Marie settled
upon would travel in a box easy to carry.

" Francine, my child, I am going to
make a country excursion. Make up your
mind whether you will stay here or come
with me."

"Stay here!" cried Francine; "and
who is to dress 3'ou ? "

" W^here did jon put the glove which I
gave you back this morning ? "

"' Here it is."

" Sew a green ribbon in it ; and, above
all, take money wath you." But when
she saw that Francine had in her hands
newly coined pieces, she cried, "' You have
only to do that if you want to get us mur-
dered ! Send Jeremy to wake Corentin ;
but no — the wretch would follow us. Send
to the commandant instead, to ask him,
from me, for crowns of six francs."

Marie thought of everything with that
woman's wit which takes in the smallest
details. While Francine was finishing the
preparations for her unintelligible depart-
ure, she set herself to attempt the imita-
tion of the owl's hoot, and succeeded in
counterfeiting Marche-a-Terre's signal so
as to deceive anybody. As midnight
struck she sallied from the Porte Saint
Leonard, gained the little path on the
ISTid-aux-Crocs, and, followed by Francine,
ventured across the valley of Gibarry,
walking with a steady step, for she was
inspired by that strong will which imparts
to the gail and to the body an air of
power. How to leave a ball-room with-
out catching a cold is for women an im-
portant matter ; but let them feel passion
in their hearts, and their bod}^ becomes as

144

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

it were of bronze. It might have taken
even a daring- man a long time to resolve
on the undertaking, yet it had scarcely
showed its first aspect to Mademoiselle de
Verneuil when its dangers became attrac-
tions for her.

" You are going without commending
yourself to God !" said Francine, who had
turned back to gaze at Saint Leonard's
steeple.

The pious Breton girl halted, clasped
her hands, and said an Ave to Saint
Anne of Auray, begging her to bless the
journey ; while her mistress stood lost in
thought, looking by turns at the simple
attitude of her maid, who was praying
fervently, and at the effects of the misty
moonlight which, gliding through the
carved work of the church, gave to the
granite the lightness of filigree. The two
travelers lost no time in reaching Galope-
Chopine's hut ; but light as was the
'Sound of their steps, it woke one of the
large dogs to whose fidelity the Bretons
commit the guardianship of the plain
wooden latch Avhich shuts their doors.
The dog ran up to the two strangers, and
his bark became so threatening that they
were obliged to cry for help and retrace
their steps some Avay. But nothing
stirred. Mademoiselle de Verneuil whis-
tled the owl's hoot ; at once the rusty
door-hinges creaked sharply in answer,
and Galope-Chopine, who had hastily
risen, showed his somber face.

"I have need," said Marie, presenting
Montauran's g'love to the surveillant of
Fougeres. '"'to travel quickly to Saint
James. The Count de Bauvan told me
til at A'ou Avould act as vay guide and pro-
tector thither. Therefore, my dear Ga-'
lope-Chopine, get us two donkeys to ride,
and be ready to bear us compan}'. Time
is precious, for if we do not reach Saint
James before to-morrow evening, we shall
sec neither the Gars nor the ball."

Galope-Chopine took the glove Avith a
puzzled air, turned it this way and that,
and kindled a candle, made of resin, as
thick as the little finger and of the color
of gingerbread. These AA-ares, imported
into Brittany from the north of Europe,
show, like CA^erything that meets the e3'e

in this strange country, ignorance of even
the commonest commercial principles.
After inspecting the green ribbon, and
staring at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, after
scratching his ear, after drinking a pitcher
of cider himself and offering a glass of it
to the fair lady, Galope-Chopine left her
before the table, on the bench of polished
chestnut-wood, and Avent to seek two
donkeys. The deep blue light which the
outlandish candle cast was not strong
enough to master the fantastic pla^" of the
moonbeams that A-aried with dots of light
the dark colorings of the floor and furni-
ture of the smoky cabin. The little boy
had raised his startled head, and ;*jst
above his fair hair two cows shoAved,
through the holes in the stable-wall, their
pink muzzles and their great, flashing
eyes. The big dog, Avhose countenance
was not the least intelligent of the family
group, appeared to be examining the tAA^o
strangers with a curiosity equal to that
of the child. A painter might haA-e spent
a long time in admiring the effects of this
night-piece ; but Marie, not anxious to
enter into talk with Barbette, who Avas
sitting up in bed like a specter, and began
to open her ca'Cs A^ery wide as she recog-
nized her A'isitor, went out to escape at
once the pestiferous air of the ho\'el, and
the questions Avhich '' La Becaniere " was
likely to put to her. She climbed with
agilit}'- the staircase up the rock which
sheltered Galope-Chopine's hut, and ad-
mired the A'ast assembly of details in a
landscape where the point of view changed
with every step forward or backward, up-
Avard or downward.

At the moment the moonlight en-
veloped the valley of the Couesnon as
with luminous fog, and sure enough a
woman Avho carried slighted loA-e in her
heart must have relished the melancholy
which this soft light produces in the soul
b}"" the fantastic shapes which it impresses
on solid bodies, and the tints which it
throAA's upon the AA'aters. Then the si-
lence was broken \)j the bray of the asses.
Marie quicklj'' descended to the Chouan's
hut, and they set off at once. Galope-
Chopine, Avho was armed Avith a double-
barreled fowling-piece, wore a goatskin,

Mademoiselle de Verneuil.
" I am horrid 1 I hav^e the air of a statue of Liberty."

Balzac, Volume Three.

The Chouans.

THE CHOUANS,

145

which gave him the appearance of Robin-
son Crusoe. His wrinkled and pimpled
countenance was scarcely visible under
the broad hat which the peasants still
keep as a vestig-e of old time, feeling
pride at having- gained, in spite of their
serfdom, the sometime decoration of lord-
\y heads. This nocturnal procession,
guarded by a guide whose dress, atti-
tude, and general appearance had some-
thing patriarchal, resembled the scene of
the Flight into Egypt, which we owe to
the somber pencil of Rembrandt. Galope-
Chopine avoided the highway with care,
and guided the travelers through the vast
labj^rinth of the Breton cross-roads.

Then Mademoiselle de Verneuil began
to understand the Chouan fashion of w^ar-
fare. As she traversed these roads she
could better appreciate the real condition
of districts which, seen from above, had
appeared to her so charming, but which
must be penetrated in order to grasp
their danger and their inextricable diffi-
culty. Around each field the peasants
have raised, time out of mind, an earthen
wall, six feet high, of the form of a trun-
cated pyramid, on the top whereof chest-
nut trees, oaks, and beeches grow. This
wall, planted after such a fashion, is
called a " hedge " — the Norman style of
hedge — and the long branches of the
trees which crown it, flung, as they al-
most always are, over the pathway, make
a huge arbor overhead. The roadways,
gloomily walled in by these clay banks
or walls, have a strong resemblance to
the fosse of a fortress, and when the
granite, which in this country almost
always crops up flush with the surface
of the ground, does not compose a kind
of uneven pavement, the}^ become so im-
passable that the smallest cart cannot
travel over them without the help of a
pair of oxen or horses, small but gener-
ally stout. These roads are so constantly
muddy that custom has established for
foot passengers a path inside the field
and along the hedge — a path called a
rote, beginning and ending with each
holding of land. In order to get from
one field to another it is thus necessary
to climb the hedge by means of several

steps, which the rain often makes slippery
enough.

But these were by no means the only
obstacles which travelers had to over-
come in these tortuous lanes. Each
piece of land, besides being fortified in
the manner described, has a regular en-
trance about ten feet wide, and crossed
by what is called in the West an echalier.
This is the trunk or a stout branch of a
tree, one end of w^hich, drilled through,
fits, as it were, into a handle composed of
another piece of shapeless wood serving
as a pivot. The extreme butt-end of the
ec/ia^^er extends a little beyond the pivot,
so as to be able to carry a heavy burden
in the shape of a counter-weight, and to
allow even a child to Avork this strange
kind of countr\^ gate. The other end of
it rests in a hole made on the inside of the
hedge. Sometimes the peasants econ-
omize the counter-weight stone by letting
the heavy end of the trunk or branch
hang over. The style of the barrier is
altered according to the fancy of each
owner. It often consists of a single
branch, the two ends of which are sock-
eted into the hedge by earth ; often also
it looks like a square gate built up of sev-
eral thin branches fixed at intervals like
the rungs of a ladder set crosswise.
This gate turns like the echalier
itself, and its other end plays on a
small wheel of solid wood. These
hedges and gates give the ground the
appearance of a huge chess-board, each
field of which makes an inclosure com-
pleteh'' isolated from the rest, walled in
like a fortress, and like it possessing
ramparts.

The gate, easy to defend, gives the as-
sailant the least easy of all conquests;
for the Breton peasant thinks that he
fertilizes his fallows by allowing them to
grow huge broom bushes — a shrub which
finds such congenial treatment in this
district that it soon grows to the height
of a man. This notion — worthy of people
who put their manure on the highest
patch of their farmyards — keeps upon
the soil, in one field out of every four,
forests of broom, in the midst of which
all manner of ambuscades can be ar-

146

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

rang-ed. And, to conclude, there is
hardly a field where there are not
some old cider -apple trees dropping-
their branches low over it and killing-
the crops which they cover. Thus, if
the reader will remember how small
the fields are where everj'- hedg-e sup-
ports far ranging- trees, whose g-reedy
roots monopolize a fourth of the g-round,
he will have an idea of the ag-ricultural
arrangement and general appearance of
the countrj^ which Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil was now traversing-.

It is difficult to saj' whether anxiety to
avoid disputes about title, or the custom,
dear to laziness, of shutting- in cattle
without having to herd them, has most
to do with the construction of these for-
midable inclosures, whose enduring ob-
stacles make the country impenetrable,
and forbid all war with large bodies of
men. When the lay of the g-round has
been examined step by step, it is clear
what must be the fated ill-success of a
war between regular and irregular
troops ; for five hundred men mig-ht
laugh at the army of a king-dom. In
this was the whole secret of the Chouan
war. And Mademoiselle de Verneuil at
once understood the need which the Re-
public had of stifling disorder b^^ means
of police and diplomacy rather than by
the useless use of military force. What
could be done, indeed, against men clever
enough to scorn the holding of towns, and
make sure of holding the country, with
its indestructible fortifications ? How do
aught but negotiate, when the whole
strength of these blinded peasants lay
in a skillful and enterprising chief ? She
admired the genius of the minister who
had guessed in his study the secret of
peace ; she thought she could see the
considerations working- on men power-
ful enough to hold a whole empire under
their glance, and whose deeds, criminal
to the vulgar eye, are only the workings
of a vast thought.

These awe-inspiring souls are divided,
one knows not how, between the power of
fate and destiny, and they possess a fore-
sight the first evidence of which exalts
them. The crowd looks for them among

itself, then lifts its eyes and sees them
soaring above it. This consideration ap-
peared to justify and even to ennoble the
thoughts of veng-eance which Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil had formed ; and in con-
sequence her reflections and her hopes
gave her energy enough to bear the
unwonted fatigues of her journey. At
the end of each property Galope-Chopine
was obliged to make the two travelers
dismount and to help them to climb the
difficult stiles ; while, when the rotes
came to an end, they had to g-et into the
saddle again and venture into the muddy
lanes, which alread}^ g-ave tokens of the
approach of winter. The joint action of
the great trees, of the hollow waj^s, and
of the field inclosures, kept up in the
lower g-rounds a dampness which often
wrapped the travelers as in a cloak of
ice. After toilsome exertions they reached
b}'- sunrise the woods of Marig-naj'', and
the journey in the wide forest path then
became less difiicult. The vault of branches
and the thickness of the tree-trunks shel-
tered the voyag-ers from the inclemency
of the sky, and the manifold difficulties
which they had at first to surmount dis-
appeared.

They had scarcely journeyed a league
across the wood when they heard afar off
a confused murmur of voices and the sound
of a bell, whose silvery tinkle was free
from the monotonous tone given by cattle
as fhQj walk. As he went along, Galope-
Chopine listened to this music with much
attention, and soon a g-ust of wind brought
to his ear a snatch of psalmody which
seemed to produce a great effect on him.
He at once drove the wear^^ beasts into a
path diverging from that which would
lead the travelers to Saint James ; and
he turned a deaf ear to the representa-
tions of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose
fears increased with the gloomy character
of the landscape.

To right and left huge g-ranite rocks,
piled the one on the other, presented sin-
gular outlines, while between them enor-
mous roots crawled, like g-reat snakes,
in search of distant nourishment for im-
memorial beeches. The two sides of the
road resembled those subterranean grot-

THE CHOUAXS.

14';

toes which are famous for their stalac-
tites. Vast festoons of \\j, among- which
the dark verdure of holh^ and of heath
miingled with the g-reenish or whitish
patches of moss, veiled the crag's and the
entrance of some deep caves. When the
three travelers had gone some steps in a
narrow path a most surprising- spectacle
presented itself to Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil's eyes, and explained to her Galope-
Chopine's obstinacy.

A semi-circular basin, wholly composed
of masses of granite, formed an amphi-
theater on whose irreg-ular tiers tall black
pines and 3-ellowing chestnuts rose one
above the other like a great circus, into
which the wintry sun seemed rather to
instill a pale coloring- than to pour its
lig-ht, and where autumn had already
thrown the tawny carpet of its withered
leaves on all sides. In the middle of this
hall, which seemed to have had the del-
ug-e for its architect, there rose three
enormous druidic stones, composing- a vast
altar, upon which was fastened an old
church banner. Some hundred men knelt,
bareheaded and fervently prating-, in the
inclosure, while a priest, assisted by two
other ecclesiastics, was saying mass. The
shabbiness of the sacred vestments, the
thin voice of the priest, which scarcely
murmured an echo throug-h space, the
devout congregation unanimous in senti-
ment, and prostrate before an altar de-
void of pomp, the cross bare of ornament,
the stern rusticity of the temple, the hour,
the place — all g-ave to the scene the char-
acter of simplicity which distinguished
the early ages of Christianity,

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was and re-
mained struck with admiration. This
mass, said in the heart of the w^oods ; this
worship, driven by persecution back to
its own sources ; this poetrj'' of ancient
times boldh'' contrasted with natural sur-
roundings of fantastic strangeness; these
Chouans at once armed and unarmed,
cruel and devout, childlike and manly — the
whole scene, in short, was unlike an3-thing-
that she had before seen or imagined.
She remembered well enough that in her
childhood she had admired the pomp of
the Roman Church/which appeals socun-

ning-ly to the senses ; but she had never
yet seen God alone, His cross on the altar,
His altar on the bare ground, the autumn
trees supporting- the dome of heaven in
place of the fretted moldings which crown
the Gothic arches of cathedrals, the sun
stealing with difficulty its ruddy rays and
duller reflections upon the altar, the priest
and the congregation, instead of the thou-
sand hues flung- by stained glass. Here
men represented a fact, and not a system;
here was prayer, and not formality". But
human passions, whose momentary sup-
pression gave the picture all its harmon}',
soon reappeared in this scene of mystery,
and infused in it a powerful animation.

The g-ospel was drawing to a close as
Mademoiselle de Verneuil came up. With
no small alarm she recognized in the cele-
brant the Abbe Gudin, and hid herself
quickly from his sig-ht, availing herself
of a huge fragment of g-ranite for a hiding-
place, into which she briskly drew Fran-
cine. But she tried in A-ain to tear Galope-
Chopine from the place which he had
chosen in order to share in the advantages
of the ceremony. She entertained, how-
ever, hopes of being- able to escape the
danger which threatened her, when she
noticed that the nature of the g-round
gave her the opportunity of withdrawing-
before the rest of the congregation. By
the help of a wide crack in the rock she
could see Abbe Gudin mounting- a mass
of g-ranite which served him as pulpit.
He began his sermon in these ternjs :

''In the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!''

At which words the whole congregation
piously made the sig-n of the cross,

'•' My dear brethren," the abbe went on
in a loud voice, " let us first pray for the
dead — Jean Cochegrue, Nicolas Laferte,
Joseph Brouet, Frangois Parquoi, Sulpice
Coupiau — all of this parish, who died of
the wounds they received at the fight on
the Pilg'rim and at the siege of Fougeres."

Then was recited the '•' De Profundis,"
according to custom, by the congreg-ation
and the priest antiphonally, and with a
fervor which gave good augury of the suc-
cess of the preaching. When this psalm
for the dead was finished. Abbe Gudin

148

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

went on in a voice of ever-increasing-
strength, for the old Jesuit did not forget
that energy of delivery was the most
powerfLil of arguments to persuade his
uncultivated hearers.

"Christians!" he said, "these cham-
pions of God have set 3'ou an example of
your dut3^ Are you not ashamed of what
the^^ may be saying of you in Paradise ?
But for those blessed ones, who must have
been received there with open arms by all
the Saints, our Lord might believe that
your parish is inhabited by followers of
Mahound ! Do you know, my gars, what
they say of you in Brittany and at court ?
You do not know it, do you ? Then, I will
tell you ; they say : ' What ! the Blues
have thrown down the altars ; they have
killed the rectors ; the.y have murdered the
king and the queen ; they would fain take
all the parishioners of Brittany to make
Blues of them like themselves, and send
them to fight far from their parishes, in
distant lands, where men run the risk of
dying without confession, and so going to
hell for all eternity. And do the gars
of Marignay, whose church they have
burned, staj^ with their arms dangling
by their sides ?

" ' Oh ! oh ! This Republic of the damned
has sold the goods of God and the seig-
neurs by auction ; it has shared the price
among its Blues, and now, in order to
feast on monej' as it has feasted on blood,
it has just resolved to take three livres on
each crown of six francs, just as it levies
three men out of every six. And have
not the gars of Marignay caught up their
guns to drive the Blues out of Brittany ?
Aha ! The door of Paradise shall be shut
on them, and the}'^ shall never againvbe
able to gain salvation.' That is what
they are sa3ing of j^ou. So, Christian
brethren, it is your salvation which is at
stake : you will save your souls by fight-
ing for the faith and for the king. Saint
Anne of Auray herself appeared to me
yesterday at half-past two. She said
to me just as I tell it to you, 'You are
a priest of Marignay?' Yes, madame,
at your service. 'Well, then, I am Saint
Anne of Auray, aunt of God after the
fashion of Brittan3^ I am still at Auray,

but I am here, too, because I have come
to bid 3'ou tell the gars of Marignay that
they have no salvation to hope for if they
do not take up arms. Therefore you shall
refuse them absolution of their sins if they
will not serve God. You shall bless their
guns, and those gars who are sinless shall
not miss the Blues, because their guns are
holy.' And she disappeared, leaving a
smell of incense under the Goosefoot Oak.
I made a mark at the spot, and the rector
of Saint James has put up a fair wooden
Virgin there. What is more, the mother
of Pierre Leroy, called Marche-a-Terre,
came to pray there in the evening, and
was cured of her pains because of her
son's good works. There she is, in the
midst of you, and you can see her with
your own eyes walking alone. This
miracle has been done, like the resur-
rection of the blessed Marie Lambrequin,
to show 3'ou that God will never desert
the cause of Bretons when the^' fight for
His servants and for the king. There-
fore, dear brethren, if you would save your
souls, and show 3'ourselves champions of
3^our lord the king, you must obey the
orders of him whom the king has sent,
and v/hom we call the Gars. Then shall
3"0u no more be like the followers of Ma-
hound, and men will find you with all the
gars of all Brittan^^ under the banner
of God. You can take back out of the
Blues' pockets all the money they have
stolen ; for if, while you fig"ht, your fields
be not sown, the Lord and the king make
over to 3^ou the spoils of your enemies.
Shall it be said. Christian brethren, that
the gars of Marignay are behind the gars
of Morbihan, of Saint Georges, of Vitre,
of Antrain, who are all serving God and
the king? Will you leave them all the
boot}^ ? Will you stay like heretics, with
folded arms, while so many Bretons se-
cure their salvation and serve their king ?
'Ye shall give up all for me,' the Gospel
saj^s. Have not we already given up the
tithes ? Do you, then, give up all in order
to make this holy war ! You shall be
like the Maccabees ; all .your sins shall be
forgiven you : you shall find your rectors
and their curates in your midst ; and you
shall triumph ! Pay attention to this.

THE CHOUAXS.

149

Christian brethren," concluded he ; ''to-
day, to-day only we have the power of
blessing- your g-uns. Those who do not
avail themselves of this grace will not
find the Holy One of Auray so merciful
another time ; and she will not listen to
them as she did in the last war ! "

This sermon, supported by the thunder
of obstreperous lungs and b}'' a variety of
gesticulations which made the speaker
perspire, had in appearance little effect.
The peasants, standing- motionless, v^•ith
eyes riveted on the orator, looked like
statues. But Mademoiselle de Verneuil
soon perceived that this g-eneral attitude
was the result of the spell which the abbe
had cast over the crowd. He had, like
all great actors, swayed his whole audi-
tor^" as one man by appealing- to their
interests and their passions. Had he not
given them absolution for their excesses
beforehand, and cast loose the ties which
still kept these \A"ild men to the observ-
ance of social and religious laws ? True,
he had prostituted his priesthood to po-
litical j)urposes ; but in these times of
revolution each man made what he had
a weapon in the cause of his party, and
the peace-giving cross of Jesus was beaten
into a sword as well as the food-giving
plowshare. As she saw no being before
her who could enter into her feelings, she
turned to Francine, and was not a little
surprised to see her sharing* the enthusi-
asm and telling her beads devoutly on
the rosary of Galope-Chopine, who had
no doubt lent it to her during- the sermon,

''Francine," she said in a low tone,
"are you, too, afraid of being a Ma-
humetische 9 "

" Oh, mademoiselle !" replied the Breton
girl, "look at Pierre's mother walking
there I " And Francine's attitude showed
such profound conviction that Marie un-
derstood at once the secret of this preach-
ing, the influence of the clergy in the
country districts, and the wonderful re-
sults of such scenes as now began. The
peasants nearest to the altar advanced
one by one and knelt down, presenting
their pieces to the preacher, who laid them
on the altar, Galope-Chopine being one of
the first to offer his old duck gun. The

three priests then chanted the hj'mn Veni
Creator, while the celebrant enveloped
the murderous implements in a cloud of
bluish incense smoke, weaving what
seemed interlaced patterns with it. As
soon as the wind had dissipated this
smoke, the guns were given back in suc-
cession, and each man received his own,
kneeling, from the hands of the priests,
who recited a Latin prayer as they re-
turned the pieces. When the armed men
had returned to their places, the deep
enthusiasm of the congregation, speech-
less till then, broke out in a manner at
once terrible and touching.

Domine, salvum fac regem!

Such was the prayer which the preacher
thundered with echoing voice, and which
was sung twice over with vehement
shouts which were at once wild and war-
like. The two notes of the word regem,
which the peasants translated without
difficulty, were poured out with such
energy that Mademoiselle de Verneuil
could not help thinking Avith emotion of
the exiled Bourbons. Their memory evoked
that of her own past life, and she re-
called the festivities of the court, now
scattered far and wide, but in which she
herself had been a star. The form of the
marquis intruded itself into this reverie,
and with the rapid change of thought
natural to women, she forgot the spec-
tacle before her, and returned to her,
projects of vengeance — projects where
life was at stake, and which might be
wrecked by a glance. While meditating
how to make herself beautiful in this the
most critical moment of her existence,
she remembered that she had nothing to
wear in her hair at the ball, and was en-
ticed by the notion of wearing a holly
branch — the crinkled leaves and scarlet
berries of which caught her attention at
the moment.

" Aha ! " said Galope-Chopine, nodding
his head contentedl}^, "my gun may
miss if I fire at birds now, but at Blues,
never !"

Marie looked more curiously at her
guide's face, and found it typical of all
those she had just seen. The old Chouan
seemed to be more destitute of ideas than

150

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

an averag-e child. His cheeks and brow
wrinkled with simple joy as he looked at
his g-un ; but the expression of this joy
was tinged with a fanaticism which for a
moment gave his savage countenance a
touch of the faults of civilization.

Soon they reached a village, or rather
a collection of four or five dwellings re-
sembling that of Galope-Chopine ; and
the newly-recruited Chouans arrived
there while Mademoiselle de Yerneuil was
finishing a meal composed solely of bread,
butter, milk, and cheese. This irregular
band was led by the rector, who held in
his hand a rude cross in guise of a stand-
ard, and was followed by a gars, proud of
his post as parish ensign. Mademoiselle
de Verneuil found it necessary to join this
detachment, which was, like herself, mak-
ing for Saint James, and whicli protected
her, as a matter of course, from all danger
from the moment when Galope-Chopine,
with luckj^ indiscretion, told the leader
that the pretty garce whom he was guid-
ing was a dear friend of the Gars.

About sunset the travelers arrived at
Saint James, a little town owing its name
to the English who built it in the four-
teenth century, when t\i&j were masters
of Brittany. Before entering it. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil witnessed a singular
military spectacle, to which she paid little
attention, fearing to be recognized by some
of her enemies, and hastening her steps
owing to this fear. Five or six thousand
peasants were encamped in a field. Their
costumes, which pretty closely resembled
those of the requisitionaries at the Pil-
grim, had nothing in the least warlike
about them ; and their tumultuous assem-
bly was like that at a great fair. It was
even needful to look somewhat narrowly
in order to discover that these Bretons
were armed, for their goatskins, differ-
ently arranged as they were, almost hid
their guns, and their most visible weapon
was the scythe with which some supplied
the place of the guns which were to be
served out to them. Some ate and drank ;
some fought or loudly wrangled ; but most
of them lay asleep on the ground. There
was no semblance of order or of discipline.
An oflicer in red uniform caught Made-

moiselle de Verneuil's e,ye, and she sup-
posed that he must be in the English
service. Further off, two other officers
seemed to be trying to instruct some
Chouans, more intelligent than the rest,
in the management of two cannon which
appeared to constitute the whole park of
ar-tillery of the Ilo3^alist army that was
to be.

The arrival of the gars of Marignay,
who were recognized by their banner,
was greeted with yells of welcome ; and
under cover of the excitement which the
troop and the rectors aroused in the
camp. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was able
to cross it and enter the town without
danger. She betook herself to an inn of
modest appearance, and not far from the
house where the ball was to be held ; but
the town was so crowded that, with the
greatest possible trouble, she could only
obtain a small and inconvenient room.
When she was established there, and
when Galope-Chopine had handed to
Francine the band-box containing her
mistress's clothes, he remained standing
in an indescribable attitude of expectancy
and irresolution. At another time Made-
moiselle de Verneuil might have amused
herself with the spectacle of a Breton
peasant out of his own parish. But she
broke the spell b}' taking from her purse
four crowns of six francs each, which she
presented to him. ''Take them," she
said, "and if you will do me a favor,
go back at once to Fougeres without
passing through the camp, and without
tasting cider."'

The Chouan, astounded at such gener-
osity-, shifted his eyes by turns from the
crowns he had received to Mademoiselle
de Verneuil ; but she waved her hand and
he departed.

'• How can ,you send him away, made-
moiselle ? " asked Francine. "Did you
not see how the town was surrouifded ?
How are we to get away ? And who will
protect us here? "

"Have you not got a protector ? " said
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, with a low,
mocking whistle, after the manner of
Marche-a-Terre, whose ways she tried to
imitate.

THE CHOUAXS.

151

Francine blushed, and smiled rather
sadl}^ at her mistress's merriment.

'^•'But where is your protector?" she
said. «

Mademoiselle de Vernevil drew her
dag"g"er with a brusk movement, and
showed it to the terrified Breton girl,
who dropped on a chair with clasped
hands.

" What have you come to look for here,
Marie ? " she cried, in a beseeching- voice,
but one which did not call for an answer.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who was
busj'ing- herself in twisting" about the
holly twigs she had g-athered, said only,
'' I am not sure whether this holly will
look reall}^ well in my hair. A face must
be as brig-ht as mine is to endure so dark
a head-dress. What do you think, Fran-
cine ? ' '

Not a few other remarks of the same
kind indicated that the strang-e g-iii was
perfectly unconcerned, as she made her
toilet; and anyone overhearing- her would
have had some dilRculty in understanding-
the gravity of the crisis in wiiich she was
risking- her life. A dress of India muslin,
rather short, and clinging like damp
linen, showed the delicate outlines of her
shape. Then she put on a red overskirt,
whose folds, numerous and leng-thening-
as they fell to one side, had the g-raceful
sweep of a Greek tunic. This passion-
provoking garment of pag-an priestesses
lessened the indelicacy of the costume
which the fashion of the day permitted
to women in dressing-, and, to reduce it
still further, Marie threw a g-auze veil
over her white shoulders, wiiich the tunic
left bare all too low. She twisted the
long- plaits of her hair so as to form at
the back of her head the truncated and
flattened cone which, by artificially
leng-thening- the head, g-ives such g-race
to the appearance of certain antique
statues, while a few curls, left loose
above the forehead, fell on each side of
her face in long-, g-listening- ring-lets.

In such a g-arb and head-dress Marie
exactl}'- resembled the most famous mas-
terpieces of the Greek chisel. When she
had by a smile sig-nified her approbation
of this coiffure, whose least detail set olT

the beauties of her face, she placed on it
the holly wreath which she had arranged,
and the numerous scarlet berries of which
happily reproduced in her hair the shade
of her tunic. As she twisted some of the
leaves so as to make fantastic contrast
between their two sides. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil contemplated the whole of her
toilet in the glass to judge its effect.

''' I am hideous to-night,'' she said (as
if she were in a circle of flatterers). "I
look like a statue of Libert^'."

Then she carefully stuck the dagger in
the center of her corset, so that the ru-
bies of its hilt might protrude, and hj
their ruddy reflections attract eyes to the
beauties which her rival had so unworth-
ily violated. Francine could not make up
her mind to quit her mistress, and when
she saw her ready to start, she devised
pretexts for accompanying her out of all
the obstacles which ladies have to over-
come when they go to a merry-making in
a little town of Lower Brittany. Must
she not be there to relieve Mademoiselle
de Verneuil of her cloak, of the overshoes
wliich the mud and dirt of the streets
made it necessary (though the precaution
of spreading- gravel over them had been
taken) for her to wear, and of the gauze
veil in which she hid her head from the
g-aze of the Chouans whom curiosity
brought round the house where the fes-
tival took place ? The crowd was so
great that the two girls walked between
rows of Chouans. Francine made no fur-
ther attempt to keep lier mistress back ;
but having- put the last touches to a toi-
let \vhose merit consisted in its extreme
freshness, she remained in the courtyard
that she might not leave her to the
chances of her fate without being able to
fiy to her help ; for the poor girl foresaw
nothing but misfortune.

A sufficiently curious scene was taking
place in Montauran's apartment while
Marie made her way to the ball. Tlie
young marquis was flnishing his toilet and
putting on the broad red ribbon which
was to indicate him as the most promi-
nent personage in the assembly, when the
Abbe Gudin entered with a troubled air.

''My lord marquis," said he, "pray

152

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

come quickly. You alone can calm the
storm which has arisen, I hardly know on
what occasion, among our chiefs. They
are talking- of quitting the king's service.
I believe that devil of a Rifoel to be the
cause of the whole disturbance, for brawls
of this kind are always brought about by
some folh\ They tell me that Madame
du Gua upbraided him with coming to the
ball very ill dressed."

" The woman must be mad ! " cried the
marquis, '^Ho wish — "

^' The Chevalier du Vissard," went on
the abbe, cutting his leader short, '^re-
plied that if you had given him the money
which was promised him in the king's
name — "

''Enough, abbe, enough ! I understand
the whole thing now. The scene was ar-
ranged beforehand, was it not ? and you
are the ambassador — "

" I ? " continued the abbe, interrupting
again ; " I, my lord marquis ? I am go-
ing to give you the heartiest support, and
I trust you will do me the justice to be-
lieve that the re-establishment of our al-
tars in France, the restoration of the king
to the throne of his fathers, are far more
powerful stimulants of my humble efforts
than that bishopric of Rennes which
you—"

The abbe dared not finish, for a bitter
smile had come upon the marquis's face.
But the young leader immediately choked
down the sad thoughts which came to
him, his brow assumed a stern look, and
he followed the Abbe Gudin into a room
echoing with noisy clamor.

" I acknowledge no man's authority
here ! " cried Rifoel, casting fiery glances
at all those around him, and laying his
hand on his sword-hilt.

" Do you acknowledge the authorit}^
of common sense ? " asked the marquis
cooll3^ And the young Chevalier du Vis-
sard, better known by his family name of
Rifoel, was silent before the commander-
in-chief of the Catholic armies.*

" What is the matter, gentlemen ? "
said the young leader, scrutinizing the
faces of the company.

"The matter is, my lord marquis,"
answered a famous smuggler — with the

awkwardness of a man of the people who
is at first hampered by the restraints of
prejudice in the presence of a grand seig-
neur, but who kn<jws no limits when he
has once crossed the barrier which sepa-
rates them and sees before him only an
equal — "the matter is that you have just
come at the nick of time. I am not good
at gilded words ; so I will speak plumply
and plainl3^ Throughout the last war I
commanded five hundred men. Since we
took up arms once more I have been able
to put at the king's service a thousand
heads as hard as my own. For seven
long 3-ears I have been risking my life for
the good cause. I am not throwing it in
your teeth, but the laborer is worthy of
his hire. Therefore, to begin with, I
would be called M. de Cottereau, and I
would have the rank of colonel accorded
to me, otherwise I shall tender my sub-
mission to the First Consul. You see, my
lord marquis, I and my men have a devil
of a dunning creditor whom we must
satisfy. He is here ! " he added, striking
his stomach.

" Has the band come ? " asked the mar-
quis of Madame du Gua, in a mocking
tone.

But the smuggler had broached, how-
ever brutally, too important a subject,
and these bold spirits, as calculating as
they were ambitious, had been already
too long in doubt as to what they might
hope from the king, for mere disdain on
the young chief's part to close the inci-
dent. The young and fiery Chevalier du
Vissard started brisklj^ before Montauran,
and seized his hand to prevent his moving.

*•' Take care, my lord marquis ! " said
he ; '' 3'ou treat too lightly men who have
some right to the gratitude of him whom
you represent here. We know that his
ma jest}" has given you full powers to put
on record our services which are to be
rewarded in this world — or the next, for
the scaffold stands ready for us every
day. I know, for my part, that the rank
of marechal de camp — "

"You mean colonel?"

"No, marquis; Charette made me
colonel. The rank I have mentioned is
my incontestable right; and therefore I

THE CHOUANS.

153

do not speak for myself at this moment,
but for all m^^ bold brethren in arms
whose services have need of recog-nition.
For the present 3'our signature and your
promise Avill content tliem; and," he
added, dropping- his voice, " I confess
that they are easily contented. But,"
he went on, raising- it again, '^when the
sun rises on the Palace of Versailles,
bringing' happier days for the monarchy,
will those faithful men who have helped
the king- to conquer France in France —
will the^'^ be easily able to obtain fa-
vors for their families, pensions for their
widows, the restoration of the estates
which have been so wrong-fully confis-
cated ? I doubt it. Therefore, my lord
marquis, attested proof of serrice will not
be useless then. I will never mistrust the
king-, but I very heartily distrust his cor-
morants of ministers and courtiers, who
will din into his ears considerations about
the public welfare, the honor of France,
the interests of the crown, and a hundred
other rubbishy phrases. Men will make
mock, then, of a brave Vendean or Chouan
because he is old, and because the blade
he has drawn for the g'ood cause beats
ag-ainst legs wizened b}^ suffering. Can
you say we are wrong ? "

" You speak admirablj'- well. Monsieur
du Vissard," answered the marquis, " but
a little prematurely."

"Hark you, marquis," whispered the
Count de Bauvan, " Rifoel has, by my
faith ! said yhyj pretty things. For jouy
part, 3'ou are sure of always having- the
king-' s ear ; but as for us, we shall only
visit our master at long intervals, and I
confess to you, that if you were to refuse
your w^ord as a g-entleman to obtain for
me in due time and place the post of
Grand Master of the Waters and Forests
of France, devil take me if I would risk
my neck ! It is no small thing- to g-ain
Normandy for the king, and so I think I
may fairl}^ hope to have the Order. But,"
he added, with a blush, " there is time to
think of all that. God keep me from imi-
tating these rascals, and worrying- you.
You will speak of me to the king, and all
will go right."

Then each chief managed to inform the

marquis, in a more or less ingenious fash-
ion, of the extravagant price which he
expected for his services. One modestly
asked for the g-overnorship of Brittany-,
another for a barony, a third for promo-
tion, a fourth for the command of a place,
and all wanted pensions.

"Why, baron!" said the marquis to
M. du Guenic, " do you want nothing- ? "

'' Faith ! marquis, these g-entlemen have
left me nothing- but the crown of France,
but perhaps I could put up with that ! "

"Why, gentlemen!" said the Abbe
Gudin, in his thundering- voice, "remem-
ber that if you are so eager, you will
spoil all in the day of victory. Will not
the king be forced to make concessions to
the Revolutionaries them.selves ? "

"To the Jacobins?" cried the smug--
g-ler. " If his majesty will leavQ them
to me, I will undertake to employ my
thousand men in hanging- them, and we
shall soon g-et them off our hands ! "

"Monsieur de Cottereau," said the
marquis, "I perceive that some invited
g-uests are entering- the room. We oug-ht
all to vie in zeal and pains so as to in-
duce them to join our holy enterprise ; and
3^ou must understand that it is not the
time to attend to your demxands, however
just they may be." And as he spoke he
made his way toward the door as if to
welcome some nobles from the neighbor-
ing country of whom he had caught sig-ht.
But the bold smuggler barred his waj^
,though with a submissive and respectful
air.

"' No ! no ! my lord marquis, excuse me,
but the Jacobins taught us too well in
1793 that the man who reaps the harvest
is not the man who eats the cake. Sign
this strip of paper, and to-morrow I will
bring yott fifteen hundred g'ars. If not,
I shall treat with the First Consul."

Throwing a haug-hty glance round him,
the marquis saw that the old g-uei'illa's
boldness and resolute air were not dis-
pleasing- to any of the spectators of the
dispute. One man only, who sat in a
corner, seemed to take no part in the
scene, and was busih' filling a white clay
pipe with tobacco. The contemptuous
air with which he regarded the spokes-

154

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

man, his unassuming' attitude, and the
compassion for himself which the marquis
read in his e\'es, made Montauran scru-
tinize this generous-minded servant, in
whom he recog-nized Major Brig-aut. The
chief walked quickly up to him.

"And you," he said, "what is yoiir
demand ? "

" Oh ! my lord marquis, if the king-
comes back, I shall he satisfied."

" But for yourslf ?"

" For myself ? Your lordship is joking-. "

The marquis squeezed the Breton's hornj^
hand, and said to Madame du Gua, near
whom he was standing, " Madame, I va-Ay
fail in my enterprise before having time
to send the king an exact report as to the
state of the Catholic^ armj^ in Brittany.
If you live to see the restoration, forget
neither this honest fellow nor the Baron
du Guenic. There is more devotion in
these two men than in all these people
here."

And he pointed to the chiefs who were
waiting, not without impatience, for the
young marquis to comply with their de-
mands. They all held in their hands open
papers, in which, it would seem, their ser-
vices had been certified by the Ro^^alist
leaders in former wars ; and a general
murmur began to rise from them. In
their midst the Abbe Gudin, the Baron
du Guenic, and the Comte de Bauvan
were consulting how to aid tlie marquis
in checking such exaggerated preten-
sions; for the}^ could not but think the
chief's position a very awkward one.

Suddenly the marquis ran his blue ej-es,
with an ironic flash in them, over the com-
pany, and said, in a clear voice : '•' Gen-
tlemen, I do not know whether the powers
which the king- has graciously intrusted
to me are wide enough to enable me to
satisfy your demands. He may not have
anticipated so much zeal and devotion ;
you shall judge for yourselves of my dutj^,
and perhaps I shall be able to do it."

He disappeared, and came back prompt-
ly, holding in his hand an open letter bear-
ing the royal seal and sign manual.

" Here," he said, '' are the letters patent
in virtue of which your obedience is due
to me. They authorize me to govern the

provinces of. Brittany, Normandy, Maine,
and Anjou in the king's name, and to
take cognizance of the services of officers
who distinguish themselves iu his maj-
esty's armies."

A movement of content passed through
the assembly, and the Chouans came
nearer to the marquis, respectfully encir-
cling him, with their eyes bent on the
king's signature. But the young chief,
who was standing before the chimney-
piece, suddenly threw the letter in the
fire, where, in a moment, it was con-
sumed.

"I will no more command," cried the
3"oung man, "any but those who see in
the king a king, and not a prey to be
devoured. Gentlemen, you are at liberty
to leave me ! "

Madame du Gua, Abbe Gudin, Major
Brigaut, the Chevalier du Vissard, the
Baron du Guenic, the Comte de Bauvan,
gave an enthusiastic cry of Vive le Roi,
and if at first the other chiefs hesitated
for a moment to echo it, they were
soon carried away b^^ the marquis's noble
conduct, begged him to forget what had
happened, and assured him that, letters
patent or none, he should alwaj's be their
chief.

"Let us go and dance!" cried the
Comte de Bauvan, "come Avhnt may!
After all, friends," added he merrily, "it
is better to pray to God himself than to
His saints. Let us fight first, and see
what happens afterward."

" That is very true," whispered Major
Brigaut to the faithful Baron du Guenic.
" Saving your reverence, my lord baron,
I never heard the day's wage asked for
in the morning."

The company scattered themselves
about the rooms, where several persons
were already'' assembled. But the mar-
quis vainlj' endeavored to shake off the
gloomy expression which, had changed
his looks. The chiefs could not fail to
perceive the unfavorable impression which
the scene had produced on a man whose
loyalty was still associated with the fair
illusions of youth ; and they were
ashamed.

Still, a riotous joy broke out in the

THE CHOUANS.

155

meeting, composed, as it was, of the
most distinguished persons in the Roy-
alist party, who, in tlie depths of a re-
volted province, had never been able to
appreciate the events of the Revolution
justl3', and naturallj' took the most
doubtful hopes for realities. The bold
operations which Montauran had under-
taken, his name, his fortune, his ability,
made all men pluck up their courage, and
broug-ht about that most dang-erous of
all intoxications, the intoxication jDolitic,
which can never be cooled but hy tor-
rents of blood, almost always shed in
vain. To all the compan}^ the Revolu-
tion was but a passing- trouble in the
kingdom of France, where, as it seemed
to them, no real change had taken place.
The countr^^ was still the propertj'' of the
House of Bourbon, and the Roj'alists were
so completeh'' dominant there, that, four
years before, Hoche had secured not so
much a peace as an armistice. Therefore
the nobles made small account of the
Revolutionists: in their eyes Bonaparte
was a Marceau somoAvhat luckier than
his predecessors. So the ladies were
ready to dance very merrily.

Only a few of the chiefs, who had actu-
ally fought with the Blues, comprehended
the gravity of the actual crisis, and as
they knew that if they spoke of the First
Consul and his power to their benighted
comrades, the^' would not be understood,
they talked among themselves, looking at
the ladies with a carelessness which these
latter avenged by private criticisms. Ma-
dame du Gua, who seemed to be doing the
honors of the ball, tried to amuse the im-
patience of the lady dancers by addressing'
to each of them conventional compliments.
The screech of the instruments, which
w^ere being tuned, was already audible
when she perceived the marquis, his face
still bearing some traces of sadness ; and
she went rapidly up to him.

*' I hope you are not disordered by the
very ordinary inconvenience which these
clowns here have caused you ? " she ^aid.

But she received no answer ; for the
marquis, absorbed in reverie, thought he
heard certain of the considerations which
Marie had prophetically laid before him

amid these very chiefs at the Vive-
tiere, to induce him to throw up the
struggle of king against people. But
the young man had too lofty a soul, too
much pride, perhaps too much sincerity
of belief, to abandon the work he had
begun, and he made up his mind at this
moment to follow it out boldl}', in spite of
obstacles. He lifted his head proudly,
and only then understood what Madame
du Gua was saying to him.

"Your thoughts are at Fougeres, I
suppose ! " she said, with a bitterness
which showed her sense of the uselessness
of the efforts she had made to distract
the marquis. ''All! my lord, I would
give my life to put her into your hands,
and see you happy with her."

" Then, why did you take so good a
shot at her ? "

'•' Because I should like to see her either
dead or in your arms. Yes ! I could have
loved the Marquis of Montauran while I
thought him a hero. Now, I have for
him nothing but friendship mingled with
sorrow, when I see him cut oil from glory
by the wandering heart of an opera girl !"'

''As far as love goes," said the marquis
in a sarcastic tone, "j'ou judge me ill. If
I loved the girl, madame, I should feel
less desire for her — and if it were not for
you, perhaps, I should not think of her
at all."

'' There she is ! " said Madame du Gua,
suddenh".

The poor lady was terribl^^ hurt b}- the
haste with which the marquis turned his
head ; but as the bright ligiit of the
candles enabled her to see the smallest
changes in the features of the man so
madly loved, she thought she could see
some hope of return, when he once more
presented his face to her, smiling at her
woman's stratagem.

" What are 3"0U laughing at ? " said
the Comte de Bauvan.

"At the bursting of a bubble," an-
swered Madame du Gua jo3^fully. '*' Our
marquis, if we are to believe him, cannot
understand to-day how he felt his heart
beat a moment for the baggage* who

*Hei-e is the old difficulty of fille. No word
used ill modern Englisli meets it.

156

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

called herself Mademoiselle de Verneuil—
you remember ? "

^^ Bag-g-ag-e, madame ? '' repeated the
count, in a reproachful tone. " It is
the duty of the author of a wrong- to
redress it, and I give you my word of
honor that she is reall}'- the Duke de
Verneuil's daughter."

" Count," said the marquis, in a voice
of deep emotion, '^ which of your 'words'
are we to believe — that given at the
Vivetiere, or that given at Saint
James?"

A loud voice announced Mademoiselle
de Verneuil. The count darted to the
door, offered his hand to the beautiful
stranger with tokens of the deepest re-
spect, and, usliering her through the
inquisitive crowd to the marquis and
Madame du Gua, answered the astonished
chief, " Believe only the word I give you
to-day ! "

Madame du Gua grew pale at the sight
of this girl, who always presented herself
at the wrong moment, and who, for a
time, drew herself to her full height,
casting haughty glances over the com-
panj^, among whom she sought the guests
of the Vivetiere. She waited for the salu-
tation which her rival was forced to give
her, and without even looking at the mar-
quis, allovx'^ed herself to be conducted to a
place of honor by the count, who seated
her near Madame du Gua herself. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil had replied to this
lady's g-reeting- by a slight condescending-
nod, but, with womanly instinct, Madame
du Gua show^ed no vexation, and promptly
assumed a smiling and friendly air. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's singular dress and
her great beauty drew for a moment a
murmur of admiration from the com-
pan^'^ ; and when the marquis and Madame
du Gua turned their eyes to the guests of
the Vivetiere, they found in them an air
of respect which seemed to be sincere,
each man appearing to be looking for a
way to recover the good graces of the
fair Parisian whom he had mistaken.
And so the adversaries were fairly met.

" But this is enchantment, mademoi-
selle," said Madame du Gua. ''I^obody
in the world but you could surprise people

in this way. What ! you have come here
all by yourself? "

"All by mj^self," echoed Mademoiselle
dc Verneuil. "And so, madame, this
evening you will have nobody but my-
self to kill."

" Do not be too severe," rephed Madame
du Gua. " I cannot tell you how glad I
am to see you again. I was really aghast
at the thought of my misconduct toward
you, and I was looking for an opportunity
which might allow me to set it right."

"As for 3'our misconduct, madame, I
pardon you without difficulty that toward
myself. But I take to heart the death of
the Blues whom you murdered. Perhaps,
too, I might complain of the weight}^ char-
acter of 3^our dispatches ; but there, I for-
give everything in consideration of the
service jow have done me ! "

Madame du Gua lost countenance as
her fair rival squeezed her hand and
smiled on her with insolent grace. The
marquis had remained motionless, but
now he clutched the count's arm.

"' You deceived me disgraceful!}^," said
he, "and you have even tarnished my
honor. I am not a stage dupe ; and I
must have your life, or you mine."

"Marquis," answered the count haugh-
tily, " I am ready to give you every satis-
faction that you can desire."

And they moved toward the next room.
Even those guests who had least inkling-
of the meaning of the scene began to
understand the interest of it, so that
when the fiddlers struck up the dance
not a soul stirred.

"Mademoiselle," asked Madame du
Gua, clinching her lips in a kind of fury,
" what service have I had the honor of
doing you to deserve this gratitude ? "

' ' Did 3^ou not enlighten me on the true
character of the Marquis of Montauran,
madame ? How calmly the odious man
let me perish ! I give him up to jon with
the greatest pleasure."

"Then, what have you come to seek
here.? " said Madame du Gua sharply.

" The esteem and the reputation of
which you robbed me at the Vivetiere,
madame. As for anything else, do not
disturb yourself. Even if the marquis

THE CHOUANS.

157

came back to me, you know that a re-
newal of love is never love."

Madame dii Gua tliereupon took Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's hand with the
ostentatious endearment of gesture which
women, especially in men's company, like
to display toward one another.

''Well, dear child, I am delighted to
find you so reasonable. If tlje service I
did 5'OU seemed rough at first,'' said she,
pressing- the hand she held, though she
felt a keen desire to tear it as her fingers
told her its delicate softness, '' it shall be
at least a thorough one. Listen to me,"
she went on, with a treacherous smile ;
"I know the character of the Gars. He
would have deceived you. He does not
wish to marry, and cannot marry any-
body."

"Really ? "

''Yes, mademoiselle ; he onh^ accepted
this dangerous mission in order to earn
the hand of Mademoiselle d'Uxelles, an
alliance in which his majesty has promised
him full support."

"What, really?"

And Mademoiselle de Verneuil added
no word to this sarcastic exclamation.
The young and handsome Chevalier du
Vissard, eager to obtain pardon for the
pleasantr3^ which had set the example
of insult at the Vivetiere, advanced to-
ward her with a respectful invitation to
dance ; and, extending her hand to him,
she rapidly took her place in the quadrille
where Madame du Gua also danced. The
dress of these ladies, all of whose toilets
recalled the fashions of the exiled court,
and who wore powdered or frizzled hair,
seemed absurd in comparison with the
costume, at once rich, elegant, and
severe, which the actual fashion allowed
Mademoiselle de Verneuil to wear, and
which, though condemned aloud, was
secretly en\ded by the other women.
As for the men, they were never weary
of admiring the beauty of hair left to
itself, and the details of a dress whose
chief grace consisted in the shape that
it displayed.

At this moment the marquis and the
count re-entered the ball-room and came
up behind Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who

did not turn her head. Even if a mirror,
which hung opposite, had not apprised her
of the marquis's j)resence, she could have
gnessed it from the countenance of Ma-
dame du Gua, who hid but ill, under an
outward air of indifference, the impatience
with which she expected the contest cer-
tain to break out sooner or later between
the two lovers. Although Montauran
was talking to the count and two other
persons, he could nevertheless hear the
remarks of the dancers of both sexes,
who, according to the change of the
figures, were brought from time to time
into the place of Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil and her neighbors.

"O, ja^s; certainlj^, madame," said one;
" she came by herself."

"She must be very brave," said his
partner.

"Why, if I were dressed like that, I
should think I had nothing on," said an-
other lady.

" W^ell, the costume is hardl}' proper,"
replied the gentleman ; " but she is so
pretty, and it suits her so well ! "

" Really, I am quite ashamed, for her
sake, to see how p^rfectl}^ she dances.
Don't you think she has exactly'" the air
of an opera girl?" answered the lady,
with a touch of jealousy.

" Do you think she has come here as an
ambassadress from the First Consul ? "
asked a third.

" What a joke ! " replied the gentle-
man.

" Her innocence will hardly be her
dowry," said the lady, with, a laugh.

The Gars turned round sharplj^ to see
what woman it was who allowed herself
such a gibe, and Madame du Gua looked
him in the face, as who would sa}'- plain-
ly, '•' You see what the}^ think of her ! "

'•'Madame," said the count, with an-
other laugh, to Marie's enemy, "it is
only ladies who have as yet deprived her
of innocence."

The marquis inwardly pardoned Bauvan
for all his misdeeds ; but when he ventured
to cast a glance at his mistress, whose
beauties, like those of all women, were
enhanced b}'- the candle-light, she turned
her back to him as she returned to her

158

THE HUMAN COMEDY

place, aud began to talk to her partner,
so that the marquis could overhear her
voice in its most caressing- tones.

'• The First Consul sends us very dan-
gerous ambassadors," said the chevalier.

"Sir," she replied, "that observation
was made before, at the Vivetiere."

" But you have as good a memory as
the king ! " rejoined the gentleman, vexed
at his blunder.

" One must needs remember injuries in
order to pardon them," said she briskly,
and relieving his embarrassment with a
smile.

" Are we all included in this amnesty ?"
asked the marquis.

But she darted out to dance with the
excitement of a child, leaving him un-
answered and abashed. He gazed upon
her with a melancholy coldness, which she
I)erceived. And then she bent her head
in one of the coquettish attitudes in which
her exquisiteh^ proportioned neck allowed
her to indulge, forgetting no possible
movement which could show the rare per-
fection of her form. Enticing as Hope,
she was as fugitive as Memory ; and to
see her thus was lo desire the possession
of her at any cost. She knew this well,
and her consciousness of beauty shed an
inexpressible charm over her face. Mon-
tauran felt a whirlwind of love, of rage,
of madness, rising in his heart; he pressed
the count's hand strongly, and withdrew.

"What! has he gone?" asked Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, as she came back
to her place.

The count darted to the neighboring
room, and made a knowing gesture to his
protegee as he brought the Gars back
to her.

"He is mine!" she thought, as she
perused in the mirror the countenance
of Montauran, whose face was slightly
agitated, but bright with hope.

She received the young chief at first
with glum silence, but she did not leave
him again without a smile. His look of
distinction was so great, that she felt
proud of being able to tyrannize over
him, and determined to make him pay
dearly for a kind word or two, that he
might know their value— thereby obeying

an instinct which all women follow in one
degree or another. The dance finished,
all the gentlemen of the Vivetiere party
surrounded Marie, each begging pardon
for his error with compliments more or
less well turned. But he whom she
wished to see at her feet kept aloof from •
the group of her subjects.

"He thinks I still love him," she
thought, " and he will not be lost in
the common herd."

She refused the next dance ; and then,
as though the festival had been given in
her honor, she went from quadrille to
quadrille leaning on the arm of the Comte
de Bauvan, with whom she chose to be in
a way familiar. The adventure of the
Vivetiere was b}' this time known in its
minutest details to the Avhole company,
thanks to the pains taken by Madame du
Gua, who hoped, by thus publiclj'- con-
necting Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the
marquis, to throw another stumbling-
block in the way of their reunion. Hence
the sundered lovers were the object of
general attention. Montauran dared not
enter into conversation with his mistress;
for the consciousness of his misdoings and
the violence of his rekindled desires made
her almost terrible to him ; while, on her
side, the girl kept watching his face of
pretended calm, while she seemed to be
looking at the dancing.

"It is terribly hot here ! " she said to
her cavalier. "' I see Monsieur de Mon-
tauran's forehead is quite moist. Take
me somewhere else where I can breathe —
I feel stifled."

And, with a nod, she indicated to the
count a neighboring apartment, which
was occupied only by some card-players.
The marquis followed his mistress, whose
words he had g-uessed by the mere motion
of her lips. He ventured to hope that she
was only withdrawing from the crowd in
order to give him an interview, and this
supposed favor added a A'iolence as y&t
unknown to his passion ; for every at-
tempt which he had made to conquer his
love during the last few daA^s had but in-
creased it. Mademoiselle de Verneuil took
pleasure in tormenting the young chief ;
and her glance, soft as velvet when it lit

THE CHOUANS.

159

upon the count, became dark and harsh
when it chanced to meet the marquis's
eyes. Montauran seemed to make a
painful effort, and said in a choked
voice :

"Will you not, then, forgive me ? "

"Love," she answered coldly-, "par-
dons nothing, or pardons all. But," she
went on, seeing him give a start of J03',
"it must be love — "

She had once more taken the count's
arm, and passed rapidly into a kind of
boudoir, serving as antechamber to the
card-room. The marquis followed her.

" You shall hear me ! " he cried.

" Sir," answered she, "you will make
people believe that I came here for 3^our
sake, and not out of self-respect. If 3^ou
do not cease this hateful persecution I
must withdraw."

"Well, then," said he, remembering
one of the maddest actions of the last
Duke of Lorraine, " give me leave to
speak to you for the time onl^'" during
which I can hold this live coal in my
hand." He stooped to the hearth, picked
up a brand, and grasped it hard. Made-
moiselle de Verneuirs face flushed ; she
suddenly dropped the arm of the count
(who quietly retired, leaving the lovers
alone), and stared in wonder at Mon-
tauran. So mad an act had touched
her heart, for in love there is nothing
more effective than a piece of senseless
courage.

"All that you prove by this," said
she, as she tried to make him throw the
brand awaj', " is that you might give mo
up to the most cruel tortures. You are
always in extremes. On the faith of a
fool's Avord and a woman's slander, you
suspected her who had just saved your
life of being capable of selling j^ou."

"Yes," said he with a smile, "I was
cruel to you. Forget it forever ; I shall
never forget it. But listen : I was abomi-
nably deceived ; but so many circum-
stances during that fatal day Avere
against you."

" And were these circumstances enough
to extinguish your love ? "

As he hesit?uted to answer, she rose
with a gesture of scorn.

" Oh ! Marie, from this time I will be-
lieve none but you I "

"Throw away that fire, I tell you!
You are mad ! Open your hand— I will
have it ! "

He chose to oppose some resistance to
his mistress's gentle violence, in order to
prolong the keen pleasut-e which he felt
in being closely pressed b}^ her tiny,
caressing fingers. But she at last suc-
ceeded in opening the hand, which she
would gladly have kissed. A flow of
blood had quenched the glowing wood.

"Now, what good did that do j'ou ? "
she said ; and making a bandage of her
handkerchief, she applied it to the wound,
which was not deep, and which the mar-
quis quickly covered with his glove. Ma-
dame du Gua had come on tiptoe into the
card-room, and cast furtive glances at
the lovers, whose eyes she adroitl}^ es-
caped by leaning back at their least
movement. But she could not very easily
understand their conversation from what
she saw of their action.

"If all they told you of me were true,
confess that I should be well avenged
at this moment," said Marie, with a
malicious air which turned the marquis
pale.

" But what were the feelings, then,
that brought 3'ou here?"

"My dear boy, you are a verj' great
coxcomb. Do you really think that 3'ou
can despise a woman like me with im-
punit}'? I came both for 3'our sake and
for mj' own," she went on after a pause,
putting her hand to the cluster of rubies
which lay in the center of her breast,
and showing him the blade of her dagger.

'•What does all this mean ? " thought
Madame du Gua.

" But," continued Marie, " you still love
me — at an}- rate, you still feel a desire for
me, and the folly j'-ou have just com-
mitted," said she, taking his hand, "has
given me proof of it. I have reco veered
the position I wished to hold, and I can
go away satisfied. He who loves is al-
wa.vs sure of pardon. For my part, I am
loved : I have regained the esteem of the
man who is all the world to me ; I can
die ! "

160

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

"Then, you love me still?" said Mon-
tauran.

"Did I say so ?" she answered mock-
ingly, and following- with joy the progress
of the horrible torture which, at her first
coming, she had begun to apply to him.
"Had I not to make sacrifices in order
to get here ? I saved Monsieur de Bau-
van's life, and he, more grateful than
you, has offered me his name and fortune
in exchange for my protection. It did not
occur to you to do that ! "

The marquis, aghast at these last
words, checked the most violent access
of wrath which he had yet suffered at
feeling himself duped \)y the count, but
did not answer.

" Ah ! you are considering ! " she said,
with a bitter smiiC.

"Mademoiselle,'' answered the young
man, "3-our doubts justify mine."

"Sir! let us quit this room!'' cried
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, as she saw
the skirt of Madame du Gua's gown.
And she rose ; but her wish to drive her
rival desperate made her linger.

"' Do you wish to plunge me into hell ?"
asked the marquis, taking her hand and
pressing it hard.

" Is it not five days since 3'ou plunged
me there ? At this very moment are you
not leaving me in the crudest uncertainty
whether your love is sincere or not ? "'

" But how can I tell if you are not push-
ing your vengeance to the point hj mak-
ing yourself mistress of my life, for the
purpose of tarnishing it, instead of plan-
ning my death ? "

" Ah ! joM do not love me ! You think
of yourself, not of me ! ' ' said she, furi-
ously, and weeping, for the coquette knew
well the power of her eyes when they
were drowned in tears.

"Well, then," said he, no longer mas-
ter of himself, " take my life, but dry
your tears ! "

" Oh ! my love ! " cried she in a stifled
voice, " these are the words, the tones,
the looks, that I waited for before setting
your happiness above vay own. But, sir,"
she went on, " I must ask you for a last
proof of your affection, whicli you say is
so great. I wiU stay here no longer than

is necessary to make it thoroughly'' known
that you are mine. I would not even
drink a glass of water in a house where
lives a woman who has twice tried to kill
me, who is perhaps now plotting some
treason against us, and who at this very
moment is listening to our talk," said
she, guiding the marquis's eyes with her
fing'er to the floating folds of Madame du
Gua's dress. Then she dried her tears,
and bent toward the ear of the j^oung
chief, who shivered as he felt himself
caressed by her sweet, moist breath.

" Get ready for our departure," said
she. "You shall take me back to Fou-
geres, and there, and there only, you shall
know whether I love you or .not. For the
second time I trust myself to you : will
you trust yourself a second time to me ? '"'

"Ah, Marie! you have brought me to
such a pass that I know no more what I
am doing. Your words, your looks, your-
self, have intoxicated me, and I am ready
to do anything 3^ou wish."

"Well, then, make me for a moment
quite happ3^ Let me enjoj^ the only tri-
umph I have longed for. I want to
breathe freel}' once, to live the life I have
dreamed, and to fill myself full of my
dreams, before they vanish. Let us go
back; come and dance with me."

They returned together to the ball-
room, and although Mademoiselle de
Verneuil had received as complete and
heart}'- a satisfaction of her vanity as
ever woman could, the mysterious sweet-
ness of her ej'es, the delicate smile on her
lips, the brisk movement of a lively dance,
kept the secret of her thoug'hts as the sea
keeps those of a murderer who drops into
it a heav3^ corpse. ISTevertheless, the com-
pany uttered an admiring murmur when
she threw herself into the arms of her
lover for the waltz, and the two, voluptu-
ousty clasping each other, with languish-
ing eyes and drooping heads, whirled
round, clasping each other with a kind
of frenz3^

'- Count," said Madame du Gua to Mon-
sieur de Bauvan, "go and find out if Pille-
Miche is in camp ; bring him to me ; and
be certain that you shall obtain from me
in return for this slight service anything

THE CHOUANS.

161

j'ou wish, even my hand. My vengeance, "
continued she to herself, as she saw him
g-o off, ''will cost me dear ; but this time
I v;ill not miss it."

A few moments later. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil and the marquis were seated in
a berline horsed with four stout steeds.
Francine, surprised at finding the two
supposed enemies with clasped hands and
on the best terms, sat speechless, and did
not dare to ask herself whether this was
treachery or love on her mistress's part.
Thanks to the silence and to the darkness
of night; Montauran could not perceive
Mademoiselle de Verneuil's agitation as
she drew near Fougeres. At length the
feeble glimmer of dawn gave a far-off
sight of the steeple of Saint Leonard's,
and at the same moment Marie said to
herself, " Death is near ! ''

At the first rising ground the same
thought occurred to each of the lovers.
They alighted from the carriage and
climbed the hill on foot, as though in re-
membrance of their first meeting. When
Marie had taken the marquis's arm and
walked a short distance, she thanked the
young man with a smile for ha\ang re-
spected her silence. Then, as they reached
the crown of the hill whence Fougeres
was visible, she threw aside her reverie
altogether.

"You must come no further," she said.
" My power would not again avail to save
you from the Blues to-day."

]\Iontauran looked at her with some sur-
prise ; she gave a sad smile, pointed to a
bowlder as if bidding him sit down, and
herself remained standing in a melancholy
posture. The emotions which tore her
soul no longer permitted her to practice
the artifices of which she had been so
prodigal, and for the moment she could
have knelt on burning coals without feel-
ing them more than the marquis had felt
the lighted wood which he had grasped
to attest the violence of his passion. She
gazed at her lover with a look full of the
profound est grief before she said to him
the appalling words :

"All your suspicions of me are true ! "

The marquis gave a sudden movement,
but she said, clasping her hands : " For
Balzac — f

pity's sake, hear me without interruption.
I am really and truly," she went on in a
faltering tone, " the daughter of the Duke
de Verneuil, but his natural daughter only.
My mother, who was of the house of Cas-
teran, and who took the veil to escape the
sufferings which her family were prepar-
ing for her, atoned for her fault by fifteen
years of weeping, and died at Seez. Only
on her death-bed did the dear abbess ad-
dress to the man who had abandoned her
an entreaty in my favor ; for she knew
that I had neither friends, prospects, nor
fortune. This man, never forgotten under
the roof of Francine 's mother, to whose
care I had been committed, had himself
forgotten his child. Nevertheless, the
duke received me with pleasure, and ac-
knowledged me because I was beautiful ;
perhaps, also, because I reminded him of
his youth.

" He was one of those grande seigneurs
who, in the former reign, prided them-
selves on showing how a man may pro-
cure pardon for a crime by committing it
gratefully. I will sa}' no more — he was
wry father ! But permit me to show you
the evil effect which my sojourn at Paris*
could not help producing on my mind.
The society which the Duke de Verneuil
kept, and that to which he introduced
me, doted on the mocking philosophy
which then charmed all France, because
it was the rule to make witty profession
of it. The brilliant talk which pleased
my ear was recommended b^' its ingen-
ious observations, or by a neatly-turned
contempt of religion and of truth gener-
ally. As they mocked certain feelings
and thoughts, men drew them all the
better that they ^\A not share them;
and they were as agreeable by dint of
their skill in epigram, as by the spriglit-
liness with which they could put a whole
story in a phrase. But they too often
made the mistake of excessive esprit, and
wearied women by making love a business
rather than an affair of the heart.

" I made but a weak resistance to this
torrent. I had a soul (pardon my vani-
ty!) sufficiently full of passion to feel that'
esprit had withered all hearts ; but the
life which I then led had the result of

162

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

bringing about a perpetual conflict be-
tween my natural sentiments and the
vicious habits I had contracted. Some
persons of parts had delighted to foster
in me that freedom of thought, that con-
tempt of public opinion, which deprives
woman of the modesty of soul that gives
her half her charm. Alas! adversity
could not eradicate the faults which pros-
perity had caused. My father," she con-
tinued, after heaving a sigh, "the Duke
de Verneuil, died after formally acknowl-
edging me, and making in my favor a will
which considerably diminished the fortune
of my brother, his legitimate son.

'' One morning I found myself without
a shelter and without a guardian. My
brother contested the will which made
me a rich woman. Three years spent in
a wealth}' household had developed my
vanity, and , my father, by gratifying my
ever}' wish, had created in me a craving
for luxury and habits of indulgence, the
tyranny of which my young and simple
mind did not comprehend. A friend of
my father's, the Marshal-Duke de Lenon-
court, who was seventy years old, offered
to be my guardian ; I accepted, and a few
days after the beginning of the hateful
lawsuit, I found mj'self once more in a
splendid establishment, where I enjoyed
all the advantages which my brother's
cruelty had refused me over my father's
coffin. Every evening the marshal spent
some hours with me, and the old man
spoke all the time nothing but words of
gentle consolation. His whole air and
the various touching proofs of paternal
tenderness which he gave me, seemed to
guarantee that his heart held no other
sentiments than my own ; and I was glad
to think myself his daughter. I accepted
the jewels he offered me, and hid from him
none of the fancies which I found him so
glad to satisfy.

" One evening I learned that the whole
town thought me the poor old man's mis-
tress. It was demonstrated to me that
it was out of my power to regain the
reputation for innocence of which society
causelessly robbed me. The man who
had practiced on my inexperience could
not be my lover, and would not be my

husband . In the very same week in which
I made the hideous discovery — on the very
eve of the day fixed for my marriage witli
him (for I had insisted on bearing his
name, the only reparation he could make
me) — he fled to Coblentz. I was insulting-
ly driven from the little house in which
the marshal had placed me, and which
did not belong to him. So far I have
told you the truth, as if I were in the
presence of God Himself ; but from this
point ask not, I pray you, from a wretched
girl, an exact account of the miseries
buried in her memory.

' ' One daj', sir, I found myself united* to
Danton ! A few days later the huge oak
round which I had cast my arms was up-
rooted by the storm. When I saw myself
once more immersed in poverty, I made
up ni}' mind to die. I know not whether
I was unconsciously counseled by love of
life, b}' the hope of wearing out my ill-
luck and finding at the bottom of this in-
terminable abyss the happiness which fled
my grasp, or whether I was won over by
the arguments of a young man of Ven-
dome, who for two years past has fast-
ened himself on me like a serpent on a
tree, in the belief, no doubt, that some
extremity of misfortune may induce me
to yield to him. In fine, I cannot tell why
I accepted the odious mission of making
mj'self beloved by a stranger whom I was
to betray for the price of three hundred
thousand francs. I saw 3'ou, sir, and I
recognized you at once b}' one of those
presentiments which never deceive us ;
yet I amused myself by doubting, for the
more I loved you, the more the conviction
of my love was terrible to me.

" Thus, in saving you from the hands
of Commandant Hulot, I threw up my
part, and resolved to deceive the execu-
tioners, and not their victim. I was
wrong to play thus with men's lives,
with policy, and with my own self, after
the fashion of a careless girl who sees
nothing in the world but sentiment. I
thought I was loved, and in the hope
of a new beginning of life I let myself
drift. But all things, mj'self perhaps
included, betrayed my past excesses; for
you must have had your suspicions of a

THE CHOUANS.

163

woman so full of passion as I am. Alas !
can any one refuse pardon to my love,
and my dissembling- ? Yes, sir ! it seemed
to me that I was awaking- from a long and
painful sleep, and that at my waking I
found myself once more sixteen. Was
I not in Alencon, which was connected
with the chaste and pure memories of my
3''outh ? I was simple enough, I was mad
enough, to believe that love would give
me a baptism of innocence. For a mo-
ment I thought myself still a maid be-
cause I had never yet loved. But yes-
terday evening yowv passion seemed to
me a real passion, and a voice asked me,
* 'Why deceive him ? '

"Know, then, lord marquis," she con-
tinued in a deep tone, which seemed proud-
ly to challenge reprobation, " know it well
that I am but a creature without honor,
unworthy of you. From this moment I
take up m}^ part of wanton once more,
weary of playing that of a woman to
whom you had restored all the chastities
of the heart. Virtue is too heavy a load
for me ; and 1 should despise you if you
were weak enough to wed me. A Count
de Bauvan might commit a folly of that
kind, but you, sir, be worthy of your own
future, and leave me without a regret.
The courtesan in me, look you, would be
too exacting ; she would love you in an-
other fashion from that of the simple,
innocent girl who felt in her heart for
one instant the exquisite hope of some
day being- jout companion, of making-
you ever happy, of doing- you honor, of
becoming a noble and worthy wife to you;
and who, from this sentiment, has drawn
the courage to revive her evil nature of
vice and infamy, in order to set an eternal
barrier between you and herself. To you
I sacrifice honor and fortune ; my pride
in this sacrifice will support me in my
miserj'^, and fate may do with me as it
will. I will never give you up to them.
I shall return to Paris, where your name
shall be to me as another self, and the
splendid distinction which you will give
•it will console me for all my woes. As for
you, you are a man ; you will not forget
me. Farewell ! "

She darted away in the direction of the

valleys of Saint Sulpice, and disappeared
before the marquis could rise to stop her.
But she doubled back on her steps, availed
herself of a hollow rock as a hiding-place,
raised her head, scrutinized Montauran
with a curiosity which was ming-led with
doubt, and saw him walking he knew not
whither, like a man overwhelmed.

"Is he, then, but a weakling?" she
said, when he was lost to sight, and she
felt that they were parted. "Will he
understand me ? "

She shuddered ; then she bent her steps
suddenly and rapidlj^ toward Fougeres,
as if she feared that the marquis would
follow to the town, where death awaited
him,

" Well, Francine, what did he say to

you

she asked her faithful Breton

maid when they met again.

"Alas ! Marie, I pity him ! You great
ladies make your tongues daggers to stab
men with."

"What did he look like, then, when he
met you ? "

"Do you think he even saw me? Oh,
Marie, he loves you ! "

"Ah, yes," answered she, "he loves
me, or he loves me not — two words which
mean heaven or hell to me. Between the
extremes I see no middle space on which
I can set my foot."

Having thus worked out her terrible
fate, Marie could give herself up entirely
to sorrow ; and the countenance which
she had kept up hitherto by a mixture of
diverse sentiments experienced so rapid
a change that, after a daj^ in which she
hovered unceasingly between presages of
happiness and forebodings of despair, she
lost the fresh and radiant beauty whose
first cause lies either in the absence of all
passion or in the intoxication of happi-
ness.

Curious to know the result of her wild
enterprise, Hulot and Corentin had called
upon Marie shortly after her arrival. She
received them with a smiling air.

" Well," said she to the commandant,
whose anxious face expressed considerable
inquisitiveness, "the fox has come back
within range of your guns, and you will
soon gain a glorious victory ! "

164

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

"What has happened, then?" asked
Corentin carelessly, but casting- on Made-
moiselle de Verneuil one of the sidelong-
g-lances b^'' which diplomatists of this
stamp spy out others' thoughts.

"Why," she answered, "the Gars is
more in love with me than ever, and I
made him come with us up to the very
g-ates of Foug-eres."

" It would appear that your power
ceased there," retorted Corentin, " and
that the ci-devanVs fear is strong-er than
the love with which 3^ou inspired him."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil threw a scorn-
ful look at Corentin.

" You judge him by yourself," an-
swered she.

"Well," said he, without showing any
emotion, "why did you not bring- him
straigrht to us ? "

"If he really loves me, commandant,"
said she to Hulot, with a malicious look,
" would you never forg-ive me if I saved
him by taking- him away from France? "

The old soldier stepped briskly up to
her, and seized her hand to kiss it, with
a kind of enthusiasm. But then he looked
steadily at her and said, his face darken-
ing:

"You forget my two friends and my
sixty-three men ! "

" Ah ! commandant," she said, with all
the naivete of passion, "that was not his
fault. He was duped by a wicked woman,
Charette's mistress, who I believe would
drink the blood of the Blues."

"Come, Marie," said Corentin, "do
not pla^'^ tricks with the commandant ;
he does not understand your pleasantries
yet."

"Be silent," she answered, " and know
that the day when you become a little too
repulsive to me will be your last."

"I see, mademoiselle," said Hulot with-
out bitterness, " that I must make ready
for battle."

" You are not in case to give it, my
dear colonel. At Saint James I saw that
t\v&y had more than six thousand men,
with regular troops, artiller}^ and En-
ghsh officers. But what would become
of all these folk without him ? I hold
With Fouche, that his head is everything."

" Well, shall we have his head ? " asked
Corentin, out of patience.

" I don't know," said she carelessly.

"English ! " cried Hulot angrily; " that
was the only thing wanting to make him
out and out a brigand ! Ah, I'll English
you, I will ! " But he added to Corentin,
when they were a little distance from the
house, " It would appear, citizen diplo-
matist, that you let yourself be routed at
regular intervals by that g'irl."

"It is very natural, citizen comman-
dant," answered Corentin thoughtfully,
" that you should not have known what
to make of all she said to us. You mili-
tary gentlemen do not perceive that there
are more ways of making war than one.
To make cunning use of the passions of
men and women, as though they were
springs worked upon for the benefit of
the state, to adjust all the wheels in the
mighty machine which we call a govern-
ment, to take delight in shutting up in it
the most refractory sentiments like catch-
springs, to be watched over for amuse-
ment— is not this to be an actual creator,
and to put one's self, like God, at the
center of the universe ? "

"You will be good enough to let me
prefer my trade to 3^ours," replied the
soldier dryl3\ " You ma^'^ do what you
like with your machinery, but I acknowl-
edge no other superior than the Minister
of War. I have m}' orders ; I shall begin
my operations with fellows who will not
sulk or shirk, and I shall meet in front
the foe whom you want to steal on from
behind."

" Oh, you can get into marching order
if you like,'-' answered Corentin. " From
what the girl lets me guess, enigmatic as
she seems to you, you will have some
skirmishing, and I shall procure you be-
fore long the pleasure of a tete-a-tdte
with the brigand chief."

" How so ? " said Hulot, stepping back
to get a better view of this strange per-
sonage.

"Mademoiselle de Verneuil loves the
Gars," said Corentin, in a stifled voice,,
" and perhaps he loves her. A marquis
with the red ribbon, j^oung, able, perhaps
evei (for who knows ?) still rich — there

THE CHOUANS.

165

are sufficient temptations for you. She
would be a fool not to fight for her own
hand, and try to many him rather than
g-ive him up. She is tr^nng- to throw dust
in our eyes ; but I read in her ow^n some
irresolution. In all probability the two
lovers will have an assignation ; perhaps
it is already arranged. Well, then, to-
morrow I shall have my man fast ! Hith-
erto he has only been the Republic's ene-
my ; a few minutes since he became mine*
'Now, every man who has taken a fancy
to get betAveen me and that girl has died
on the scaffold."

When he had finished, Corentin fell
back into a stud^^, which prevented him
from seeing the intense disgust depicted
on the countenance of the generous soldier,
as he fathomed the depth of the intrigue
and the working of the engines employed
by Fouche. And so Hulot made up his
mind to thwart Corentin in every point
not absolutely hurtful to the success and
the objects of the Government, and to give
the Republic's foe the chance of dying
with honor and sword in hand before be-
coming the prey of the executioner, whose
jackal this agent of the superior police
avowed himself to be.

''If the First Consul would listen to
me," said he to himself, turning his back
on Corentin, ''he would let these foxes
and the aristocrats, who are worthy of
each other, fight it out between them, and
employ soldiers on very different business."

Corentin on his side looked coolly at the
soldier (whose face had now betra3^ed his
thoughts), and his eyes recovered the
sardonic expression which show^ed the
superior intelligence of this subaltern
Machiavel.

"Give three yards of blue cloth to
brutes of this kind," thought he, "stick
a piece of iron by their sides, and the}^
will fancy that in politics there is only
one proper way of killing a man." He
paced up and down slowly for a few mo-
ments ; then he said to himself suddenly :
" Yes ! the hour is come. The woman
shall be mine ! For five years the circle
I have drawn round her has narrowed,
little by little. I have her now, and with
her help I will climb as high in the

Government as Fouche. Yes ! let her
lose the one man she has loved, and
grief will give her to me body and soul.
It only remains to watch night and day
in order to discover her secret."

A minute later, an observer might have
descried Corentin's pale face across the
window-panes of a house whence he could
inspect every living thing that entered
the cul-de-sac formed by the row of
houses running parallel to Saint Leo-
nard's Church. With the patience of
a cat watching a mouse, Corentin was
still, on the morning of the next day,
giving heed to the least noise, and severe-
ly scrutinizing every passer-b^". The day
then beginning was a market day. Al-
though in these unfortunate times the
peasants were with difficulty induced to
risk themselves in the town, Corentin
saw a man of a gloomy countenance,
dressed in a goatskin, and carrying on
his arm a small round flat basket,
who was making his way toward Made-
moiselle de Verneuil's house, after casting
round him glances indifferent enough.
Corentin went downstairs, intending to
wait for the peasant when he came out ;
but suddenly it occurred to him that if
he could make a sudden appearance at
Mademoiselle de Verneuil's he might per-
haps surprise at a single glance the
secrets hid in the messenger's basket.
Besides, common fame had taught him
that it was almost impossible to get the
better of the impenetrable answers of
Bretons and Normans.

" Galope-Chopine !" cried Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, when Francine ushered in
the Chouan. " Can it be that I am
loved?" she added in a whisper to her-
self.

An instinct of hope shed the brightest
hues over her complexion, and diffused
joy throughout her heart. Galope-
Chopine looked from the mistress of
the house to Francine, his glances at
the latter being full of mistrust; but a
gesture from Mademoiselle de Verneuil
reassured him.

"Madame," said he, "toward the
stroke of two he will be at my house,
and will wait for you there."

166

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Her emotions allowed Mademoiselle de
Verneuil to make no other reply than an
inclination of the head, but a Samoyede
could have understood the full meaning"
of this. At the very same moment the
steps of Corentin echoed in the salon.
Galope-Chopine did not disturb himself
in the least when Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil's start and her looks at once
showed him a dang-er-sig-nal ; and as
soon as the spy exhibited his cunning-
face, the Chouan raised his voice ear-
piercing-ly :

'•'Oh, yes ! " said he to Francine,
" there is Breton butter and Breton but-
ter. You want Gibarr^' butter, and 3'ou
will only g-ive eleven sous the pound.
You ought not to have sent for me. That
is g-ood butter, that is ! " said he, opening-
his basket and showing- two little pats
of butter of Barbette's making. " You
must paj^ a fair price, g-ood lady. Come,
let us say another sou ! "

His hollow voice showed not the least
anxiety, and his g-reen eyes, shaded by
thick, g-rizzly eyebrows, bore without
flinching Corentin's piercing gaze.

" Come, good fellow, hold your tongue.
You did not come here to sell butter;
for you are dealing with a lady who
never cheapened anything in her life.
Your business, old boy, is one which will
make you a head shorter some day ! "
And Corentin, with a friendly clap on
the shoulder, added, " You can't go on
long serving both Chouans and Blues."

Galope-Chopine had need of all his
presence of mind to gulp down his wrath
without denying this charge, which, ow-
ing to his avarice, was a true one. He
contented himself with replying :

*'The gentleman is pleased to be
merry — "

Corentin had turned his back on the
Chouan, but in the act of saluting Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, whose heart was in
her mouth, he was easily able to keep an
eye on him in the mirror. Galope-Cho-
pine, who thought himself out of the sp.y 's
sight, questioned Francine with a look,
and Francine pointed to the door, sa.ying:
" Come with me, good man ; we shall
come to terms, no doubt."

Nothing had escaped Corentin, neither
the tightened lips which Mademoiselle de
Verneuil's smile hid but ill, nor her blush,
nor her altered expression, nor the Chou-
an's anxiety, nor Francine's gesture. He
had seen it all ; and, convinced that Ga-
lope-Chopine was an emissary of the mar-
quis, he stopped him as he was going out,
b}^ catching hold of the long hair of his
goatskin, brought him in front of himself,
and looked straight at him, saying :

" Where do you live, good friend ? I
want some butter."

"Good gentleman," answered the
Chouan, "^ all Fougeres knows where I
live. I am, as you ma}^ say — "

'•'Corentin!." cried Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, interrupting Galope-Chopine's
answer, '''3'ou are very forward to pay
me visits at this hour, and to catch me
like this, scarcely dressed. Let the peas-
ant alone. He does not understand yowc
tricks any more than I understand their
object. Go, good fellow."

Galope-Chopine hesitated for a moment
before going. His irresolution, whether
it were real or feigned, as of a poor wretch
who did not know which of the two to
obe^', had already begun to impose on
Corentin, when the Chouan, at a com-
manding signal from the young lady, de-
parted with heavy steps. Mademoiselle
de Verneuil and Corentin gazed at each
other in silence ; and this time Marie's
clear eyes could not endure the blaze of
dry light which poured from the man's
looks. The air of resolve with which the
spy had entered the room, an expression
on his face which was strange to Marie,
the dull sound of his squeak3'' voice, his
attitude — all alarmed her ; she understood
that a secret struggle was beginning be-
tween them, and that he w^as straining
all the power of his sinister influence
against her. But if at the moment she
caught a full and distinct view of the
abj^ss toward which she was hastening,
she drew from her love strength to shake
off the icy chill of her presentiments.

" Corentin ! " she said, merrily enough,
''I hope 3^ou will be good enough to allow
me to finish my toilet."

"Marie," said he — "yes, give me leave

THE CHOUANS,

167

to call you so — you do not know me yet.
Listen ! a less sharp-sig-hted man than
m^'self would have already discovered
your affection for the Marquis of Mon-
tauran. I have again and again offered
you my heart and my hand. You did not
think me worth}' of you, and perhaps ,you
are right. But if you think j^our station
too lofty, your heauty or your mind too
great for me, I can find means to draw
you down to my level. My ambition and
my precepts have not inspired 3'ou with
much esteem for me, and here, to speak
frank]}', you are wrong. Men, as a rule,
are not worth even my estimate of them,
which is next to nothing. I shall attain
of a certainty to a high position, the
honors of which will please ^-ou. Who
can love you better, who can make you
more completely mistress of himself than
the man who has alread}'- loved you for
five years ? Although I run the risk of
seeing you conceive an unfavorable idea
of me (for you do not believe it possible
to renounce the person one adores through
mere excess of love), I will give ^-ou the
measure of the disinterestedness of my
affection for you. Do not shake your
pretty head in that waj'. If the mar-
quis loves you, marry him ; but make
yourself quite sure first of his sincerity.
I should be in despair if I knew you had
been deceived, for I prefer your happi-
ness to m}'- own. My resolution maj^ sur-
prise you ; but pray attribute it to nothing
but the commonsense of a man who is not
fool enough to wish to possess a woman
against her will. And so it is myself,
and not you, whom I hold g'uilty of the
uselessness of my efforts. I hope to gain
3'ou b}'^ force of submission and devotion,
for, as you know, I have long soug'ht to
make 3'OU happ}' after my own fashion,
but you have never chosen to reward me
in an}' way."

"I have endured your company," she
said haughtily.

"Add that you are sorry for ha\ing
done so. '5*

"After the disgraceful plot in which
you have entangled me, must I still thank
you ? "

"When I suggested to you an enter-

prise which was not blameless in the
eyes of timid souls," answered he boldly,
" I had nothing but your good fortune in
view. For my own part, whether I win
or fail, I shall find means of making
either result useful to the success of my
designs. If you married Montauran, I
should be charmed to do yeoman's ser-
vice to the Bourbon cause at Paris,
where I belong to the Clichy Club. Any
incident which put me in communication
with the princes would decide me to aban-
don the interests of a Republic which
is rapidly hastening to its decline and
fall. General Bonaparte is too clever not
to feel that he cannot be in Germany, in
Italy, and here, where the Revolution is
succumbing, all at once. It is pretty clear
that he brought about the ISth Brumaire
only to stand on better terms with the
Bourbons in treating with them concern-
ing France, for he is a fellow Avith his
wits about him, and with foresight
enough. But men of policy must antici-
pate him on his own road. A scruple
about betraying France is but one more
of those which we men of parts leave to
fools. I will not hide from you that I
have all necessary powers for treating
with the Chouan chiefs, as well as for
arranging their ruin. My patron, Fouche,
is deep enough, and has always played a
double game. During the Terror he was
at once for Robespierre and for Danton — "

" Whom you basely deserted," said she.

"Nonsense ! " answered Corentin. " He
is dead ; think not of him. Come ! speak
to me frankly, since I have set you the
example. This demi-brigadier is sharper
than he looks, and if you wish to outwit
his vigilance I might be of some service
to you. Remember that he has filled the
valleys with counter-Chouans, and would
quickly get wind of your rendezvous. If
you stay here under his eyes, }ou are at
the mercy of his police. Only see how
quickly he found out that this Chouan
was in your house I Must not his sagac-
ity as a soldier show him that your least
movements will be a tell-tale to him of
those of the marquis, if the marquis loves
you ? "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil had never

168

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

heard a voice so gently affectionate.
Corentin seemed to speak in entire g-ood
faith and full trust. The poor girl's heart
was so susceptible to generous impressions
that she was on the point of yielding her
secret to the serpent who was winding his
coils round her. But she bethought her
that there was no proof of the sincerity
of this artful language, and so she had
no scruple in duping him who was acting
the spy on her.

''Well, Corentin," said she, ''you have
guessed aright. Yes, I love the marquis,
but he loves not me ; at least, I fear it,
for the rendezvous which he has given me
seems to hide some trap."

"But," said Corentin, "you told us
yesterday that he had accompanied you
to Fougeres. Had he wished to use vio-
lence toward you, you would not be
here."

" Corentin, your heart is seared. You
can calculate scientifically on the course
of human life in general, and yet not on
those of a single passion. Perhaps this
is the reason of the constant repulsion I
feel for j^ou. But since jou are so perspi-
cacious, tr}' to guess \y\\j a man from
whom I parted roughly the day before
yesterda}^ is impatiently expecting me to-
day on the Mayenne road, in a house at
Florigny, toward evening."

At this confession, which seemed to
have escaped her in a moment of excite-
ment natural enough to a creature so
frank and so passionate, Corentin flushed ;
for he was still young. He cast sidewise
on her one of those piercing glances which
quest for the soul. Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil's naivete was so well feigned that
she deceived the spy, and he answered
with artificial good-nature :

"Would you like me to accompany you
at a distance ? I would take some dis-
guised soldiers with me, and we should
be at your orders."

" Agreed," she said ; " but promise me
on your honor — ah, no ! I do not believe
in that ; on your salvation — but you do
not believe in God ; on jour soul — but
perhaps you have none. What guarantee
of fidelity can you give me ? Still, I will
trust you, and I put in your hands what

is more than my life — either ray ven-
geance or my love ! "

The faint smile which appeared on Co-
rentin's pale countenance acquainted
Mademoiselle de Verneuil with the danger
she had just avoided. The agent, his nos-
trils contracting instead of dilating, took
his victim's hand, kissed it Avith marks
of the deepest respect, and left her with
a bow which was not dcA'oid of elegance.
Three hours after this interview. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, who feared Coren-
tin's return, slipped furtively" out of the
gate of Saint-Leonard and gained the little
path of the Nid-aux-Crocs, leading to the
Nancon Valley. She thought herself safe
as she passed unnoticed through the lab\'-
rinth of tracks leading to Galope-Chopine' s
cabin, whither she advanced gaylj^, led
by the hope of at last finding happiness,
and by the desire of extricating her lover
from his threatened fate. Meanwiiile Co-
rentin was engaged in hunting for the
commandant. It was with difficulty that
he recognized Hulot when he found him
in a small open space, where he was busy
with some military preparations. The
brave veteran had indeed made a sacrifice
the merit of which can hardly be put
sufficiently high. His pigtail and his
mustaches were shaved, and his hair,
arranged like a priest's, had a dash of
powder. Shod with great hobnailed shoes,
his old blue uniform and his sword ex-
changed for a goat-skin, a belt garnished
with pistols, and a heavy rifle, he w^as
inspecting two hundred men of Fougeres,
whose dress might have deceived the ej^es
of the most experienced Chouan. The
warlike spirit of the little town and the
Breton character were both exhibited
in this scene, which was not the first of
its kind. Here and there mothers and
sisters were bringing to their sons and
brothers brand y-fiasks or pistols which
had been forgotten. More than one old
man was examining the number and good-
ness of the cartridges carried by these
National Guards, who were digguised as
counter-Chouans, and w^hose cheerfulness
seemed rather to indicate a hunting-party
than a dangerous expedition.

For them, the skirmishes of the Chou-

THE CHOUANS.

169

an war, where the Bretons of the towns
f oug-ht with the Bretons of the country,
seemed to have taken the place of the
tourney's of chivalry. This patriotic en-
thusiasm perhaps owed its orig-in to the
acquisition of some of the confiscated
property ; but much of its ardor was also
due to the better appreciation of the bene-
fits of the Revolution which existed in the
towns, to party fidelity, and to a certain
love of war, characteristic of the race.
Hulot was struck with admiration as he
went throug-h the ranks asking- informa-
tion from Gudin, on whom he had be-
stowed all the friendly feeling which had
formerly been allotted to Merle and Ge-
rard. A considerable number of the
townsmen were spectators of the prepar-
ations for the expedition, and were able
to compare the bearing of their noisy
comrades with that of a battalion of
Hulot's demi-brigade. The Blues, mo-
tionless, in faultless line, and silent, waited
for the orders of the commandant, whom
the e^^es of each soldier followed as he
went from group to group. When he
came up to the old officer, Corentin could
not help smiling- at the change in Hulot's
appearance. He looked like a i^ortrait
which has lost its resemblance to the
original.

" What is up ? " asked Corentin of him.

" Come and fire a' shot with us, and you
will know," answered the commandant.

''Oh! I am not a Fougeres man," re-
plied Corentin.

''We can all see that, citizen," said
Gudin ; and some mocking laughter came
from the neighboring- groups.

"Do you think," retorted Corentin,
''that there is no w^ay of saving France
but with bayonets?" and he turned his
back on the laug-hers, and addressed
himself to a woman in order to learn
the purpose and destination of this ex-
pedition.

" Alas ! g-ood sir, the Chouans are al-
readN^ at FlorigTiy. "Tis said that there
are more than three thousand of them,
and that they are coming to take Fou-
g-eres."

" Florigny I " cried Corentin, growing-
pale ; "then, that cannot be the meet-

ing-place ! Do you mean," he went on,
" Florigny on the Mayenne road ? "

"There are not two Florignys," an-
swered the woman, pointing to the road
which ended at the top of the Pilgrim.

" Are you going after the Marquis of
Montauran ? " asked Corentin of the com-
mandant.

" Rather," answered Hulot roughl3\

" He is not at Florignj^" replied Coren-
tin. " Send 3'our battalion and the Na-
tional Guards thither, but keep some of
3'our counter-Chouans with 3'ourself, and
wait for me."

"He is too sh^ to be mad," cried the
commandant, as he saw Corentin stride
hastily off. " 'Tis certainly the king of
spies."

At the same time he gave his battalion
the order to march, and the Republican
soldiers went silently, and without beat
of drum, through the narrow suburb
which leads to the Mayenne road, mark-
ing against the houses and the trees a
long line of blue and red. The disguised
National Guards followed them, but
Hulot remained in the little square, with
Gudin and a score of picked young towns-
men, waiting for Corentin, ^vhose air of
mystery had excited his curiosity. Fran-
cine herself told the warj^ spy of the de-
parture of Mademoiselle de Verneuil ; all
his suspicions at once became certainties,
and he went forth to gain new light on
this deservedly questionable absence.
Learning from the guard at the Porte
Saint Leonard that the fair stranger had
passed by the Nid-aux-Crocs, Corentin
ran to the walks, and, as ill-luck would
have it, reached them just in time to per-
ceive all Marie's movements. Although
she had put on a gown and hood of green
in order to be less conspicuous, the quick
motion of her almost frenzied steps showed
clearly enough through the leafless and
hoar-frosted hedges, the direction of her
journey.

" Ah ! " cried he, [" you ought to be
making for Florignj^, and you are going
down toward the valley of Gibarry ! I
am but a simpleton : she has duped me.
But patience ! I can light my lamp by
day as well as by night." And then.

170

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

having- pretty nearly guessed the place of
the lovers' assignation, he ran to the
square at the very moment when Hulot
was about to quit it and follow up his
troops.

''Halt, g-eneral ! " he cried to the com-
mandant, who turned back.

In a moment Corentin had acquainted
the soldier with incidents, the connecting-
web of which, thoug-h hid, had allowed
some of its threads to appear : and Hulot,
struck by the agent's shrewdness, clutched
his arm briskly.

" A thousand thunders ! Citizen In-
quisitive, you are right ! The brigands
are making a feint down there ! The two
flying columns that I sent to beat the
neighborhood between the Antrain and
the Vitre roads have not come back yet,
and so wesh all find in the country re-en-
forcements which will be useful, for the
Gars is not fool enough to risk himself
without his cursed screech-owls at hand.
G udin ! ' ' said he to the young Fougeres
man, '"'run and tell Captain Lebrun that
he can do without me in drubbing the
brigands at Florigny, and then come back
in no time. You know the by-paths, I
shall wait for you to hunt up the ci-de-
vant and avenge the murders at the Vi-
vetiere. God's thunder ! how he runs !"
added he, looking at Gudin, who vanished
as if by magic. ''Would not Gerard
have loved the boy ! "

When he came back, Gudin found Hu-
lot's little force increased by some sol-
diers drawn from the various g'uard-
houses of the town. The commandant
bade the young man pick out a dozen of
his fellow-townsmen who had most expe-
rience in the difficult business of counter-
feiting the Chouans, and ordered him to
make his way by Saint Leonard's Gate,
so as to take the route to the rear of the
heights of Saint Sulpice facing the great
valley of the Couesnon, where was the
cottage of Galope-Chopine. Then he put
himself at the head of the rest of the
force, and left by the Porte Saint Sulpice,
meaning to gain the crest of the hills
where he, according to his plans, expected
to meet Beau-Pied and his men. With
these he intended to strengthen a cordon

of sentries whose business was to watch
the rocks from the Faubourg Saint Sulpice
to the Nid-aux-Crocs. Corentin, confident
that he had placed the fate of the Chouan
chief in the hands of his most implacable
enemies, went rapidly to the promenade
in order to get a better view of Hulot 's
dispositions as a whole. It was not long
before he saw Gudin's little party de-
bouching by the Nancon dale, and follow-
ing the rocks along the side of the great
Conesnon Valley; while Hulot, slipping
out along the castle of Fougeres, climbed
the dangerous path which led to the crest
of the Saint Sulpice crags. In this man-
ner the two parties were working on par-
allel lines.

The trees and bushes, richly arabesqued
by the hoar-frost, threw over the country
a white gleam, against which it was easy
to see the two detachments moving like
gray lines. As soon as he had arrived at
the table-land on the top of the rocks,
Hulot separated from his force all those
soldiers who were in uniform ; and Coren-
tin saw them, under the skillful orders of
the commandant, drawing up a line of
perambulating sentinels, parted each from
each by a suitable space ; the first was to
be in touch with Gudin and the last with
Hulot, so that not so much as a bush
could escape the bayonets of these three
moving lines who were about to track
down the Gars across the hills and fields.

"He is cunning, the old watch-dog! "
cried Corentin, as he lost sight of the
last flashes of the gun barrels amid the
ajoncs. "The Gars's goose is cooked!
If Marie had betrayed this d— d marquis,
she and I should have been united by the
firmest of all ties, that of disgrace. But
all the same, she shall be mine ! "

The twelve young men of Fougeres,
led by Sub-lieutenant Gudin, soon gained
the slope where the Saint Sulpice crags
sink down in smaller hills to the valley of
Gibarry. Gudin, for his part, left the
roads, and jumped lightly over the bar of
the first broom-field he came to, being fol-
lowed by six of his fellows ; the others,
by his orders, made their way into the
fields toward the right, so as to beat the
ground on each side of the road. Gudin.

THE CHOUANS.

171

darted briskly toward an apple-tree which
stood in the midst of the broom. At the
rustle made by the march of the six
counter-Chouans whom he led across this
broom forest, trying- not to disturb its
frosted tufts, seven or eight men, at
whose head was Beau-Pied, hid them-
selves behind some cliestnut trees which
crowned the hedge of the field. Despite
the white gleam which lighted up the
country, and despite their own sharp eye-
sight, the Fougeres party did not at first
perceive the others, who had sheltered
themselves behind the trees.

"Hist ! here they are !" said Beau-
Pied, the first to raise his head, " the
brigands have got in front of us ; but
as we have got them at the end of our
guns, don't let us miss them, or, by Jove !
we shan't deserve to be even the Pope's
soldiers ! "

However, Gudiu's piercing eyes had at
last noticed certain gun-barrels leveled at
his little party. At the same moment,
with a bitter mockery, eight deep voices
cried "Qui vivef'' and eight gunshots
followed. The balls whistled round the
counter-Chouans, of whom one received a
wound in the arm, and another fell. The
five men of Fougeres who remained un-
hurt answered with a volley, shouting
" Friends ! " Then they rushed upon their
supposed enemies so as to close with them
before they could reload.

" We did not know we spoke so much
truth ! " cried the young sub-lieutenant,
as he recognized the uniform and the bat-
tered hats of his own demi-brigade. '' We
have done like true Bretons — fought first,
and asked questions afterward."

The eight soldiers stood astounded as
they recognized Gudin. ''Confound it,
sir ! Who the devil would not have taken
you for brigands with your goatskins?"
cried Beau-Pied mournfully.

"It is a piece of ill-luck, and nobody is
to blame, since 3^ou had no notice that
our counter-Chouans were going to make
a sally. But what have you been doing?"

" We are hunting a dozen Chouans, sir,
who are amusing themselves by breaking
our backs. We have been running like
poisoned rats; and what with jumping

over these bars and hedges (may thunder
confound them ! ) our legs are worn out,
and we were taking a rest. I think the
brigands must be now somewhere about,
the hut where you see tlie smoke rising."

" Good ! " cried Gudin. " Fall back,"
added he to Beau-Pied and his eight men,
''across the fields to the Saint Sulpice
rocks, and support the line of sentries
that the commandant has posted there.
You must not stay with us, because you
are in uniform. Odds cartridges ! We
are tr^ang to get hold of the dogs, for
the Gars is among them. Your comrades
will tell you more than I can. File to the
right, and don't pull trigger on six others
of our goatskins that you may meet !
You will know our counter-Chouans by
their neckerchiefs, which are coiled round
without a knot."

Gudin deposited his two wounded men
under the apple-tree, and continued his
way to Galope-Chopine's house, which
Beau-Pied had just pointed out to him,
and the smoke of which served as a land-
mark. While the young officer had thus
got on the track of the Chouans by a col-
lision common enough in this war, but
which might have had more fatal resul ts,
the little detachment which Hulot himself
commanded had reached on its own line
of operations a point parallel to that at
which Gudin had arrived on his. The old
soldier, at the hea d of his counter-Chouans,
slipped silently among the hedges with all
the eagerness of a young man, and jumped
the bars with sufficient agility-, directing
his restless eyes to all the points that
commanded them, and pricking up his
ears like a hunter at the least noise.

In the third field which he entered he
perceived a woman, some thirty j^ears
old, busy in hoeing the soil, and working
hard in a stooping posture ; while a little
boy, about seven or eight years old,
armed with a bill-hook, was shaking"
rime off some ajoncs which had sprung
up here and there, cutting" them down,
and piling them in heaps. At the noise
which Hulot made in alighting" hea"^ly
across the bar, the little gars and his
mother raised their heads. Hulot natur-
ally enough mistook the woman, young

172

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

as she was, for a crone. Premature
wrinkles furrowed her forehead and
neck, and she was so oddh^ clothed in
a w^orn g-oatskin, that had it not been
that her sex was' indicated by a dirty
yellow linen gown, Hulot would not
have known whether she was man or
woman, for her long- black tresses were
hidden under a red woolen night-cap.
The rags in which the small bo}' Avas
clothed, after a fashion, showed his skin
through them.

"Hullo, old woman ! " said Hulot in a
lowered voice to her as he drew near,
"where is the Gars?" At the same
moment the score of counter-Chouans
who followed him crossed the boundary
of the field.

" Oh ! to g-et to the Gars you must go
back the waj'^ you came," answered the
woman, after casting a distrusful g-lance
on the part^^

" Did I ask you the way to the suburb
of the Gars at Foug-eres, old bag of
bones ? " replied Hulot roughly. " Saint
Anne of Auray! Have you seen the Gars
pass ? "

" I do not know what you mean," said
the woman, bending down to continue her
work.

"D — d garce that 3'ou are I Do j^ou
want the Blues, who are after us, to g"ob-
ble us up ? " cried Hulot.

At these words the woman lifted her-
self up and cast another suspicious look
at the counter-Chouans as she answered,
" How can the Blues be after you ? I saw
seven or eight of them just now g'oing'
back to Fougeres by the road down
there."

" Would not a man say that she looks
like biting us ? " said Hulot. " Look
there, old Nanm^ ! "

And the commandant pointed out to
her, some fiftj'^ paces behind, three or four
of his sentinels, whose uniforms and g-uns
were unmistakable.

" Do you want to have our throats
cut, when Marche-a-Terre has sent us
to help the Gars, whom the men of Fou-
geres are trying to catch ? " he went on
angrily.

"Your pardon," answered the woman ;

" but one is so easily deceived ! What
parish do you come from? "asked she.

" From Saint Georg-e ! " cried two or
three of the men of Fougeres in Low
Breton ; " and we are dying- of hung-er ! "

"Well, then, look- here," said the wo-
man ; " do 3^ou see that smoke there ?
that is m^^ house. If j^ou take the paths
on the rig-ht and keep up, you will g-et
there. Perhaps j-ou will meet my hus-
band by the way — Galope-Ch opine has
g-ot to stand sentinel to warn the Gars,
for you know he is coming- to our house
to-day," added she with pride.

"Thanks, good woman," answered
Hulot. " Forward, men ! By God's
thunder ! " added he, speaking- to his fol-
lowers, "we have g-ot him!"

At these words the detachment, break-
ing- into a run, followed the commandant,
who plunged into the path pointed out to
him. When she heard the self-styled
Chouan's by no means Catholic impre-
cation, Galope-Chopine's wife turned pale.
She looked at the gaiters and goatskins
of the Foug-eres youth, sat down on the
g-round, clasped her child in her arms,
and said :

" The Holy Virg-in of Auray and the
blessed Saint Labre have mercy upon us !
I do not believe that they are our folk :
their shoes have no nails ! Run by the
lower road to warn your father : his head
is at stake ! " said she to the little boy,
who disappeared like a fawn throug-h the
broom and the ajoncs.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, however, had
not met on her way an}' of the pa rties of
Blues or Chouans Avho were hunting- each
other in the maze of fields that lay round
Galope-Chopine's cottage. When she
saw a bluish column rising- from the half-
shattered chimney of the Avretched dwell-
ing-, her heart underwent one of those
violent palpitations, the quick and sound-
ing throbs of Avhich seem to surg-e up to
the throat. She stopped, leaned her hand
ag-ainst a tree-branch, and stared at the
smoke which was to be a beacon at once
to the friends and enemies of the young-
chief. Never had she felt such over-
powering emotion.

" Oh ! " she said to herself with a sort

THE CHOUANS.

173

of despair, " I love him too much ! It
may be I shall lose command of myself
to-day ! ''

Suddenly she crossed the space which
separated her from the cottage, and found
herself in the yard, the mud of which had
been hardened b}" the frost. The great
dog- once more flew at her, barking- ; but
at a sing-le word pronounced by Galope-
Chopine, he held his tong-ue and wag-ged
his tail. As she entered the cabin. Made-
moiselle de Verneuil thretv into it an all-
embracing- g-lance. The marquis was not
there ; and Marie breathed more freely.
She observed with pleasure that the
Chouan had exerted himself to restore
some cleanliness to the dirty sing-le cham-
ber of his lair. Galope-Chopine grasped
his duck-gun, bowed silently'- to his g-uest,
and went out with his dog-. She followed
him to the doorstep, and saw him depart-
ing \)y the path which went to the rig-ht
of his hut, and the entrance of which was
g-uarded by a ]arg-e rotten tree, which
served as an echalier, thoug-h one almost
in ruins. Thence she could perceive a
range of fields, the bars of which showed
like a vista of g-ates, for the trees and
hedg-es, stripped bare, allow'ed full view
of the least details of the landscape.

When Galope-Chopine's broad hat had
suddenly disappeared. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil turned to the left to look for the
church of Foiigeres, but the outhouse hid
it from her wholly. Then she cast her
eyes on the Couesnon Vallej', lying- be-
fore them like a huge sheet of muslin,
whose whiteness dulled yet further a sky
g-ra3'--tinted' and loaded with snow. It
was one of those days when nature
seemed speechless, and w^hen the atmos-
phere sucks up all noises. Thus, thoug-h
the Blues and their counter-Chouans were
marching on the hut in three lines, form-
ing- a triangle, which thej'- contracted as
they came nearer, the silence was so pro-
found that Mademoiselle de Verneuil felt
oppressed b^^ surroundings which added
to her mental anguish a kind of physical
sadness. There was ill-fortune in the air.
At last, at the point where a little cur-
tain of wood terminated the vista of echa-
liers, she saw a young- man leaping- the

barriers like a squirrel, and running with
astonishing- speed.

" 'Tis he ! " she said to herself.

The Gars, dressed plainly like a Chou-
an, carried his blunderbuss slung- behind
his g-oatskin, and, but for the eleganbe of
his movements, would have been unrecog--
nizable. Marie retired hurriedly into the
cabin, in obedience to one of those instinc-
tive resolves which are as little explicable
as fear. But it was not long- before the
3-oung- chief stood only a step from her,
in front of the chimney, where burned a
clear and crackling fire. Both found
themselves speechless, and dreaded to
look at each other, or even to move. One
hope united their thoughts, one doubt
iparted them. It was anguish and rapt-
ure at once.

" Sir ! '' said Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil at last, in a broken voice, " anx-
iety for your safety alone has broug-ht
me hither."

" My safety ? ", he asked bitterh\

" Yes ! " she answered. " So long' as I
stay at Fougeres your life is in dang-er ;
and I love you too well not to depart this
evening. Therefore seek me no more."

"■ Depart, beloved ang-el ? I will follow
you ! "

" Follow me ? Can you think of such a
thing- ? And the Blues ? "

" Why, dearest Marie, what have the
Blues to do with our love?"

" It seems to me difficult for you to
stay in France near me, and more diflQ.-
cult still for you to leave it with me."

" Is there such a thing- as the impos-
sible to a g-ood lover ? "

" Yes ! I believe that everything- is pos-
sible. Had J not courage enoug-h to give
you up for your own sake ? "

''What ! You g-ave yourself to a hor-
rible creature whom you did not love, and
you will not g-rant happiness to a man
who adores you, whose whole life you
fill, who swears to you to be forever
onl}" yours ? Listen, Marie : do you
love me ? "

"Yes," she said.

'• Well, then, be mine I "

'' Have you forg-otten that I have re-
sumed the base part of a courtesan, and

174

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

that it is you who must be mine ? If I
have determined to fly, it is that I may
not let the contempt which I may incur
fall on your head. Were it not for this
fear I might — "

" But if I fear nothing- ? '

" Who will guarantee me that ? I am
mistrustful ; and in \ny situation, who
would not be so ? If the love that we
inspire be not lasting, at least it should
be complete, so as to make us support
the world's injustice with J03'. What
have you done for me ? You desire me.
Do you think that exalts you very high
above those who have seen me before ?
Have 5^ou risked 3'our Chouans for an
hour of rapture as carelessly as I dis-
missed the remembrance of the massa-
cred Blues when aU was lost for me ?
Suppose I bade jow renounce all your
principles, all your hopes, your king who
stands in m}^ way, and who very likely
will make mock of you when -yow have
laid down your life for him, while I would
die for you with a sacred devotion ? Sup-
pose I would have you send your submis-
sion to the First Consul, so that you
might be able to follow me to Paris ?
Suppose I insisted that we should go to
America to live, far from a world where
all is vanity, that I might know whether
you really love me for myself as at this
moment I love you? In one word, sup-
pose I tried to make you fall to my level
instead of raising myself to yours, what
would 3'ou do ? "

" Hush, Marie ! Do not slander your-
self. Poor child, I have found you out.
Even as my first desire transformed it-
self into passion, so my passion has trans-
formed itself into love. I know, dearest
soul of my soul, that you are noble as
your name, great as you are beautiful.
And I myself am noble enough and feel
myself great enough to force the world
to receive you. Is it because I foresee
unheard-of and incessant delights with
you ? Is it because I seem to recognize
in 3^our soul that precious quality' Which
keeps us ever constant to one woman ? I
know not the cause ; but my love is
boundless, and I feel that I cannot live
without you — that my life, if you were

not near me, would be full of mere dis-
gust."'

" What do you mean b^'^ ' near me ? ' "

' ' Oh, Marie ! will you not understand
3^our Alphonse ? "

" Ah ! you think you are paying me a
great compliment in offering me your
hand and name ? " she said, with af-
fected scorn, but eying the marquis
closely to catch his slightest thoughts.
" How do you know whether you would
love me in six mpnths' time ? And if yo\i
did not, what would become of me ? No,
no ! a mistress is the only woman who is
certain of the affection which a man shows
her ; she has no need to seek such pitiful
allies as duty, law, societj' , the interests
of children ; and if her power lasts, she
finds in it solace and happiness which
make the greatest vexations of life en-
durable. To be 3^our wife, at the risk of
one daj^ being a burden to you ? To such
a fear I would prefer a love fleeting,
but true while it lasted, though death
and ruin were to come after it. Yes ! I
could well, and even better than another,
be a virtuous mother, a devoted wife. But,
in order that such sentiments maybe kept
up in a woman's heart, a man must not
marry her in a mere gust of passion.
Besides, can I tell myself whether I shall
care for you to-morrow ? No ! I will not
bring a curse on you ; I will leave Brit- •
tany," said she, perceiving an air of ir-
resolution in his looks. " I will return to
Paris, and you will not come to seek me
there—"

" Well, then ! the daj'' after to-morrow, if
in the morning you see smokp on the rocks
of Saint Sulpice, that evening I shall be
at your house as lover, as husband, which-
ever you will. I shall have put all to the
touch I "

" Then, Alphonse, you reallj^ love me,"
she cried with transport, "that you risk
your life thus before you give it to me ? "

He answered not, but looked at her.
Her eyes fell ; but he read on the passion-
ate countenance of his mistress a madness
equal to his own, and he held out his arms
to her. A kind of frenzy seized Marie.
She was on the point of falling in lan-
guishment on the marquis's breast, with

THE CH0UAN8,

175

a mind made up to complete surrender,
so as out of this fault to forge the great-
est of blessings, and to stake her whole
future, which, if she came out conqueror
from this last test, she would make more
than ever certain. But her head had
scarcely rested on her lover's shoulder,
when a slight noise was heard outside.

She tore herself from his arms as if
suddenly waked from sleep, and darted
from the cabin. Only then could she re-
cover a little coolness and think of her
position .

" Perhaps he would have taken me and
laughed at me afterward I" thought she.
*' Could I believe that, I would kill him !
But not yet ! " she went on, as she caught
sight of Beau-Pied, to whom she made a
sign, which the soldier perfectly well
understood.

The poor fellow turned on his heel, pre-
tending to have seen nothing, and Made-
moiselle de Verneuil suddenly re-entered
the room, begging the young chief to
observe the deepest silence by pressing
the first finger of her right hand on her
lips.

" They are there ! " she said, in a stifled
voice of terror.

"Who?"

''The Blues!"

" Ah ! I will not die at least without
having — "

"Yes, take it— "

He seized her cold and unresisting form,
and gathered from her lips a kiss full both
of horror and delight, for it might well be
at once the first and the last. Then they
went "together to the door-step, putting
their heads in such a posture as to see all
without being seen. The marquis per-
ceived Gudin at the head of a dozen men,
holding the foot of the Couesnon Valley.
He turned toward the series of echaliers,
but the great rotten tree-trunk was
guarded by seven soldiers. He chmbed
the cider-butt, and drove out the shingled
roof so as to be able to jump on the knoll;
but he quickly drew his head back from
the hole he had made, for Hulot was on
the heights, cutting off the road to Fou-
geres. For a moment he stared at his
mistress, w^ho uttered a cry of despair as

she heard the tramp of the three detach-
ments all round the house.

" Go out first," he said , " vou will save
me."

As she heard these words, to her sub-
lime, she placed herself, full of happiness,
in front of the door, wiiile the marquis
cocked his blunderbuss. After carefully
calculating the distance between the cot-
tage door and the great tree-trunk, the
Gars flung himself upon the seven Blues,
sent a hail of slugs upon them from his
piece, and forced his way through their
midst. The three parties hurried down
to the barrier which the chief had leaped,
and saw him running across the field with
incredible speed,

" Fire ! fire ! A thousand devils ! are
you Frenchmen ? Fire, dogs ! " cried
Hulot in a voice of thunder.

As he shouted these words from the top
of the knoll, his men and Gudin 's delivered
a general volley, luckily ill-aimed. The
marquis had already reached the barrier
at the end of the first field ; but just as
he passed into the second he was nearly
caught by Gudin, who had rushed furi-
ously after him. Hearing this formid-
able enemy a few steps behind, the Gars
redoubled his speed. Nevertheless, Gudin
and he reached the bar almost at the same
moment ; but Montauran hurled his blun-
derbuss with such address at Gudin's
head, that he hit him and stopped his
career for a moment. It is impossible to
depict the anxiety of Marie, or the inter-
est which Hulot and his men showed at
this spectacle. All unconsciously mimicked
the^gestures of the two runners. The Gars
and Gudin had reached, almost together,
the curtain, whitened with hoar-frost,
which the little wood formed, when sud-
denly the Republican officer started back
and sheltered himself behind an apple-
tree. A score of Chouans, Avho had not
fired before for fear of killing their chief,
now showed themselves, and riddled the
tree with bullets.

Then all Hulot's little force set off at a
run to rescue Gudin, who, finding himself
weaponless, retired from apple-tree to
apple-tree, taking for his runs the in-
tervals when the Kiner's Huntsmen were

176

THE HUMAK COMEDY.

reloading. His dang-er did not last long-,
for the counter-Chouans and Blues, Hulot
at their head, came up to support the
young- officer at the spot where the mar-
quis had thrown away his blunderbuss.
Just then Gudin saw his foe sitting- ex-
hausted under one of the trees of the
clump, and, leaving- his comrades to ex-
change shots with the Chouans, who
were ensconced behind the hedge at the
side of the field, he outflanked these, and
made for the marquis with the eagerness
of a wild beast. When they saw this
movement, the King's Huntsmen uttered
hideous yells to warn their chief, and
then, having fired on the counter-Chou-
ans with poachers' luck, they tried to
hold their ground against them. But
the Blues valiantly stormed the hedge
which formed the enem^^'s rampart, and
exacted a bloody vengeance.

Then the Chouans took to the road bor-
dering the field in the inclosure of which
this scene had passed, and seized the
heights which Hulot liad made the mis-
take of abandoning. Before the Blues
had had time to collect their ideas, the
Chouans had intrenched themselves in
the broken crests of the rocks, under
cover of which they could, without ex-
posing themselves, fire on Hulot's men if
these latter showed signs of coming to
attack them.'^ While the commandant
with some soldiers went slowly toward
the little wood to look for Gudin, the
Fougerese stayed behind to strip the dead
Chouans and dispatch the living — for in
this hideous war neither party made pris-
oners.

The marquis once in safety, Chouans
and Blues alike recognized the strength
of their respective positions and the oise-
lessness of continuing the strife. Both
therefore thought only of withdrawing.

"If i lose this young fellow," cried
Hulot, scanning the wood carefully, "I
will never make another friend,"

"Ah!" said one of the young men of
Fougeres, who was busy stripping the
dead, " here is a bird with yellow feath-
ers ! "

And he showed his comrades a purse
. full of gold-pieces, which he had just

found in the pocket of a stout man
dressed in black.

" But what have we here ? " said an-
other, drawing a breviary from the dead
man's overcoat. " Why, 'tis \io\y ware !
He is a priest!" cried he, throwing the
volume down.

"This thief has turned bankrupt on
our hands ! " said a third, finding only
two crowns of six francs in the pockets
of a Chouan whom he was stripping.

" Yes ; but he has a capital pair of
shoes," answered a soldier, making* as
though to take them.

" You shall have them if t\\ey fall to
your share," replied one of the Fougerese,
plucking them from the dead man's feet,
and throwing them on the pile of goods
already heaped together.

A fourth counter-Chouan acted as re-
ceiver of the coin, with a view to sharing
it out when all the men of the expedition
had come together. When Hulot came
back with the 3^oung officer, whose last
attempt to come up with the Gars had
been equally dangerous and futile, he
found a score of his soldiers and some
thirty counter-Chouans standing round
eleven dead enemies, whose bodies had
been thrown into a furrow drawn along
the foot of the hedge.

" Soldiers !" cried the commandant in a
stern voice, " I forbid you to share these
rags. Fall in, and that in less than no
time ! "

" Commandant," said a soldier to Hu-
lot, pointing to his own shoes, at whose
tips his five bare toes were visible, " all
right about the mone3' ; but those shoes,
commandant ?" added he, indicating with
his musket-butt the pair of hobnails,
^•' those shoes would fit me like a glove."

" So, you want English shoes on your
feet ? " answered Hulot.

" But," said one of the Fougerese, re-
spectfully enough, " we have always,
since the war begun, shared the booty."

" I do not interfere with you other
fellows," said Hulot, interrupting him
roughly; " follow your customs."

' ' Here, Gudin, here is a purse which is
not badl}?^ stocked with louis. You have
had hard work ; your chief will not mind

THE CHOUANS.

177

your taking it," said one of his old com-
rades to the young" officer.

Hulot looked askance at Gudin, and
saw his face g-row pale.

'"Tis my uncle's purse," cried the
young- man ; and, dead tired as he was,
he walked towai-d the heap of corpses.
The first that met his eyes was, in fact,
his uncle's ; but he had hardly caught
sight of the ruddy face furrowed with
bluish streaks, the stiffened arms, and
the wound which the gunshot had made,
than he uttered a stifled cry, and said,
"Let us march, commandant! "

The troop of Blues set off, Hulot lending"
his arm to support his young' friend.

" God's thunder ! you will get over
that," said the old soldier.

"But he is dead!" replied Gudin.
''Dead ! He was my only relation; and
thoug-h he cursed me, he loved me. Had
the king- come back, the whole country
mig-ht have clamored for vay head, but
the old boy would have hid me under his
cassock."

"The foolish fellow ! " said the National
Guards who had stayed behind to share
the spoils. "The old boy was rich; and
thing's being- so, he could not have had
time to make a will to cut Gudin off."
And when the division was made the
counter - Chouans caught up the little
force of Blues and followed it at some
interval.

As night fell, terrible anxiety came
upon Galope-Chopine's hut, where hith-
erto life had passed in the most careless
simplicity. Barbette and her little boy,
cari-ying' on their backs, the one a heavy
load of ajoncs, the other a supply of grass
for the cattle, returned at the usual hour
of the family evening- meal. When the}^
entered the house, mother and son looked
in vain for Galope-Chopine ; and never
had the wretched chamber seemed to
them so large as now in its emptiness.
The fireless hearth, the darkness, the
silence, all gave them a foreboding of
misfortune. When night came, Bar-
bette busied herself in lighting- a bright
fire and two oribus — the name given to
candles of resin in the district from the
shores of Armorica to the Upper Loire,

and still used in the Vendome country
districts this side of Amboise.

She went through these preparations
with the slowness naturally affecting
action when it is dominated by some
deep feeling. She listened for the small-
est noise ; but though often deceived by
the whistling- squalls of wind, she always
returned sadly from her journeys to the
door of her wretched hut. She cleaned
two pitchers, filled them with cider, and
set them on the long- walnut table. Again
and again she gazed at the boy, who was
watching the baking of the buckwheat
cakes, but without being able to speak
to him. For a moment the little bo3''s
eyes rested on the two nails which served
as supports to his father's duck-gun, and
Barbette shuddered as they both saw that
the place was empty. The silence was
broken only by the lowing of the cows or
b}'^ the steady drip of the cider drops from
the cask-spile. The poor woman sighed
as she got readv in three platters of
brown earthenware a sort of soup com-
posed of milk, cakes cut up small, and
boiled chestnuts.

" They fought in the field that belongs
to the Beraudiere," said the little bo3^

"Go and look there," answered his '.
mother.

The boy ran thither, perceived by the
moonlight the heap of dead, found that
his father was not among them, and came
back whistling cheerfully, for he had
picked up some five-franc pieces which
had been trodden under foot by the vic-
tors, and forgotten in the mud. He found «
his mother sitting on a stool at the fire-
side, and bus3^ spinning hemp. He shook
his head to Barbette, who hardly dared
believe in an3^ good news ; and then, ten
o'clock having struck from Saint Leo-
nard's, the child went to bed, after mut-
tering a prayer to the Holy Virgin of
Aura3^ At daybreak. Barbette, who
had not slept, uttered a cry of joy as
she heard, echoing afar off, a sound of
heavy hobnailed shoes which she knew ;
and soon Galope-Chopine showed his sul-
len face.

"Thanks to Saint Lab re, to whom I
have promised a fine candle, the Gars is

178

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

safe ! Do not forget that we owe the
saint three candles now."

Then Galope-Chopine seized a pitcher
and drained the whole of its contents
without drawing- breath. When his wife
had served up his soup and had relieved
him of his duck-gun, and when he liad sat
down on the walnut bench, he said, draw-
ing closer to the fire :

' ' How did the Blues and the counter-
Chouans get here ? The fighting was at
Florigny. What devil can have told them
that the Gars was at our house ? for no-
body but himself, his fair wench, and our-
selves knew it."

The woman grew pale. ''The counter-
^Chouans persuaded me that they were
gars of Saint George," said she, trem-
bling; ''and it was I who told them
where the Gars was."

Galope-Chopine's face blanched in his
turn, and he left his plate on the table-
edge.

"I sent the child to tell you," went on
Barbette in her terror ; " but he did not
meet you."

The Chouan rose and struck his wife so
fierce a blow that she fell half dead on the
bed. "Accursed wench," he said, "you
have killed me ! " Then, seized with fear,
he caught his wife in his arms. "Bar-
bette ! " he cried ; " Barbette ! Holy Vir-
gin ! my hand was too heavy ! "

"Do 3^ou think," she said, opening her
eyes, "that Marche-a-Terre will come to
know of it? "

"The Gars," answered the Chouan,
• "has given orders to inquire whence the
treachery came."

" But did he tell Marche-a-Terre ? "

" Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre were
at Florigny."

Barbette breathed more freely. " If
they touch a hair of your head," said
she, " 1 will rinse their glasses with vine-

gar

"Ah! mj'^ appetite is gone!" cried
Galope-Chopine sadly. His wife pushed
another full jug in front of him, but he
did not even notice it ; and two great
tears furrowed Barbette's cheek, moist-
ening the wrinkles of her withered face.

"Listen, wife: You must pile some

fagots to-morrow morning on the Saint
Sulpice rocks, to the right of Saint Leo-
nard's, and set fire to them. 'Tis the
signal arranged between the Gars and
the old rector of Saint George, who is
coming to say mass for him."

" Is he going to Fougeres, then ? "

"Yes, to his fair wench. I have got
some running about to do to-day by
reason of it. I think he is going to
marry her and carry her off, for he bade
me go and hire horses and relaj^ them on
the Saint-Malo road."

Thereupon the weary Galope-Chopine
went to bed for some hours ; and then he
set about his errands. The next morn-
ing he came home, after having punctu-
alh' discharged the commissions with
which the marquis had intrusted him.
When he learned that Marche-a-Terre
and Pille-Miche had not appeared, he
quieted the fears of his wife, who set
out, almost reassured, for the rocks of
Saint Sulpice, where the day before she
had prepared, on the hummock facing
Saint Leonard's, some fagots covered
with' hoar-frost. She led by the hand
her little boy, who carried some fire in
a broken sabot. Hardly had his wife
and child disappeared round the roof of
the shed, when Galope-Chopine heard two
men leaping over the last of the series
of barriers, and little by little he saw,
through a fog which was pretty thick,
angular shapes, looking like uncertain
shadows.

" 'Tis Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre!"
he said to himself with a start. The two
Chouans, who had now reached the httle
court\^ard, showed their dark faces, re-
sembling, under their great, shabby hats,
the figures that engravers put into land-
scapes.

"Good-daj'^, Galope-Chopine!" said
Marche-a-Terre gravely.

"Good-daj", Master Marche-a-Terre,"
humbly replied Barbette's husband.
" Will you come in and drink a pitcher
or two ? There is cold cake and fresh-
made butter."

"We shall not refuse, cousin," said
Pille-Miche; and the two Chouans en-
tered.

THE CHOUANS.

179

This overture had nothing- in it alarm-
ing" to Galope-Chopine, who bustled about
to fill three pitchers at his g-reat cask,
while Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre,
seated at each side of the long table on
the glistening- benches, cut the bannocks
for themselves, and spread them with
luscious yellow butter, which shed little
bubbles of milk under the knife. Galope-
Chopine set the foam-crowned pitchers
full of cider before his g-uests, and the
three Chouans beg-an to eat ; but from
time to time the host cast sidelong-
g-lances on Marche-a-Terre, eager to
satisfy his thirst.

"Give me your snuff-box, " said Marche-
a-Terre to Pille-Miche ; and after sharply
shaking several pinches into the hollow of
his hand, the Breton took his tobacco like
a man who wished to wind himself up for
some serious business.

'^'Tis cold," said Pille-Miche, rising to
go and shut the upper part of the door.
' The da^^light, darkened by the fog, had
no further access to the room than by the
little window, and lighted but feebly the
table and the two benches ; but the fire
shed its ruddy glow over them. At the
same moment, Galope-Chopine, who had
finished filling his guests' jugs a second
time, set these before them. But the}'
refused to drink, threw down their flap-
ping hats, and suddenly assumed a solemn
air. Their gestures and the inquiring-
looks they cast at one another made
Galope-Chopine shudder, and the red
woolen caps which were on their heads
seemed to him as though they were blood.

" Bring us 3'our hatchet," said Marche-
a-Terre.

" But, Master Marche-a-Terre, what do
you want it for? "

" Come, cousin," said Pille-Miche, put-
ting up the mull which Marche-a-Terre
handed to him, 'm^ou know well enough
— 3'ou are sentenced." And the two Chou-
ans rose together, clutching their rifles.

"Master Marche-a-Terre, I have not
said a word about the Gars — "

"1 tell you to fetch your hatchet,"
answered the Chouan. "

The wretched Galope-Chopine stum-
bled against the rough wood-work of his

^Shild's bed, and three five-franc pieces
fell on the fioor. Pille-Miche picked them
up.

"Aha ! the Blues have given you new
coin," cried Marche-a-Terre.

" 'Tis as true as that Saint Labre's
image is there," replied Galope-Chopine,
" that I said nothing. Barbette mistook
the counter-Chouans for the gars of Saint
George's ; that is all."

"Why do 3"ou talk about business to
your wife? " answered Marche-a-Terre
savagely.

" Besides, cousin, we are not asking for
explanations, but for your hatchet. You
are sentenced." And at a sign from his
comrade, Pille-Miche helped him to seize
the victim. When he found himself in
the two Chouans' grasp, Galope-Chopine
lost all his fortitude, fell on his knees, and
raised despairing hands toward his two
executioners.

" My good friends ! m3^ cousin ! what
is to become of my little boy?"

" I will take care of him," said Marche-
a-Terre.

"Dear comrades," said Galope-Cho-
pine, whose face had become of a ghastly
whiteness, " I am not ready to die. Will
you let me depart without confessing ?
You have the right to take my life, but
not to make me forfeit eternal happi-
ness."

"'Tis true!" said Marche-a-Terre,
looking at Pille-Miche ; and the two
Chouans remained for a moment in the
greatest perplexity, unable to decide this
case of conscience. Galope-Chopine lis-
tened for the least rustle that the wind
made, as if he still kept up some hope.
The sound of the cider dripping regularly
from the cask made him cast a mechani-
cal look at the barrel and give a melan-
choly sigh. Suddenly Pille-Miche took
his victim b}^ the arm, drew him into the
corner, and said :

" Confess all your sins to me. I will
tell them over to a priest of the true
church ; he shall give me absolution ; and
if there be penance to do, I will do it for
you."

Galope-Chopine obtained some respite
by his manner of acknowledging his

180

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

transgressions; but despite the leng-th
and details of the crimes, he came at last
to the end of the hst.

" Alas ! " said he in conclusion, " after
all, cousin, since I am addressing you as
a confessor, I protest to 3'ou by the holy
name of God that I have nothing" to re-
proach myself with, except having" but-
tered my bread too much here and there ;
and I call Saint Labre, who is over the
chimne}^, to witness that I said nothing*
about the Gars. N'o, my g-ood friends, I
am no traitor ! "

'' Go to, cousin ; 'tis well ! Get up :
3"0u can arrang-e all that with the g-ood
God at one time or another."

" But let me say one little g-ood-by to
Barbe— "

" Come," answered Marche-a-Terre,
" if you wish us not to tliink worse of you
than is needful, behave like a Breton, and
make a clean end ! "

The two Chousans once more seized
Galope-Chopine and stretched him on the
bench, where he g-ave no other sign of re-
sistance than the convulsive movements
of mere animal instinct. At the last he
uttered some smothered shrieks, which
ceased at the moment that the heavy
thud of the ax was heard. The head was
severed at a sing"le blow.

Marche-a-Terre took it b}^ a tuft of hair,
left the room, and, after searching-, found
a stout nail in the clums\'^ frame-work of
the door, round which he twisted the hair
he held, and left the bloody head hang--
ing" there, without even closing- the eyes.
Then the two Chouans washed their hands
without the least hurry in a great pan
full of water, took up their hats and their
rifles, and clambered over the barrier,
whistling the air of the ballad of ''The
Captain." * At the end of the field Pille-

* This famous folk-song has been Englished by
Mr. Swinburne in " May Janet," and I think by
others. It might have been wiser to borrow a
version from one of these. But silk on homespun
is bad heraldry. The following is at any rate
pretty close, and in verse suiting its neighbor
prose. If the third stanza does not seem clear, I
can only say that no one can be very sure what
On lui tendait les voiles Dans tout le regiment does
meaa.

Miche shouted in a huskj^ voice some
stanzas chosen by chance from this simple
song, the rustic strains of which were car-
ried afar off by the wind :

"At the first town where they did alight,
Her lover dressed her in satin white.

." At the second town, her lover bold
He dressed her in silver and eke in gold.

" So fair she was that their stuff they lent
To do her grace through the regiment."

The tune grew slowly indistinct as
the two Chouans retired ; but the si-
lence of the country was so deep that
some notes reached the ear of Barbette,
who was coming home, her child in her
hand. So popular is this song in the west
of France, that a peasant woman never
hears it unmoved; and thus Barbette
unconsciously struck up the first verses
of the ballad :

" Come to the war, come, fairest May;
Come, for we must no longer stay.

" Captain brave, take thou no care,
Not for thee is my daughter fair.

" Neither on land, nor yet on sea ;
Shall aught but treason give her to thee.

" The father strips his girl, and he
Takes her and flings her into the sea.

" But wiser, I trow, was the captain stout;
He swims, and fetches his lady out.

" Come to the war, etc."

At the same moment at which Barbette
found herself catching up the ballad at
the point where Pille-Miche had begun it,
she reached her own courtj^ard ; her
tongue froze to her mouth, she stood
motionless, and a loud shriek, suddenly
checked, issued from her gaping lips.

'*' What is the matter, dear mother ? "
asked the child.

''Go by yourself," muttered Barbette,
drawing her hand from his, and pushing
him forward with strange roughness.
"You are fatherless and motherless now! "

The child rubbed his shoulder as he
cried, saw the liead nailed on the door,
and his innocent countenance speechlessly
kept the neiwous twitch which tears give

THE CHOUANS.

181

to the features. He opened his eyes wide
and g-azed long" at his father's head, with
a stolid and passionless expression, till
his face, brutalized by ignorance, changed
to the exhibition of a kind of savage cu-
riosity. Suddenly Barbette caught her
child's hand once more, squeezed it fierce-
ly, and drew him with rapid steps toward
the house. As Pille-Miche and Marche-
a-Terre were stretching Galope-Chopine
on the bench, one of his shoes had fallen
off under his neck in such a fashion that
it was filled with his blood ; and this was
the first object that the widow saw.

'' Take your sabot off! " said the mother
to the son. " Put your foot in there. 'Tis
well! And now," said she in a hollow
voice, "remember always this shoe of
your father's ! Never put shoe on your
own foot without thinking of that which
was full of blood shed by the Churns —
and kill the Chuins ,' "

As she spoke, she shook her head with
so spasmodic a movement that the tresses
of her black hair fell back on her neck,
and gave a sinister look to her face.

"1 call Saint Labre to witness," she
went on, "that I devote 3'ou to the Blues.
You shall be a soldier that you may
avenge your father. Kill the Chuins!
Kill them, and do as I do ! Ha ! they
have taken m\' husband's head; I will
give the head of the Gars to the Blues ! "

She made one spring to the bed-head,
'took a little bag of money from a hiding-
place, caught once more the hand of her
astonished son, and dragged him off
fiercely without giving him time to re-
place his sabot. They both walked rapid-
13^ toward Fougeres without turning
either of their heads to the hut they were
leaving. When they arrived at the crest
of the crags of Saint Sulpice, Barbette
stirred the fagot-fire, and the child helped
to heap it with green broom-shoots cov-
ered with rime, so that the smoke might
be thicker.

"That will last longer than your fa-
ther's life, than mine, or than the Gars !^"
said Barbette to her boy, pointing savage-
ly to the fire.

At the same moment as that at which
Galope-Chopine 's widow and his son Tsith

the bloody foot were watching the eddy-
ing- of the smoke with a gloomy air of
vengeance and curiosity. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil had her eyes fixed on the same
rock, endeavoring, but in vain, to dis-
cover the marquis's promised signal.
The fog, which had gradually thickened,
buried the whole country under a veil
whose tints of gray hid even those parts
of the landscape which were nearest to
the town. She looked by turns, with an
anxiety which did not lack sweetness, to
the rocks, the castle, the buildings which
seemed in the fog like patches of fog-
blacker still. Close to her window some
trees stood out of the blue-gray back-
ground like madrepores of which the sea
gives a glimpse when it is calm. The sun
communicated to the sky the dull tint of
tarnished silver, while its rays tinted
with dubious red the naked branches of
the trees, on which some belated leaves
still hung. But Marie's soul was too de-
lightfully agitated for her to see any evil
omens in the spectacle, out of harmony,
as it was, with the joy on which she was
banqueting in anticipation. During the
last two days her ideas had altered
strangely. The ferocity, the disorderly
bursts of her passion, had slowlj'- under-
gone the influence of that equable warmth
which true love communicates to life.

The certainty of being- loved — a certain-
ty after which she had quested through
so many dangers — had produced in her
the desire of returning to those conven-
tions of societj^ which sanction happiness,
and which she had herself only abandoned
in despair. A mere moment of love seemed
to her a futility. And then she saw her-
self suddenly restored from the social
depths, where she had been plunged b}'
misfortune, to the exalted rank in which
for a brief space her father had placed
her. Her vanity, which had been stifled
under the cruel changes of a passion by
turns fortunate and slighted, woke afresh,
and showed her all the advantages of a
high position. Born, as she had been, to
be "her ladyship,"' would not the effect
of marrjang Montauran be for her action
and life in the sphere which was her own ?
After ha\ing- known the chances of a

182

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

wholly adventurous life, slie could, better
than another \Yoman, appreciate the great-
ness of the feeling-s which lie at the root
of the family relation. Nor would mar-
riage, motherhood, and the cares of both be
for her so much a task as a rest. She loved
the calm and virtuous life, a glimpse of
which opened across this latest storm,
with the same feeling- which makes a wo-
man virtuous to satiety cast longing looks
on an illicit passion.

" Perhaps," she said, as she came back
from the window without having seen fire
on the rocks of Saint Sulpice, " I have
trifled with him not a little ? But have I
not thus come to know how much I was
loved ? Francine ! 'tis no more a dream !
This night I shall be Marquise de Mon-
tauran ! What have I done to deserve
such complete happiness ? Oh ! I love
him ; and love alone can be the price of
love. Yet God, no doubt, deigns to re-
ward me for having kept my heart warm
in spite of so many miseries, and to make
me forget my sufferings ; for you know,
child, I have suffered much ! "

" To-night, Marie ? You Marquise de
Montauran ? For my part, till it is ac-
tually true, I shall think I dream. Who
told him all your real nature ? "

" Why, dear child, he has not only fine
eyes, but a soul too ! If you had seen
him, as I have, in the midst of danger !
Ah ! he must know how to love well, he
is so brave ! "

" If yovL love him so much, why do you
allow him to come to Fougeres ? "

' ' Had we a moment to talk together
when they took us by surprise ? Besides,
is it not a proof of his love ? And can
one ever have enough of that ? Mean-
while, do my hair."

But she herself, with electric move-
ments, disarranged a hundred times the
successful arrangements of her head-
dress, mingling thoughts wiiich were still
stormy with the cares of a coquette.
While adding a fresh wave to her hair, or
making its tresses more glossy, she kept
asking herself, with remains of mistrust,
whether the marquis was not deceiving
her ; and then she concluded that such
trickery would be inexplicable, since he

exposed himself boldly to immediate ven-
geance by coming to seek her at Fou-
geres. As she studied cunningh' at her
glass the effects of a sidelong glance, of a
smile, of a slight contraction of the fore-
head, of an attitude of displeasure, of love,
or of disdain, she was still seeking some
woman's wile to test the young' chief's
heart up to the very last moment.

''You are right, Francine!" she said.
"I would, like 3'ou, that the marriage
were over. This day is the last of my
days of cloud — it is big either with my
death or with our happiness. This fog is
hateful," she added, looking over toward
the still mist-wrapped summits of Saint
Sulpice. Then she set to work to arrange
the silk and muslin curtains which decked
the window, amusing herself with inter-
cepting the light, so as to produce in the
apartment a voluptuous clear-obscure.

" Francine," said she, " take these toys
which encumber the chimne^^-piece away,
and leave nothing there but the clock and
the two Dresden vases, in which I will
myself arrange the winter flowers that
Corentin found for me. Let all the chairs
go out ; I will have nothing here but the
sofa and one armchair. When you have
done, child, you shall sweep the carpet,
so as to bring out the color of it ; and
then you shall put candles into the chim-
ne^^ sconces and the candlesticks.

Marie gazed long and attentively at
the old tapestry which covered the walls
of the room. Led by her native taste,
she succeeded in finding, amid the warp,
bright shades of such tints as might es-
tablish connection between this old-w^orld
decoration and the furniture and acces-
sories of the boudoir, either by harmony
of colors or b}^ attractive contrasts. The
same principle guided her in arranging
the flowers with which she filled the
twisted vases that adorned the room.
The sofa was placed near the fire. At
each side of the bed, which stood by the
wall parallel to that where the fireplace
was, she put, on two little gilt tables,
great Dresden vases full of foliage and
flowers which exhaled the sweetest per-
fumes. She shivered more than once as
she arranged the sweeping drapery of

THE CHOUANS.

183

green damask that overhung' the bed,
and as she studied the curving- lines of
the flowered coverlet wherewith she hid
the bed itself. Preparations of this kind
always have an indefinable, secret joy, and
bring with them so delightful a provoca-
tive that ofttimes in the midst of such
provision of delight a woman forgets all
her doubts, as Mademoiselle de Verneuil
was then forgetting hers.

Is there not a kind of religion in this
abundant care taken for a beloved object
who is not there to see it or reward it,
but who is to pay for it later with the
smile of approbation, which graceful
preparations of this kind, always so well
understood, obtain ? Then, so to speak,
do women yield themselves up beforehand
to love ; and there is not one who does
not saj'' to herself, as Mademoiselle de
Verneuil thought, " To-night how happy
I shall be ! " The most innocent of them
at these times inscribes this sweet hope
in the innermost folds of muslin or of
silk, and then the harmony which she
establishes around her insensibly stami)S
all things with a love-breathing- look. In
the center of this voluptuous atmosphere,
thing-s become for her living- being-s, wit-
nesses; and already she transforms them
into accomplices of her coming- joys. At
each movement, at each thoug-ht, she is
bold to rob the future. Soon she waits
no more, she hopes no more, but she finds
fault with silence, and the least noise is
challeng-ed to give her an omen, till at
last doubt comes and places its crooked
claws on her heart. She burns, she is
agitated, she feels herself tortured b}^
thoug-hts which exert themselves like
purely physical forces ; by turns she
triumphs and is martyred, after a fash-
ion which, but for the hope of joy, she
could not endure.

Twenty times had Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil lifted the curtains in hopes of seeing*
a pillar of smoke rising- above the rocks ;
but the fog- seemed to g-row g-rayer and
g-rayer each moment, and in these g-ra}^
tints her fancy at last showed her sinis-
ter omen. Finally, in a moment of im-
patience, she dropped tlie curtain, assuring-
herself that she would come and lift it no

more. She looked discontentedly at the
room into which she had breathed a soul
and a voice, and asked herself whether it
Avould all be in vain. The thought re-
called her to her arrang-ements.

''Little one," she said to Francine,
drawing- her into a dressing--room close
to her own, and lighted by a round win-
dow looking* upon the dark corner where
the town ramparts join the rocks of the
promenade, ''put this right, and let all
be in order. As for the drawing-room,
you can leave it untidy if you like," she
added, accompanying- her words by one
of those smiles which women reserve for
their intimates, and the piquant delicacy
of Avhich men can never know.

" Ah, how beautiful you are ! " said the
little Breton g-irl.

" Why, fools that we all are ! is not a
lover always our greatest adornment?"

Francine left her lying- languidly on the
ottoman, and withdrew step by step,
guessing- that whether she were loved or
not, her mistress would never give up
Montauran.

"Are you sure of what yon are telling-
me, old woman?" said Hulot to Bar-
bette, who had recognized him as she
entered Fougeres.

" Have you got eyes ? Then, my good
sir, look at the rocks of Saint Sulpice —
there, to the right of Saint Leonard ! "

Corentin turned his ej^es toward the
summit in the direction in which Bar-
bette's finger pointed ; and as the fog
began to lift, he was able to see clearly
enough the pillar of white smoke of which
Galope-Chopine's widow had spoken.

"But when will he come? eh, old wo-
man ? Will it be at even, or at night ? "

"Good sir," answered Barbette, "I
know nothing of that."

" Why do you betray your own side ? "
said Hulot quickly, after drawing the
peasant woman some steps away from
Corentin.

" Ah ! my lord general, look at my
boy's foot ! Well ! it is d3'ed in the blood
of m}^ husband, killed by the Chuins, sav-
ing j'our reverence, like a calf, to punish
him for the word or two you got out of

184

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

me the day before yesterday when I was
at work in the field. Take my boy, since
you have deprived him of father and mo-
ther ; but make him a true Blue, good sir !
and let him kill ihany CJiuins. There are
two hundred crow^ns ; keep them for him :
if he is careful, he should g-o far with
them, since his father took twelve j^ears
to g"et them tog'ether."

Hulot stared with wonder at the pale
and wrinkled peasant w^oman, whose eyes
were tearless.

''But, mother," said he, ''how about
yourself ? What is to become of you ?
It would be better for you to keep this
monej'."

" For me ? " she said, sadlj^ shaking-
her head ; "I have no more need of anj^-
thing". You might stow^ me away in the
innermost corner of Melusine's tower,"
and she pointed to one of the castle tur-
rets, "but the Chuins w^ould find the
way to come and kill me."

She kissed her boy with an expression
of g"loom3' sorrow, g-azed at him, shed a
tear or two, g-azed at him once more, and
disappeared.

"Commandant," said Corentin, "this
is one of those opportunities to profit by
which needs rather two g-ood heads than
one. We know all, and we know noth-
ing. To surround Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil's house at this moment would be to
set her against us ; and you, I, your coun-
ter-Chouans, and your two battalions all
put together, are not men enoug-h to fight
against this girl if she takes it into her
head to save her ci-devant. The fellow
is a courtier, and therefore wary ; he is a
young man, and a stout-hearted one. We
shall never be able to catch him at his
entry into Fougeres. Besides, he is
very likely here already. Are we to
search the houses ? That would be fu-
tile; for it tells you nothing, it gives
the alarm, and it disquiets the towns-
folk—"

' " I am going," said Hulot, out of tem-
per, " to order the sentinel on guard at
Saint Leonard to lengthen his beat by
three paces, so that he will come in front
of Mademoiselle de Verneuil's house. I
s^all arrange a signal with each sentry ;

I shall take up my own post at the guard-
house, and when the entrance of any
young man is reported to me I shall take
a corporal with four men, and — "

"And," said Corentin, interrupting
the eager soldier, "what if the 3"oung
man is not the marquis? if the marquis
does not enter by the gate ? if he is al-
read}^ with Mademoiselle de Verneuil ?
if— if— ?"

And with this Corentin looked at the
commandant with an air of superiority
which w^as so humiliating that the old
warrior cried out, " A thousand thun-
ders ! go about your own business, citi-
zen of hell ! What have I to do with
all that ? If the cockchafer drops into
one of my guard-houses, I must needs
shoot him ; if I hear that he is in house,
I must needs go and surround him, catch
hun, and shoot him there. But the devil
take me if I puzzle my brains in order to
stain my own uniform ! "

"Commandant, letters signed by three
ministers bid you obey Mademoiselle de
Verneuil."

" Then, citizen, let her come herself
and order me. I will see what can be
done then."

"Very well, citizen," replied Corentin
haughtily ; " she shall do so without
dela}^ She shall tell you herself the very
hour and minute of the ci-devant's ar-
rival. Perhaps, indeed, she will not be at
ease till she has seen you posting your
sentinels and surrounding her house."

" The devil has turned man ! " said the
old demi-brigadier sorrowfully to himself,
as he saw Corentin striding hastily up
the Queen's Staircase, on which this scene
had passed, and reaching the gate of Saint
Leonard. " He will hand over Citizen
Montauran to me bound hand and foot,"
went on Hulot, talking to himself ; " and
I shall have the nuisance of presiding over
a' court-martial. After all," said he,
shrugging his shoulders, " the Gars is an
enemy of the Republic : he killed my poor
Gerard, and it will be at worst one noble
the less. Let him go the devil ! " And
he turned briskly on his boot-heel, and
went the rounds of the town whistling
the Marseillaise.

THE CHOUANS.

185

Mademoiselle de Vemeuil was deep in
one of those reveries whose secrets re-
main, as it were, buried in the abysses
of the soul, and whose crowd of contra-
dictoiy thoug-hts often show their vic-
tims that a stormy and passionate life
may be held between four walls, without
leaving- the couch on which existence is
then passed. In presence of the catas-
trophe of the drama which she had come
to seek, the girl summoned up before her
by turns the scenes of love and ang-er
which had so powerfully ag-itated her life
during- the ten days that had passed since
her first meeting- with the marquis. As
she did so the sound of a man's step
echoed in the salon beyond her apart-
ment ; she started, the door opened, she
turned her head sharply, and saw — Cor-
rentin.

'•' Little traitress ! " said the head-
agent of police, " will the fancy take
you to deceive me again ? Ah, Marie,
Marie ! You are playing- a verN'- dang-er-
ous g-ame in leaving" me out of it, and ar-
ranging- your coups without consulting
mel If the marquis has escaped his fate — ''

" It is not your fault, you mean ? " an-
swered Mademoiselle de Verneuil, with
profound sarcasm. "Sir!" she went on
in a grave voice, '^by what right have you
once more entered my house ? "

" Your house?" asked he, Avith bitter
emphasis.

'•' You remind me," replied she, with an
air of nobility, " that I am not at home.
Perhaps you intentionally chose this house
for the safer commission of your murders
here ? I will leave it ; I would take ref-
ug-e in a desert rather than any long-er
receive — "

" Say the word — spies I " retorted Co-
rentin. " But this house is neither yours
nor mine : it belongs to Government ; and
as to leaving it, you would do nothing" of
the kind," added he, darting a devilish
look at her.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil rose in an
impulse of wrath, and made a step or
two forward: but she stopped suddenly
as she saw Corentin lift the window cur-
tain and. beg-in to smile as he requested
her to come close to him.

"Do you see that pillar of smoke?"
said he with the intense calm which he
knew how to preserve on his pallid face,
however deeply' he was moved.

" AVhat connection can there be between
my departure and the weeds that they are
burning- there ? " asked she.

"Why is 3-our voice bo changed in
tone ? " answered Corentin. " Poor little
girl I " he added g-enth% "I know all.
The marquis is coming- to-day to Fou-
g-eres, and it is not with the intention of
giving- him up to us that you have ar-
ranged this boudoir, these flowers, these
wax-lights, in so luxurious a fashion."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil grew pale as
she saw the marquis's death written in the
ejxs of this tiger with a human counte-
nance ; and the passion which she felt for
her lover rose near madness. Every hair
of her head seemed to pour into it a fierce
and intolerable pain, and she fell upon the
ottoman. Corentin stood for a minute
with his arms folded, half pleased at a
torture which aveng"ed him for the sar-
casm and scorn which this woman had
heaped upon him, half vexed at seeing"
the sufferings of a creature whose yoke,
heavy as it might be, always had some-
thing agreeable.

" She loves him I " muttered he.

"Love him?" cried she, "what does
that word mean ? Corentin ! he is my
life, my soul, the breath of my being- ! "
She flung- herself at the feet of the man,
whose calm was terrible to her.

"Soul of mud I " she said, "I would
rather abase m^'self to gain his life than
to lose it. I would save him at the price
of every drop of my blood ! Speak ! What
will you have ? "

Corentin started.

" I came to put mj'self at yomt orders,
Marie," he said, the tones of his voice
full of gentleness, and raising- her up with
graceful politeness. "Yes, Marie! j'our
insults will not hinder me from being all
yours, provided that you deceive me no
more. You know, Marie, that no man
fools me with impunity."

" Ah ! if you would have me love you,
Corentin, help me to save him ! "

" Well, at what hour does the marquis

186

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

come?" said he, constraining himself to
make the inquiry in a calm tone.

"Alas! I know not."

TYiej gazed at each other without
speaking.

"1 am lost!" said Mademoiselle de
Verneuil to herself.

"She is deceiving me," thought Coren-
tin. "Marie," he continued aloud, "I
have two maxims: the one is, never to
believe a word of what w^omen say, which
is the way not to be their dupe ; the other
is, always to inquire whether they have
not some interest in doing the contrary
of what they sa^^, and behaving in a
manner the reverse of the actions which
the}^ are good enough to confide to us. I
think we understand each other now ? "

"Excellently," replied Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, " You want proofs of my good
faith ; but I am keeping them for the
minute when you shall have given me
some proofs of 3'ours."

" Good-by, then, mademoiselle," said
Corentin dryly.

" Come," continued the girl, smiling,
"take a chair. Sit there, and do not sulk,
or else I shall manage ver}^ well to save
the marquis without yon. As for the
three hundred thousand francs, the pros-
pect of which is always before ^-our e\"es,
I can tell them out for you in gold there
on the chimney-piece the moment that
the marquis is in safety."

Corentin rose, fell back a step or two,
and stared at Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

" You have become rich in a very short
time," said he, in a tone the bitterness of
which was still disguised.

" Montauran," said Marie, with a smile
of compassion, "' could himself offer you
much more than that for his ransom ; so
prove to me that you have the means of
holding him scathless, and — "

"Could not you," said Corentin sud-
denly, " let him escape the same moment
that he comes ? For Hulot does not know
the hour and — "

He stopped, as if he reproached himself
with having said too much.

' ' But can it be you who are applying
to me for a device ? " he went on, smiling
in the most natural manner. " Listen,

Marie ! I am convinced of your sincerity.
Promise to make me amends for all that
I lose in your service, and I will lull the
blockhead of a commandant to sleep so
neatly that the marquis will enjoy as
much liberty at Fougeres as at Saint
James."

" I promise you ! " replied the girl with
a kind of solemnit3^

"Not in that way," said he. "Swear
it by your mother."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil started ; but
raising a trembling hand, she gave the
oath demanded by this man, whose man-
ner had just changed so suddenly.

" You can do with me as you will," said
Corentin. "Do not deceive me, and you
w^ill bless me this evening."

" I believe you, Corentin I " cried Made-
moiselle de Verneuil, quite touched.

She bowed farewell to him with a gentle
inclination of her head, and he on his side
smiled with amiability, mingled with sur-
prise, as he saw the expression of tender
melancholy on her face.

"What a charming creature!" cried
Corentin to himself as he departed.
"Shall I never possess her, and make
her at once the instrument of my fort-
une and the source of my pleasures ?
To think of her throwing herself at my
feet ! Oh, yes ! the marquis shall perish ;
and if I cannot obtain the girl except by
plunging her into the mire, I will plunge
her. Anyhow," he thought, as he came
to the square whither his steps had led
him without his knowledge, "perhaps
she really distrusts me no longer. A
hundred thousand crowns at a mo-
ment's notice ! She thinks me avari-
cious. Either it is a trick, or she has
married him alread}'."

Corentin, lost in thought, could not
make up his mind to any certain course
of action. The fog, which the sun had
dispersed toward midday, was regaining
all its force by degrees, and became so
thick that he could no longer make out
the trees even at a short distance.

" Here is a new piece of ill-luck," said he
to himself, as he went slowly home. " It
is impossible to see anything half a dozen
paces off. The weather is protecting our

THE CHOUANS.

187

lovers. How is one .to watch a house
which is guarded by such a fog- as this ?
Who g-oes there?" cried he, clutching-
the arm of a stranger wlio appeared to
have escaladed the promenade across the
most dang-erous crag-s.

'' 'Tis I," said a childish voice simplj',

" Ah ! the httle boy Redfoot. Don't
you wish to avenge your father ? " asked
Corentin.

" Yes ! " said the child.

" 'Tis well. Do you know the Gars? "

''Yes."

" Better still. Well, do not leave me.
Do exactly whatsoever I tell 3"0u, and
3'ou will finish your mother's work and
gain big sous. Do you like big sous ? "

..Yes."

"You like big sous, and you want to
kill the Gars ? I will take care of you.
Come, Marie," said Corentin to himself
after a pause, ''you shall give him up to
us yourself I She is too excitable to judge
calmly of the blow I am going to deal her ;
and besides, passion never reflects. She
does not know the marquis's handwriting,
so here is the moment to spread a net for
her into which her character will make
\ her rush blindly. But to assure the suc-
cess of my trick, I have need of Hulot,
and I must hasten to see him."

At the same time, Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil and Francine were debating* the
means of extricating the marquis from
the dubious generosity of Corentin and
the bayonets of Hulot.

"I Avill go and warn him," said the
Breton girl.

"Silly child ! do 3'ou know where he is ?
Why, I, with all my heart's instinct to
aid me, might search long without meet-
ing him."

After having devised no small number
of the idle projects which are so easy to
carry ottt hy the fireside. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil cried, "When I see him, his
danger will inspire me ! "

Then she amused herself, like all ardent
spirits, with the determination not to re-
solve till the last moment, trusting in her
star, or in that instinctive address which
seldom deserts women. Never, perhaps,
had her heart throbbed so wildl3^ Some-

times she remained as if thunderstruck,
with fixed eyes ; and then, at the least
noise, she quivered like the half-uprooted
trees which the wood-cutter shakes strong-
ly with a rope to hasten their fall. Sud-
denly a violent explosion, produced by the
discharge of a dozen guns, echoed in the
distance. Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned
pale, caught Francine's hand, and said to
her :

'•' I die : they have killed him ! "

The heavA' tread of a soldier was heard
in the salon, and the terrified Francine
rose and ushered in a corporal. The Re-
publican, after making a military salute
to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, presented
to her some letters written on not very
clean paper. The soldier, receiving no
answer from the young lady, withdrew,
observing, "Madame, 'tis from the com-
mandant."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, a prey to sin-
ister forebodings, read the letter, which
seemed to have been hastily written b}"
Hulot :

' ' ' Mademoiselle, my counter-Chouans
have seized one of the Gars' messengers,
who has just been shot. Among the let-
ters found on him, that which I inclose
may be of some concern to you, etc' "

" Thank Heaven ! 'tis not he whom they
have killed," cried she, throwing the let-
ter into the fire.

She breathed more freely, and greedily
read the note which had been sent her.
It was from the marquis, and appeared to
be addressed to Madame du Gua :

" ' No, my angel, I shall not go to-night
to the Vivetiere. To-night yo\i will lose
your wager with the count, and I shall
triumph over the Republic in the person
of this delicious girl, who, you will agree,
is surelj^ worth one night. 'Tis the only
real advantage that I shall reap from this
campaign, for La Vendee is submitting.
There is nothing more to do in France ;
and, of course, we shall return together
to England. But to-morrow for serious
business ! ' "

The note dropped from her hands ; she
closed her ej'es, kept the deepest silence,
and remained leaning back, her head rest-
ing on a cushion. After a long pause.

188

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

she raised her ej^es to the clock, which
marked the hour of four.

" And monsieur keeps me waiting- ! "
she said with savage irony.

*'0h! if he only would not come!"
cried Francine.

"If he did not come," said Marie in a
stifled voice, '•' I would go mj^self to meet
him ! But no ! he cannot be long- now.
Francine, am I very beautiful ? "

"You are very pale."

"Look!" went on Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, "look at this perfumed cham-
ber, these flowers, these lights, this in-
toxicating vapor! Might not all this
give a foretaste of heaven to him whom
to-night I would plung-e in the joys of
love?"

"What is the matter, mademoiselle ? "

"I am. betrayed, deceived, abused,
tricked, cheated, ruined ! And I will
kill him ! I wall tear him in pieces !
Why, yes ! there was always in his man-
ner a scorn which he hid but ill, and which
I did not choose to see. Oh ! it will kill
me ! Fool that I am," said she, with a
laugh. " He comes ! I have the night
in which to teach him that, whetlier I be
married or no, a man who has once pos-
sessed me can never abandon me ! I will
suit my vengeance to his offense, and he
shall die despairing- ! I thought he had
some greatness in his soul ; but doubtless
'tis a lackey's son. Assuredly he was
clever enoug-h in deceiving me, for I still
can hardly believe that the man who was
capable of handing me over without com-
passion to Pille-Miche could descend to a
trick worthy of Scapin. 'Tis so easy to
dupe a loving woman, that it is the basest
of coward's deeds ! That he should kill
me, well and g-ood ! That he should lie
— he whom I have exalted so high ! To
the scaffold ! To the scaffold ! Ah ! I
would I could see him guillotined ! And
am I after all so very cruel ? He will die
covered with kisses and caresses which will
have been worth to him twent}-^ years of
life ! "

"Marie," said Francine, with an an-
gelic sweetness, " be your lover's victim,
as so many others are ; but do not make
yourself either his mistress or his execu-

tioner. Keep his. image at the bottom of
your heart, witliout making it a torture
to yourself. If there were no 303'' in hope-
less love, what would become of us, weak
women that we are ? That God, Marie,
on whom you never think, will reward us
for having followed our vocation on earth
— our vocation to love and to suffer ! "

"Kitten!" answered Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, patting Francine'shand. "Your
voice is very sweet and very seductive.
Reason is attractive indeed in your shape.
I would I could obey you."

"You pardon him? You would not
give him up ? "

" Silence ! Speak to me no more of that
man. Compared with him, Corentin is
a noble being. Do you understand me ? "

She rose, hiding under a face of hideous
calm both the distraction which seized
her and her inextinguishable thirst of
vengeance. Her gait, slow and meas-
ured, announced a certain irrevocable-
ness of resolve. A prey to thought,
devouring the insult, and too proud to
confess the least of her torments, she
went to the picket at the gate of Saint
Leonard to ask where the commandant
was staying. She had hardly left her
house when Corentin entered it. "

" Oh, Monsieur Corentin ! " cried Fran-
cine, " if you are interested in that young
man, save him ! Mademoiselle is going
to give him up. This wretched paper has
ruined all ! "

Corentin took the letter carelessly,
asking, "And where has she gone ? "

"I do not know."

"I will hasten," said he, "to save her
from her own despair."

He vanished, taking the letter with
him, left the house quickly, and said to
the little boy who was playing before the
door, " Which waj' did the lady Avho has
just come out go ? "

Galope-Chopine's son made a step or
two with Corentin to show him the steep
street which led to the Porte Saint
Leonard. "That way," said he, without
hesitation, obe3dng the instinct of ven-
geance with which his mother had in-
spired his heart.

At the same moment four men in dis-

THE CHOUANS.

189

guise entered Mademoiselle de Verneuil's
house without being- seen either by the
little boy or by Corentin.

"Go back to your post," said the spy.
"Pretend to amuse yourself by twisting-
the shutter latches ; but keep a shai-p
lookout and watch everything-, even on
the housetops.''

Corentin darted quickly in the direc-
tion pointed out by the boy, thought he
recognized Mademoiselle de Verneuil
throug-h the fog-, and actually cauglit her
up at the moment when she reached the
g-uard at Saint Leonard's.

"Where are 3'ou g-oiiig-?" said he,
holding- out his arm. " You are pale.
What has happened ? Is it proper for
you to go out alone like this ? Take my
arm."

"Where is the commandant ?" asked
she.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil had scarcely
finished the words when she heard the
movement of a reconnoitering party out-
side Saint Leonard's Gate, and soon she
caught Hulot's deep voice in the midst of
the noise.

" God's thunder ! " cried he, " I never
saw darker weather than this to make
rounds in. The ci-devant has the clerk
of the weather at his orders."

"What are you g-rumbling- at?" an-
swered Mademoiselle de Verneuil, press-
ing his arm hard. "This fog- is good to
cover vengeance as well as perfidy. Com-
mandant," added she, in a low voice,
" the question is how to concert measures
with me so that the Gars cannot escape
to-day."

"Is he at 3^our house ? " asked Hulot,
in a voice the emotion of which showed
his wonder.

"No," she answered. "But you must
give me a trusty man, and I will send him
to warn you of the marquis's arrival."

" What are you thinking of? " said Co-
rentin eagerly, to Marie. "A soldier in
your house would alarm him ; but a child
(and I know w^here to find one) will inspire
no distrust."

" Commandant," went on Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, " thanks to the fog you are
cursing, you can surround vay house this

very moment. Set soldiers everywhere.
Place a picket in Saint Leonard's Church,
to make sure of the esplanade on which
the windows of my drawing-room open.
Post men on the promenade, for though
the window of my room is twenty feet
above the ground, despair sometimes
lends men strength to cover the most
dangerous distances. Listen ! I shall
probably send this gentleman away by
the door of my house ; so be sure to give
none but a brave man the duty of watch-
ing it, for," said she, with a sigh, "no
one can deny him courage, and he will
defend himself ! "

"' Gudin ! " cried the commandant, and
the young Fougerese started from the
midst of the force which had come back
with Hulot, and which had remained
drawn up at some distance.

" Listen, my boy," said the old soldier
to him in a low voice; "this brimstone of
a girl is giving up the Gars to us. I do
not know why, but that does not matter;
it is no business of ours. Take ten men
with you, and post yourself so as to watch
the close at the end of w^hich the girl's
house is ; but take care that neither you
nor your men are seen."

" Yes, commandant ; I know the
ground."

"Well, my bo}^" went on Hulot;
" Beau-Pied shall come and tell you from
me when you must draw fox. Tr}- to get
up with the marquis 3'ourself, and kill
him if you can, so that I may not have to
shoot him by form of law. You shall be
lieutenant in a fortnight, or my name is
not Hulot. Here, mademoiselle, is a fel-
low who will not shirk," said he to the
young lady, pointing to Gudin. " He will
keep good watch before your house, and
if the ci-devant comes out or tries to get
in, he will not miss him."

Gudin went off with half a score of
soldiers.

"' Are you quite sure what you are do-
ing?" whispered Corentin to Mademoi-
selle de Verneuil. She answered him not,
but watched with a kind of satisfaction
the departure of the men who, under the
sub-lieutenant's orders, went to take up
their post on the promenade, and of thoso

190

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

who, according to Hulot's instructions,
posted themselves along the dark walls of
Saint Leonard's.

^^ There are houses adjoining mine,"
she said to the commandant. " Surround
them too. Let us not prepare regret for
ourselves by neglecting one single pre-
caution that we ought to take."

" She has gone mad ! " thought Hulot.

" Am I not a prophet ? " said Corentin
in his ear. ^''The child I mean to send
into the house is the little boy Bloody
Foot, and so — "

He did not finish. Mademoiselle de
Verneuil had suddenlj^ sprung toward her
house, whither he followed her, whistling
cheerfully, and when he caught her up
she had already gained the door, where
Corentin also found Galope - Chopine's
son.

" Mademoiselle," said he to her, ''take
this little hoy with you. You can have
no more unsuspicious or more active mes-
senger. When " (and he breathed as it
were in the child's ear) " you see the Gars
come in, whatever they tell you, run away,
come and find me at the guard-house, and
I will give you enough to keep you in
cakes for tlie rest of jomy life."

The youthful Breton pressed Corentin's
hand hard at these words, and followed
Mademoiselle de Yerneuil.

"Now, mj^ good friends!" cried Co-
rentin, when the door shut, ''come to
an explanation when jon like ! If you
make love now, my little marquis, it will
be on 3"our shroud ! "

But then, unable to make up his mind
to lose sight of the fateful abode, he di-
rected his steps to the promenade, where
he found the commandant busy in giving
some orders. Soon night fell ; and two
hours passed without the different sen-
tinels, who were stationed at short dis-
tances, perceiving anything which gave
suspicion that the marquis had crossed
the triple line of watchful lurkers who
beset the three accessible sides of the
Papegaut's Tower, A score of times
Corentin had gone from the promenade
to the g'uard-house ; as often his expecta-
tion had been deceived, and his youthful
emissary had not come to meet him.

The spy, lost in thought, paced the
promenade, a victim to the tortures of
three terrible contending passions — love,
ambition, and greed. Eight struck on
all the clocks. The moon rose very late,
so that the fog and the night wrapped in
ghastly darkness the spot where the
traged}^ devised by this man was about
to draw to its catastrophe. The* agent
of police managed to stifle his passions,
crossed his arms tightly on his breast,
and never turned his eyes from the win-
dow which rose like a phantom of light
above the tower. When his steps led
him in the direction of the glens which
edged the precipice, he mechanically
scrutinized the fog, which was furrowed
\)y the pale glow of some lights burning
here and there in the houses of the town
and suburbs above and below the ram-
part. The deep silence which prevailed
was only disturbed by the murmur of
the Nancon, by the mournful peals from
the belfry at intervals, by the heavy
steps of the sentinels, or by the clash of
arms as they caine, hour after hour, to
relieve guard. Mankind and nature
alike — all had become solemn.

It was just at this time that Pille-
Miche observed, "It is as black as a
wolf's throat ! "

" Get on with you !' ' answered Marche-
a-Terre, " and don't speak any more than
a dead dog does ! "

'•' I scarcely dare draw my breath," re-
joined the Chouan.

" If the man who has just displaced a
stone wants my knife sheathed in his
heart, he has only got to do it again,"
whispered Marche-a-Terre in so low a
voice that it blended with the ripple of
the Nan^on waters. .

" But it was me," said Pille-Miche.

" Well, you old money-bag," said the
leader, "slip along on your belly like a
snake, or else we shall leave our carcasses
here before the time ! "

" I say, Marche-a-Terre ! " went on the
incorrigible Pille-Miche, helping himself
with his hands to hoist himself along on
his stomach and reach the level where
was his comrade, into whose ear he whis-

THE CHOUAXS.

191

pered, so low that the Chouans who fol-
lowed them could not catch a syllable,
*' I sa3', Marche-a-Terre ! if we may trust
our Grande-Garce, there must be famous
booty up there! Shall we tw^o share?"

''Listen, Pille-Miche ! " said Marche-a-
Terre, halting-, still flat on his stomach ;
and the whole body imitated his move-
ment, so exhausted were the Chouans by
the diflB-Culties which the scarped rock
offered to their progress. " I know you, ' '
went on Marche-a-Terre, ''to be one of
those honest Jack Take-alls who are quite
as ready to give blows as to receive them
when there is no other choice. We have
not come here to put on dead men's
shoes : we are devil ag-ainst devil, and
woe to those who have the shortest nails.
The Grande-Garce has sent us here to
save the Gars. Come, lift your dog-'s
face up and look at that window above
the tower! He is there."

At the same moment midnig-ht struck.
The moon rose, and g-ave to the fog" the
aspect of a white smoke. Pille-Miche
clutched Marche-a-Tei're's arm violent-
ly', and, without speaking-, pointed to the
triang-ular steel of some g-lancing bayo-
nets ten feet above them.

"The Blues are there already!" said
he; "we shall do nothing- by force."

'* Patience ! " answered Marche-a-Terre;
" if I examined the whole place rightl.y
this morning-, we shall find at the foot of
the Papegaut's Tower, between the ram-
parts and the promenade, a little space
where they constantly store manure, and
on which a man can drop from above as
on a bed."

"If Saint Labre," said Pille-Miche.
"would graciously change the blood
which is going to flow into good cider,
the men of Fougeres would find stores of
it to-morrow ! "

Marche-a-Terre covered his friend's
mouth with his broad hand. Then a
caution, given under his breath, ran
from file to file to the ver^^ last Chouan
who hung in the air, clinging to the
briars of the schist. Indeed, Corentin's
ear was too well trained not to have heard
the rustle of some bushes which the Chou-
ans had pulled about, and the slight noise

of the pebbles rolling to the bottom of the
precipice, standing, as he did, on the edge
of the esplanade. Marche-a-Terre, who
seemed to possess the gift of seeing in
the dark, or whose senses, from their con-
tinual exercise, must have acquired the
delicacy of those of savages, had caught
sight -of Corentin. Perliaps, like a well-
broken dog, he had even scented him.
The detective listened in vain through the
silence, stared in vain at the natural wall
of schist ; he could discover nothing there.
If the deceptive glimmer of the fog al-
lowed him to perceive some Chouans, he
took them for pieces of rock, so well did
these human bodies preserve the air of
inanimate masses. The danger which
the party ran was of brief duration. Co-
rentin was drawn off by a very distinct
noise which was audible at the other end
of the promenade, where the supporting
wall ceased and the rapid slope of the
cliff began. A path traced along the
border of the schist, and communicating
with the Queen's Staircase, ended exactly
at this meeting-place. As Corentin ar-
rived there, he saw a figure rise as if by
magic, and when he put out his hand to
grasp this form — of whose intentions,
wiiether it was real or fantastic, he did
not augur well — he met the soft and
rounded outlines of a woman.

" The deuce take jou, my good wo-
man! " said he in a low tone; "if you
had met any one but me, 3'ou would have
been likely to get a bullet through 3-our
head ! But whence do you come, and
whither are you going at such an hour
as this ? Are you dumb ? It is really a
woman, though," said he to himself.

As silence was becoming dangerous,
the stranger replied, in a tone which
showed great fright, "Oh!, good man,
I be coming back from the veillee.''

" 'Tis the marquis's pretended mother,"
thought Corentin. " Let us see what she
is going to do."

" Well, then, go that way, old woman,"
he weht on aloud, and pretending not to
tecognize her; "keep to the left if you
don't want to get shot."

He remained where he was : but as soon
as he saw Madame du Gua making her

192

THE HUMAN COMEDY

way to the Papeg-aut's Tower, he followed
her afar off with devilish cunning. Dur-
ing- this fatal meeting- the Chouans had
very cleverly taken up their position on
^ the manure heaps to which Marche-a-
Terre had guided them,

" Here is the Grande-Garce ! " whis-
pered Marche-a-Terre, as he rose on his
feet against the tower, just as a hear
might have done. ''We are here ! " said
he to the lady.

" Good ! " answered Madame du Gua.
" If you could find a ladder in that house
where the garden ends, six' feet below the
dunghill, the Gars would he saved. Do
you see that round window up there ? It
opens on a dressing-room adjoining the
bedroom, and that is where you have to
go. The side of the tower at the bottom
of which you are, is the only one not
watdied. The horses are ready ; and if
you have made sure of the passage of the
Nan^on, we shall get him out of danger
in a quarter of an hour, for all his mad-
ness. But if that strumpet wants to
come with him, poniard her ! "

When Corentin saw that some of the
indistinct shapes which he had at first
taken for stones were cautiously moving,
he at once went off to the guard at the
Porte Saint Leonard, where he found the
commandant, asleep, but fully dressed, on
a camp-bed.

" Let him alone ! " said Beau-Pied
rudely to Corentin ; " he has only just
lain down there."

" The Chouans are here !" cried Coren-
tin into Hulot's ear.

" It is impossible ; but so much the bet-
ter ! " cried the commandant, dead asleep
as he was. ''At any rate, we shall have
some fighting."

When Hulot arrived on the promenade,
Corentin showed hira in the gloom the
strange position occupied by the Chouans.
'•' They must have eluded or stifled the
sentinels I placed between the Queen's
Staircase and the castle," cried the com-
mandant. " Oh, thunder ! what a fog !
But patience ! I will send fifty men under
a lieutenant to the foot of the rock. It is
no good attacking them where they are,
for the brutes are so tough that they

would let themselves drop to the bottom
of the precipice like stones, without break-
ing a limb."

The cracked bell of the belfry was sound-
ing two when the cominandant came back
to the promenade, after taking the strict-
est military precautions for getting hold
of the Chouans commanded by Marche-a-
Terre. By this time, all the guards hav-
ing been doubled. Mademoiselle de Ver-
ne uil's house had become the center of a
small army. The commandant found Co-
rentin plunged in contemplation of the
window which shone above the Pape-
gaut's Tower.

" Citizen," said Hulot to him, "I think
the ci-devant is making fools of us, for
nothing has stirred."

" He is there ! " cried Corentin, pointing
to the window. " I saw the shadow of a
man on the blind. But I cannot under-
stand what has become of my little boy.
They must have killed him, or gained him
over. Why, commandant, there is a man
for you ! Let us advance ! "

" God's thunder !" cried Hulot, who had
his own reasons for waiting ; "1 am not
going to arrest him in bed ! If he has
gone in he must come out, and Gudin will
not miss him."

" Commandant, I order 3^ou in the name
of the law to advance instantly upon this
house ! "

" You are a pretty fellow to think you
can set me going ! "

But Corentin, without disturbing him-
self at the commandant's wrath, said
coollj^ "You will please to obey me.
Here is an order in regular form, signed
b}^ the Minister of War, which will oblige
you to do so," he continued, drawing a
paper from his pocket. "Do you fancy
us fools enough to let that girl do as she
pleases ? 'Tis a civil war that we are
stifling, and the greatness of the result
excuses the meanness of the means."

" I take the liberty, citizen, of bid-
ding you go and — you understand me ?
Enough ! Put your left foot foremost,
leave me alone — and do it in less than no
time ! "

"But read," said Corentin.

" Don't bother me with your commis-

THE CHOUANS.

193

sions ! " cried. Hulot, in a rage at receiv-
ing-orders from a creature whom he held
so despicable. But at the same moment
Galope-Chopine's son appeared in their
midst, like a rat coming out of the
ground.

" The Gars is on his way ! " he cried.

''Which way?"

*'By Saint Leonard's Street."

'•'Beau-Pied," whispered Hulot in the
ear of the corporal who was near him,
'•run and tell the lieutenant to advance
on the house, and keep up some nice little
file-firing ! You understand ? File to 1 he
left, and march on the tower, you there ! "
he cried aloud.

In order perfectly to comprehend the
catastrophe, it is necessary now to return
with Mademoiselle de Verneuil to her
house. When passion comes to a crisis,
it produces in us an intensity of intoxica-
tion far ahove the trivial stimulus of
opium or of wane. The lucidity which
ideas then acquire, the delicacy of the
overexcited senses, produce the strangest
and the most unexpected effects.

When they find themselves under the
tyranny of a single thought, certain per-
sons clearly perceive things the most diffi-
cult of perception, while the most palpable
objects are for them as though they did
not exist. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was
suffering from this kind of intoxication,
which turns real life into something re-
sembling the existence of sleep-walkers,
when, after reading the marquis's letter,
she eagerly made all arrangements to
prevent his escaping her vengeance, just
as, but the moment before, she had made
every preparation for the first festival of
her love. But when she saw her house
carefully surrounded, by her own orders,
with a triple row of bayonets, her soul
was suddenly enlightened. She sat in
judgment on her own conduct, and de-
cided, with a kind of horror, that what
she had just committed was a crime. In
her first moment of distress she sprang
toward the door -step, and stood there
motionless for an instant, endeavoring to
reflect, but unable to bring any -reasoning
process to a conclusion.. She was so abso-
Balzac — G

lutely uncertain what she had just done,
that she asked herself why slie was stand-
ing in the vestibule of her own home,
holding a strange child by the hand.

Before her eyes thousands of sparks
danced in the air like tongues of fire.
She began to walk in order to shake off
the hideous stupor which had enveloped
her, but like a person asleep, she could
not realize the true form or color of any
object. She clutched the little boy's hand
with a violence foreign to her usual nature,
and drew him along with so rapid a step
that she seemed to possess the agility of
a mad woman. She saw nothing at all
in the drawing-room, as she crossed it,
and yet she received there the salutes of
three men, who drew aside to make way
for her.

'• Here she is ! " said one.

" She is very beautiful ! " cried the
priest.

"Yes," answered the first speaker;
"but how pale and agitated she is! "

"And how absent!" said the third.
"She does not see us."

At her own chamber door Mademoiselle
de Verneuil perceived the sweet and joy-
ful face of Francine, who whispered in her
ear, " He is there, Marie ! "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil roused her-
self, was able to collect her thoughts,
looked at the child whose hand she
held, and answered Francine : " Lock
this little boy up somewhere, and if
you wish me to live, take good care
not to let him escape."

As she slowl}'' uttered these words she
had been fixing her eyes on the chamber
door, on which the}'' remained glued with
so terrible a stillness that a man might
have thought she saw her victim through
the thickness of the panels. She gently
pushed the door open, and shut it without
turning her back, for she perceived the
marquis standing in front of the fire-
place. The young noble's dress, without
being too elaborate, had a certain festal
air of ornament, which heightened the
dazzling effect that lovers produce on
women. As she saw this. Mademoiselle
de Verneuil recovered all her presence of
mind. Her lips — strongly'- set though

194

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

half open — exhibited the enamel of her
white teeth, and outlined an incomplete
smile, the expression of which was one
of terror rather than of delight. She
stepped slowly toward the young man,
and pointed with her finger toward the
clock.

" A man who is worth loving is worth
the trouble of waiting for him," said she
with feigned gayet3^

And then, overcome by the violence of
her feelings, she sank upon the sofa which
stood near the fire-place.

" Dearest Marie, you are very attrac-
tive when you are angry ! " said the
marquis, seating himself beside her, tak-
ing a hand which she abandoned to him,
and begging for a glance which she would
not give. "I hope," he went on in a
tender and caressing tone, ''that Marie
will in a moment be vexed with herself for
having hidden her face from her fortu-
nate husband."

When she heard these words she turned
sharply, and stared him straight in the

" What does this formidable look
mean?" continued he, laughing. "But
3'our hand is on fire, my love ; what is
the matter? "

" Your love ? ' ' she answered in a broken
and stifled tone.

"Yes!" said he, kneeling before her
and seizing both her hands, which he
covered with kisses. "Yes, my love!
I am yours for life ! "

She repulsed him violently and rose ;
her features Avere convulsed, she laughed
with the laugh of a maniac, and said :
" You do not mean a word you saj^ ! O,
man more deceitful than the lowest of
criminals ! " She rushed to the dagger
which la3' by a vase of flowers, and flashed
it within an inch or two of the astonished
young man's breast.

"Bah!" she said, throwing it down,
" I have not respect enough for you to
kill you. Your blood is even too vile to
be shed by soldiers, and I see no ,fit end
for you but the hangman ! "

The words were uttered with difficulty
in a low tone, and she stamped as she
spoke, hke an angr^'^ spoiled child. The

marquis drew near her, trying to em-
brace her.

" Do not touch me ! " she cried, start-
ing back with a movement of horror.

"She is mad ! " said the marquis de-
spairingly to himself.

" Yes ! " she repeated, " mad ! but not
mad enough yet to be your plaything !
What would I not pardon to passion ?
But to wish to possess me without loving
me, and to write as much to that — "

"To whom did I write?" asked he,
with an astonishment which was clearly
not feigned.

," To that virtuous woman who wanted
to kill me ! "

Then the marquis turned pale, grasped
the back of the armchair, on which he
leaned so fiercely that he broke it, and
cried, " If Madame du Gua has been
guilty of any foul trick — "

Mademoiselle de Verneuil looked for the
letter, found it not, and called Francine.
The Breton girl came.

" Where is the letter ? "

" Monsieur Corentin took it."

" Corentin ! Ah, I see it all ! He forged
the letter and deceived me, as he does de-
ceive, with the fiend's own art ! "

Then uttering a piercing shriek, she
dropped on the sofa to which she stag-
gered, and torrents of tears poured from
her e3''es. Doubt and certainty were
equally horrible. The marquis flung
himself at her feet, and pressed her to
his heart, repeating a dozen times these
words, the only ones he could utter :

" Why weep, my angel ? Where is the
harm ? Even your reproaches are full of
love ! Do not weep ! I love you ! I love
you forever ! "

Suddenly he felt her embrace him with
more than human strength, and heard
her, amid her sobs, say, " You love me
still ? "

"You doubt it?" he answered, in a
tone almost melancholy.

She disengaged herself sharply from his
arms, and fled, as if frightened and con-
fused, a pace or two from him. " Do I
doubt it ? " she cried.

But she saw the marquis smile with
such sweet sarcasm that the words died

THE CHOUANS.

195

on her lips. She allowed him to take her
hand and lead her to the threshold. Then
Marie saw at the end of the salon an altar,
which had been hurriedly arranged during
her absence. The priest had at that mo-
ment arrayed himself in his sacerdotal
vestments ; lighted tapers cast on the
ceiling a glow as sweet as hope ; and she
recognized in the two men who had bowed
to her the Count de Bauvan and the
Baron du Guenic, the two witnesses
chosen by Montauran.

'*' Will you again refuse me ? " whis-
pered the marquis to her.

At this spectacle she made one step
back so as to regain her chamber, fell on
her knees, stretched her hand toward the
marquis, and cried : " Oh, forgive me !
forgive ! forgive ! "

Her voice sank, her head fell back, her
eyes closed, and she remained as if lifeless
in the arms of the marquis and of Fran-
cine. When she opened her eyes again
she met those of the young chief, full of
loving kindness.

" Patience, Marie ! This storm is the
last," said he.

"The last !" she repeated.

Francine and the marquis looked at
each other in astonishment, but she bade
them to be silent by a gesture.

" Call the priest," she said, " and leave
me alone with him."

They withdrew.

" Father ! " she said to the priest, who
suddenly appeared before her. " Father !
in my childhood an old man, white-haired
like yourself, frequently repeated to me
that, with a lively faith, man can obtain
everything from God. Is this true ? "

"It is true," answered the priest.
" Everything is possible to Him who has
created everything."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil threw herself
on her knees with wonderful enthusiasm.
" Oh, my God ! " said she in her ecstasy,
'•'my faith in Thee is equal to my love
for him ! Inspire me now : let a miracle
be done, or take my life ! "

"Your prayer will be heard," said the
priest.

Then Mademoiselle de Verneuil pre-
sented herself to the gaze of the company.

leaning on the arm of the aged, white-
haired ecclesiastic. Now, when her deep
and secret emotion gave her to her lover's
love, she was more radiantly beautiful
than she had ever been before, for a
serenity resembling that which painters
delight in imparting to martyrs stamped
on her face a character of majesty. She
held out her hand to the marquis, and
they advanced together to the altar, at
which thej'' knelt down.

This marriage, which was about to be
celebrated but a few steps from the nup-
tial couch, the hastily-erected altar, the
cross, the vases, the chalice brought se-
cretly by the priest, the incense smoke
eddj'^ing round cornices which had as yet
seen nothing but the steam of banquets,
the priest vested only in cassock and stole,
the sacred tapers in a profane salon, com-
posed a strange and touching scene which
may give a final touch to our sketch of
those times of unhappy memorv^, when
civil discord had overthrown the most
holy institutions. Then religious cere-
monies had all the attraction of myste-
ries. Children were baptized in the cham-
bers where their mothers still groaned.
As of old, the Lord came in simplicity
and poverty to console the dying. Nay,
young girls received the H0I3" Bread for
the first time in the very place where they
had played the night before. The union
of the marquis and Mademoiselle de Ver-
neuil was about to be hallowed, like many
others, by an act contravening the new
legislation ; but later, these marriages,
celebrated for the most part at the foot
of the oak trees, were all scrupulously
legalized.

The priest who thus kept up the old
usages to the last moment was one of
those men who are faithful to their prin-
ciples through the fiercest of the storm.
His voice, guiltless of the oath which the
Republic had exacted, uttered amid the
tempest only words of peace. He did
not, as Abbe Gudin had done, stir the
fire of discord. But he had, with many
others, devoted himself to the dangerous
mission of performing the rites of the
priesthood for the Catholic remnant of
souls. In order to succeed in this perilous

196

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

ministry, he employed all the pious arti-
fices which persecution necessitates ; and
the marquis had only succeeded in dis-
covering- him in one of the lurking-places
which even in our days bear the name of
Priests' Holes. The mere sight of his
pale and suffering face had such power
in inspiring devotion and respect, that
it was enough to give to the worldly
drawing-room the air of a holy place.
All was ready for the act of misfortune
and of joy. Before beginning the cere-
mony, the priest, amid profound silence,
asked the name of the bride.

" Marie Nathalie, daughter of Made-
moiselle Blanche de Casteran, deceased,
sometime abbess of our Lady of Seez,
and of Victor Amadeus, duke of Ver-
neuiL"

"Born?"

"At La Chasterie, near Alencon."

" I did not think," whispered the baron
to the count, " that Monta,uran would be
silly enough to marry her. A duke's
natural daughter ! Fie ! fie ! "

" Had she been a king's, it were a dif-
ferent thing," answered the Count de
Bauvan with a smile. "But I am not
the man to blame him. The other pleases
me ; and it is with 'Charette's Filly,' as
they call her, that I shall make my cam-
paign. She is no cooing dove."

The marquis's name had been filled in
beforehand ; the two lovers signed, and
the witnesses after them. The ceremony
began, and at the same moment Marie,
and she alone, heard the rattle of the
guns and the heavy, measured tramp of
the soldiers, who, no doubt, were coming
to reUeve the guard of Blues that she had
had posted in the church. She shuddered,
and raised her eyes to the cross on the
altar.

"She is a saint at last!" murmured
Fran cine.

And the count added, under his breath,
" Give me saints like that, and I will be
deucedly devout ! "

When the priest put the formal ques-
tion to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, she an-
swered with a "Yes!" followed by a
deep sigh. Tlien she leaned toward her
husband's ear, and said to him :

" Before long you will know why I am
false to the oath I took never to marry
you."

When, after the ceremon}^ the company
had passed into a room where dinner had
been served, and at the verj'- moment
when the guests were taking their places,
Jeremy entered in a state of alarm. The
poor bride rose quickly, went, followed by
Francine, to meet him, and with one of
the excuses which women know so well
how to invent, begged the marquis to do
the honors of the feast by himself for a
short time. Then she drew the servant
aside before he could commit an indiscre-
tion, which would have been fatal.

" Ah ! Francine. To feel one's self dy-
ing and not to be able to say *I die ! ' "
cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who did
not return to the dining-room.

Her absence was capable of being in-
terpreted on the score of the just-con-
cluded rite. At the end of the meal, and
just as the marquis's anxiety had reached
its height, Marie came back in the full
gala costume of a bride. Her face was
joyous and serene, while Francine, who
was with her, showed such profound
alarna in all her features that the guests
thought they saw in the two counte-
nances some eccentric picture where the
wild pencil of Salvator Rosa had repre-
sented Death and Life hand in hand.

"Gentlemen," said she to the priest,
the baron, and the count, "you must be
my guests this night ; for you would run
too much risk in trying to leave Fougeres.
My good maid has her orders, and will
guide each of 3"ou to his apartment. No
mutiny ! " said she to the priest, who was
about to speak. " I hope you will not
disobey a lady's orders on the day of her
marriage."

They were alone, at last. Marie looked
at the clock, and said to herself, " Six
hours more to live ! ' '

She awoke with a start in one of those
sudden movements that disturb us when
we have arranged with ourselves to wake
next day at a certain time. "I have
actually slept ! " she exclaimed, seeing by
the glimmer of the candles that the clock

THE CHOUAXS.

197

hand would soon point to the hour of two
in the morning.

She went and grazed at the marquis,
who was asleep, his head resting on one
hand, as children sleep, a half smile on
his face. "Ah!" she whispered, "he
sleeps like a child ! But how could he
mistrust me — me, who owe him ineffable
happiness?"

She touched him gently; he woke and
finished the smile.

Rapidly examining the exquisite picture
which his wife's face presented, attribut-
ing to some melancholy thought the cloud
that shadowed Marie's brows, tlie marquis
asked gently :

" Why this shadow of sadness, love ? "

" Poor Alphonse ! Whither do you
think I have brought you ? " asked she,
trembling.

'^To happiness — "

''To death!"

And with a shudder of horror she
sprang to the window. The astonished
marquis followed her. His wife drew the
curtain, and pointed out to him with her
finger a score of soldiers on the square.
The moon, which had chased away the
fog, cast its white light on the uniforms,
the guns, the impassive figure of Corentin,
who paced to and fro like a jackal waiting
for his prey, and the commandant, wh^
stood motionless, his arms crossed, his
face lifted, .his lips drawn back, ill at
ease, and on the watch..

" Well, Marie ! never mind them ! "

"Why do you smile, Alphonse ? 'Twas
1 who placed them there ! "

" You are dreaming ! "

"No!"

They looked at each other for a mo-
ment : the marquis guessed all, and,
clasping her in his arms, said :

" There ! I love you still ! "

"Then, all is not lost I " cried Marie.
"Alphonse," she said, after a pause,
"there is still hope!"

At this moment tliey distinctly heard
the low owl's hoot, and Francine came
suddenly out of the dressing-room.
"Pierre is there !" she cried, with a J03'
bordering on delirium.

Then she and the marchioness dressed

Montauran in a Chouan's garb with the
wonderful rapidity which belongs only to
women. When the marchioness saw her
husband busy loading the weapons which
Francine had brought, she slipped out
deftly, after making a sign of intelligence
to her faithful Breton maid. Then Fran-
cine led the marquis to the dressing-room
which adjoined the chamber ; and the
young chief, seeing a number of sheets
strong'ly knotted together, could appreci-
ate the careful activity with which the
girl had worked to outwit the vigilance
of the soldiers.

" I can never get through there," said
the marquis, scanning the narrow em-
brasure of the osil-de-bce^cf.

But at the same moment a huge, dark
face filled its oval, and a hoarse voice,
well known to Francine, cried in a low
tone :

"Be quick, general! These toads of
Blues are stirring."

" Oh ! one kiss more ! " said a sweet,
quivering voice.

The marquis, whose foot was already on
the ladder of deliverance, but a part of
whose body was still in the loop-hole, felt
himself embraced despairingly. He ut-
tered a cry as he perceived that his wife
had put on his own garments. He would
have held her, but she tore herself fiercely''
from his arms, and he found hunself
obliged to descend. He held a rag of
stuff in his hand, and a sudden gleam of
moonlight coming to give him light, he
saw that the fragment was part of the
waistcoat he had worn the night before.

" Halt ! Fire by platoons ! "

These words, uttered by Hulot in the
midst of a silence which was terrifying,
broke the spell that seemed to reign over
the actors and the scene. A salvo of bul-
lets coming from the depths of the valley
to the foot of the tower succeeded the
volleys of the Blues stationed on the
promenade. The Republican fire was
steady, continuous, unpitjing ; but its
victims uttered not a single cry, and
between each volley the silence Avas
terrible.

Still Corentin, who had heard one of the
aerial forms which he had pointed out to

198

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the commandant falling' from the upper
part of the ladder, suspected some trick.

"Not one of our birds sings," said he
to Hulot. " Our two lovers are quite
capable of playing some trick to amuse
us here, while they are perhaps escaping
by the other side."

And the sp3^ eager to clear up the puz-
zle, sent Galope-Chopine's son to fetch
torches.

Corentin's suggestion was so well un-
derstood by Hulot that the old soldier,
attentive to the noise of serious fighting
in front of the guard at Saint Leonard's,
cried, '' 'Tis true ; there cannot be two
of them." And he rushed toward the
guard-house.

" We have washed his head with lead,
commandant," said Beau-Pied, coming
to meet him, '" But he has killed Gudin
and wounded two men. The madman
broke through three lines of our fellows,
and would have gained the fields but for
the sentinel at the Porte Saint Leonard,
who skewered him with his bayonet."

When he heard these words, the com-
mandant hurried into the guard-house,
and saw on the camp-bed a bleeding form
which had just been placed there. He
drew near the seeming marquis, raised
the hat which covered his face, and
dropped upon a chair.

" I thought so ! " he cried fiercely, fold-
ing his arms. " Holy thunder ! she had
kept him too long ! "

None of the soldiers stirred. The com-
mandant's action had displaced the long
black hair of a woman, which fell down.
Then suddenly the silence was broken by
the tramp of many armed men. Coren-
tin entered the guard-house in front of
four soldiers carrying Montauran, both
whose legs and both whose arms had been
broken by many gunshots, on a bier
formed by their guns. The marquis was
laid on the camp-bed by the side of his
wife, saw her, and summoned up strength
enough to clutch her hand convulsively.
The dying girl painfully turned her head,
recognized her husband, shuddered with
a spasm horrible to see, and murmured
these words in an almost stifled voice :

''A Day without a Morrow ! God has
heard my prayer too well ! "

" Commandant," said the marquis,
gathering all his strength, but never
quitting Marie's hand, " I count on your
honor to announce my death to my young-
er brother, who is at London. Write to
him not to bear arms against France, if
he would obey my last words, but never
to abandon the king's service."

'• It shall be done ! " said Hulot, press-
ing the dying man's hand.

''Take them to the hospital there!"
cried Corentin.

Hulot seized the spy by his arm so as to
leave the mark of the nails in his flesh,
and said, " As your task is done here, get
out ! and take a good look at the face of
Commandant Hulot, so as to keep out
of his way, unless you want him to sheathe
his toasting-iron in your belly. ' ' And the
old soldier half drew it as he spoke.

" There is another of your honest folk
who will never make their fortune ! " said
Corentin to himself when he was well away
from the guard-house.

The marquis had still strength to thank
his foe by moving his head, as a mark of
the esteem which soldiers have for gen-
erous enemies.

, In 1S27 an old man, accompanied by his
wife, was bargaining for cattle on the
market-place of Fougeres, without any-
body saying anj'thing to him, though he
had killed more than a hundred men.
They did not even remind him of his sur-
name of Matche-a-Terre. The person to
whom the writer owes much precious in-
formation as to the characters of this
story saw him leading off a cow with
that air of simplicity and probit3'-, as he
went, which makes men say, "That's an
honest fellow ! "

As for Cibot, called Pille-Miche, his
end is already known. It may be that
Marche-a-Terre made a vain attempt to
save his comrade from the scaftold, and
was present on the square of Alencon at
the terrible riot which was one of the
incidents of the famous trial of Rifoel,
Briond, and La Chanterie.

A PASSION IN THE DESERT.

199

III.

A PASSION IN THE DESERT.

I WAS at the menagerie.

The first time I saw Monsieur Martin
enter the cages I uttered an exclamation
of surprise I found myself next to an old
soldier with the right leg amputated, who
had come in with me. His face had at-
tracted my attention. He had one of those
intrepid heads, stamped with the seal of
warfare, and on which the battles of Na-
poleon are written. Besides, he had that
frank good-humored expression that al-
wa3's impresses me favorably. He was
without doubt one of those troopers who
are surprised at nothing, who find matter
for laughter in the contortions of a dying
comrade, who bury or plunder him quite
hghtheartedly, who stand intrepidly in
the w^j of bullets ; — in fact, one of those
men who waste no time in deliberation,
and would not hesitate to make friends
with the devil himself. After looking
very attentively at the proprietor of the
menagerie getting out of his box, my
companion pursed up his lips with an air
of mockery and contempt, with that pe-
culiar and expressive twist which superior
people assume to show they are not taken
in. Then, when I was expatiating on the
courage of Monsieur Martin, he smiled,
shook his head knowingly, and said,
" Easy enough ! "

" How ' easy enough ' ? " I said. '-' If
you would only explain me the mystery
I should be obliged."

After a few minutes, during which we
made acquaintance, we went to dine at
the first restaurateur^ s whose shop
caught our eye. At dessert a bottle of
champagne completely refreshed and
brightened up the memories of this odd
old soldier. He told me his story as
follows : —

During the expedition in Upper Egypt
under General Desaix, a Provencal soldier
fell into the hands of the Mangrabins, and
was taken by these Arabs into the deserts
beyond the falls of the Nile.

In order to place a sufficient distance
between themselves and the French army,
the Mangrabins made forced marches and
only rested during the night. They
camped round a well overshadowed by
palm trees under which they had pre-
viously concealed a store of provisions.
Not surmising that the notion of flight
would occur to their prisoner, they con-
tented themselves with binding his hands,
and after eating a few dates, and given
provender to their horses, went to sleep.

When the brave Provencal saw that
his enemies were no longer watching him,
he made use of his teeth to steal a scimitar,
fixed the blade between his knees, and cut
the cords which prevented him using his
hands ; in a moment he was free. He at
once seized a rifie and a dagger, then tak-
ing the precaution to provide himself with
a sack of dried dates, oats, and powder
and shot, and to fasten a scimitar to his
waist, he leaped on to a horse and spurred
on vigorously in the direction where he
thought to find the French army. So im-
patient was he to see a bivouac again that
he pressed on the already tired courser at
such speed that its flanks were lacerated
with his spurs, and at last the poor animal
died, lea\ing the Frenchman alone in the
desert.

After walking some time in the sand
with all the courage of an escaped convict,
the soldier was obliged to stop, as the day
had already ended. In spite of the beauty-
of an oriental skj" at night, he felt he had
not strength enough to go on. Fortu-

200

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

nately he had been able to find a small
hill, on the summit of which a few palm
trees shot up into the air ; it was their
verdure seen from afar which had brought
hope and consolation to his heart. His
fatig-ue was so great that he lay down
upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut
out like a camp-bed ; there he fell asleep
without taking any precaution to defend
himself while he slept. He had made the
sacrifice of his life. His last thought was
one of regret. He repented having left
the Mangrabins, whose nomad life seemed
to smile on him now that he was far from
them and without help. He was awakened
by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with
all their force on the granite and produced
an intolerable heat — for he had had the
stupidity"- to place himself inversely to the
shadow thrown by the verdant majestic
heads of the palm trees. He looked at
the solitary trees and shuddered — they
reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize
the Saracen columns in the cathedral of
Aries.

But when, after counting the palm trees,
he cast his eyes around him, the most
horrible despair was infused into his soul.
Before him stretched an ocean without
limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
further than sight could reach in every
direction, and glittered like steel struck
with bright light. It might have been a
sea of looking-glass, or lakes melted to-
gether in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried
up in streaks made a perpetual whirlwind
over the quivering land. The sky was lit
with an oriental splendor of insupportable
purity, leaving naught for the imagina-
tion to desire. Heaven and earth were
on fire.

The silence was awful in its wild and
terrible majesty. Infinity', immensity,
closed in upon the soul from every side.
Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath in
the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the
sand, ever moving in diminutive waves ;
the horizon ended as at sea on a clear day,
with one line of light, definite as the cut
of a sword.

The Provencal threw his arms round
the trunk of one of the palm trees, as

though it were the body of a friend, and
then in the shelter of the thin straight
shadow that the palm cast upon the
granite, he wept. Then sitting down he
remained as he was, contemplating with
profound sadness the implacable scene,
which was all he had to look upon. He
cried aloud, to measure the solitude. His
voice, lost in the hollows of the hill,
sounded faintly and aroused no echo — the
echo was in his own heart. The Provencal
was twenty -two years old : — he loaded his
carbine.

" There'll be time enough," he said to
himself, laying on the ground the weapon
which alone could bring him deliverance.

Looking by turns at the black expanse
and the blue expanse, the soldier dreamed
of France— he smelled with delight the
gutters of Paris— he remembered the
towns through which he had passed, the
faces of his fellow-soldiers, the most mi-
nute details of his life. His southern fancy
soon showed him the stones of his beloved
Provence, in the play of the heat which
waved over the spread sheet of the desert.
Fearing the dang'er of this cruel mirage,
he went down the opposite side of the hill
to that by which he had come up the day
before. The remains of a rug showed
that this place of refug-e had at one time
been inhabited ; at a short distance he
saw some palm trees full of dates. Then
the instinct which binds us to life awoke
again in his heart. He hoped to live long
enough to await the passing of some
Arabs, or perhaps he might hear the
sound of cannon ; for at this time Bona-
parte was traversing Egypt.

This thought gave him new life. The
palm tree seemed to bend with the weight
of the ripe fruit. He shook some of it
down. When he tasted this unhoped-for
manna, he felt sure that the palms had
been cultivated \)-y a former inhabitant —
the savory, fresh meat of the dates were
proof of the care of his predecessor. He
passed suddenly from dark despair to an
almost insane joy. He went up again to
the top of the hill, and spent the rest of
the day in cutting down one of the sterile
palm trees, which the night before had
served him for shelter. A vague mem-

A PASSION IN THE DESERT.

201

ory made him think of the animals of
the desert ; and in case they might come
to drink at the spring", visible from the
base of the rocks but lost farther down,
he resolved to guard himself from their
"visits by placing a barrier at the entrance
of his hermitage.

In spite of his diligence, and the strength
which the fear of being devoured asleep
gave him, he was unable to cut the palm
in pieces, though he succeeded in cutting
it down. At eventide the king of the
desert fell ; the sound of its fall resounded
far and wide, like a sigh in the sohtude ;
the soldier shuddered as though he had
heard some voice predicting* woe.

But like an heir who does not long be-
wail a deceased parent, he tore off from
this beautiful tree the tall broad green
leaves which are its poetic adornment,
and used them to mend the mat on which
he Avas to sleep.

Fatigued by the heat and his work, he
fell asleep under the red curtains of his
wet cave.

Ill tlie middle of the night his sleep was
troubled by an extraordinary noise ; he
sat up, and the deep silence around al-
lowed him to distinguish the alternative
accents of a respiration whose savage
energy could not belong to a human
creature.

A profound terror, increased still fur-
ther b3'^ the darkness, the silence, and his
waking images, froze his heart within
him. He almost felt his hair stand on
end, when by straining his eyes to their
utmost he perceived through the shadow
two faint yellow lights. At first he at-
tributed these lights to the reflection of
his own pupils, but soon the vivid bril-
liance of the night aided him gradually to
distinguish the objects around him in the
cave, and he beheld a huge animal Ijing
but two steps from him. Was it a lion,
a tiger, or a crocodile ?

The Provencal was not educated enough
to know under what species his enemy
ought to be classed ; but his fright was
all the greater, as his ignorance led him
to imagine all terrors at once ; he endured
a cruel torture, noting every variation
of the breathing close to him without

daring to make the slightest movement.
An odor, pungent like that of a fox, but
more penetrating, profounder — so to
speak — filled the cave, and when the Pro-
vencal became sensible of this, his terror
reached its height, for he could no longer
doubt the proximity of a terrible compan-
ion, whose royal dwelling served him for
a shelter.

Presently the reflection of the moon
descending on the horizon, lit up the den,
rendering gradually visible and resplend-
ent the spotted skin of a panther.

This lion of Egypt slept, curled up like
a big dog, the peaceful possessor of a
sumptuous niche at the gate of a hotel ;
its eyes opened for a moment and closed
again ; its face was turned toward the
man. A thousand confused thoughts
passed through the Frenchman's mind ;
first he thought of killing it with a bullet
from his gun, but he saw there was not
enough distance between them for him to
take proper aim — the shot would miss the
mark. And if it were to wake! — the
thought made his limbs rigid. He list-
ened to his own heart beating in the
midst of the silence, and cursed the too
violent pulsations which the flow of blood
brought on, fearing to disturb that sleep
which allowed him time to think of some
means of escape.

Twice he placed his hand on his scimi-
tar, intending to cut oflF the head of his
enemy ; but the difficulty of cutting the
ctiff short hair compelled him to abandon
this daring project. To miss would be to
die for certain, he thought ; he preferred
the chances of fair fight, and made up
his mind to wait till morning; the morn-
ing did not leave him long to wait.

He could now examine the panther at
ease ; its muzzle was smeared with blood.

" She's had a good dinner," he thought,
without troubling himself as to whether
her feast might have been on human
flesh. ''She won't be hungry when she
gets up."

It was a female. The fur on her belly
and flanks was glistening white ; many
small marks like velvet formed beautiful
bracelets round her feet ; her sinuous tail
was also white, ending with black rings ;

203

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the overpart of her dress, yellow like un-
burnished gold, very lissom and soft, had
the characteristic blotches in the form of
rosettes, which disting-uish the panther
from every other feline species.

This tranquil and formidable hostess
snored in an attitude as graceful as that
of a cat lying- on a cushion. Her blood-
stained paws, nervous and well armed,
were stretched out before her face, which
rested upon them, and from which ra-
diated her straight slender whiskers, like
threads of silver.

If she had been like that in a cage, the
Provencal would doubtless have admired
the grace of the animal, and the vigorous
contrasts of vivid color which gave her
robe an imperial splendor ; but just then
his sight was troubled by her sinister
appearance.

The presence of the panther, even
asleep, could not fail to produce the ef-
fect which the magnetic eyes of the ser-
pent are said to have on the nightingale.

For a moment the courage of the soldier
began to fail before this danger, though
no doubt it would have risen at the mouth
of a cannon charged with shell. Never-
theless, a bold thought brought daylight
to his soul and sealed up the source of
the cold sweat which sprang forth on his
brow. Like men driven to baj', who defy
death and offer their body to the smiter,
so he, seeing in this merel}'^ a tragic epi-
sode, resolved to plaj^ his part with honor
to the last.

''The day before yesterday the Arabs
would hnve killed me perhaps." he said ;
so considering himself as good as dead
already, he waited bravely, with excited
curiosity, his enemy's awakening.

When the sun appeared, the panther
suddenly opened her eyes ; then she put
out her paws with energy, as if to stretch
them and get rid of cramp. At last she
yawned, showing the formidable appa-
ratus of her teeth and pointed tongue,
rough as a file.

She licked off the blood which stained
her paws and muzzle, and scratched her
head with reiterated gestures full of pret-
tiness.

''All right, make a little toilet," the

Frenchman said to himself, beginning to
recover his gayety with his courage ;
" we'41 say good-morning to each other
presently," and he seized the small short
dagger which he had taken from the
Mangrabins. At this moment the pan-
ther turned her head toward the man and
looked at him fixedly without moving.

The rigidity of her metallic eyes and
their insupportable luster made him shud-
der, especially when the animal walked
toward him. But he looked at her caress-
ingly^, staring into her eyes in order to
magnetize her, and let her come quite
close to him ; then with a movement both
gentle and affectionate, as though he were
caressing the most beautiful of women, he
passed his hand over her whole body, from
the head to the tail, scratching the flexi-
ble vertebrae which divided the panther's
yellow back. The animal waved her tail,
and her eyes grew gentle ; and when for
the third time the Frenchman accom-
plished this interested flatter}^ she gave
forth one of those purrings by which our
cats express their pleasure ; but this mur-
mur issued from a throat so powerful and
so deep, that it resounded through the
cave like the last vibrations of an organ
in a church. The man, understanding
the importance of his caresses, redoubled
them. When he felt sure of having ex-
tinguished the ferocity of his capricious
companion, whose hunger had so fortu-
nately been satisfied the day before, he got
up to go out of the cave ; the panther let
him go out, but when he had reached the
summit of the hill she sprang with the
lightness of a sparrow hopping from twig
to twig, and rubbed herself against his
legs, putting up her back after the man-
ner of all the race of cats. Then regard-
ing her guest with eyes whose glare had
softened a little, she gave vent to that
wild cry which naturalists compare to the
grating of a saw.

" She is exacting," said the Frenchman,
smiling.

He was bold enough to play with her
ears; he scratched her head as hard as
he could. When he saw he was success-
ful he tickled her skull with the point of
his dagger, watching for the moment to

A PASSIOJV m THE DESERT,

203

kill her, but the hardness of her bones
made him tremble for his success.

The sultana of the desert showed her-
self g-racious to her slave : she lifted her
head, stretched out her neck, and mani-
fested her delig-ht by the tranquillity of
her attitude. It suddenly occurred to the
soldier that to kill this savage princess
with one blow he must poniard her in
the throat.

He raised the blade, when the panther,
satisfied, no doubt, laid herself gracefully
at his feet, and cast up at him glances in
which, in spite of their natural fierceness,
was mingled confusedly a kind of good-
will. The poor Provencal ate his dates,
leaning against one of the palm trees, and
casting his eyes alternately on the desert
in quest of some liberator and on his ter-
rible companion to watch her uncertain
clemency.

The panther looked at the place where
the date stones fell, and every time that he
threw one down, her eyes expressed an
incredible mistrust.

She examined the man with an almost
commercial prudence. However, this ex-
amination was favorable to him, for when
he had finished his meager meal she licked
his boots with her powerful rough tongue,
brushing off with marvelous skill the dust
gathered in the creases.

'^ Ah, but when she's really hungry ! "
thought the Frenchman.

In spite of the shudder this thought
caused him, the soldier began to measure
curiously the proportions of the panther,
certainly one of the most splendid speci-
mens of its race. She was three feet high
and four feet long without counting her
tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like
a cudgel, was nearh' three feet long. The
head, large as that of a. lioness, was dis-
tinguished by a rare expression of refine-
ment. The cold cruelty of a tiger was
dominant, it was true, but there was also
a vague resemblance to the face of a sen-
sual woman.

Indeed, the face of this solitary queen
had something of the gayety of a drunken
Nero : she had satiated hei'self with blood,
and she wanted to pla3^

The soldier tried if he might walk up

and down, and the panther left him free,
contenting herself with following him with
her eyes, less like a faithful dog than a
big Angora cat, observing everything,
and every movement of her master.

When he looked round, he saw, b}'^ the
spring, the remains of his horse ; the
panther had dragged the carcass all
that way ; about two-thirds of it had
been devoured already. The sight re-
assured him.

It was easy to explain the panther's
absence, and the respect she had had
for him while h& slept. The first piece
of good luck emboldened him to tempt
the future, and he conceived the wild
hope of continuing on good terms with
the panther during the entire day, neg-
lecting no means of taming her and re-
maining in her good graces.

He returned to her, and had the unspeak-
able joy of seeing her wag her tail with
an almost imperceptible movement at his
approach. He sat down then, without
fear, by her side, and they began to play
together ; he took her paws and muzzle,
pulled her ears, rolled her over on her
back, stroked her warm, delicate flanks.
She let him do whatever he liked, and
when he began to stroke the hair on her
feet she drew her claws in carefully.

The man, keeping the dagger in one
hand, thought to plunge it into the belh'
of the too confiding panther, but he was
afraid that he would be immediately
strangled in her last convulsive strug-
gle ; besides, he felt in his heart a sort
of remorse which bid him respect a
creature that had done him no harm.
He seemed to have found a friend, in a
boundless desert; half unconsciously he
thought of his first sweetheart, whom he
had nicknamed ''Mignonne " by way of
contrast, because she was so atrocioush-
jealous, that all the time of their love he
was in fear of the knife with which she
had always threatened him.

This memory of his early days sug-
gested to him the idea of making the
young panther answer to this name, now
that he began to admire with less terror
her swiftness, suppleness, and softness.
Toward the end of the day he had famil-

204

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

iarized himself with his perilous position ;
he now almost liked the painfulness of it.
At last his companion had got into the
habit of looking- up at him whenever he
cried in a falsetto voice, '' Mig-nonne/'

At the setting of the sun Mignonne
gave, several times running, a profound
melancholy cry.

"She's been well brought up," said
the light-hearted soldier ; " she says her
prayers." But this mental joke only oc-
curred to him when he noticed what a
pacific attitude his companion remained
in. '*^ Come, ma petite blonde, I'll let
you go to bed first," he said to her,
counting on the activity of his own legs
to run awa}' as quickly as possible, direct-
13^ she was asleep, and seek another shel-
ter for the night.

The soldier awaited with impatience the
hour of his flight, and when it had ar-
rived he walked vigoroush' in the direc-
tion of the Nile ; but hardly had he made
a quarter of a league in the sand when
he heard the panther bounding after him,
crying with that saw-like cry, more dread-
ful even than the sound of her leaping.

'' Ah ! " he said, '•' then she's taken
a fancy to me ; she has never met any
one before, and it is really quite flattering
to have her first love."

That inst-ant the man fell into one of
those movable quicksands so terrible to
travelers and from which it is impossible to
save one's self. Feeling himself caught,
he gave a shriek of alarm ; the panther
seized him with her teeth by the collar,
and, springing vigorously backward, drew
him, as if by magic, out of the whirling-
sand .

''Ah, Mignonne!" cried the soldier,
caressing her enthusiasticall}'- ; " we're
bound together for life and death — ^but
no jokes, mind ! " and he retraced his
steps.

From that time the desert seemed in-
habited. It contained a being to whom
the man could talk, and whose ferocity
was rendered gentle by him, though he
could not explain to himself the reason
for their strange friendship. Great as
was the soldier's desire to stay up on
guard, he slept.

On awakening he could not find Mig-
nonne ; he mounted the hill, and in the dis-
tance saw her springing toward him after
the habit of these animals, w^ho cannot
run on account of the extreme flexibility
of the vertebral column. Mignonne ar-
rived, her jaws covered with blood; she
received the wonted caress of her com-
panion, showang with much purring how
happj'^ it made her. Her eyes, full of
languor, turned still more gentlj'- than
the da}^ before toward the Provencal, who
talked to her as one would to a tame
animal.

" Ah ! mademoiselle, you are a nice girl,
aren't you ? Just look at that ! so we
like to be made much of, don't we ? Aren't
you ashamed of yourself ? So yon have
been eating some Arab or other, have
you ? that doesn't matter. They're ani-
mals just the same as you are ; but don't
you take to eating Frenchmen, or I shan't
like you any longer."

She played like a dog with its master,
letting herself be rolled over, knocked
about, and stroked, alternately; some-
times she herself w^ould provoke the sol-
dier, putting up her paw with a soliciting
gesture.

Some da^'S passed in this manner. This
companionship permitted the Provencal to
appreciate the sublime beauty of the des-
ert; now that he had a living thing to
think about, alternations of fear and
quiet, and plenty to eat, his mind became
filled with contrasts, and his life began to
be diversified.

Solitude revealed to him all her se-
crets, and enveloped him in her delights.
He discovered in the rising and setting
of the sun sights unknown to the world.
He knew what it was to tremble when he
heard over his head the hiss of a bird's
wdngs, so rarely did they pass, or when
he saw the clouds, changing and many-
colored trav(!lers, melt into one another.
He studied in the night time the effects of
the moon upon the ocean of sand, where
the simoom made w^aves swift of move-
ment and rapid in their change. He lived
the life of the Eastern day, marveling at
its wonderful pomp ; then, after having
reveled in the sight of a hurricane over

A PASSION IN THE DESERT.

205

the plain where the whirling* sands made
red, dry mists and death-bearing clouds,
he would welcome the nig"ht with joy. for
then fell tlie healthful freshness of the
stars, and lie listened to imaginary music
in the skies. Then solitude taught him
to unroll the treasures of dreams. He
passed wliole hours in remembermg mere
nothings, and comparing his present life
with his past.

At last he grew passionatelj'^ fond of the
tigress ; for some sort- of affection was a
necessity.

Whether it was that his will powerfully
projected had modified the character of
his companion, or whether, because she
foimd abundant food in her predatory ex-
cursions in the deserts, she respected the
man's life, he began to fear for it no
longer, seeing her so well tamed.

He devoted the greater part of his time
to sleep, but he was obliged to watch like
a spider in its web that the moinent.of his
deliverance might not escape him, if any
one should pass the line marked by the
horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to
make a flag with, which he hung at the
top of a palm tree, whose foliage he had
torn off. Taught by necessity, he found
the means of keeping it spread out, by
fastening it with little sticks ; for the wind
might not be blowing at the moment when
the passing traveler was looking through
the desert.

It was during the long hours, when he
had abandoned hope, that he amused him-
self with the panther. He had come to
learn the different inflections of her voice,
the expressions of her eyes ; he had studied
the capricious patterns of all the rosettes
which marked the gold of her robe. Mig-
nonne was not even angry when he took
hold of the tuft at the end of her tail to
count the rings, those graceful ornaments
which glittered in the sun like jewelry.
It gave him pleasure to contemplate the
supple, fine outlines of her form, the
graceful pose of her head. But it was
especially when she was playing that he
felt most pleasure in looking at her ; the
agilit3' and youthful lightness of her
movements were a continual surprise to
him ; he wondered at the supple way

which she jumped and climbed, washed
herself and arranged her fur, crouched
down and prepared to spring. However
rapid her spring might be, however slip-
pery the stone she was on, she would
always stop short at the word " Mig-
nonne."

One day, in a bright mid-day sun, an
enormous bird coursed through the air.
The man left his panther to look at this
new guest ; but after waiting a moment
the deserted sultana growled deeply.

'•'My goodness ! I do believe she's jeal-
ous," he cried, seeing her eyes become
hard again; "the soul of Virginie has
passed into her bod^'-, that's certain."

The eagle disappeared into the air, while
the soldier admired the curved contour of
the panther.

But there Avas such youth and grace in
her form ! she was beautiful as a woman !
the blond fur of her robe mingled well
with the delicate tints of faint white which
marked her flanks.

The profuse light cast down by the sun
made this living gold, these russet mark-
ings, to burn in a way to give them an
indefinable attraction.

The man and the panther looked at one
another with a look full of meaning ; the
coquette quivered when she felt her friend
stroke her head ; her eyes flashed like
lightning — then she shut them tightly.

'' She has a soul," he said, looking at
the stillness of this queen of the sands,
golden like them, white like them, solitary
and burning like them.

Ah ! how did it all end ?

Alas; as all great passions do end — in
a misunderstanding. From some reason
one suspects the other of treason ; the.\
don't come to an explanation througl
pride, and quari-el and part from sheei
obstinacy. Yet sometimes at the best
moments a single word or a look are
enough.

"Well," the old fellow continued,
" with her sharp teeth she one day
caught hold of my leg — gently, I dare-
say ; but I, thinking she would devour

206

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

me, plunged my dagger into her throat.
She rolled over, giving a cry that froze
my heart ; and I saw her dying, still look-
ing at me without anger. I would have
given all the world — my cross even, which
I had not got then — to have brought her
to life again. It was as though I had
murdered a real person ; and the soldiers
who had seen my flag, and were come to
my assistance, found me in tears.

''Well, sir," he said, after a moment
of silence, ''since then I have been in war
in Germany, in Spain, in Russia, in
France ; I've certainly carried my car-

cass about a good deal, but never have I
seen anything like the desert. Ah ! yes,
it is very beautiful ! "

"What did you feel there?" I asked
him.

" Oh ! that can't be described, young
man ! Besides, I am not always regret-
ting my palm trees and my panther. I
should have to be very melancholy for
that. In the desert, you see, there is
everything, and nothing."

" Yes, but explain — "

"Well," he said, with an impatient
gesture, "it is God without mankind."

IV.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

THE CHATEAU.

To Monsieur Nathan

" Les Aigues, Aug. 6, 1833.

"My dear Nathan — You, whose fan-
cies give the public such delicious dreams,
come with me and dream truth. Then
you may tell me whether this century can
bequeath such dreams to the Nathans and
Blondets of the year 1923. You shall
measure our distance from the time when
the Florines of the 18th century found,
upon awakening, a chateau like that of
les Aigues in their contract.

"My dear boy, if 3^ou receive my letter
in the morning, I want jo\x, from your
bed, to look at two little pavilions built
of red brick, and united, or rather sepa-
rated, by a green gate. Thej lie about
fifty miles from Paris, on the borders of
Burgundy, on the king's highway. That
is the place where the diligence deposited
your friend.

" On either side of these pavilions winds
a hedge of living green, from whence
brambles stray, like straggling locks of
hair. Here and there shoots of young
trees rise arrogantly. Beside the ditch,

beautiful flowers bathe their feet in still
green water. On the right and left, this
hedge joins two lines of trees, and the
meadow on each side which it serves to
inclose has been cleared and redeemed
from waste land.

" A magnificent avenue has its begin-
ning at these old, crumbling pavilions ;
it is bordered with elms a hundred j^ears
old, whose umbrella-like heads incline
toward each other and form a long, ma-
jestic canopy. Grass grows in the ave-
nue ; the wheel- tracks are scarcely dis-
cernible. The age of the elms, the width
of the footpaths beside the avenue, the
venerable appearance of the pavilions,
with their brownish stone corners, all
indicate that this is the approach to a
chateau that is almost royal.

"Before I reached this gate, when I
was at the top of a hill which we French
are vain enough to call a mountain, and
at whose foot lies the village of Conches,
which is the stopping-place of the post-
chaise, I saw the long valley of les Aigues,
at the end of which the high-road turns,
and goes straight to the little sub-prefect-
ure of Ville-aux-Fayes, which is ruled over
by the nephew of our friend Lupeaulx.
Immense forests along the horizon on a
high hill bordered by a river overlook

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

207

this rich valley, which is framed in the
distance by the mountains of a little
Switzerland called the Morvan. These
extensive forests belong" to les Aigues, to
the Marquis de Ronquerolles and to the
Count de Soulanges, whose chateaux and
parks and far-off villag-es resemble the fan-
tastic landscapes of Breug-hel de Velours.

'•' If these details do not put j^ou in mind
of all the chateaux en Espagne which you
have long-ed to possess in France, you are
not worthy of this story which is g-iven
you by a bewildered Parisian. I have at
last found a place where art ming-les with
nature, and where neither is spoiled b^^
the other ; where art seems like nature,
and where nature is artistic. I have
come to the oasis of which we have so
often dreamed after reading* some ro-
mance : a nature luxuriant and decor-
ated, containing" accidents of picturesque-
ness without confusion, something wild
and mysterious, secret, and out of the
commonplace. Let us pass the g"ate and
walk on.

" When my curious eye strives to pierce
the leng"th of the avenue, where the sun
penetrates onl}'' at its rising" and setting",
at which time it stripes the g"round with
zebra-like rays, my glance is checked by
a small elevation ; but after making a
detour around this little hill, the long"
avenue is cut off by a small g"rove, and
we find ourselves in an open square, in
the midst of which stands a stone obelisk,
like an eternal exclamation point of ad-
miration. Between the stones of this
monument, which ends in a spiked ball
(onl}'- fanc}^ !), hang" purple or j^ellow
flowers, according to the season. Les
Aig'ues must certainly have been built
by a woman, or for a woman ; no man
would have had such coquettish ideas ;
the architect must have had special in-
structions.

'•' After crossing" the wood, which seems
placed there for a sentinel, I reach a
delicious bit of ground, at the bottom
of whose slope rushes ii brook, which I
cross upon a little stone arch, covered
with superb mosses — the prettiest of
Time's mosaics. The avenue follows the
course of the brook, by a gentle ascent.

In the distance I can see the first picture :
a mill, with its dam, its causeway and its
trees, its ducks, its linen spread out to
dry, its thatched house, its nets and its
fish-pond, to say nothing" of its miller,
who is examining" me curiously. Where-
ever you go in the countr^^ no matter
how certain you may be that you are
alone, you are sure to be the target for
two eyes shaded by a cotton cap ; the
laborer drops his hoe, the vine-dresser
lifts his bowed back, the little g-uardian
of g-oats or cows or sheep climbs into a
willow to spy upon you.

' ' Soon the avenue changes to an alley
bordered b^^ acacias, which leads to a
g"ate that is evidently contemporary with
the period when the iron-workers fash-
ioned those airy filag"rees that resemble
nothing" so much as the scrolls a writing"-
master sets for a copy. On each side of
the g"rating" there extends a small ditch
whose crest is g"arnished with menacing-
spears and barbs, like iron porcupines.
This g-ate is also flanked by two lodg-es,
which are similar to those at the palace
of Versailles, and is surmounted by colos-
sal vases. The gold of the arabesques is
turning" red, for rust has painted it ; but
this g-ate, called the avenue grate, which
reveals the hand of the g"reat dauphin, to
whom les Aigues owes it, is to me very
beautiful.

" At the end of the hedge come walls of
smooth stone, massed tog-ether with mor-
tar made' of a red earth ; the stones have
manifold tints ; the bright yellow of the
silex, the white of the chalk, and the red-
dish brown of the sandstone, in man}"^ a
capricious form. The park at first seems
gloomy ; its walls are hidden by climbing
vines and by trees which ^ave not heard
for fifty years the sound of the ax. The
place seems to have gone back to its vir-
g-in state, hy a phenomenon peculiar to
forests. The trunks of the trees are cov-
ered with cling-ing creepers which festoon
themselves from one tree to another.
Shining green mistletoe hang"s from the
forks of the branches, wherever it can find
sufficient moisture. I come across g-igan-
tic ivies, those wild arabesques which only
flourish at fifty leag'ues from Paris, where

208

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the land is not too expensive to allow
them room to grow. Landscape, in the
true sense of the word, requires plenty of
room. Here nothing- is put in order ; the
rake is never used ; the wheel-ruts are full
of water ; frog-s live their tranquil life ;
the beautiful forest flowers bud and
bloom, and the heather is as fine as that
which was broug-ht to you by Florine in
Januar3^

" This m^'stery excites me, and inspires
me with vag-ue desires. The forest odors,
which delight poetic epicures, who care
for the most innocent mosses, the most
venomous plants, the moist earth, the
willows, the balsams, the wild thj^me,
the green water of a pool, the rounded
star of the yellow water-lil}^ : all these
vig-orous growths send their frag-rance
to my nostrils, and in all of them I find
one thought, which is perhaps their soul.
I dream of a rose-colored dress fluttering
along the winding path.

'' The allej^ ends abruptly with a final
thicket, composed of birches, poplars, and
all the rest of that intelligent family of
trees with graceful limbs and elegant
form, whose leaves tremble constantly.
From there, my dear boy, I see a pond
covered with water-lilies, and their broad,
flat leaves ; on the pond a whitaand black
boat, coquettish as the shallop of a barge-
man of the Seine, and light as a nut-shell.
Beyond the water rises a chateau, bear-
ing the date 1560^ it is built of red brick,
with stone trimmings at the comers and
windows, which still preserve their loz-
enge-shaped panes. The stone is cut in
diamond points, but hollowed, as in the
ducal palace at Venice, on the fagade of
the Bridge of Sighs.

" This chateau is irregularly built, ex-
cept in the center, from which descends a
double flight of steps, stately and wind-
ing, with rounded balustrades w^hich are
slender at the top and thicker as they
descend. This main part of the chateau
is flanked hy clock-towers, where the
flower-beds are stiffly outlined, and mod-
ern pavilions have railings and vases
which are more or less Greek. No sym-
metr^'^ here, you see. These buildings,
brought together as if by chance, are

guarded by several evergreen trees, whose
foliage showers upon the roofs in thou-
sands of tinj^ brown arrows, which nourish
the mosses, and vivifv the picturesque
cracks where the eye rests gladly. There
is the pine of Italy, with its red bark and
its majestic umbrella of foliage ; there is
a cedar two hundred years old ; a few-
weeping willows, a Northern fir tree, and
a beech which towers above it. In front
of the principal tower there are several
singular trees ; a clipped yew, which re-
calls some ancient French garden, long
since destro^^ed ; there are magnolias with
hydrangeas at their feet ; the place is like
a hospital for out-of-date heroes of horti-
culture, who have in turn been the fashion,
and in turn have, like all heroes, been for-
gotten.

''A chimney of original shape, which is
smoking plentifully at one of the angles,
assures me that this delightful picture is
not a set scene in an opera. Since there
is a kitchen, there are living* beings. Can
3'ou see me, Blondet, I who think myself
in the polar regions w^hen I am at Saint-
Cloud, can you see me in the midst of this
glowing Burgundy landscape? The sun is
pouring down its most vivifying warmth;
there is a kingfisher at the border of the
pond ; the grasshoppers and crickets are
chirping; the grain-pods are cracking
open ; the poppies are dropping their mor-
phine in luscious tears, and everything is
sharply outlined beneath the deep blue of
the sky. Above the reddish earth of the
terraces escape the joj'-ous flames of that
natural punch which intoxicates insects
and flowers, and which burns our e\'es and
browns our faces. The grape is ripening,
and its tendrils hang in a network of
white threads that put laces to shame.
Along the house blue larkspurs, nastur-
tiums and sw^eet-peas are glowing. A
few tube-roses stand at a distance, and
orange trees perfume the air. After the
poetic exhalations of the woods come the
intoxicating pastilles of this botanical se-
raglio.

" At the top of the steps, like the queen
of the flowers, I see a woman dressed in
white beneath an umbrella lined with
white silk. But she is herself whiter than

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

209

the silk, whiter than the hlies at her feet,
whiter than the jasmine stars which thrust
themselves boldh- through the balus-
trades ; she is a Frenchwoman, born in
Russia, and she says : ' I had ceased to
expect you. ' She had seen me from the
turn in the road. With what perfection
do all women, even the most innocent,
■understand how to pose for effect ! The
sound of preparations within tell me that
they have "v^'aited breakfast until the arri-
val of the dilig-ence.

" Is not this our dream, the dream of
all lovers of the beautiful, no matter
under what form it comes, whether in
the seraphic beauty which Luini has put
into 'The Marriage of the Virgin,' his
beautiful fresco at Sarono, or the beauty
which Rubens has found in his ' Battle of
the Therraodon,' or the beauty which it
took five centuries to elaborate in the
cathedrals of Seville and Milan, the
beauty of the Saracens at Grenada,
the beauty of Louis XIV. at Versailles,
the beauty of the Alps or the beauty of
the Limagne ?

'' This estate has nothing either too
princelj'" or too financial about it, al-
though prince and farmer-general have
both lived here, which serves to explain
its peculiarities. It has, depending upon
it, four thousand acres of woodland, a
park of nine hundred acres, the mill,
three farms, and another immense farm
at Conches, besides its vineyards ; the
whole thing must bring in an income of
seventy-two thousand francs. That is
les Aigues, my friend, where I have been
expected for the last two years, and
where I am at this moment, in the
'chintz room,' which is kept for inti-
mate friends.

'* At the upper end of the park, toward
Conches, a dozen clear, limpid streams
from out the jMorvan flow down to empty
themselves into the pond, after having
ornamented with their liquid ribbons the
valleys of the park and its magnificent
gardens. The name of les Aigues comes
from these charming water-courses. In
the old title-deeds the place was called
Aigues -Vives, in contradistinction to
AigTies - Mortes, but of late years the

word Vives has been dropped. The
pond empties into the stream which
runs parallel with the avenue, through
a large, straight channel, bordered its
whole length with weeping willows. This
channel, thus ornamented, produces a de-
lightful effect. Floating down, seated in
the little boat, it is easy to imagine one's
self beneath the nave of an immense ca-
thedral, whose choir is represented by
the main building* of the chateau which
is seen in the perspective. When the
setting sun throws upon the building its
orange tints, mingled with shadows, and
lighting up the window-panes, it is easy
to imagine that the windows are of
stained glass.

" At the end of the stream can be seen
Blangy, the principal town of the com-
mune, which contains about sixty houses,
together with a village church, a tumble-
down building, ornamented with a wooden
belfrj^ which seems to hold together a roof
of broken tiles. The house of a well-to-
do citizen, and the parsonage, can be
distinguished from all the others. The
commune is a large one, and contains at
least two hundred scattered houses be-
sides, to which this collection forms the
nucleus. The commune is here and there
cut up into little gardens ; the roads are
remarkable for their fruit trees. The gar-
dens are typical peasant gardens, and
contain everything : flowers, onions, cab-
bages and vines, currants, and plent^^ of
manure. The village has an innocent air;
it is rustic ; it has a certain ornamental
simplicit}'' of which artists are alwaj's in
search. In the distance is the little town
of Soulanges, overhanging the borders of
a vast lake, like a building on the lake
of Thoune.

" When Avalking in this park, which has
four gates, each one superb in style, the
Arcadia of m3^thology seems flat and
stale. Arcadia is in Burgundy and not
in Greece ; Arcadia is at les Aig-ues and
nowhere else. A river, made up of sev-
eral brooks, crosses the lower part of the
park, in a serpentine course, and gives an
air of freshness and quiet and solitude
which reminds one of the old monasteries;
all the more so, since upon an artificial

210

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

island there is really a ruined monastery,
whose elegant interior is worth}"^ of the
voluptuous financier who founded it. Les
Aig-ues, my friend, belonged to that
Bouret who once spent two millions in en-
tertaining- Louis XV. How many stormy
passions, distinguished intellects and iort-
unate circumstances have been necessary
in order to create this beautiful place !
One of Henri IV. 's mistresses rebuilt the
chateau on the spot where it now stands,
and joined the forest to it. The favorite
of the grand dauphin, to whom the place
was given, increased the property by
several farms. Bouret furnished it Avith
all the exquisite trifles he could find,
for one of the celebrities of the opera.
The place owes to Bouret the restora-
tion of the ground floor in the style of
Louis XV.

" I am lost in astonishment and admira-
tion when I see the dining-room. The eye
is at first attracted by a ceiling painted in
fresco in the Italian style, and displaying
the most wonderful arabesques. Female
forms in stucco, ending in leaves and
branches, sustain at equal distances bas-
kets of fruit, upon which the foliage of the
ceiling rests. In the panels which sepa-
rate each female figure, unknown artists
have painted admirable representations of
the glories of the table — salmon, boars'
heads, shell-fish, in fact, the whole world
of edibles, which by fantastic resemblances
recall men, women and children, and which
vie with the oddest imaginations of the
Chinese; the people who, to my thinking,
understand decoration better than anj^
other. Beneath her feet the mistress of
the house has a little bell, by which she
can call her domestics just at the right
moment, without ever fearing that they
will interrupt a conversation or derange
an attitude. All the embrasures of the
windows are of marble mosaics. The
room is warmed from beneath. Each
window gives a delicious view.

" This room communicates on one side
with a bath-room, and on the other with
a boudoir which opens into the salon.

" The bath-room is lined with tiles of
Sevres porcelain, painted in cameo ; the
floor is mosaic, and the bath marble. An ,

alcove, concealed by a picture painted
upon copper, which turns on a pivot, con-
tains a couch of gilded wood in the ultra-
Pompadour style. The ceiling is of lapis-
lazuli, starred with gold. The cameos
are painted from designs by Boucher.

" Beyond the salon, which displays all
the magnificence of the style of Louis
XIV., comes a magnificent billiard-room,
which has not, to my knowledge, its equal
in Paris. The entrance to this ground -
floor is a semi-circular antechamber, at
the further end of which is one of the
most coquettish of staircases, lighted
from above, which leads to rooms which
were all built at different epochs. And
to think that they cut off the heads of
the farmers-general in 1793 ! How was
it possible for them to be so blind as not
to understand that the marvels of art are
impossible in a country which has no
great fortunes, no assured g-reat exist-
ences ? If the Left feels that it must kill
all the kings, why not leave us a few lit-
tle princes, who are a good deal better
than nothing at all.

"These accumulated riches belong at
the present time to a little artistic wo-
man, who, not content with having them
magnificently restored, takes care of them
lovingl3^ Pretended philosophers, who
seem to study humanity, while they are
in reality studying themselves, call these
beautiful things extravagances. They
fall down before the manufactories of
calico and the commonplace inventions
of modern industry, as if we were greater
and happier to-day than in the time of
Henri IV., Louis XIV. and Louis XVI.,
who have all left the seal of their reign
at les Aigues. What palaces, what
royal chateaux, what great dwellings,
what fine works of art, what stuft's
brocaded in gold shall we leave behind
us ? Nowadaj^s we hunt up our grand-
mothers' skirts, and cover our armchairs
with them. We are so selfish and stingy
that we level everj^'thing with the ground,
and plant cabbages where marvels of art
once rose. Yesterday the plow passed
over Persan, that magnificent domain
which gave a title to one of the wealth-
iest families of the Parisian government ',

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

211

the hammer has demolished Montmorency,
which cost one of the Italians of Napoleon's
coterie enormous sums ; Val, the creation
of Regnaud de Saint Jean d'Ang-ely, and
Cassan, built by a mistress of the Prince
de Conti, have also disappeared, making-
four which have gone from the valley of
the Oise alone. We are preparing the
Campagna of Rome around Paris, in an-
ticipation of an overturning of things, the
tempest of which shall blow from the
North on our plaster palaces and paste-
board decorations.

" You see, my dear boy, how far the
habit of writing bombast for a journal
will lead one ! I have actually composed
an article. Does the mind, like the high-
way, have its ruts ? I must stop, for I
am robbing the Government and m^^self,
and I am probably boring 3'ou. More to-
morrow ; I hear the second bell, which
announces one of those plentiful dinners
that have long since gone out of date in
the dining-rooms of Paris.

'''The following is the history of my
Arcadia. In 1815, there died at les
Aigues one of the most famous women
of the last centurj^, a cantatrice who had
been forgotten b}' the guillotine and the
aristocracy, by literature and by finance,
after having had a part in the last three,
and barely escaped the first ; she was
forgotten, as are so many charming old
women who take the naemory of an adored
youth into the country with them, and
replace the lost love of the past, by the
love of nature. Such women live in the
flowers, the woodland scents, the skies,
and the sunshine, with everything that
sings, flutters, shines or grows ; with the
birds, the lizards, the flowers and the
grasses ; tliey do not understand it, they
do not analj'ze it, but they love it ; so
well, that they forget dukes, marshals,
rivalries, and farmers-general, their fol-
lies and their effeminate luxury, their
precious stones, high-heeled slippers and
rouge, for the pleasures of the country''.

" I have looked up consklerable informa-
tion concerning the last years of Made-
moiselle Ln guerre, for I confess that I
feel occasionally a little curiosity concern-
ing the old age of such women, much as

a child might wonder what becomes of
the old moons.

" In 1790, frightened by the aspect of
public affairs. Mademoiselle Laguerre
came to take up her abode at les Aigues,
which had been given her by Bouret.
The fate of Du Barry so startled her that
she buiied all her diamonds. She was
then only fifty -three years old ; and ac-
cording to her maid, who afterward mar-
ried the mayor, ' Madame was more beau-
tiful than ever.' Nature doubtless has
its reasons for treating these women like
spoiled children ; the life of excitement
which the3^ lead, instead of kilUng them,
seems to improve their health, and re-
juvenate them ; beneath a lymphatic ap-
pearance they have nerves strong enough
to sustain their marvelous physique ; and
for some mysterious reason, they remain
always beautiful.

Mademoiselle Laguerre lived an irre-
proachable life at les Aigues. When she
came there she gave up lier former name,
and called herself Madame des Aigues,
the better to merge her identity in the
estate, and she pleased herself by making
improvements in the place which were
truly artistic. When Bonaparte became
first consul, she increased her property
\)y adding some of the church lands to it,
purchasing them with her diamonds. As
an opera singer knows very little about
taking care of her property, she gave up
the management of the land to a steward,
only busying herself with the park, her
flowers, and her fruits.

When this lady was dead and buried at
Blagny, the notary of Soulanges (the lit-
tle village situated between the Ville-aux-
Fayes and Blangj^ the principal town of
the canton) made an elaborate inventory\
and finally discovered the singer's heirs,
who had been entirely unknown to her.
Eleven families of poor peasants in the
neighborhood of Amiens went to sleep in
rags and awoke one fine morning to find
themselves between sheets of gold. The
property was sold at auction. Les Aigues
was bought by Montcornet, who had
saved in Spain and Pomerania enough
money for the purchase, which was made
for something like eleven hundred thou-

212

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

sand francs, including* the furniture.
The general doubtless felt the influence
of these luxurious apartments, and I
was telling- the countess ^''esterdaj'" that
I looked upon her marriage as a direct
result of the purchase of les Aigues.

" My dear friend, to appreciate the
countess, you must know that the gen-
eral is a violent, passionate man, five feet
nine inches tall, round as a tower, with a
thick neck and the shoulders of a black-
smith, which must have ampl^^ filled a
cuirass. Montcornet commanded the cui-
rassiers at the battle of Essling-, which
the Austrians call Gross- Aspern, and al-
most perished there when the noble corps
was driven back toward the Danube. He
succeeded in crossing the river astride of
an enormous log. The cuirassiers, when
they found the bridg-e was broken, were
spurred on by Montcornet's voice to the
sublime determination to turn and face
the whole Austrian army, who, on the
following daj^, carried off more than thirt}^
wag"on-loads of cuirasses. The Germans
have invented for these cuirassiers a single
word which means 'men of iron.' *

* On principle I object to foot-notes, and this is
the first one that I have allowed myself ; its his-
toric interest must serve as its excuse; it will fur-
thermore prove that battles may be described
otherwise than by the dry terms of technical
writers, who for three thousand years have talked
only of the right or left wing-, or the center, but
vv^ho do not say a word of the soldier, his heroism
and his suffering-. The conscientious manner in
which I prepared my " Scenes in Military Life "
led me to all the battlefields watered by French
and foreign blood; and in the course of this pil-
grimage I visited the field of Wagram. Wiien I
reached the borders of the Danube, opposite Lo-
bau, I saw upon the banks, which were covered
with fine grass, undulations similar to those in a
field of lucern. I asked the reason for this dis-
position of the earth, thinking I should receive an
answer explaining some method of agriculture.
"There," replied the peasant who served as my
guide, " there sleep the cuirassiers of the Imperial
Guard; those are their graves." The words made
me shudder; Prince Frederic de Schwartzenberg,
who translated them, added that this was the
very peasant who had conducted the convoy of
wagons loaded with the cuirasses. By one of
those odd coincidences so frequent in war, our
guide had also furnislied Napoleon's breakfast on
the morning of the battle of Wagram. Although

'* Montcornet looks like one of the heroes
of antiquity. His arms are large and
muscular, his chest is broad and deep ;
his head is of the magnificent leonine type;
his voice is fit to command a charge in the
heat of battle ; but he has no more than
ordinary courag-e, and he lacks intelligence
and daring. Like many g-enerals, to whom
military g-ood sense, the natural boldness
of a man who is always in the midst of
danger, and the habit of command, g-ive
an appearance of superioritj^ Montcornet
is at first imposing- ; he is taken for a
Titan, but he conceals within him a dwarf,
like the pasteboard g-iant who welcomed
Elizabeth at the entrance of Kenilworth
Castle. Choleric but good-hearted, and
full of imperial pride, he has a soldier's
brevity, a prompt repartee, and a hand
still more prompt. He was superb on the

he was a poor man, he always kept the double
Napoleon wliich the emperor had given him for
his eggs and milk. The cure of Gross-Aspern was
our guide to the famous cemetery where French
and Austrians fought, in blood up to their knees,
with a courage and persistence equally glorious
upon either side. He told us that a marble tablet
upon which our attention was riveted, and which
bore the name of the owner of Gross-Aspern, who
was killed on the third day, was the sole recom-
pense awarded to the family; and he added nnourn-
fullj': " It was a time of great suffering and great
promises; but to-day is the time of forgetful ness."
These words seemed to me magnificently simple;
but when I reflected upon them, I found a reason
for the apparent ingratitude of the house of Aus-
tria. Neither peoples nor kings are rich enough
to reward all the devotion to which great wars
give rise. Those who serve a cause with a secret
desire for reward set a price upon their blood, and
make of themselves condottieri. Those who wield
the sword or the pen for their country should
think only of " doing good," as our fathers said,
and should accept glory only as a fortunate ac-
cident.

It was when he was on the way to recapture
this famous cemetery for the third time, that
Massena, wounded, and carried in the box of a
wagon, rallied his soldiers with this sublime apos-
trophe : " What ! n'ou rascals, j'ou have only five
sous a daj'', and I have forty millions ; will a-ou let
me go ahead of j'ou ! " The emperor's order of the
day, given to his lieutenant, and brought by Mon-
sieur de Sainte-Croix, who swam thrice across the
Danube, is well known : " Die, or recapture the
village ; the arm^'^'s safety depends upon it. The
bridges are broken." — The Author.

TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

213

battlefield, but he is detestable in the
household ; he knows how to love only
with the love of a soldier, whose love-g-od,
according- to the ancients, is Eros, the
son of Mars and Venus. These delig-htful
chroniclers of religions provided at least a
dozen different g-ods of love, and in study-
ing- them, 3'ou will discover a most com-
plete social nomenclature ; and we think
that we invent things ! When the g-lobe
shall turn, like a sick man in his dreams ;
when the seas shall become continents,
the Frenchmen of that time will find at
the bottom of the ocean of to-day a steam-
engine, a cannon, a newspaper and a chart,
tang-led up in the marine plants.

'' The Countess de Montcornet is a
small, frail, delicate, timid woman.
What do 3''ou say to such a marriage
as that ? To a man who knows the
world, a well-assorted marriage is the
exception. I have come here to see how
this little slender woman manag-es to
g-uide this great big, square g-eneral,
as he guided his cuirassiers.

'•' If Montcornet speaks in a loud tone
before his Virginie, madame puts her
(ing-er on her lips, and he is dumb. The
soldier g-oes to a kiosk, a short distance
from the chateau, to smoke his pipe and
liis cig-ars, and he returns perfumed.
Proud of his subjection, he turns toward
her when anything is proposed, as if to
sa3- : 'If madame wishes.' When he
comes to his ^^'^fe's room, with that
heavy step of his which shakes the
pavements as if they had been planks,
if she calls out hastily : ' Do not come
in ! ' he makes a military about-face,
and says humbly: 'Send for me when I
can speak to 3'ou,' in the same tones with
which, on the Danube, he shouted to his
cuirassiers : "' My boys, we must die, and
die like men, if there is nothing else to be
done.' I heard him say of his wife : 'I
not only love her, bat I venerate her.'
When he gets one of his ang-ry fits, which
go beyond all bounds, the little Avoman
goes to her own room and leaves him to
have it out ; but four or five days later
she says to him : ' Do not put j'-ourself
in a passion : you might break a blood
vessel, to say nothing of the pain which

you give me.' And the lion of Essling-
runs to wipe away a tear. When he
comes to the salon where we are talking,
she says to him : ' Leave us ; he is read-
ing" something to me ; ' and he goes awa^'.

" There is nothing like these great,
strong, passionate men, these thunder-
bolts of war, these Olympian-headed
diplomats, these men of genius, for this
confidence, this generosity toward feeble-
ness, this faithful protection, this love
without jealousy, this good-nature with
a wife. Upon m^'- word ! I set the science
of the countess's management of her hus-
band as far above dry and peevish virtues,
as the satin of an armchair is preferable
to the Utrecht velvet of a dirty bourgeois
sofa.

''I have been here six days, and I am
never weary of admiring the marvels of
this park, surrounded by gloomy forests,
whose pretty paths follow the course of
the stream. Nature, with its silence and
its tranquil joys, has taken poesession of
me. This is the true literature ; there is
never anj'- fault of style in a meadow.
True happiness here consists in forgetting
everything, even the 'Debats.' Perhaps
you can guess that it has rained two
mornings since I have been here. While
the countess has slept, and Montcornet
had been riding about the property, I
have kept perforce the promise to write
to you, which I so imprudentlv gave.

*'' Until now, although I was bom in
Alencon, and am tolerably'- well acquaint-
ed with the fruits of the earth, the exist-
ence of landed property capable of bring-
ing in an income of four or five thousand
francs a month has always seemed like a
fable to me. Money, for me, is equivalent
to four horrible words — work, the book-
shops, newspapers and politics. When
shall we have a country where money
will grow in some pretty landscape?
That is my wish for you, in the name of
the theater, the press, and book-making.
Amen.

'•Will Florine be jealous of the late
Mademoiselle Laguerre ? Our modern
Bourets have no longer the French no-
bilitj'- which teaches them to live. They
share a box at the opera among three of

214

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

them, divide the expenses of a pleasure
trip, and no longer cut down mag-niflcent
quartos and have them rebound to match
the octavos of their library ; in fact, they
scarcely buy paper-covered books nowa-
days. What are we coming to ?

"Adieu, my friends ; do not forget to
love Your dear Blondet."

If this letter, from one of the idlest
pens of our time, had not been preserved
by a miraculous cliance, it would have
been impossible to describe les Aigues.
And without this description the horrible
occurrences which took place there would
perhaps be less interesting.

Probabl}'^ many people expect to see the
colonel's cuirass lighted up, and to watch
his anger flame out, falling like a thun-
derbolt upon his little wife, and to meet
at the end of the story the domestic trag-
edy which comes at the end of so many
modern dramas. Will the climax take
place in this prett}^ salon, behind its blue
cameo doors, where pretty m^^thological
scenes are painted, where beautiful fan-
tastic birds are apparently flying upon
the ceiling and the blinds, where china
monsters laugh, open-mouthed, upon the
mantelpiece ; where, on the richest vases,
blue dragons wind their tails around the
border which the fanciful Japanese have
enameled with the most delicate colored
lace ; where the sofas, the lounges, the
mirrors and the etageres inspire that
contemplative idleness which takes away
all energj^?

No, this drama is not confined to pri-
vate life ; it reaches higher — or lower.
Do not expect passion ; the truth will be
only too dramatic. Besides, the historian
should never forget that his mission is to
do justice to all ; the unfortunate and the
rich are equal beneath his pen ; for him,
the peasant has the grandeur of his pov-
erty, as the rich man has the pettiness of
liis folly ; since the rich man has his pas-
sions, and the peasant has onl}' his needs,
the peasant is doubly poor ; and though,
politically, his pretensions are pitilessl}^
repressed, humanly and religiously he is
sacred.

II.

A BUCOLIC FORGOTTEN BY VIRGIL.

When a Parisian finds himself in the
countrj^ he discovers that he is cut off
from all his habits, and soon feels the
weight of the dragging hours, in spite of
the most ingenious efforts of his friends.
And in the impossibility of forever talk-
ing the nothings of a tete-a-tete, which
are so soon exhausted, the hosts say to
you tranquilh^ : "You are getting bored
here." In fact, in order to taste the
delights of the country one must share
in its interests, understand its labors, and
its alternate harmony of pain and pleas-
ure, the eternal sj^mbol of human life.

When the power of sleep has once more
regained its equilibrium, when the fatigues
of the journey have been repaired, and
the country customs and habits have been
fully mastered, the most diflQcult moment
in life at a chateau, for a Parisian who is
neither a sportsman nor an agriculturist,
and who wears thin shoes, is the first
morning. Between the time of awaken-
ing and the breakfast hour, the ladies are
either sleeping or making their toilet, and
are unapproachable : the master of the
house has gone out early to look after his
own affairs, and a Parisian therefore
finds himself alone from eight o'clock
until eleven, which is the almost universal
breakfast hour in the countr3^

Although he lengthens his toilet as
much as possible, by wa\^ of diversion, he
soon loses this resource ; he may have
brought some work, but he usuallj^ puts
it back untouched, after having mastered
nothing but a knowledge of its difficulties ;
a writer is then obliged to wander around
the park, and gape at the rooks, or count
the big trees. Now, the more uncon-
strained is the life at one of these houses,
the more tiresome are these occupations,
unless a man belongs to the shaking
Quakers, or the honorable ho&y of car-
penters or bird-stuffers. If one is obliged,
like the landed proprietors, to live in the
countrj'^, he should fortify himself against
ennui b}^ some geological, mineralogical,
entomological or botanical hobb^'- ; but a

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

215

reasonable man does not set up a vice for
the sake of g-etting- rid of a fortnight.
The most mag-nificent property, and the
most beautiful castles, therefore, become
insipid without delay to those who possess
only the sight of them. The beauties of
nature seem mean and niggardly, com-
pared with their representation at the
theater. Paris sparkles then at every
facet. Without some particular interest
to attach a man, as Blondet was attached,
to a place which was " honored b}' the
steps and lig-hted by the eyes" of some
particular person, he would envy the birds
their wings, that he mig-ht fly away to
the constantly moving- sig-hts and heart-
rending- strug-g-les of Paris.

The long- letter written by the journalist
will reveal to penetrating- minds the fact
that he had reached that acme of satis-
faction attained by certain wing-ed things
when they are being- fattened for the mar-
ket, when they remain with their heads
sunk in their breasts, without either the
wishor the power to taste even the most ap-
petizing- food. Thus, when his formidable
letter was finished, Blondet felt the need
of strolling forth from the gardens of Ar-
mida and filling- in some manner the mor-
tal blank of the first three hours of the day;
for the time between breakfast and dinner
belongs to the chatelaine, who knows how
to make it fly. To keep a man of intellect,
as Madame Montcornet was doing-, for a
month in the country, without being- able
to detect a look of ennui on his face, is one
of woman's g-reatest triumphs. An affec-
tion which can resist such a trial as that
must certainly be lasting-. It is difficult
to understand why women do not oftener
make use of this, as a test of friendship
and devotion ; it would be impossible for
a fool, an eg-otist, or a man of little mind,
to pass through it successfully. Philip II.
himself, the Alexander of dissimulation,
would have told all his secrets during a
month's tete-a-tete in the country. Per-
haps that is why kings live in the midst of
excitement, and do not give any one the
rig-ht to see them for more than a quarter
of an hour at a time.

Emile Blondet, notwithstanding: his Pa-
risian habits, was still capable of enjoy-

ing the long-forg-otten delights of plaj^-
ing truant. The day after his letter was
finished, he caused himself to be awakened
by Francois, the head valet, who was de-
tailed for his special service, with the
intention of exploring- the valley of the
Avonne.

The Avonne is the little river which,
g-rowing- larg-er above Conches by means
of numerous brooks, some of which rise
at les Aig-ues, empties itself at Ville-aux-
Fayes into one of the largest of the trib-
utaries of the Seine. The g-eogfraphical
position of the Avonne, which is navig-able
for shallow craft for about four leagues,
gives their true value to the forests of les
Aigues, Soulang-es and Roquerolles, which
are situated on the ridge of the small hills
at whose base flows the charming river.
The park of les Aigues occupies the
greater part of the valley, between the
river which is bordered on two sides by
the forests of les Aigues, and the g-reat
high-road which is defined by old, twisted
elms on the horizon, running parallel to
the Avonne hills, the first step of the
magnificent amphitheater called the Mor-
van.

However vulgar the comparison may
be, it is nevertheless true that the park,
thus located in the valley, resembles an
immense fish whose head touches the
village of Conches, and its tail the bourg
of Blangj^ ; for, being longer than it is
wide, it spreads out in the middle to a
width of nearly two hundred acres, while
in the direction of Conches there are
scarcely thirty, aud toward Blangy
about forty. The situation of the place,
between three villages, a league from
the little town of Soulanges, from which
place the first plunge into this Eden is
taken, has led to the strife and encour-
aged the excesses which form the princi-
pal interest of the scene. If, seen from
the high-road above Ville-aux-Fayes, the
paradise of les Aigues causes travelers to
commit the sin of envy, what better can
be expected of the rich burghers of Sou-
langes and Ville-aux-Fayes, when they
have it constantly before their admiring
eyes ?

This final topographical detail is neces-

216

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

sary in order to make the reader under-
stand the situation, and the utiUty of the
four g-ates by which the park of les
Aig-ues is entered; the grounds are en-
tirely inclosed by walls, except in spots
where nature has arrang-ed fine points
of view, at which places sunk fences are
arranged. These four g-ates, called the
gate of Conches, the Avonne g"ate, the
Blang-y g-ate and the Avenue gate, illus-
strate so well the genius of the different
epochs at which they are constructed,
that in the interests of archaeology they
will be described, but as briefl}^ as Blondet
has already described that of the Avenue.

After a week of explorations with the
countess, the illustrious reviewer of the
"Journal des Debats" knew by heart
the Chinese pavilion, ■ the bridges, the
islands, the nionaster^^ the chalet, the
ruins of the temple, the Babj^lonian gla-
cier, the kiosks, and all the other inven-
tions of landscape gardeners, which
covered a space of perhaps nine hundred
acres ; he wished therefore to reach the
sources of the Avonne, which had been
often praised "by the general and the
countess, but a visit to which, although
planned each evening, had been forgotten
each morning.

Above the park of les Aigues, the
Avonne looks like an Alpine torrent.
Here it hollows itself a bed among the
rocks ; there it buries itself in an im-
mense hollow ; now the streams fall
abruptly in cascades, and anon it spreads
itself out after the fashion of the Loire,
flooding the soil and rendering naviga-
tion impracticable by reason of its con-
stantly changing channel.

Blondet took the shortest way across
the labyrinths of the park to reach the
Conches gate. This gate deserves a few
words, which will also throw some light
on a few historic details connected with
the pro pert \^

The founder of les Aigues was a j^ounger
son of the house of Soulanges, who had
made a wealthy marriage, and who wished
to make his brother jealous. It is to this
sentiment that we owe the fairy-like Isola-
Bella, on Lake Maggiore. In the Middle
Ages the chateau of les Aigues was situ-

ated upon the Avonne. Of this castle
nothing now remains but the door, com-
posed of a porch similar to that of forti-
fied cities, and flanked by two pepper-box
towers. Above the arch of the porch
rises powerful masonry', ornamented with
vegetation and pierced by three large
window-frames with crossbars. A wind-
ing staircase in one of the towers leads
to two rooms, and the kitchen is In the
second tower. The porch roof, which is
pointed, like all old carpentry, is distin-
guished by two weathercocks, perched at
the two ends of a ridge-pole ornamented
with odd-shaped ironwork. Many a large
place cannot boast of so fine a town-hall.
On the outside, the keystone of the arch
still shows the escutcheon of the Sou-
langes, preserved by the hardness of the
cliosen stone upon which the chisel of
the engraver had carved it : Azure, with
three staves on a pale, argent ; a fesse
over aU, gules, charged with five crosses,
or, aiguise ; and it bore the heraldic bar
imposed upon younger sons. The device,
which Blondet deciphered, was: ''I act
alone." The gate, which was opened for
Blondet by a pretty girl, was of old wood,
made heavy with corners of iron. The
keeper, awakened by the grinding of the
hinges, peeped out of the window and thus
showed himself in his night-shirt.

"Ah ! are our keepers still asleep at
this hour?" thought the Parisian, who
believed himself to be well up in forest
customs.

A quarter of an hour's walk brought
him to the sources of the river, above
Conches, and his eyes were charmed by
one of those landscapes, the description of
which, like the history of France, can be
told in one volume or in a thousand. We
will content ourselves with a few words.

A projecting rock, covered with dwarf
trees, and hollowed at the base by the
Avonne, by which combination of circum-
stances it somewhat resembles an enor-
mous tortoise lying across the water,
makes an arch through which can be
seen a little sheet of water, clear as a
mirror, where the Avonne seems to have
fallen asleep, and which ends on the other
side in cascades and great rocks, where

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

317

little elastic willows sway back and forth
constantly with the motion of the water.

Beyond these cascades the sides of the
hill are cut as steep as the rocks of the
Rhine, and covered with mosses and
heather ; but, like them, they are slashed
with fissures, through which pour here
and there boiling- white brooks, to which
a little meadow, always watered and al-
ways green, serves as a cup. In contrast
to this wild and solitary scene, the last
gardens of Conches show on the other
side of the picturesque chaos, at the end
of the meadows, together with the re-
mainder of the village, including its
church-tower.

There are the few words, but the rising
sun, the purity of the air, the dewy sharp-
ness, the concert of woods and waters ! —
imagine them !

" Upon my word ! that is almost as
fine as the Opera ! " thought Blondet, as
he made his way up the Avonne, which
was here unnavigable, and whose caprices
contrasted finely with the straight, deep,
silent channel of the lower Avonne,
shaded by the great trees of the forest
of les Aigues.

Blondet did not carrj'^his morning walk
very far, before he was stopped by one
of the peasants who are to pla^' such an
important part in this drama that it
will perhaps be difficult to Ivnow which
character has the leading role.

When he reached the group of rocks
between which the principal source of the
river is confined as between two gates,
Blondet saw a man whose immobility
would have been enough to arouse the
curiosity of a journalist, if the figure and
dress of the animated statue had not
already awakened his interest.

He recognized in this humble personage
one of those old men so dear to the pencil
of Charlet ; he resembled the troopers of
this Homer of soldiers by reason of the
solidity of a figure well able to endure
hardship ; his face was reddened, knotty,
and discontented. A hat of thick felt,
whose brim was held to the crown by
stitches, protected his partially bald head
from the inclemencies of the weather.
From it there fell two locks of hair which

a painter would have paid four francs an
hour to copy — a dazzling mass of snow,
arranged like that of all the classic pict-
ures of the Father. By the way in which
the sunken cheeks continued the lines of
the mouth, it was easy to guess that the
toothless old man was more addicted to
the bottle than to the trencher. His thin
white beard gave a menacing look to his
profile by means of the stiffness of the
close-cut hairs. His eyes, too small for
his enormous face, and slanting like those
of a pig, gave indications of both cunning
and idleness : but at this moment the3^
seemed to emit sparks, as they darted
upon the river.

The poor fellow's clothing consisted of
an old blouse which had once been blue,
and trousers made of the coarse burlap
which is used in Paris to wrap bales.
Any dweller in a city would have shud-
dered at sight of his broken sabots, with-
out even a wisp of straw to cover the
cracks. And certainl}'- his blouse and
trousers were of no value to any one ex-
cept a rag man.

As he examined this Diogenes of the
fields, Blondet admitted the possibility of
the type of peasants which is seen on old
tapestries, old pictures, and old sculpt-
ures, and which until then had seemed
to him out of the range of anything but
fancy. He no longer condemned abso-
lutely the school of ugliness, for he now
understood that among men the beauti-
ful is. only the flattering exception ; a
chimera Ih which man struggles to be-
lieve.

'' What can be the ideas and the mor-
als of such a being ? " thought Blondet,
curiously ; "of what can he be thinking ?
Is he like me ? We have nothing in com-
mon except form, and yet — "

He studied the rigidity' peculiar to the
tissues of men who live in the open air,
and who are accustomed to the inclemen-
cies of the weather, and to the excesses
of heat and cold ; who are, in fact, used
to almost all kinds of hardship, by reason
of which their skin is almost like tanned
leather, and their nerves serve as an ap-
paratus against phj^sical ills, almost as
effectual as that of the Arabs or Russians.

218

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" This is one of Cooper's red-skins/' lie
thought. " There is no need of g"oing- to
America to see a savage."

Although the Parisian was only a few
steps awaj^ from him, the old man did
not turn his head, hut stood looking at
the opposite hank with that fixity which
the fakirs of India give to their glassy
eyes and stiffened joints. Conquered by
this species of magnetism, which is more
common than might be believed, Blondet
finally looked at the water.

* ' Well, my good man, what are you
looking at ? " he asked finally, after a
good quarter of an hour, during which he
had been unable to discover anything
which could merit this profound atten-
tion.

" Hush ! " whispered the old man, mak-
ing a sign to Blondet not to disturb the
air with his voice, '•' you will frighten it — "

*'What?"

" An otter, my good sir. If it should
hear us, it would go under water. I am
certain that it jumped there ; see ! there
where the water is bubbling. Oh ! it is
after a fish ; but when it comes back
again, my boy will get it. You know an
otter is one of the rarest things in the
world. It is scientific game, and very
delicate ; they would give me ten francs
for it at les Aigues, for the lady fasts
there, and to-morrow is fast day. In the
old time, the late madame paid me as high
as twenty francs, and gave me back the
skin. Mouche ! " he called in a low voice,
" watch carefull3\"

On the other side of this branch of the
Avonne, Blondet now saw two shining
eyes like the eyes of a cat, beneath a
tuft of alders ; then he saw the tanned
forehead and tangled hair of a boy of
twelve or thereabouts, who was lying flat
on his stomach ; the boy made a sign to
point out the otter, and to let the old man
know that he had not lost sight of him.
Blondet, falling under the influence of
the old man and the boy, allowed him-
self to be bitten by the demon of the
chase.

This demon with two claws, hope and
curiositj'', leads a man where it will.

"The hat-makers will take the skin,"

continued the old man. " It is so beauti-
ful, so soft ! They cover caps with it."

" Do you think so, my good old man ? "
asked Blondet, smiling.

" Well, of course, monsieur, you ought
to know better than I, although I am
seventy years old," replied the old man
humbly and respectfully ; " and you can
perhaps tell me why it is that conductors
and wine-merchants are so pleased with
them."

Blondet, a master in irony, and already
on his guard on account of the word scien-
tific, suspected some mocker^'^ on the part
of the peasant, but he was reassured by
the naivete of his attitude and the stupid-
ity of his expression.

''In my young days we had lots of
otters," continued the peasant, "but
they have driven them out, until it is as
much as we can do to see the tail of one
once in seven j^ears, now. And the sub-
prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes — perhaps mon-
sieur knows him ? — although he is a Pari-
sian, he is a brave young man like yourself,
and he loves curiosities. And hearing of
my talent for catching otters, for I know
them as well as jow know your alphabet,
he said to me like this, says he : ' Pere
Fourchon, when you find an otter, bring
it to me, and I will paj'" you well for it,'
says he ; ' and if it should happen to have
some white spots on the back,' says he,
' I will give you thirtj'^ francs for it. '
That is what he said to me at the gate
of Ville-aux-Payes, as true as I believe in
God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Ghost. There is another wise
man at Soulanges, a Monsieur Gourdon,
our doctor, who is making, they say, a
natural history collection, which has not
its like at Dijon ; he is the first among
the learned men in this part of the coun-
try, and he will pay me a handsome price
for it. He knows how to stuff men and
beasts ! And my boy there insists upon
it that this otter has some white hairs.
' If that is so, ' I said to him, ' the good
God wishes us luck this morning.' Do
you see the water bubbling there ? Oh !
there it is. Although it lives in a kind of
burrow, it stays for entire days under
water. Ah ! it heard you then, mon-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

219

sieur ; it suspected something' ; there is
no animal more cunning- than the otter ;
it is worse than a woman."

'•'So you think women are cunning, do
you ? " said Blondet.

'^Oh! monsieur, you have come from
Paris, and you ought to know more about
that than I do ; "but you would have done
better for us if you had stayed asleep this
morning ; for, did you see that wake
there ? it has just gone under — Come,
Mouche ! the otter heard monsieur, and
it may keep us dancing here till mid-
night ; come awa3^ Our thirty francs
have swum away."

Mouche rose regretfully ; he looked at
the place where the water was bubbling,
and pointed hopefully toward it. This
boy, with his curl}^ hair, and his face as
brown as those of the angels in the pict-
ures of the fifteenth century, looked as
if he had on breeches, for his trousers
stopped at the knees with a fringe of
rags ornamented with brambles and
dead leaves. This necessary garment
was fastened on him by two strings of
tow, which took the place of suspenders.
A shirt of the same burlap as that of the
old man's trousers, but made thicker by
coarse darns, showed a sunburned little
chest. Mouche's costume was thus even
more primitive than that of Pere Four-
chon.

" They are good fellows in this part of
the country," said Blondet to himself;
" the people around Paris would have
called a man some pretty hard names
if he had driven away their game."

And as he had never seen an otter,
even at the museum, he was delighted
with his little adventure.

" Come ! " he said, touched at seeing
the old man turning away without asking
for anything, "you call yourself a good
hunter of otters. If you are sure that the
otter is there — ? "

From the other side, Mouche pointed
with his finger to some bubbles which
rose from the depths of the Avonne and
burst on its surface in the middle of the
basin.

*'He has come back there," said Four-
chon ; ''he breathed that time, the beg-

gar ! He made those bubbles. How does
he contrive to breathe under water ? But
he is such a rogue, he can get the better
even of science."

"Well," continued Blondet, to whom
this last remark seemed a joke, due
rather to the peasant mind than to the
individual, " stay here and catch the
otter?"

" And our day, Mouche's and mine ? "
" What is your day worth ? "
'• To both of us? Five francs," replied
the old man, looking askance at Blondin,
with a hesitation which revealed an enor-
mous overcharge.

The journalist drew ten francs from his
pocket, saying —

"Here are ten, and I will give you as
man}' more for the otter."

"And it won't cost you dear at that,
if it has white spots ; for the sub-prefect
told me there wasn't a museum as had
one of that kind. He is a learned man,
and he knows what he is talking about.
He is no fool ! If I am after the otter, he.
Monsieur des Lupeaulx, is after Monsieur
Gaubertin's daughter, who has a fine white
spot of a dowry on her back. Here, sir,
if I may make so bold, get on to that stone
yonder, in the middle of the Avonne.
When we have driven the otter out, he
will come down with the current, for that
is one of the cunning ways of the beast ;
they go up above their hole to feed, and
when they are loaded with their fish, they
know that they can easily come down
stream. Didn't I tell you they were cun-
ning ? If I had taken lessons of them, I
should be living on my income to-day. I
learned too late in fife that it was neces-
sary to go up stream early in the morn-
ing in order to find food before others got
it. Well, what was to be, is. Perhaps
the three of us together can be more cun-
ning than the otter."

" And how, my old magician ? "
" Oh ! we peasants are so much like
the animals that we finally get to under-
stand them. This is how we will do.
When the otter wants to go home, we will
frighten him here, and you will frighten
him there ; frightened by all of us, he will
make for the bank; if he takes to bare

220

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

ground, he is lost. He can't walk. His
duck's feet are made for swimming-. Oh !
it will amuse you ; it is a fine g-ame ; fish-
ing- and hunting- at the same time. The
g-eneral, there where you are stopping-,
came to see it three days in succession, he
was so carried away with it."

Blondet, armed with a whip which the
old man cut for him, with instructions to
whip the river with it when he gave the
word of command, went to his station in
the middle of the Avonne, leaping- from
stone to Stone.

'* There! that's it, monsieur."

Blondet stopped where he was, and
stood there without noticing- the flight of
time; for, from moment to moment a
g-esture from the old man made him ex-
pect a fortunate denouement ; and nothing-
makes the time pass more quickly than
the expectation of quick action which is to
succeed the profound silence of watchful-
ness.

*'Pere Fourchon," said the boy, softly,
when he found himself alone with the old
man, 'Hhere is really an otter."

"Do you see it? "

"There it is."

The old man was astounded to see under
water the red-brown fur of an otter.

"He is coming this w^ay," said the boy.

"Give him a sharp little blow on the
head, and throw yourself into the water
to hold him down : don't let him go."

Mouche dove into the river like a fright-
ened frog.

"Come, come, my dear monsieur," said
Pere Fourchon to Blondet, jumping- also
into the Avonne, after first kicking off
his sabots on the bank, "frighten him
now ! Do you see him ? there, toward
you ! "

The old man ran toward Blondet, beat-
ing- the water and calling out to him with
the serious manner which the country
people preserve even in the midst of their
greatest excitements :

"Do you see him, there, along- the
rocks? "

Blondet, who had been placed \>j the
old man in such a position that the sun
came full in his eyes, thrashed the water
in blind obedience.

" There ! there ! over by the rocks ! "
cried Pere Fourchon ; " the hole is over
there, at j^our left."

Carried away by his excitement, which
had only been stimulated by his long
waiting-, Blondet slipped off of the stone,
and stood in the water.

" Carefully, my good sir, carefull3'' !
there you are ! Ah ! twenty g-ood gods !
he has g-one between your legs ! he has
gone ! he has gone ! " said the old man
despairingly'.

And carried away by the excitement of
the hunt, the old peasant waded into the
river until he reached Blondet.

''It was all your fault that we lost
him," continued Pere Fourchon, taking
hold of Blondet 's hand and emerging from
the water like a vanquished Triton. " The
beggar is there, under the rocks. He left
his fish behind him," he added, looking
back to where something was floating
upon the water. " We'll have him 3'et."

Just then a servant in livery, on horse-
back, and leading another horse by the
bridle, came galloping- along the Conches
road.

" There is one of the people from the
castle, who seems to be looking for you,"
said the man. " If you want to get across
the river again, I will give you my hand.
Oh ! I don't mind getting wet ; it will save
the trouble of washing."

"And how about rheumatism ? " asked
Blondet.

"Pshaw!" he replied. "Do you not
see that the sun has clothed us, Mouche
and me, with a skin as brown as a tobacco
pipe ? Lean on me, my dear sir. You are
from Paris, and you do not know how to
balance 3'ourself on our rocks, although
you know so many things. If j-ou stay
here long, you will learn a great many
things in the book of nature, you who,
they say, write for the newspapers."

Blondet reached the other bank of the
Avonne before Charles, the valet, saw
him.

"Ah! monsieur," he exclaimed, "j^ou
cannot imagine how uneasy madame was
when she heard that you had gone out
through the Conches gate. She thinks
you are drowned. They have rung the

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

221

great bell three times, and called you
everywhere in the park, where Monsieur
le Cure is still looking- for 3''0u."

'' What time is it, Charles ? "

" A quarter of twelve."

''Help me to mount."

"Perhaps monsieur has been taken in
by Pere Fourchon's otter ? " ventured the
valet, noticing- the water which was drip-
ping- from Blondet's boots and panta-
loons.

The words enlightened the journalist.

'•'Don't say a w-ord about it, Charles,
and I'll make it right with you," he cried
hastily.

" Oh ! Monsieur le Comte himself was
taken in hj that otter," replied the serv-
ant. "As soon as a stranger comes to
les Aig-ues, Pere Fourchon is on the
watch for him, and if the visitor comes
to visit the sources of the Avonne, he
sells him his otter. He pla^'^s it so well
that Monsieur le Comte came here three
days in succession, and paid him six days
for watching- the water run."

" And I believed I had seen in Potier,
the young-er Baptiste, Michot and Mon-
rose, the greatest comedians of the age !"
thoug-ht Blondet ; " what are they be-
side this beggar? "

"Oh! he knows his little g-ame ver}'^
well," continued Charles. "He has, be-
sides, another string- to his bow, for he
calls himself a ropemaker. He has a
shop by the wall near the Blang-y g-ate.
If you happen to g-o near his rope, he will
g-et around you so well that he will make
you want to turn the wheel and make a
little rope f or 3'ourself ; then he will ask
the gratuity due to the master from the
apprentice. Madame was taken in by him
to the tune of twenty francs. He is the
prince of trickery," he ended.

This g-ossip caused Blondet to indulge
in reflections upon the profound astute-
ness of the peasantry, and to remember
all that he had heard from his father, the
judge of Alencon, on the subject. Then,
recalling all the hidden meanings in the
apparently guileless talk of Pere Four-
chon, he confessed to himself that he had
been well taken in by the old Burgundy
beggar.

"You would never believe, monsieur,"
said Charles, as Xihey reached the door-
step, ' ' how necessary it is to be suspicious
of everybody in the countrj', particularly
here, where the general is not much liked."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," replied Charles, as-
suming the air of stupidity beneath which
sers'^ants know how to shelter their mean-
ings, and which gave Blondet much food
for thought.

" There you are, runaway ! " said the
general, attracted to the door by the
sound of the horses' hoofs. " He is here,
do not be alarmed," he called to his wife,
whose little feet were heard approaching.
"Now every one is here except the Abbe
Brossette ; go and look for him, Charles,"
he added to the servant.

III.

THE WINE-SHOP. .

The Blangy gate was built by Bouret,
and consisted of two rough-hewn pilasters,
each surmounted by a dog sitting on his
haunches and holding an escutcheon be-
tween his two forepaws. As the stew-
ard's cottage was in the immediate vicin-
ity, the financier had not been obliged
to build a porter's lodge. Between the
two pilasters an elegant gate, like those
forged in the time of Buffon for the Jar-
din des Plantes, opened upon a paved
causewa}^ which led to the high-road,
formerly kept carefully in order b}' les
Aigues and the house of Soulanges, and
which connected Conches, Cerneux, Blan-
gy, Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes like a
garland, for the whole road was lined
with estates surrounded hj flowering
hedges, and little houses covered with
rose trees, honeysuckle and climbing
plants.

There, beside a pretty wall which ex-
tended as far as a sunk fence, where the
chateau grounds fell abruptly down the
valley, as far as Soulanges, could be found
the rotten posts, the old W'heel and the
forked stakes which constituted the w^ork-
shop of the village ropemaker.

222

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

About half past twelve, while Blondet
was sitting" at table opposite the Abbe
Brossette, and listening to the caressing-
reproaches of the countess, Pei-e Four-
chon and Mouche arrived at their estab-
lishment, where the old man, under pre-
text of makmg rope, could keep a Avatch
on les Aigues, and see who went out or
in. Thus nothing could escape the watch-
fulness of the old man — open blinds, tete-
a-tete walks, or the smallest incidents in
the life of the chateau. He had only set
up this business within the last three
years, but this circumstance had not as
yet been noticed, either by the keepers, the
masters, or the servants of les Aigues.

" Go around b}^ the Avonne gate while
I g-o and put away the things," said Pere
Fourchon, " and when 3'ou have done the
talking, they will probably send to the
Grand-I-vert for me, where I am going-
for a little refreshment ; for it makes me
terribly thirstj'" to be under water like
that. If you do as I have just told you,
you will probably hook on to a good
breakfast ; try and g-et a word with the
countess, and give a slap at me, so that
they will want to come and preach to
me. There are plenty of g-ood g-lasses of
wine to be got out of it."

After these instructions, which were
rendered almost superfluous by Mouche's
sly appearance, the old rope-maker, hold-
ing- his otter under his arm, disappeared
upon the high-road.

Halfway between the gate and the vil-
lage there was, at the time of Emile Blon-
det's visit to les Aigues, one of those
houses which can be found only in France,
where stones are rare. The pieces of
brick picked up here and there, the g-reat
pebbles inserted like diamonds in the
clayej" earth which formed the solid,
though time-eaten walls, the roof held
up by great branches and covered with
rushes and straw, the thick shutters, and
the door, all bore evidence of lucky finds
or treasures begged.

The peasant has for his dwelling the
same instinct that the animal has for its
nest or burrow, and this instinct shone
forth in all the arrangements of the cot-
tage. In the first place, the window and

door faced the north. The house, placed
on a little rise of ground in the most
gravelly part of a vineyard, was nec-
essarily healthy. The ascent to it was
by means of three steps which had been
laboriously made of stakes and planks,
and filled in with little stones. The drain-
age was therefore good. Then, as rain in
Burgundj'^ rarely comes from the north,
no dampness could rot the foundations,
although they were slightly built. Below,
a rustic paling bordered the path, which
was covered with a hedge of hawthorn
and sweet-brier. A trellis, beneath
which some rickety tables, flanked by
long benches, invited the passers-by to
sit down, covered with its canopy the
space which separated the cottage from
the road. On the bank by the house
grew roses, wall-flowers, violets, and
other of the more common flowers. A
hone3^suckle and a jasmine threw their
tendrils up to the roof, which was al-
ready covered with moss, notwithstand-
ing its recent date.

At the right of the house the owner had
put up a stable for two cows. There was
a space of trodden earth before this
wretched building, and in one corner was
an enormous heap of dung. On the other
side of the house and the trellis stood a
thatched shed, supported b}^ trunks of
trees, under which were stored the vine-
dressers' tools and their empty casks; and
fagots of wood were piled around the hump
of earth which formed the oven, whose
mouth, in peasants' houses, almost al-
ways opens beneath the mantel-piece.

Belonging to the house was about an
acre of land, surrounded by a quick-set
hedge, and planted with vines, as well
cared for as those of most peasants,
which are so well planted, manured and
dug about, that their branches grow
green before any others for three leagues
around. A few trees, almonds, plums and
apricots, showed their delicate heads in
this inclosure. Between the rows were
planted potatoes and beans. On the side
toward the village, and behind the little
courtyard, there was another small piece
of ground, low and moist, which was fav-
1 orable for the growth of cabbages and

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

233

onions, vegetables which are favorites
with the laboring- classes ; the place was
closed by a railed gate, throug-h which
the cows passed, trampling the earth and
covering it with dung.

This house, composed of two rooms on
the ground-floor, was entered through
the vineyard. On that side a wooden
staircase, fastened to the wall of the
house and covered with a thatched roof,
led to the garret, which was lighted by a
round window. Beneath this rustic stair-
case a cellar, made of Burgund^^ bricks.,
contained several casks of wine.

Although the cooking utensils of the
peasant usually consist of two articles,
with which every kind of cooking is done,
namely, a frying-pan and an iron pot,
exceptions to this rule, in the shape of
two great saucepans, hung beneath the
mantel-piece above a small portable stove,
were to be found in this cottage. But in
spite of this indication of comfortable cir-
cumstances, the furniture was in harmo-
ny with the outside of the hut. There was
a jar to hold the water ; the spoons were
of wood or pewter; the dishes of clay,
brown without and white within, showed
traces of having been broken and mended;
there was a solid table, with chairs of
white wood, and the floor was of hard
earth. Every five years the walls re-
ceived a coating of whitewash, as well as
the narrow beams of the ceiling, from
which hung hams, strings of onions,
bundles of candles, and the bags in which
peasants put their seeds ; near the knead-
ing-trough an old cupboard of black
walnut held the scanty linen, the change
of clothes, and the Sunday garments of
the family.

Over the mantel shone an old poacher's
gun ; it was apparently not worth five
francs ; the wood was scorched, and the
barrel looked as if it had never been
cleaned. It would seem that a cabin
wttich was fastened with nothing but a
latch, and whose outer gate, cut in the
palings, was never shut, would require
nothing better in the way of defense, and
that the weapon Avas useless. But in the
first place, while the wood was of the
cheapest, the barrel, carefully chosen.

came from a valuable gun, one that was
doubtless given to some gamekeeper. And
the owner of this gun never missed his
aim. There existed between him and his
weapon that intimate acquaintance which
the workman has with his tool. If his
gun needs to be raised or lowered the
thousandth part of an inch, because it
carries just a trifle above or below the
aim, the poacher knows it, and unfailing-
ly obeys this law. The essential parts of
this weapon were in goo^ condition, but
that was all. In everything which is
necessary to him, and which can be of
use to him, the peasant emploj^s the
required amount of energy ; but he does
not strive for anji^hing that is not abso-
lutely'- necessary. He never understands
exterior perfection. He is an infallible
judge of necessities, and knows just what
degree of strength he must exert ; and
when he is working for others, he under-
stands how to give the least possible
labor for the most possible value. This
apparently contemptible gun was one of
the important factors in the existence
of the famil}', as will be seen later.

Has the reader taken in all the details
of this hut, which was set down not more
than five hundred feet from the pretty
gate of les Aigues ? Does he see it,
crouched there like a beggar before a pal-
ace ? But its roof, covered with velvety
mosses, its clucking hens, its wallowing
pig, and its straying heifer, all these rural
poems had a horrible meaning. At the
gate in the paling, a great pole held up a
withered bouquet, composed of three pine
branches and an oak bough, tied with a
rag. Above the door a roving artist had
earned his breakfast by painting- on a
white background, two feet square, a huge
capital '' I " in green, and for the benefit
of those who knew how to read, this pun :
'' Au Grand-I-vert (hiver)." On the left
of the door was a rude sign, bearing in
bright colors the words : '' Good March
beer," together with the picture of a
foaming pot of the beer, on one side of
which was a woman in an exceedingly
decollete dress, and on the other a hussar,
both highly colored. Thus, in spite of the
flowers and the country air, the cottage

224

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

breathed forth the same strong- and nause-
' ating- odor of ardent spirits and food which
is noticeable in Paris in passing- the cheap
eating houses of the faubourg.

So much for the place ; now for the in-
mates and their history ;, which contains
more than one lesson for philanthropists.

The proprietor of the Grand-I-vert,
named Francois Tonsard, commends him-
self to the attention of philosophers by the
manner in which he solved the problem, of
life in such a manner as to make idleness
profitable, and industry unnecessary.

Being a Jack at all trades, he knew how
to work, but he did it for himself alone.
For others, he dug ditches, gathered fag-
ots, peeled the bark from trees or cut
them down. In these employments, the
employer is at the mercy of the workman.

Tonsard owed his little corner to the
generosity of Mademoiselle Laguerre. In
his early youth he had worked by the daj^
for the gardener at the chateau, for there
was not an}^ where his equal for trimming
the trees and hedges and horse-chestnuts.
His very name indicates an hereditary
talent in this direction. In remote coun-
try places privileges exist which are ob-
tained and preserved with as much art
as merchants emplo}^ in acquiring theirs.
One day when she was out walking, ma-
dame heard Tonsard, then a g-ood-looking-
young fellow, saj^ : " An acre of ground
would make me perfectly happy." The
good woman, who delighted in making
others happy, gave him the acre of vine-
yard beside the Blangy gate, in return
for a hundred days' work (a delicacy
which was vqyj little understood) ; he
was at the same time allowed to live
at les Aigues, where he fraternized with
the servants at the chateau, who soon
pronounced him the best fellow in Bur-
gundy.

Poor Tonsard, as everybody called him,
worked about thirt}^ days of the allotted
hundred ; the rest of the time he idled
away.

When he was fairly in possession of
his land, Tonsard said to the first one
who alluded to it as a gift :

" I have bought it and paid for it. Do
the great folks ever give us anything ? Is

a hundred days' work nothing ? It cost
me three hundred francs, and it is all
stony ground."

But he never said that to an 3^ one out-
side of his own class.

Tonsard then built his house himself,
taking materials here and there, making-
every one give him a helping hand,
gleaning- discarded rubbish from the cha-
teau, and ahvaj's getting what he asked
for. A defective door, which had been
broken up in order to be carried off,
served him as a door to his stable. The
window came from an old hot-house.
Thus the debris from the chateau served
to build this fatal hut.

Saved from conscription b^'- Gaubertin,
the steward of les Aigues, whose father
was prosecuting-attorney for the depart-
ment, Tonsard married as soon as his
house was finished and his vine in a con-
dition to bear. The rogue, twenty-three
years old, who was on intimate terms at
les Aigues, to whom madame had just
g-iven an acre of g-round, and who had the
appearance of being industrious, was art-
ful enough to make a great show with his
negative values, and he obtained for a
wife the daughter of a tenant on the
estate of Ronquerolles, beyond the forest
of les Aigues.

This farmer rented half a farm, which
was going to ruin in his hands, for want
of a wife. Being a widower, and incon-
solable, he tried, after the English fash-
ion, to drown his sorrows in wine ; but
when he had succeeded in forg-etting- his
dear dead wife, he found that he had es-
poused the wine-cup instead. In a short
time the father-in-law ceased to be a
farmer, and became once more a com-
mon laborer; but he was a drunken, idle
workman, quarrelsome and vindictive,
capable of anything, like all of the lower
class who, from a state of comparative
affluence, return once more to poverty.
This man, who, b}^ his practical knowl-
edge and his reading and writing, was
above the other workmen, but who was
held b}'^ his vices to the level of pauper-
ism, had just measured wits, as we have
seen, with one of the most spirituel men
of Paris.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

225

Pere Fourchon, who was first a school-
master at Blangy, lost his place on ac-
count of misconduct and heterodox ideas
upon public instruction. He was more in
the habit of helping the children to make
little boats and plaything's with their
alphabet books than of teaching- them to
read ; he scolded them in such a peculiar
manner when fhej had stolen fruit, that
his reprimands might have passed for
lessons upon the best method of scaling-
the walls.

From schoolmaster he beame postman.
In this position, which is the refug-e of so
many old soldiers, Pere Fourchon was
continually g-etting" into trouble. Now
he forg-ot the letters in the wine-shops,
and now he neg-lected to deliver them.
When he was drunk, he sent the mail
for one commune to another, and when
he was sober he read the letters. He
was therefore promptly dismissed.

Failing- to hold any position in the
State, Pere Fourchon finally became a
manufacturer. In the country every one
works at something-, and all have at least
the appearance of being- industrious and
honest. At the ag-e of sixty-eig-ht, the
old man undertook the trade of rope-
maker on a small scale. It is one of
those industries which require very little
capital. The workshop is, as we have
seen, the nearest convenient wall ; the
machines are worth scarcely ten francs,
and the apprentice, like his master, sleeps
in a barn, and lives on whatever he can
pick up. The rapacity of the law in the
matter of doors and windows expires sub
dio. The materials for the first bit of
rope can easily be borrowed.

But the principal revenues of Pere Four-
chon and his apprentice Mouche came from
their otter hunts, and from the breakfasts
or dinners which were given them by those
people who, not"" knowing- how to read or
write, made use of Pere Fourchon 's tal-
ents in the case of a letter to be written
or a bill to be rendered. Furthermore,
he knew how to play the clarionet, and
accompanied one of his friends, called
Vermichel, the fiddler of Soulanges, to
the village weddings, or to the great balls
at the Tivoli of Soulanges.
Balzac — h

Vermichel was named Michel Vert ; but
the transposition was so generally used
that Brunet, the clerk of the justice of
the peace of Soulanges, put it : "' Michel
Jean Jerome Vert, called Vermichel, prac-
titioner." Vermichel, who was distin-
guished as a violinist in the old regiment
of Burgundy, in gratitude for services
which Pere Fourchon rendered him pro-
cured for him the appointment of practi-
tioner, or witness, which devolved upon
those in the country who could sign their
na mes. Pere Fourchon served as witness,
therefore, for judiciary acts, when the
Sieur Brunet came to administer justice
in the communes of Cerneux, Conches
and Blangy. Vermichel and Fourchon,
allied b^^ twenty years of tippling to-
gether, might almost be considered a
business firm.

Mouche and Fourchon, allied by vice,
as Mentor and Telemachus formerly were
by virtue, journeyed, like them, in search
of bread, " panis angelorum," the only
Latin words which the old man remem-
bered. They went about, picking up the
remnants and scrapings from' the Grand-
I-vert and the neighboring chateaux ; for
both of them together, in their busiest
and most prosperous 3'ears, had not made
more than three hundred and sixty fath-
oms of rope. In the first jDlace, no mer-
chant within a radius of twenty leagues
would trust Fourchon and Mouche with
tow for their rope. The old man, improv-
ing on the miracles of modern chemistry,
knew too well the process of changing
tow into the blessed juice of the vine. Be-
sides, he excused himself by saying that
his triple functions of public writer for
three townships, witness for the justice of
the peace, and clarionet pla3'er, left him
no time for the development of his busi-
ness.

Thus Tonsard was at once undeceived
in his hope of acquiring comfort and prop-
erty by means of his marriage. The idle
son-in-law, by an ordinarj' accident, en-
countered a good-for-nothing father-in-
law. Affairs became still more compli-
cated since Tonsard, who was endowed
with a kind of rustic beaut}-, being tall
and well-made, did not like to work in the

226

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

open air. He therefore took his wife to
task for her parent's failures, by reason
of that vengeance common among" peas-
ants, whose e3^es, solely occupied by the
effect, are rai"ely lifted to the cause.

The woman found her chain too heav3^,
and soug-ht to lighten it. She made use
of Tonsard's vices to make herself mis-
tress of him. He was a g-ourmand, and
he loved his ease, and she encouraged
him in his idleness and g-luttony. In the
first place, she knew how to obtain favors
from the chateau, and Tonsard never
troubled himself with inquiring- into the
means as long- as he enjoyed the results.
He cared very little what his wife did, so
long- as she did what he required of her.
Tonsard's wife therefore set up the wine-
shop of the Grand-I-vert, whose first pa-
trons were the domestics of les Aig-ues,
the guards and the chasseurs.

Gaubertin, Mademoiselle Laguerre's
steward, one of Madame Tonsard's best
friends, gave her a few casks of excellent
wine to start her business. The eftect of
these presents, and the celebrated beauty
of the woman, gave the Grand-I-vert a
fine start. Being a lover of g-ood eating.
La Tonsard was naturally a good cook,
and although her talents were exercised
only upon the commoner country dishes,
such as stewed rabbit, g-ame sauce, fish
stew and omelet, she had the reputation
in the country round about for knowing
how to cook a dinner fit to make one's
mouth water, seasoned with plenty'- of
spices, to make a man thirst}'". By the
end of two j^ears, she had thus obtained
complete ascendency over Tonsard, and
pushed him to evil courses, in wiiich he
was only too willing" to indulge.

The rascal poached constantly, with
perfect impunity, and as soon as his chil-
dren were big- enough he made them use-
ful, without showing himself at all scrupu-
lous as to their morals. He had two
daughters and two sons. Tonsard, who,
like his wife, lived from hand to mouth,
might have soon come to the end of his
joyous life, if he had not constantly main-
tained in his house the quasi-martial law
of working for the preservation of his
comfort, which all the family obeyed.

When they were fairly grown up, at the
expense of others, the following rules
and regulations were in force at the
Grand-I-vert.

Tonsard's old mother, and his two
daughters, Catherine and Marie, went
twice a day to the w^oods, and returned
bowed down beneath the weight of a bun-
dle of fagots which drooped to their an-
kles and came two feet out beyond their
heads. Although the outer layer was of
dry wood, the inside was composed of
green wood, often cut from the young
trees. Literally, Tonsard took all his
winter fire-wood from the forest of les
Aigues. The father and the two sons
poached continually. From September
to March, hares, rabbits, partridges, and
deer, all the game which they did not eat
themselves, was sold at Blangy, in the
little town of Soulanges, the chief town
in the canton, where Tonsard's two sons
furnished milk, and whence thej^ brought
back news each day, in return for that
which the.y peddled concerning les Aigues,
Cerneux and Conches. In the months
when they could not hunt, they set traps ;
and if the traps yielded more than suffi-
cient for their own needs, the wife made
game pies and sent them to Ville-aux-
Fayes. In the harvest time the seven of
them — the old mother, the two boys, un-
til they were seventeen years old ; the two
daughters, old Fourchon, and Mouche —
gleaned and brought in about sixteen
bushels a day, of rye, barlej^- and wheat,
all good to be ground.

The two cows, which were taken by
the youngest girl to browse along the
roads, usually escaped into the fields of
les Aigues ; but as, at anj^ trespass which
was so flagrant as to oblige the keepers
to take notice of it, the children were
either beaten or deprived of food, they
soon acquired remarkable dexterity in
hearing the footsteps of the enemy, and
they were rarely caught. The beasts, led
by long ropes, obeyed willingly a single
twitch of recall, or a particular cry which
brought them back to their lawful past-
ure ; they came all the more willingly
because they knew that when the peril
was passed they would be allowed to

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

227

return once more to the neighboring-
meadows.

Old mother Tonsard, who grew more
and more feeble, took Mouche's place,
since Fourchon kept the boy with him,
under the pretext of caring for his edu-
cation. Marie and Catherine made hay
in the woods ; they knew where to find
the best forest-grass, and they cut, spread,
raked and garnered it, finding there two
thirds of the food w^hich their cows re-
quired in winter ; leading them, besides,
on fine days, to sheltered places where the
grass was yet green. There are, in cer-
tain places in the vallej'^ of les Aigues, as
in all countries which are overlooked by
ranges of mountains, places which, as in
Piedmont and Lombardy, give grass in
winter. These meadows, called in Italy
marciti, are of great value ; but in France
the}'' are threatened with too much ice and
snow. This phenomenon is doubtless due
to some particular location, and to infiltra-
tions of water, which keep the ground at
a warm temperature.

The two calves brought in about eighty
francs. The milk, allowing for the time
when the cows were dry or were calving,
brought about a hundred and sixty francs,
besides supplying their own family with
milk. Tonsard earned about a hundred
and fifty more by odd jobs.

The food and the wine which they sold
gave a net profit of about three hundred
francs, for the drinking-bouts only came
at certain seasons, and Tonsard and his
wife, being warned of them beforehand,
went to the town for the wine and pro-
visions needed for the occasion. The wine
from Tonsard's vineyard was sold usually
for twenty francs a cask, the cask to be
returned ; a wine-house keeper of Sou-
langes, a friend of Tonsard's, bought it.

On certain plentiful years, Tonsard
realized twelve caskfuls from his vine-
j'^ard, but the average yield was eight,
of which Tonsard kept half for himself.
In the vine country, the gleanings of the
vine^^ards give good perquisites, and 'by
this means the Tonsard family realized
about three casks more of wine. But this
family had no conscience whatever ; they
entered the vineyards before the harvest-

ers left them, and they rushed into the
wiieat fields while the heaped-up sheaves
were still awaiting the cart.

Thus the seven or eight casks of wine,
as much stolen as cultivated, sold for
quite a sum. But out of this sum, a con-
siderable part had to go for the support
of Tonsard and his wife, who both wanted
the best of everything to eat, and the best
of wine to drink — better, in fact, than that
which they sold, since it was furnished
them in payment for their own. The
money brought in by this family, there-
fore, amounted to about nine hundred
francs, for they fattened two pigs every
year, one for their own use, and another
to sell.

The laborers, the profligates of the
country, felt a certain amount of affec-
tion for the cabaret of Grand-I-vert, both
on account of the culinary talents of Ton-
sard's wife, and because of the good fel-
lowship existing between this family and
the lesser people of the valle3\ The two
daughters were both remarkably beauti-
ful. And besides all else, the ancient date
of the establishment, which went back to
1795, made it a sacred thing in the coun-
try. From Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes,
the workmen came there to conclude their
bargains, and to learn the latest news
gathered by Tonsard's daughters, by
Mouche, and by Fourchon, and told by
Vermichel and by Brunet, the most cele-
brated official in Soulanges, when he came
in search of his witness. There were es-
tablished the prices of hay and wine, of
day -labor, and that done by the job.
Tonsard, the sovereign judge in these
matters, gave his opinions, while drink-,
ing with the others. Soulanges passed
throughout the country-side for being a
town of society and gayetj^ and Blangy
was the commercial borough, although it
was crushed b}^ the great center of Ville-
aux-Faj^es, which had become in twenty-
five years the capital of this magnificent
valley. The market of animals and grains
was held at Blangy, on the market-place,
and the price there served as an index for
all the country around.

By reason of remaining always in the
house, Madame Tonsard had remained

228

THE HUMAJ\^ COMEDY.

fresh and white and plump, in contrast to
the women who worked in the fields, and
who faded as rapidly as the flowers, and
were old women at thirtj^. Madame Ton-
sard liked to look well. She was only
neat, but in a village this quality is in
itself a luxur3^ The daughters, better
dressed than their station warranted, fol-
lowed their mother's example. Beneath
their dress skirt, which was relatively
eleg-ant, tlicy wore linen which was finer
than that of the richest peasants. On fete
days they appeared in pretty dresses which
they obtained Heaven knows how ! The
servants at les Aigues sold to them at
low prices dresses which the ladies-maids
had cast off, and which, after having
swept the streets of Paris, had come into
the possession of Marie and Catherine,
and shone triumphantly beneath the sign
of the Grand-I-vert. These two girls, the
bohemians of the valley, did not receive a
cent from their parents, who gave them
nothing but their food and their wretched
beds.

Although every one knew that the
family had no principles, no one ever took
the trouble to try and convert them. At
the outset it may be explained, once for
all, that the morality of the peasant is at
a low ebb. The children, until they are
taken by the State, are nothing but so
much capital. Self-interest, particularly
since 1789, has become their sole motive ;
they never stop to question whether an
action is legal, but onl}^ whether it is prof-
itable. An absolutely honest man, among
the peasantry, is the exception. The rea-
son for this state of things may be found
in the fact that the peasants live a ]3urel3'"
material life, which approaches as nearly
as possible to the ultra-primitive ; and
their labor, while bowing them down phys-
ically, takes away their purity of thought.

Mingling in all interests, Tonsard list-
ened to ever}^ one's complaints, and ar-
ranged those frauds which would benefit
the needy. His wife, who was a good-
looking woman, had a good word for the
evil-doers of the country, and never re-
fused her approbation and help to any-
thing that was undertaken against the
" bourgeois." And thus in this cabaret,

which was like a nest of vipers, was nour-
ished the living, venomous, warm and
stirring hate of the workingman and the
peasant for the master and the rich man.

The comfortable life led by the Ton-
sards was therefore a very bad example.
Each one asked himself why he, like the
Tonsards, should not take his wood for
the fire, the cook-stove, and the winter
fuel from the forest of les Aigues ? "Why
should he not have pasturage also for his
cow, and snare game to eat or to sell ?
Why should he not garner, without sow-
ing, the harvest and the grape ? Thus
the cunning theft which ravages the
woods, and decimates the fields, the
meadows and the vines, became general
in the valley, and soon grew to be a right
in the communes of Blang}', Conches and
Cerneux, which bordered upon the domain
of les Aigues. This plague-spot, for rea-
sons which will be told in their time and
place, did more harm to the domains of
les Aigues than to the property of Ron-
queroUes and Soulanges.

It must not be supposed that Tonsard,
his wife, his old mother and his children
ever said to themselves deliberately, "We
will live b^' theft, and we will do it as clever-
ly as possible." Such habits grow slowl3^
To the dead wood the family at first added
one or two sticks of green ; then, embold-
ened b}^ the habit, and their immunit^^ from
detection, which was a necessity to the
plans which this story will develop, in the
course of twenty years they had reached
the point of calling it "their wood," and
of stealing all they needed. The pastur-
age of the cows, and the abuse of the
privileges of gleaning and harvesting",
also grew by degrees. When once this
famil3% together with the other do-noth-
ings of the valley, had thus tasted the
benefits of these four rights which had
been wrested from the rich, and which
amounted to pillage, it will be readily
seen that nothing short of a force supe-
rior to their own audacity would compel
them to give them up.

At the time of the beginning of this story
Tonsard was about fifty years old. He
was a large, strong man, rather fat, with
curl}'- black hair, a very red face, streaked.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

229

like a brick, with violet veins ; his eyes
were reddened, and his ears were large
and flabby; his constitution was muscu-
lar, but he was enveloped in soft flesh ;
his forehead was flattened, and his lower
lip hung- down; he concealed his true
character beneath a stupidity which was
occasionally ming-led with flashes of ex-
perience that resembled intellig-ence, part-
ly because he had acquired a habit of ban-
tering- talk, much affected by Vermichel
and Fourchon. His nose, which was
flattened at the end, as if the finger of
God had marked him, gave to his voice
tones which came from the palate, as in
those in whom some illness has closed
communication between the nasal pas-
sages, through which the air passes with
difficulty. His upper teeth, which over-
lapped each other, showed this defect
(called terrible b}' Lavater) all the more
plainly since his teeth were as white as
those of a dog. Beneath the easj^ good-
nature of a lazy man, and the carelessness
of the drunkard, this man was frightful.

Tonsard's portrait, together with a de-
scription of his shop and his father-in-law,
occup3^ a prominent place, because such a
place is due to the man, the cabaret, and
the family-. In the first place, this exist-
ence, which has been so minutely de-
scribed, is the type of that of hundreds
of others in the valley of les Aigues.
Then again, Tonsard, without being more
than the instrument of active and deep
hatred, was destined to have an active
and enormous influence in the battle that
was about to be waged ; for he was coun-
sel for all the complainants of the lower
class. His wine-shop served as a rendez-
vous for the assailants, and he became
their chief, in consequence of the terror
which he inspired in the valley, not so
much because «f his actions as because
of what it was feared he might do. The
threats of this poaching rascal were as
effective as deeds, and he was never
obliged to execute any of them.

Everj^ revolt, whether open or secret,
has its banner. The banner of the ma-
rauders, the do-nothings and the drunk-
ards was this terrible roost of the Grand-
I-vert. It was a place v/here amusement

was to be found, and that is something
as rare in the country as in the city.
There was no other inn for a space of
four leagues on the high-road which
loaded Avagons could easily travel in the
space of three hours ; therefore all those
on the way from Conches to Ville-aux-
Fayes stopped at the Grand-I-vert, if
only for refreshment. And finally, the
miller of les Aigues, who was deputy''
to the mayor, came there with his boj^s.
Even the domestics at the great house
did not disdain to frequent the place, and
so the Gtand-I-vert communicated in an
underhand and secret way with the
chateau, through its people, and knew
all that they . knew. It is impossible,
either for love or monej'', to break the
understanding that exists between the
domestic and the people. He comes from
the people, and is firmly attached to them.
This comradeship will serve to explain
the reticence of the groom, Charles, when
he replied to Blondet, as they reached
the steps before the house.

IV.

ANOTHER IDYLL.

''^Ah! by all that's holy ! papa," said
Tonsard, as he saw his father-in-law
enter, and suspected him of being hun-
§"i*y j ''your mouth is open early this
morning. We have nothing to give you.
And what about that rope that you were
going to make us ? It is astonishing how
much you can j^romise to make over night,
and how little of it is done in the morning.
You ought to have made one long ago
that would have gone about your own
neck, for you cost altogether too much."

The pleasantries of the peasant and the
laborer are Attic in their simplicity ; they
consist in telling his whole mind, with gro-
tesque exaggerations. It is not so very
different in the salons. Delicacy of wit
takes the place of grossness, but that is
all.

''Come! none of that!" said the old
man ; '*' let us talk business. I want a
bottle of your best wine."

230

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

So saying, Fourchon tapped with a five-
franc piece^ which shone brilliantly in his
hand, upon the ricketj' table at which he
was seated, whose greasy covering-, black
scorches, wine stains and gashes, made it
a curiosity. At the sound of the money,
Marie Tonsard, dressed as trimly as a
corvette ready for the chase, cast upon
her grandfather a sly look which flashed
from her blue eyes like a spark. Her
mother also came out of the next room,
attracted by the chink of the metal.

" You are always abusing my poor
father,'"' she said to Tonsard; ''but he
brings in a good deal of money in the
course of the j^ear ; God grant he comes
by it honestly ! Let's see it," she added,
darting suddenly upon the money, and
snatching it from Fourchon's hand.

''Marie," said Tonsard gravely, "go
and get some of the bottled wine from
above the plank."

In the country, the wine is only of one
quality, but it is sold as two kinds, cask
wine and bottled wine.

"Where did that come from? "asked
Madame Tonsard, slipping the coin into
her pocket.

"Philippine, you will come to a bad
end," said the old man, shaking his head,
but not attempting to recover the money.

He had doubtless long since recognized
the futility of a struggle between his -ter-
rible son-in-law, his daughter, and him-
self.

" This makes another bottle that you
have sold for five francs," he said bitter-
ly; "but it will be the last. I shall give
my custom to the Cafe de la Paix."

"Hold your tongue, father," replied
the fat, white daughter, who looked like
a Roman matron ; " you need a shirt,
and a suitable pair of trousers, and an-
other hat, and I want to see a waistcoat
on you."

"I have told 3'ou before now that that
would be my ruin ! " exclaimed the old
man. " I should look as if I were rich,
and no one would give me anything."

The bottle, which was just then brought
by the blonde Marie, put a stop to the
eloquence of the old man, who was not
without that trait, peculiar to those whose

language permits them to say ever^'^thing,
without stopping at the expression of any
thought, no matter how atrocious.

"Then you won't tell us where you
hooked the money ? " demanded Tonsard.
"We might go and get some too."

While he finished a snare that he was
making, the ferocious innkeeper was ey-
ing his father-in-law's pantaloons, and he
soon discovered the round protuberance
whose dirt}^ circle betraj^ed the presence
of the second five-franc piece.

" To 3'our health ! I am becoming a
capitalist," said Pere Fourchon.

"If 3^ou wanted to, you could be," said
Tonsard. "You have chances enough.
But the devil has put a hole m your head
through which everything runs away."

" Oh ! I just played the otter trick on
that fellow at Aigues, who has just come
from Paris; that's all."

" If many people came to see the sources
of the Avonne, j^ou would get rich, grand-
pa," said Marie.

"Yes," he replied, draining his bottle ;
"but I have played with the otters so
long, they are getting angry, and 1 act-
ually caught one to-day, for which I am
to get more than twenty francs."

" I'll wag-er, papa, that j^ou made an
otter out of tow?" said his .daughter,
looking at him with a wink.

" If you will give me some trousers, and
a waistcoat and some list suspenders, so
that Vermichel may not be ashamed of
me on our platform at Tivoli, where Pere
Socquard is alwaj^s scolding about me, I
will leave that money with you, my
daughter, for that idea is well worth it.
Perhaps I might work that fellow at
Aigues again with it, for he seems as if
he might make a business of otters."

"Go and get another bottle for us,"
said Tonsard to his daughter. "If he had
an otter, reall}^, 3'our fattier would show
it to us," he added, addressing his wife,
and trying to excite the spirit of contra-
diction in Fourchon.

" I am too much afraid of seeing him in
your f rj'ing-pan, " replied the old man,
winking one of his little greenish eyes
askance at his daughter. "Philippine
has already cabbaged my money ; I

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

231

should like to know how many pieces
of money you have already cheated me
out of, under pretense of feeding- and
clothing me. And you to tell me that
my mouth is always open for something
to eat ! and I never have anything to
wear."

" You sold 3^our last clothes for boiled
wine at the Cafe de la Paix/' said his
daughter ; " for Vermichel, who tried to
stop you — "

' "' Vermichel ! the man I treated ! Ver-
michel is incapable of betraying a friend.
It must have been rather that old hundred-
weight of lard on two feet whom he is not
ashamed to call his wife ! "

'•'He or she," replied Tonsard, ''or
Bonnebault."

"If it was Bonnebault," cried Four-
chon, " one of the pillars of the cafe — I —
he — It is enough ! "

" But, 5^ou old sot, what has that got
to do with selling 3'our clothes ? You
sold them because you wanted to ; you
are of age," said Tonsard, slapping* the
old man on the knee. " Come, do honor
to my wine, and wet 3'our whistle. My
wife's father has a right to it, and had
much better take it than carry good
money to Socquard."

'•' To think that you have been fiddling
for folks at Tivoli for fifteen years, and
haven't g-uessed Socquard's secret of the
boiled wine, you who are so cunning,"
said the daughter. "You know very
well that with that secret we should be
as rich as Rigou."

In the Morvan, and in that part of Bur-
gundy which lies at its feet on the side
toward Paris, this cooked wine, of which
Madame Tonsard spoke, is a rather ex-
pensive beverage which plaj^s an impor-
tant part in the lives of the peasants, and
is made by all g-rocers and coffee-house
keepers, wherever there are cafes. This
chosen liquor, composed of good wine,
sugar, cinnamon and other spices, is pre-
ferred to all the disguises or mixtures
of brandy called ratafia, hundred and
seventy, water of braves, black currant,
vespetro, spirit of sunshine, and the like.
It is found as far as the frontiers of France
and Switzerland. In the Jura, in those

wild places where only a few tourists pene-
trate, the innkeepers give the name of
wine of Syracuse to this industrial prod-
uct, which is excellent, and for which
those who find a ravenous appetite by
ascending the mountains willingly pay
three or four francs a bottle.

In the households of the Morvan and
of Burgund}', the slightest ailment, the
least disarrangement of the nerves, is a
pretext for drinking boiled wine. Before
and after confinement the women take it,
with the addition of burned sugar. It has
devoured peasant fortunes, and it has,
therefore, more than once necessitated
marital correction.

'•' Oh ! there's no way of getting" that
secret," said Fourchon. "Socquard al-
ways shuts himself up when he cooks his
wine. He did not even tell the secret to
his late wife. He g-ets all his materials
from Paris."

" Don't bother your father," cried Ton-
sard. "He doesn't know, and that is all
there is of it. A man cannot know every-
thing."

Fourchon became alarmed when he saw
his son-in-law 's face and speech beginning-
to soften.

" What do you want to steal from me
now? " he asked bluntly.

"I don't take anything but what be-
longs to me," replied Tonsard; "if I
take anything from you, it amounts to
no more than the payment of the dowry
you promised me."

Fourchon, reassured by this brutality,
lowered his head like a man conquered
and convinced.

"There is a pretty snare," continued
Tonsard, approaching his father-in-law
and placing the snare on his knees ; " they
need game at les Aigues, and if we have
any luck, w^e will furnish it to them."

"That is good, solid work," replied
the old man, examining the mischievous
machine.

"Leave us alone to pick up the sous,
papa," said his daughter. "We shall
have our share in the cake of les
Aigues I "

" Oh ! the chatterboxes," said Tonsard.
" If I am ever hung, it will not be for

232

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

shooting- a man, but on account of your
daughter's toug-ue."

" And do you reallj^ suppose that les
Aig-ues will be cut up in pieces and sold
for 3'our benefit?" replied Fourchon.
"During the twenty- years that Pere
Rigou has been sucking the marrow of
your bones, haven't you learned that the
middle-class folks w^ould be worse than
the nol51es? When that affair happens,
my children, the Soudrys, the Gaubertins
and the Rigous will make j^ou dance on
air to the tune of ' I have good snuff and
you have none,' which is the national air
of the rich. The peasant will always be
a peasant. Can't you see (but you don't
understand politics) that the Government
put such heav}^ taxes on wine, just for
the sake of pinching us and keeping us
poor? The bourgeois and the Govern-
ment are all one. What would become
of them if w^e were to get rich ? Would
they Avork in the fields ? would they reap
the harvest ? They must have poor peo-
ple. I was rich for ten years, and I know
what I thought of beggars."

"But we must hunt with them," said
Tonsard, "because they are going to por-
tion off the great estates ; afterward we
can turn against them. If I had been in
the place of Courtecuisse, Avhom Rigou is
ruining, I should long ago have settled
his account with other metal than that
which the poor fellow is giving him."

"You are right," replied Fourchon.
"As Father Niseron, who remained a
Republican after every one else, said :
'The people are tough; tliey do not die ;
there is time enough for them.' "

Fourchon fell into a reverie, and Ton-
sard took advantage of it to recover his
snare ; but wiien he took it, he cut a
gash in Pere Fourchon 's trousers, w^hile
the old man w^as lifting his glass to drink,
and put his foot over the five franc piece,
w^hich fell upon a place w^here the ground
was always damp, where those who drank
emptied the dregs from their glasses.
Although it was slyl}^ done, the old man
might perhaps have discovered the ab-
straction, if his attention had not been
attracted by Vermichel's entrance.

" Tonsard, do you know where to find

the papa ? " called that functionary from
the foot of the steps.

Vermichel's question, the fall of the
piece of money, and the emptying of the
glass, came simultaneously'.

"Present!" said Pere Fourchon, hold-
ing out his hand to Yermichel to help him
mount the steps to the wine-shop.

Vermichel was a typical Burgundian in
appearance. His face was not red, but
scarlet. It was covered with dried-uj)
eruptions, which were defined by flat
greenish places, called poetically by Four-
chon " flowers of wine." This fiery face,
whose features were terribly swollen by
continual intoxication, was like that of a
Cj^clops, since it was illumined on the
right side by a gleaming eyeball, and
darkened on the other by a yellow patch
over the left eje. Red hair which was
always erect, and a beard like that of
Judas, made Yermichel as formidable in
appearance as he was gentle in reality.

His prominent nose looked like an inter-
rogation point, to which the wide mouth
seemed to be alwaj^s replying, even when
it was closed. He was short, and he wore
hob-nailed shoes, pantaloons of bottle-
green velvet, an old waistcoat w^hich had
been patched with different materials until
it looked as if it had been made of a coun-
terpane, a vest of coarse blue cloth, and a
broad-brimmed gray hat. This luxury,
required by the town of Soulanges, where
Yermichel united the functions of door-
keeper to the city hall, drummer, jailer,
fiddler and practitioner, was cared for by
Madame Yermichel, a terrible opponent
of the Rabelaisian philosophy. This mus-
tached virago, a A^ard wide, and weighing
a hundred and twenty kilogrammes, not-
withstanding which she was still agile,
had established her domination over Yer-
michel, who was beaten b^^ her when he
was drunk, and who allowed her to con-
tinue the process when he was sober. For
this reason Pere Fourchon, when speak-
ing of his comrade's finery, was wont to
say : " It is the livery of a slave."

" Speak of the sun and you feel his
rays," said Fourchon, inspired by Yer-
michel's glowing face, which did in truth
resemble those golden suns painted on

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

233

the sig-ns of inns in the provinces. '' Has
Madame Vermichel found too much dust
on your back, that you are running- away
at this liour from your four-fifths — for the
woman can't be called 3'our half ? What
bring-s 3' ou here so earl}^, in battle array ?"
" Politics ! " replied Vermichel, evi-
dently'' accustomed to these jokes.

" Ah ! is trade in Blangy in a bad way ?
are w^e going- to protest some notes ? ''
asked Pere Fourchon, pouring- out a glass
of wine for his friend.

"Our monkey is right on my heels,"
replied Vermichel, motioning with his
elbow.

In laborer's slang, monkey meant mas-
ter. This phraseology'" made part of the
dictionar^'^ of Vermichel and Fourchon.

'•' What is he prowling about here for ?"'
asked Madame Tonsard.

"Oh! you folks," said Vermichel,
" have brought him in, for the last three
years, more than 30U are worth ; ah !
the master of Aigues has his e^'e on you.
He is after you, the bourgeois ! As father
Brunet says : ' If there were three pro-
prietors like him in the valley, my fort-
une would be made.' "

" What have they got against us poor
folks now ? " asked Marie.

"Oh! they have got you this time,"
replied Vermichel. " How can you help
it ? They have been after j^ou for two
years, with three keepers, besides a
mounted one, all as active as ants, and
a garde champetre who is a terror. Well,
the mounted police are all up in arms
against 3'ou now, and they are going to
crush you."

"Pshaw ! " said Tonsard ; " w^e are too
flat. The ground resists when the tree
cannot."

"Don't you be too sure of it," said
Pere Fourchon to his son-in-law; "you
have some landed property."

"Yes," continued Vermichel, "these
people must love you, for they think of
you from morning to night. They say to
themselves, ' The cows belonging to these
people eat our grass ; we will take the
cows, and then they can't steal the grass,
for they can't eat it themselves.' And so
they have given our monkey orders to

seize j-our cows. We are to begin this
morning at Conches, and take the cows
belonging to Mother Bonnebault, Godain
and Mitant."

As soon as she heard the name of
Bonnebault, Marie, who was the sweet-
heart of Bonnebault, the grandson of the
old woman who had the cow, made a
sign to her father and mother, and sprang-
out into the vineyard. She slipped like
an eel througli a hole in the hedge, and
darted toward Conches with the swift-
ness of a hunted hare.

" They will do so much," observed
Tonsard tranquilly, "that thej'' will get
their bones broken, and that would be a
pity, for their mothers could not give
them an3'' more."

"It might be as well," remarked Pere
Fourchon. "But see here, Vermichel, I
cannot go with you for an hour ; I have
important business at the chateau."

"More important than serving three
warrants at five sous each ? ' You should
not spit on the vintage,' as Father Noah
says."

"I tell 3'ou, Vermichel, that business
calls me to the chateau," said old Four-
chon, assuming a comical air of impor-
tance.

"Besides," said Madame Tonsard, "it
would be just as well for m\^ father to be
out of the wa^'. Do you really want to
find those cows ? "

" Monsieur Brunet, who is a good fel-
low, asks nothing better than to find
onlj'- their tracks," replied Vermichel.
" A man who, like him, is obliged to
be on the roads late at night should be
prudent."

"He would do well to be," said Ton-
sard dr3'l3^

" So he said like this to Monsieur Mi-
ch and," continued Vermichel: " "^ I will
go as soon as court is over.' If he had
really wanted to find the cows, he would
have g-one to-morrow morning at seven
o'clock. But he will have to march just
the same. Michaud can't be caught
twice ; he is a trained hunting dog. Ah !
what a brigand ! "

"' Swaggerers like that ought to stay
in the army," said Tonsard. " Good for

234

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

nothing but to let loose on the enemy.
I wish he would ask me vay name ; it
wouldn't he an}^ use for him to call him-
self a veteran of the young* guard, for I
am sure that if we measured spurs I
would have the best of it."

''Well," said Tonsard to Vermichel,
" and when will the bills be out for the
fdte at Soulanges ? Here it is the 8th of
August."

"^I carried them yesterday to Mon-
sieur Bournier, the printer at Ville-aux-
Fayes ; " replied Vermichel. "At Ma-
dame Soudry's they were talking about
fireworks on the lake."

"What a lot of people we shall have ! "
exclaimed Fourchon.

"So much profit for Socquard," said
the inn-keeper, enviously.

"Oh! if it doesn't rain," added his
wife, as if to keep up her own hopes.

Just then a horse was heard, coming
from Soulanges, and five minutes later
the officer of the law fastened his horse
to a post placed for the purpose at the
railing through which the cows passed ;
then he showed his head at the door of
the Grand-I-vert.

" Come, come, boys, don't let's lose any
time," he said, pretending to be in a great
hurry.

"Ah ! " said Vermichel, "you have a
refractory assistant here, Monsieur
Brunot. Pere Fourchon wants to drop
out."

"He has had several drops already,"
replied the officer; "but the law does not
require that he shall be sober."

" I beg your pardon. Monsieur Brunet,"
said Fourchon, " but I am expected on
business up at les Aigues; we are in
treaty for an otter."

Brunet was a withered little man, with
a bilious complexion, and was dressed in
black cloth. His eye was sl}^ his hair
curling, his mouth tight-shut, his nostrils
pinched, his manner uneasy, and his
speech hoarse. He presented the phe-
nomenon of a face and manner in har-
mony with his profession. He understood
law, or rather chicanery, so well that he
was at once the terror and the adviser of
the canton. He did not lack a certain

popularity among the peasants, from
whom he usually took his paj^ in some of
their products . All these active and nega-
tive qualities gave him most of the client-
age of the canton, to the exclusion of his
brother practitioner Plissaud, of whom we
shall have more to say later. This acci-
dent of one sheriff who does everything,
and of another who does nothing, is very
common in the country, among the jus-
tices of the peace.

" So matters are getting warm ? " re-
marked Tonsard to Brunet.

"' Well, what can you expect ? " asked
the sheriff. "You go too far with this
man, and now he is defending himself.
Your affairs will turn out badly ; the
Government will take the thing up."

" Then must we poor wretches die ? "
asked Madame Tonsard, offering a little
glass on a saucer to the sheriff.

" The wretches may die, yet there will
always be enough of them left," said
Fourchon, sententiously.

"You are taking too much from the
woods," continued the officer,

" Don't you believe it, Monsieur Brunet ;
they are making a great fuss over a few
miserable fagots," said Madame Tonsard.

" The rich were not crushed low enough
during the Revolution, that's what is the
trouble," remarked Tonsard.

Just then a horrible and seemingly inex-
plicable noise was heard. The clatter of
two hasty feet, mingled with the rattling
of arms, sounded above the rustling of
branches and foliage, borne along by
steps that were yet more hasty. Two
voices, as different as the two sets of
footsteps, were shouting noisy exclama-
tions. Every one guessed that some man
was pursuing some woman ; but why ?

Their uncertainty did not last long.

" It is the mother," said Tonsard, stand-
ing up. "I know her shriek."

And suddenly, after climbing the rick-
ety steps of the Grand-I-vert, by a final
effort of whose energy none but a smug-
gler would be capable, old Mother Ton-
sard fell sprawling into the cabaret. The
immense mass of fagots she carried made
a terrible noise as it struck against the
top of the doorway and on the floor.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

235

Everybody sprang out of the way. The
tables, bottles and chairs which were hit
by the branches were overturned and
scattered. The clatter would not have
been as great if the cottage itself had
fallen down.

" I am dead ; the wretch has killed
me ! "

The exclamation, the actions, and the
flight of the old woman were explained by
the appearance upon the threshold of a
keeper dressed in green cloth, with a hat
edged with silver cord, a sabre at his
side, his leather shoulder-belt bearing the
arms of Montcornet over those of the
Troisvilles, his waistcoat of the regula-
tion red, and his leathern gaiters coming
nearly up to his knees.

After a moment of hesitation, the
guard, seeing Brunet and Vermichel,
said :

" I call you to witness."

" To what ? " said Tonsard.

''This woman has in her bundle of
fagots a ten-year-old oak cut up into
firewood. It's a regular crime ! "

Vermichel, as soon as he heard the
word witness, judged it advisable to go
at once and take the air in the vineyard.

''What! what!" said Tonsard, plac-
ing himself before the keeper while his
wife raised her mother-in-law ; " are you
going to show your claws, Vatel ? Seize
your prisoners on the high-road, if 3'ou
will ; you are at home there, brigand ; but
get out of here. My house is my own, I'd
have you know. I am master here."

"She was caught in the act, and she
must come Avith me."

" Arrest my mother in my house ? You
have no right to do that. My house is
inviolable, as you know very well. Have
you a warrant from Monsieur Guerbet,
our magistrate ? Ah ! you can't come in
here without the law to back you. You
are not the law, although you have sworn
to starve us out, you miserable forest-
ranger, you ! "

The keeper's anger had reached such
a pitch that he attempted to seize the
fagots ; but the old woman, who resem-
bled a frightful piece of living black parch-
ment, and whose like was never seen ex-

cept in David's picture of the "Sabines,"
cried out :

" Don't touch it, or I will scratch your
eyes out."

"Well, I dare you to untie the bundle
of fagots in the presence of Monsieur
Brunet," said the keeper.

Although the sheriff affected an indif-
ference which familiarity with such aflairs
gives to officers, he winked gravely at the
innkeeper and his wife, as much as to say:
"A bad business!" But old Fourchon
looked at his daughter, and pointed to
the ashes that were h'ing in the fire-place.
Madame Tonsard at once understood both
her father's suggestion and her mother-
in-law's danger, and she snatched up a
handful of the ashes and threw them full
in the keeioer's eyes. Vatel began to
howl lustily. Tonsard, who could see, if
the keeper could not, pushed him roughly
down the outside steps, which were in
such good condition to trip up the feet
of a blinded man that Vatel rolled fairly
down to the road, dropping his gun as he
went.

In a twinkling the fagot was unbound,
and the live wood snatched out and con-
cealed with a dexterity impossible to de-
scribe. Brunet, not wishing to be a witness
of this performance, which he had fore-
seen, hastened to the relief of the guard ;
he seated him upon the side of the ditch
and dipped his handkerchief into the
w:ater, to bathe the eyes of the patient,
who, in spite of his suffering, had man-
aged to drag himself toward the brook.

"Vatel, you are wrong," said the
sheriff; "you have no right to enter
people's houses, you know."

The little old woman, who was almost
humpbacked, stood on the threshold of
her door, with her hands on her hips,
darting lightning flashes from her eyes,
and curses from her toothless, foaming
mouth, which could be heard nearly to
Blangy.

"Ah ! you rascal, that was well done.
May the furies take 3^ou ! To suspect me
of cutting down trees ! me, the most hon-
est woman in the village ; and to chase
me like a wild beast ! I wish you might
lose your cursed eyes ! the country would

236

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

be the better off. You are all mischief-
makers, you and your companions, who
imag-ine crimes in order to stir up quar-
rels between your master and us ! "

The g-uard allowed the sheriff to bathe
his eyes while the latter kept telling
him that in point of law he was to
blame.

" The old beg-gar ! she has tired us
out," said Vatel at leng-th. "She has
been in the woods all night."

Everybody had taken hold to help con-
ceal the stolen wood, and thing's were
promptl}'- put to rights in the cabaret.
Then Tonsard went to the door and called
out insolently- :

'' Vatel, my boy, if you try to violate
my domicile ag-ain, I will answer you
with my g'un. You have had nothing-
but ashes to-da^--, but next time jon will
have the fire. You do not know your
business. But you seem to be warm. If
you would like to have a g-lass of wine,
you can ; 3'ou may see that my mother's
fag-ot has not an atom of live wood in it ;
it is all brushwood."

" Scoundrel ! " said the keeper in a low
voice to the sheriff, more enrag-ed by this
irony than he had been by the cinders in
his eyes.

Just then Charles, the footman, who
had that morning- been sent in search
of Blondet, appeared at the door of the
Grand-I-vert.

"What's the matter, Vatel?" he
asked.

a Oh ! " replied the keeper, wiping^ his
eyes, which he had plunged wide open
into the brook, to finish cleansing them,
'•'I owe these people something-, and I
will make them curse the day when they
first saw the light."

"If that is what you intend. Monsieur
Vatel," said Tonsard, coldly, "you will
find that we are not wanting- in courage
in Burgundy."

Vatel disappeared.

Rather curious to know the key to
this riddle, Charles looked into the wine-
shop.

"Bring jonv otter up to the chateau,
if you really have one," he said to Pere
Fourchon.

The old man rose hastily and followed
Charles.

"Well, where is your otter?" asked
Charles, smiling suspiciously.

"This way," said the old man, g-oing-
toward the Thune.

This was the name g-iven to the brook
formed from the overflow of the waters
of the mill-dam and the park of les
Aig-ues. The Thune runs along the
highway as far as the little lake of
Soulanges, which it crosses, and where
it rejoins the Avonne, after feeding the
mills and the streams of the chateau of
Soulanges.

" Here it is ; I hid it here in the chan-
nel, with a stone at its neck."

As he stooped down and rose up again,
the old man missed the feeling of the five
franc piece in his pocket, where he so
seldom had money that he was likely to
notice its presence or its absence.

" Oh ! the sharks ! " he cried ; "I hunt
otters, but they hunt their father. They
take away ever3d:hing that I get, and
pretend that it is for my good. For my
good, indeed ! If it were not for my poor
Mouche, who is the consolation of my old
age, I would drown myself. Children are
the ruin of their parents. You are not
married, are you. Monsieur Charles ?
Never get married ! then 3'ou will not
have to reproach ^^ourself with spreading
bad blood. I thought I could buy tow
with my money, and now it is gone ! The
gentleman, who is a fine fellow, gave me
ten francs ; well, the price of my otter
will have to go up now."

Charles was so suspicious of Pere Four-
chon that he took his laments, which were
this time sincere, for a sort of rehearsal
of what he intended to say later, and he
made the mistake of expressing his opin-
ion in a smile which was detected b}^ the
malicious old man.

" Come, Pere Fourchon, you must be on
your best behavior now ; you know you
are going to see madame," said Charles,
noticing the ruby flame on the old man's
nose and cheeks.

" I know what I am about, Charles; and
to prove it, if you care to take me into
the kitchen and give me some of the

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

237

leaving-s of breakfast and a bottle or two
of Spanish wine, I will give you a pointer
that will save you from a foul."

" Tell it, and Francois shall have mon-
sieur's order to get you a glass of wine,"
replied the footman.

'' Is it a bargain ? "

'at is."

"Well, then, you are in the habit of
going to talk with my granddaughter
Catherine beneath the arch of the bridge
of Avonne; Godain loves her; he has
seen you, and he is jealous. Now, if you
dance with her on the day of the fete of
Soulanges at Tivoli, 3'ou will dance more
than you like. Godain is a miser, and he
is a bad man ; he is capable of breaking
your arm before you could stop him. "

'*' That is too dear ; Catherine is a fine
girl, but she is not worth all that," said
Charles. ''But why should Godain be so
jealous ? "

'•' He wants to marry her."

"Then he will beat her," said Charles.

'•' That depends," said the old man.
" She takes after her mother, upon whom
Tonsard has never laid his hand, for he is
too much afraid of what she might do in
return, A woman who knows how to
hold her own is very useful. Besides, if
it came to blows with Catherine, Godain
w^ould not give the last one, although he
is so strong."

"Here, Pere Fourchon, here are forty
sous to drink my health, in case I can't
get 3'ou the sherry."

Pere Fourchon turned his head while
he pocketed the money, so that Charles
should not see the expression of pleasure
and irony which he could not repress.

"Catherine," continued the old man,
" is a proud minx, and she likes sherry ;
5'ou had better tell her to come and get
some at Aigues."

Charles looked at Pere Fourchon with
naive admiration, not suspecting the im-
mense interest which the general's ene-
mies had in getting one spy the more
within the chateau.

"I suppose the general feels happy,"
continued the old man, "now that the
peasants are all so quiet. What does he
say about it ? does he still like Sibilet ? "

" Monsieur Michaud is the only one who
finds fault with Monsieur Sibilet ; they
say that he will get him dismissed."

" That's the jealousy of the trade," re-
plied Fourchon. "I'll bet you would like
to get Francois dismissed, and step into
his place of head valet."

" Confound it, he has twelve hundred
francs," said Charles ; " but they can't
send him away ; he knows all the gen-
eral's secrets."

" As Madame Michaud knows those of
the countess," replied Fourchon, watch-
ing Charles carefully. "See here, my
boy, do 3'ou know whether monsieur and
madame have separate rooms ? "

"Yes, they do," replied Charles.

But just then they came beneath the
windows, and could say no more.

THE ENEMIES FACE TO FACE.

At the beginning of breakfast Fran-
cois, the head valet, came to Blond et,
and whispered softly, but loud enough
for the count to hear him :

" Monsieur, Pere Fourchon 's boy claims
that they caught an otter after all, and
wants to know whether 3'ou want it, or
whether he shall take it to the sub-pre-
fect of Ville-aux-Fayes."

Although Emile Blondet was an adept
at mystification, he could not help blush-
ing like a girl.

" Oh, ho ! so you hunted the otter this
morning with Pere Fourchon," cried the
general, shouting with laughter.

"What is it?" asked the countess,
made uneasy by her husband's laughter.

" If a man of wit like him," continued
the general, "can be taken in by Pere
Fourchon, an old cuirassier need not
blush to have hunted that otter, which is
very much like the third horse that the
postilion always makes .you pay for, but
never lets you have."

In the midst of fresh explosions of
laughter, the general managed to add :

"I know now why j^ou changed your

238

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

boots and pantaloons ; you got into the
water. I did not carry it quite so far as
you, for I stayed on the bank ; and ye,t
you are much cleverer than I."

"You forget, my dear," observed Ma-
dame de Montcornet, " that I have not
the least idea of what you are talking."

At these words, which betrayed the
pique that the countess felt on account of
Blondin's confusion, the general regained
his seriousness, and Blondin related his
adventure.

*'But," said the countess, "if these
poor people really have an otter, they
are not so much to blame."

" Yes ; but the otter has not been seen
for the last ten years," retorted the gen-
eral.

"■'Monsieur le Comte," said Francois,
"the bo}'- swears upon his honor that he
has one now."

" If they have one, I will pay them for
it," said the general.

" God has not left the Avonne without
any otters at all," observed the Abbe
Brossette.

"Ah! monsieur, if you bring the Al-
mighty against me — " exclaimed Blondet.

"Who is here?" asked the countess,
quickly.

" Mouche, madame ; the little bo}^ who
always goes withPere Fourchon," replied
the footman.

" Let him come in — if madame will per-
mit, ' ' said the general. ' ' Perhaps he will
amuse us."

"At least we can find out the truth of
it," added the countess.

Mouche appeared a few minutes later,
in his partial nudity. The sight of this
personification of poverty in the midst of
the elegant dining-room, where the price
of one of the mirrors alone would have
been a fortune to the boy, with his bare
legs, breast and head, made it almost im-
possible not to yield to the inspirations of
charity. Mouche 's eyes, like two burn-
ing coals, examined eagerly the wealth of
the room and the viands.

"Then you have no mother?" asked
the countess, who could explain the child's
neglected condition in no other way.
"No, madame; m'ma died of grief

when p'pa did not come back from the
wars, in 1813, where he got frozen— sav-
ing your presence. But I have my
grandpa, Fourchon, who is a very good
man, although he beats me sometimes
like fury."

"How does it happen, my dear, that
there are people on j^our land who are so
wretched ? " asked the countess, looking
at the general.

"Madame la Comtesse," said the cure,
^'the people in this commune are poor
only because they choose to be so ; Mon-
sieur le Comte means well ; but we have
to deal with people who have no religion,
and whose sole thought is to exist at
your expense."

" But, my dear sir," said Blondet, " are
you not here to attend tp their morals ? "

"I have been sent here by the bishop,"
replied the cure, " as a sort of mission-
ary ; but, as I had the honor of telling
him, the savages of France are unap-
proachable ; it is a point of honor among
them not to listen to us, while it is pos-
sible to gain the ear and the interest of
the American savage."

" Monsieur le Cure, they do help me a
little bit now ; but if I went to your
church they would not help me at all,
and the folks would make fun of my
clothes."

" Religion should begin with giving him
some pantaloons, my dear abbe," said
Blondet. " In your missions, do you not
begin by winning the confidence of the
savages ? "

" He would sell them at once," replied
the abbe in a low voice, " and I have no
authority for beginning such proceed-
ings."

" Monsieur le Cure is right," said the
general, looking at Mouche.

The policy of the ragamuffin consists in
appearing to understand nothing of what
is being said, when its tenor is against
him.

"The intelligence of the little rascal
proves that he knows good from evil,"
continued the count. " He is of an age
to work, but his only aim is to break the
law without being found out. He is well
known to the keepers. Before I became

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

239

mayor, he knew perfectly well that a
landed proprietor, althoug-h he may be a
witness of some trespass on his property,
yet has no right to arrest the trespasser;
he therefore boldly remained in my mead-
ows with his cows, without going- away
even when he saw me ; while now he
runs off at once."

"Ah! that is very wrong," said the
countess ; " you must not take what does
not belong to you, my little bo3^"

" Madame, a body must eat ; my grand-
pa gives me more blows than loaves,
and those don't fill the stomach, slaps
don't ! When the cows have milk I draw
a little, and that helps me along. Is the
gentleman so poor that he cannot let me
drink a little of his g-rass ? "

" Perhaps he has not had anything to
eat to-day," said the countess, moved by
the sight of such miser3^ " Give him
some bread and the rest of that chicken ;
give him some breakfast," she added,
looking at the footman. " Where do you
sl^ep, little bo}^? "

"Anywhere that they will let me, in
winter, madame ; when it is warm enough
I sleep out of doors."

" How old are you ? "

"Twelve."

" There is still time to teach him bet-
ter," said the countess to her husband.

'' He will make a soldier," returned the
general, gruffly ; " this is good training
for him. I went through as many hard-
ships as he, and look at me now ! "

" Excuse me, general, I can't be
drafted," said the boy. "I don't be-
long to any one. I was born in the fields,
and my name isn't any more Mouche
than anything else. Grandpa has told
me how lucky I am. They can't take
me."

" Do you love j^our grandpa ? " asked
the countess, trying to read the twelve-
3'^ear-old heart.

' ' He boxes my ears when he feels like
it, but he is great fun ; he is such a good
fellow ! And he says he paj's himself
that way for teaching me to read and
write."

" Can you read ? " asked the count.

" Yes, indeed. Monsieur le Comte, and

write too, grandly, as true as we have
a real otter."

"What is that?" asked the count,
handing him a newspaper,

" The Qu-o-ti-dienne," replied Mouche,
hesitating only three times.

Everybody laughed, even the Abbe
Brossette.

"Well, you made me read a news-
paper," cried Mouche, exasperated. "My
grandpa says that they are made for the
rich, and that ever^'- one is sure to know
some time what is in them."

" The boy is right, general," said Blon-
det. "He makes me long to meet again
m}' conqueror of this morning."

Mouche understood perfectly well that
he was posing for the amusement of the
company ; Pere Fourchon's pupil was
worthy of his teacher ; he began to cry.

" How can you tease a child who has
bare feet ? " asked the countess.

" And who thinks it perfectly natural
that his grandfather should reimburse
himself for his education, by boxing his
ears," added Blondet.

'' My little boy, have you really an
otter?" asked the countess.

" Yes, madame, just as true as you are
the most beautiful lady I have ever seen
or ever expect to," said the boy, wiping
his e3-es.

"Show it to us," said the general.

"Oh ! monsieur, my grandpa has hid-
den it ; but how it did kick when we gat
it to the rope-walk ! You can send for
my grandpa, for he wants to sell it him-
self."

"Take him to the kitchen," said the'
countess to Francois ; "' let him have
some breakfast. You may send Charles
for Pere Fourchon. See if you cannot
find some shoes, pantaloons and a vest
for this child. Those who come here
naked should go away clothed."

" May God bless you, dear lad}^" said
Mouche, as he went away. "Monsieur
le Cure may feel quite sure that I will
keep the things and wear them on fete
days, since you gave them to me."

Emile, Madame de Montcornet and the
cure exchanged glances which seemed to
say : " He is not such a fool, after all."

240

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" Certainly, madame," said the cure,
when tlie child had left them, " Ave can-
not keep a strict reckoning- with the poor.
I believe that they have hidden excuses
which can be judg-ed by God alone ; ex-
cuses both ph3^sical and moral, that are
born in them, and that are produced by
an order of things which we accuse, but
which is sometimes the result of qualities
that, unfortunately for societj^, have no
vent. The miracles accomplished upon
the battlefield have taught us that the
poor scoundrels can upon occasion trans-
form themselves into heroes. But here,
3"0ur circumstances are exceptional, and
if your charity is not judiciously admin-
istered, 3'ou run the risk of supporting
your enemies."

''Our enemies!" exclaimed the coun-
tess.

"Cruel enemies," added the general,
gravely.

" Pere Fourchon, with his son-in-law
Tonsard, " observed the cure, "represents
the intelligence of the lower class of peo-
ple in the vallej'^ ; they are consulted about
everything. These people are incrediblj^
malicious. Ten peasants, assembled in a
wine-shop, are, so to speak, the small
change of a great polic3^"

Just then Francois announced Monsieur
Sibilet.

"He is my minister of finance," said
the general, smiling ; "let him come in. —
He will explain to j^ou the gravity of the
situation," he added, turning to his wife
and Blondet.

"And he will not keep any of it from
you," added the cure in a low tone.

Blondet then saw the person of whom
he had heard ever since his arrival, and
whom he had greatl}^ desired to meet, the
land-steward of les Aigues. He saw a
man of medium height, about thirty years
old, with a sulky look and a discontented
face, which did not seem made for smiles.
Beneath an anxious brow, eyes of a
changeable green seemed to be trying to
evade each other, and thus to disguise
their owner's thoughts. He was dressed
in brown pantaloons and a black coat and
vest ; he wore his hair long and straight,
which gave him a clerical appearance.

The pantaloons could not disguise the fact
that he was bow-legged. Although his
pallid complexion and his soft flesh gave
the impression that he was sickly, he was
in reality robust. The sound of his voice,
which was a little harsh, corresponded
with the rest of his unflattering exte-
rior.

Blondet exchanged a secret glance with
the abbe, and the look which he received
in return for his own told the journalist
that his suspicions with regard to the
steward were shared by the young priest.

"Sibilet," said the general, "did you
not estimate that the amount stolen from
us by the peasants amounted to a quarter
of the revenues ? "

"To much more," replied the steward.
"Your poor take from you more than
the State exacts of you in taxes. Even
a little rascal like Mouche g-leans his two
bushels a da^' ; and the old women, who
would seem to you only fit to die, re-
cover in harvest time the agilitj^ and the
strength of youth. You will be able to|
witness this phenomenon," he added,
turning" to Blondet, " for the harvest,
which has been put back by the July
rains, will begin in six days. The rye
will be cut next week. The people are
not allowed to glean unless fhey have a
certificate of pauperism given 'by the
mayor of the commune ; and no commune
should allow any one to glean on its terri-
tory except its own paupers; but the
communes of a canton g-lean from each
other indiscriminately, without any cer-
tificate. While we have sixty poor people
in the commune, there are at least forty
do-nothings who join their ranks. And
even people who have a business leave it
to go and glean in the fields. Here, all
these people collect three hundred bushels
a day ; the harvest lasts fifteen days, and
there are four thousand five hundred
bushels carried off into the canton. Thus
the gleanings amount to more than the
tithes. As for tlie abuse of the pastur-
age, it takes off about a sixth of the
produce of our meadows. As for the
wood, that is incalculable ; they have got
so they cut six-j^ear-old trees. The dep-
redations beneath which you are suffer-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

241

mg, Monsieur le Comte, amount to over
twenty thousand francs a year."

"There, madame," said the general to
the countess, " do you hear that ? "

" Is it not exag-g-erated ? " she asked.

*' Unfortunately, no," replied the cure.
" Poor Niseron, the old fellow with the
white head, who unites the functions of
bell-ring-er, beadle, grave-digger, sexton
and clerk, in spite of his republican opin-
ions— the grandfather of that little Gene-
vieve whom you have placed with Madame
Michaud."

''La Pechina," said Sibilet, interrupt-
ing the abbe.

*'What do you mean by Pechina?"
asked the countess.

''Madame, when you met Genevieve by
the roadside, in such a wretched condition,
you cried out in Italian : ' Piccina ! ' this
word became a nickname for her, and was
corrupted to such an extent that to-day
the whole commune calls your protegee
Pechina. The poor child is the only one
who comes to church, with Madame Mi-
chaud and Madame Sibilet."

" And she is not much better off for
it," said the steward, "for they abuse
her and ill-treat her on account of her
religion."

" Well," continued the cure, " tliis poor
old man, seventy-two years old, picks up,
honestl}^ and otherwise, about a bushel
and a half a day ; but the rectitude of his
opinions prevents him from selling his
gleanings, as all the others do ; he keeps
them for his own consumption. At my
request Monsieur Langlume, 3' our deput}",
grinds his grain for nothing, and m}'" ser-
vant bakes his bread with my own."

"I had forgotten my little protegee,"
said the countess, who had been startled
by Sibilet's words. " Your arrival here,"
she added, turning- to Blondet, "has
turned my head. But after breakfast
we will go together to the Avonne gate,
and I will show you a living figure like
those the painters of the fifteenth century
delighted to copy."

Just then Pere Fourchon, who had been
brought by Francois, went clattering
along in his broken sabots, which he de-
posited at the kitchen door. The countess

made a sign of assent with her head when
Francois announced the old man, and Pere
Fourchon, followed by Mouche, who had
his mouth full, appeared in the doorway,
holding his otter in his hand, hanging by
a cord tied around its yellow paws, which
were in the form of a star, like those of
all web-footed animals. He glanced at
the four at the table, and at Sibilet, with
the look of mingled defiance and servility
which serves the peasants as a veil, and
then he brandished the otter triumphant-
ly^ in tlie air.

" Here it is ! " he said, addressing
Blondet.

" That is my otter," said the Parisian ;
" I paid you well for it."

" Oh ! my dear sir," replied Pere Four-
chon, "yours got away. It is snug in its
hole b}^ this time. This one is a very dif-
ferent one. Mouche saw it coming from
a long way off, after you had gone away.
As true as Monsieur the Comte covered
himself and his cuirassiers witli glory at
Waterloo, the otter is mine, as much as
les Aig'ues belongs to him. But you can
have him for twenty francs, or I will carry
it to our sub-prefect. If Monsieur Gour-
don thinks it is too dear, as we hunted
together this morning, I will give you the
preference, for that is onty right."

"Twenty francs ? " said Blondet. "You
don't call that good French for ' prefer-
ence,' do 3"ou ? "

"Oh!" exclaimed the old man, "I
know so little French that, if .you like,
I will ask for the sum in Burgundian ;
and if I only get it, I don't care what
language it comes in. I will speak Latin
if you like : latinus, latina, latinum.
After all, it is no more than you prom-
ised me this morning. Besides, my chil-
dren have already taken your money
away from me; I was bemoaning it on
the way here. Ask Charles if I wasn't.
I don't want to have them arrested for
ten francs, and publish their wickedness
before the court. As soon as I have
a few sous fhey give me something to
drink, and take my money away. It is
ver}^ hard, to be driven to taking a glass
of wine somewhere else than in m\'^ own
daughter's house. But that is the way

242

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

with all the children nowadays. That is
what" we have gained by the Revolution.
Everything is for the children, and noth-
ing for the fathers. Ah ! I am bringing
Mouche up in a very different way; he
loves me, the little rascal," he added,
giving a little tap to the boy's cheek.

" You seem to be making a thief of
him, like all the others," said Sibilet;
''\\Q never goes to bed without some piece
of wrong-doing on his conscience."

" Ah ! Monsieur Sibilet, his conscience
is easier than your own. Poor boy! what
does he take ? A little grass ; that is
better than killing a man. He knows
nothing of mathematics, like you ; he
can't subtract and add and multiply.
You do us a great deal of harm. You
say that we are a lot of thieves, and yoM
are the cause of the rupture between our
lord, there, who is a worthy man, and
ourselves, who are worthy people. And
there is not a better country than this
one. See here ! do we have any incomes ?
do we not go nearly naked ? We go to
sleep in beautiful sheets, which are washed
every morning by the dew, and unless
you grudge us the air we breathe and
the rays of sun that warm us, I do not
see what we have that you can want to
take from us. The bourgeois steals at
his fireside ; it is more profitable than
picking up a few sticks in the corner of
the woods. There are no keepers, mount-
ed or on foot, for Monsieur Gaubertin,
who came liere without a sou to his name,
and now he has two millions. It is all
very well to say robbers ! For fifteen
years Pere Guerbel, the tax-gatherer of
Soulanges, has been going away from
our villages at night with his money, and
no one has ever taken so much as a sou
from him. A country of thieves would
not have done like that. We don't get
rich by thieving. Show me now which
of us, we, or you. bourgeois, can sit down
and live without working."

" If you had worked, you would have
some money now," Said the cure. " God
blesses labor."

" I do not like to give you the lie, mon-
sieur, for you know a great deal more
than I do, and so perhaps you can explain

this thing to me. Here I am, the idler,
the do-nothing, the drunkard, the good-
for-nothing Pere Fourchon, who has had
some education, who has been a farmer,
but who fell into the depths of misfort-
une and never got out again. Well, now,
what difference is there between me and
the worthy and honest Father Niseron — a
vine-dresser, sevent}^ years old, for he is
just my age — who for sixty years was a
ditch-digger, who got up before daylight
every morning to go to his work, who
has an iron body and a beautiful soul ?
He is just as poor as I am. La Pechina,
his granddaughter, is at service with
Ma'am Michaud, while little Mouche is as
free as air. Is the poor man rewarded
for his virtues in the same way that I
am punished for my vices ? He does not
know what wine is ; he is as sober as an
apostle ; he buries the dead, while I make
the living dance ; he is always in trouble,
while I am as happy as you please. We
have kept right along together ; we have
the same snow on our heads, and the
same emptiness in our pockets, and I
furnish him the rope with which he rings
the bell. He is a republican, while I am
not even a publican. That's all the differ-
ence. Whether the peasant is good or
bad, according to j'ou, he goes as he
came, in rags, while you wear fine linen."

No one interrupted Pere Fourchon, who
seemed to owe his eloquence to the bot-
tled wine ; Sibilet wanted to stop him
at first, but a gesture from Blondet re-
strained him. The cure, the general and
the countess understood from the jour-
nalist's glances that he wished to stud}'-
pauperism from the life, and perhaps
take his revenge upon Pere Fourchon.

''And what kind of an education are
jT^ou giving Mouche ? " asked Blondet.
" What are you doing- to make him bet-
ter than 3'our daughters ? "

" Do you ever speak to him of God ? "
asked the cure.

" Oh ! no, no, sir ; I do not tell him to
fear God, but men. God is good, and
you saj'- He has promised to give us the
kingdom of heaven, since the kingdoms of
this world are kept by the rich. I say to
him : ' Mouche, fear the prison ; that is

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

243

the road that leads to the scaffold. Do
not steal, but g-et things given to 3'ou.
Theft leads to murder, and that calls
down the justice of men. The sword of
justice is what you must fear ; that is
what makes the rich sleep easy and dis-
turbs the slumbers of the poor. Learn
to read. When j'ou have learning-, jow.
will know how to get rich under cover of
the law, like this fine Monsieur Gaubertin ;
you will be a steward, perhaps, like Mon-
sieur Sibilet, who has his rations given
him by the count. The thing is to keep
close to the rich, for there are plent}'^ of
crumbs under their table.' That's what
I call a good, solid education. So the
little fellow always keeps on the right
side of the law. He will be a good sub-
ject, and take care of me."

" And what are you going to make of
him ? " asked Blondet.

''A servant, first," replied Fourchon ;
'^ because, when he sees the masters close
to, he can learn a good deal from them.
A good example will teach him how to
make his fortune lawfullj^, like you all.
If the count would put him in his stables,
to learn to rub down the horses, the boy
would be very glad ; for, if he fears men,
he does not fear beasts."

"You have a good deal of intelligence,
Pere Fourchon," said Blondet; ''you
know what you are talking about, and
what you say has some sense in it."

*' Oh ! sense ? no. I left my sense at
the Grand-I-vert, with my two five-franc
pieces."

'' How could a man like you allow him-
self to fall so low,? for, as things are, a
peasant has only himself to thank for his
poverty; he is free, and he can become
rich. Times are not as they were once.
If a peasant knows how to lay by a little
moncA', he can find a piece of ground for
sale, and buy it, and then he is his own
master."

' ' I have seen the old times, and I have
seen the new," replied Fourchon; ''the
label is changed, it is true, but the wine
is the same. To-day is only the younger
brother of yesterday. Come ! put that
in your journals. Are we free? We be-
long to the same village still, and the

same lord is there ; his name is labor.
The hoe, our only fortune, has never left
our hand. Whether it is a nobleman or
taxes that takes the most of what we
have, we must spend our life in toil."

"But you could try 3'our fortune at
something else," said Blondet.

" You talk of seeking my fortune. But
where should I go ? To get out of my
own department I should have to have a
passport which would cost me forty sous.
For the last forty years I have never had
a forty-sou piece in my pocket, with any-
thing else to chink against it. To go
anj^where takes as many crowns as there
are villages, and there are not many
Fourchons who have enough money to
visit six villages. There is nothing but
the drafting to take us away from our
villages. And what are we good for in
the army ? To let the colonel live by
means of the soldier, just as the bour-
geois lives by means of the peasant. Out
of a hundred colonels, is there one that
came from our ranks ? There, as every-
where else, a hundred fall for one that
rises. And whose fault is it that they
fall ? God and the usurers know ! The
best thing for us to do is to stay in our
communes, where we are penned in like
sheep by the force of circumstances, as
we were formerly by the noblemen. And
I mock at that which keeps me here.
Whether a man is held fast by the law
of necessit}', or by that of the manor, he
is in either case compelled to dig the
ground. Wherever we are, we dig the
soil, and we spade it and manure it and
work it for you, Avho are born rich, as
we are born poor. The masses will al-
ways be the same ; they will alwaj's re-
main what they are. Those among us
who rise are not as numerous as those
among you who fall. We know that, if
we are not scholars. You need not come
after us to arrest us all the time. We
leave you alone — let us live. Otherwise,
if this keeps on, 3^ou will have to support
us in your prisons by-and-by, where we
would be more comfortable than on our
pallets. You want to be our masters,
and we are enemies, to-day, as much as
we were thirty' years ago. You have all.

244

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

and we have nothing- ; you cannot expect
our friendship."

" This sounds hke a declaration of war,"
said the g-enei-al.

"^ My lord/' replied Fourchon, *'when
les Aigues belonged to the poor madame
(may God rest her soul !) we were happy.
She let us pick up our living- in her fields,
and our wood in her forests; she was
none the poorer for it. And you, who
are at least as rich as she, you hunt us
out, as if we were wild beasts, and you
drag- us before the courts. Well, it will
end badly. You will cause harm. I just
saw your keeper, Vatel, almost kill a poor
old woman for a bit of wood. You will
become the enemy of the people, and they
will do to you as the}^ did in the old days ;
they will curse you as heartily as they
blessed the old nladame. The curse of
the poor, my lord, g-rows ; and it becomes
g-reater than the g-reatest of your oaks,
and the oak furnishes the scaffold. No
one here tells you the truth ; there it is !
I expect death any day, and I do not risk
much in g-iving- the truth to you, over and
above our barg-ain. I make the peasants
dance at the g-reat fetes, when I go with
Vermichel to the Cafe de la Paix, at Sou-
langes, and I hear what they say ; well,
they are badh^ disposed toward j^ou, and
they will make it difQculb for you to stay
here. If your damned Michaud does not
change, they'll make you chang-e him.
Come ! — that opinion, together with the
otter, is well worth twentj^ francs."

While the old man was speaking- the
last sentence, there was a sound of steps
without, and the man whom Fourchon
had just menaced entered without being
announced. At the look which Michaud
bestowed upon the poor man's orator, it
was evident that the threat had reached
his ear, and all Fourchon's audacity" col-
lapsed. The look produced upon the otter
fisherman had the effect that the police-
man produces upon the thief; Fourchon
knew himself to be in the wrong, and
Michaud seemed to have the right to call
him to account for a discourse which was
evidently intended to alarm the inhabi-
tants of the chateau.

^'Here is my minister of war," said the

general, addressing Blondet and motion-
ing to Michaud.

" I beg 3^our pardon, madame," said
the latter, "for entering without stop-
ping to be announced, but the urgency''
of affairs demands that I speak with the
general."

Michaud, while he was excusing him-
self, was looking at Sibilet, to whom
Fourchon's bold remarks caused an ex-
quisite delight, which was not, however,
noticed by any of those seated at the
table, for they were giving their undi-
vided attention to Fourchon ; Michaud,
however, who, for reasons of his own, was
always watching Sibilet, v/as struck by
his expression and manner.

" As he says, he has well earned his
twent}' francs, monsieur," exclaimed Sibi-
let ; "the otter is not dear."

"Give him twenty francs," said the
count to the footman.

"Then you take it from me?" asked
Blondet of the general.

"I want to have it stuffed," replied the
count.

"Ah ! this good sir left me the skin,"
said Pere Fourchon.

"Well," exclaimed the countess, "j^ou
can have a hundred sous for the skin;
but go now."

The strong, uncultivated odor of the
two habitues of the highway so poisoned
the air of the dining-room for Madame de
Montcornet, whose delicate senses were
offended by it, that she would have been
obliged to leave the room herself if Four-
chon and Mouche had stayed much longer.
It was to this inconvenience that the old
man owed his twenty-five francs. As he
went out, he looked at Michaud timidly,
and made him countless salutations.

" What I just said to my lord, Michaud,
was for your good," he said.

" Or for that of the people who pay
you," returned Michaud, eying him
sharply.

"When you have served the coffee,
leave us," said the general to the ser-
vants, " and be sure that you shut the
doors."

Blondet, w^ho had not hitherto seen the
head keeper of les Aigues, received, in

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

245

looking" at him, very different impressions
from those that Sibilet had g-iven him.
Micliaud commanded as much esteem and
confidence as Sibilet had inspired repul-
sion.

The head keeper attracted attention in
the first place by a fine face, of a perfect
oval, and reg^ular drawing, including* the
nose, which is usually wanting" in regu-
larity in most French faces. The feat-
ures, while correctly drawn, did not want
expression, perhaps because of a com-
plexion composed of those tones of ochre
and red which indicate physical courag"e.
^ The eyes, of a clear brown, quick and
piercing, did not conceal their owner's
thoughts, but looked frankly out. The
forehead, large and pure, was set off by
masses of black hair. Honesty, decision,
and a confidence in g"ood, animated this
beautiful face, where a soldier's life had
left some furrows on the brow. Suspicion
and mistrust could be read there, as soon
as formed in his mind. Like all men
drawn for the elite of the cavalry, his
figure, still beautiful and slender, showed
tliat the keeper was a powerful man.

Michaud, who wore mustaches, whisk-
ers and a beard, reminded one of the
tj'pe of that martial figure which the
deluge of patriotic painting-s and engrav-
ing's has made almost ridiculous. This
type had the fault of being* common in
the French army; but it is possible that
the continuity of the same einotions, the
sufferings of the bivouac from which
neither high nor low Avere exempt, and
the efforts common both to chiefs and
soldiers on the field of battle, contributed
to make this physiognomy a uniform
one.

Michaud was dressed throug-hout in
blue cloth, and still kept to the black
satin collar and military boots, as he did
to the rather stiff attitude. His shoul-
ders were drawn back and his chest ex-
panded, as thoug"h he were still under
arms. The red ribbon of the Leg"ion of
Honor fluttered at his button-hole. Fi-
nally, to finish, with a single word of moral
description, this purely' physical picture,
we may add that while the steward had
never failed to address his master as M.

le Comte, Michaud had never named him
otherwise than as '*g-eneral."

Blondet exchang-ed another look with
the abbe, which seemed to say : " What
a contrast ! " motioning' to the steward
and the head keeper ; then in order to
learn Avhether his character, thought and
speech harmonized with the stature, face
and expression, he looked at Michaud,
and said :

" I went out earl^"- this morning, and
found your keepers still asleep."

" At what hour ? " asked the head
keeper, anxiously.

''At half-past seven."

Michaud looked almost mischievously
at his g-eneral.

" And by which g"ate did monsieur go
out ? " asked Michaud.

''The Conches g-ate," replied Blondet.
" The keeper looked at me from the win-
dow, and he was still in his night shirt."

" Gaillard had probably just g-one to
bed," replied Michaud. "When jo\x said
that you went out early, I thought you
meant by daylig'ht, and I knew that if
the keeper was in bed at that time, he
must be sick ; but at half -past seven,
he had just gone to bed. We watch all
night," continued Michaud, in answer to
an astonished look from the countess,
"but our vigilance is always at fault.
You have just given twenty-five francs to
a man who a little while ago coolly helped
to conceal the traces of a theft which
was committed on your propertj^ this
morning. We must speak of this when
you have finished, g-eneral, for something"
must be done."

" You are always standing" up for your
rights, Michaud," said Sibilet, "and sum-
mum jus, summa injuria. If you do not
show some tolerance, you will get j'-our-
self into trouble. I wish you had heard
Pere Fourchon just now, when the wine
made him speak a little more frankly than
usual."

" He frightened me," said the countess.

"He did not say an3^thing- which I have
not known for a long-time," observed the
g-eneral.

" Oh ! the scoundrel was not drunk ; he
was playing his part for the benefit of

246

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

some one. Perhaps you know whom ? "
added Michaud, making Sibilet blush by
the sudden look which he turned upon
him.

"O rus!" exclaimed Blondet, with
another glance at the abbe.

"These poor people suffer," said the
countess, " and there was some truth in
what Fourchon shouted to us — for he
cannot be said to have spoken it."

''Madame," replied Michaud, ''do you
think that the emperor's soldiers were on
rose-leaves for fourteen years ? The gen-
eral is a count, and a great officer of the
Legion of Honor ; but am I jealous of
him, I who fought with him ? Do I want
to cheat him of his glory, to refuse him
the honors due to his grade ? The peas-
ant must obey, as soldiers obey ; he should
have the honesty of the soldier, and his
respect for acquired rights, and should
try to become an officer loyally, by his
own toil and not tlirough theft. The
plow-share and the saber are twins.
The soldier has a harder time than the
peasant, for death is constantly hovering
over his head."

" I should like to tell them that from
the pulpit," exclaimed the abbe.

"Tolerance?" continued the keeper,
still replying to Sibilet. "I would toler-
ate a loss of ten per cent of the gross
revenues of les Aigues ; but as things are
going now, you are losing thirty per cent,
general; and if Monsieur Sibilet has so
* many per cent on his receipts, I cannot
understand his tolerance, for he is benevo-
lently giving up a thousand or twelve
hundred francs every year."

"My dear Michaud," returned Sibilet,
sourlj'-, " as I have told Monsieur le Comte,
I would rather lose twelve hundred francs
than my life. Think of it seriously; I
have given yon warnings enough."

"Life!" cried the countess. "Is any
one's life in danger ? "

"We must not discuss the affairs of the
state here," said the general, laughing.
" All this, madame, signifies that Sibilet,
in his character of financier, is timid
and cowardly, while my minister of war
is brave, and, like his general, fears
nothing."

" Say rather, prudent. Monsieur le
Comte," exclaimed Sibilet.

" Are we here, like Cooper's heroes in
the forests of America, surrounded by
snares laid by savages ? " asked Blondet,
mockingly.

"Your business, gentlemen," said Ma-
dame de Montcornet, " is to carry on the
administration without alarming us by
the grinding of the wheels."

"Perhaps it is just as well, countess,
that you should know the cost of one of
those pretty bonnets that you wear,"
said the cure.

" No, for I might then go without them,
become respectful before a twenty-franc
piece, and grow miserly, like all the coun-
try people, and I should be losing too
much," replied the countess, laughing.
" Give me your arm, my dear abbe ; let
us leave the general between his two min-
isters, and go to the Avonne gate to see
Madame Michaud, whom I have not vis-
ited since my arrival; it is time that I
looked after my little protegee."

And the pretty woman, forgetting al-
read3^ the rags of Fourchon and Mouche,
their looks of hatred and Sibilet's terrors,
went to put on her shoes and her hat.

The Abbe Brossette and Blondet obej^ed
the countess's call, and waited for her on
the terrace in front of the house.

" What do you think of all this ? " asked
Blondet.

" I am a jDariah ; they spy upon me, as
their common enemy ; I am forced to keep
the eyes and the ears of prudence con-
stantly open, in order to escape the nets
which they spread to embarrass me," the
abbe replied. " Between ourselves, I
sometimes wonder if they will not shoot
me."

" And yet you stay here ? " said Blon-
det.

" One does not desert the cause of God,
any more than that of the emperor," re-
plied the abbe, with striking simplicity.

The journalist took the priest's hand
and pressed it cordially.

"You therefore understand," added the
abbe, "whj^ it is impossible for me to
know anything of what is being plotted.
Nevertheless it seems to me that the gen-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

24';

eral is flghting- what in Artois and Bel-
g-ium they call ill-will.'"

A few words will not he out of place
here concerning' the cure of Blang-j*.

He was the fourth son of a good hour-
g"eois family of Autun, and was a man of
intelligence. He was small and thin, but
his insignificant appearance was redeemed
by that air of obstinacy which belongs to
the people of Burgundy. He had accepted
this secondary position out of pure devo-
tion, for to his religious convictions he
joined political opinions that were equall}^
strong". He had in him the stuff of which
the priests of the olden time were made ;
he held to the Church and the clerg-y pas-
sionately ; he \iewed things as a whole,
and his ambition was not spoiled by ego-
tism ; to sei^ve was his motto, to serve
the Church and the monarchy at the
point most threatened ; to serve in the
last ranks, like a soldier who feels him-
self destined sooner or later to become a
g"eneral, by his desire to do well, and by
his courag'e. He did not trifle with his
vows of chastitj^ poverty and obedience ;
he fulfilled them, as he fulfilled all the
other duties of his position, with simplicity
and g-entleness, the certain indices of an
honest soul, vowed to g-ood by the inclina-
tion of the natural instinct, as well as by
the power and solidity of religious con-
victions.

Almost every evening- he came to the
chateau to make the fourth at whist. The
journalist, who recognized his true worth,
showed so much deference for him that
they soon g-rew to be in sympathy with
each other, as are all men of intelligence
when they find a compeer, or a listener.
Every sword loves its scabbard.

''But you, who find yourself b}' your
devotion above your position, to what do
you attribute this state of things ? "

'' I will not answer you with common-
places, after such a flattering parenthe-
sis," replied the abbe, smiling. "What
is passing" in this valley is taking place
everywhere in France, and is a result of
the hopes which the movement of 1789
infiltrated, so to speak, into the minds
of the peasants. The Revolution affected
certain countries more powerfully than

others, and this strip of Burg-undy, so
near Paris, is one of the places where the
movement has been understood as a tri-
umph of the Gaul over the Frank. His-
torically, the peasants are still in the
morrow of the Jacquerie, and their de-
feat is inscribed upon their brain. The
fact itself is no longer remembered ; it
has become an instinctive idea. This
idea is in the peasant blood, as the idea
of superiority was formerly. The Revolu-
tion of 1TS9 was the revenge of the con-
quered. The peasants have g-ot a foot-
hold in the possession of the soil, which
was interdicted to them for twelve hun-
dred years by the feudal law. Hence
their love for the land, which they share
among" themselves, even to cutting a fur-
row in two, which often prevents the col-
lection of the taxes, for the value of the
property is not sufficient to cover the ex-
pense of the legal costs."

" Their obstinacy and defiance is such,"
interrupted Blondet, "that in a thousand
out of the three thousand cantons of which
French territor^^ is composed, it is impos-
sible for a rich man to purchase the prop-
erty of a peasant. The peasants, who
will sell their little bits of land to each
other, will not part with them at anj'
price to a bourgeois. The more money
a large proprietor offers the more does
the vague distrust of the peasant in-
crease. Legal dispossession alone will
bring the property of the peasant under
the common law of barter. Many have
observed this fact, but no one seems to
know the reason for it."

"The reason is this," replied the abbe,
rightly construing Blondet's pause as
equivalent to an interrogation. " Twelve
centuries are nothing for a caste which the
historic spectacle of civilization has never
diverted from its principal thought, and
which still wears proudly'' the broad-
brimmed, silk-wound hat of its masters,
ever since an abandoned fashion left it
for them. The love whose root lies in
the innermost parts of the people, and
which attached itself violently to Napo-
leon, who was less in its secret than he
imagined himself to be, and which may
explain the miracle of his return in 1815,

248

THE HUM AX COMEDY.

proceeded solely from this idea. In the
eyes of the people, Napoleon, who was
everlastingly bound to them by his mil-
lion of soldiers, is the king* who has come
forth from the loins of the Revolution,
the man who assures to them the posses-
sion of landed property. His coronation
was steeped in this idea."

'^ An idea upon which 1814 had a dis-
astrous effect, and which the monarchy
should hold sacred," said Blondet quick-
ly ; '•' for the people may find near the
throne a prince to whom his father be-
queathed the head of Louis XVI. as an
heirloom."

" Here is madame ; say no more," said
Brossette in a low voice. " Fourchon
frightened her; and we must keep her
here, in the interests of religion and the
throne, to say nothing of the estate
itself."

Michaud had probably been brought to
the chateau by the attempt perpetrated
beneath Vatel's e^' es. But before giving
the result of the deliberation which had
just taken place in the council of state,
the march of events demands a concise
narrative of the circumstances under
which the general had purchased les
Aigues, the grave reasons which had
made Sibilet the land-steward of this
magnificent property, the causes w^hich
had led to the appointment of Michaud
as head keeper, and the antecedents
which had led to the situation of mind
and the fears expressed by Sibilet.

This rapid review will have the advan-
tage of introducing some of the principal
actors in the drama, of outlining their in-
terests, and of describing the dangers of
the situation in which General Montcornet
now found himself.

VI.

* A TALE OF ROBBERY.

When pacing a visit to her property
about 1791, Mademoiselle Laguerre en-
gaged as steward the son of the former
bailiff of Soulanges, a man by the name

of Gaubertin. The little city of Soulanges,
now nothing more than the county town
of a canton, was the capital of a consider-
able district in the times when the houses
of France and Burgundy were waging
war against each other. Ville-aux-Fayes,
■where the sous-prefecture is located to-
day, was then subject to Soulanges, as
were Aigues, Ronquerolles, Cerneux,
Conches and fifteen other parishes. The
Soulanges have remained simple counts,
while at the present day the Ronquerolles
are marquises, thanks to that sovereign
power called the court which raised the
son of Captain du Plessis to a dukedom
and gave him precedency over the first
families of the conquest. This proves that
the destiny of cities, like that of families,
is variable.

The bailiff's son, a penniless bachelor,
succeeded to a steward who had grown
rich during his thirty years of power and
chose to step down and out in oi-der to
take a third share in the famous Minoret
company that collected the revenues of
Aigues. It was in his own interest that
the future commissary nominated as in-
tendant Francois Gaubertin, who had
been his accountant for five years and
w^ho, to show his gratitude to the master
who had initiated him into the secrets
of their profession, promised to obtain
for him an acquittance from Mademoi-
selle Laguerre, whose mind was ill at
ease on account of the Revolution. The
ex-bailiff, now public prosecutor of the
department, w^as the protector of the
timid songstress. This provincial Fou-
quier-Tinville incited a spurious emeute
against a queen of the stage, who w^as
evidently become suspected by reason of
her connection with the aristocracy, in
order that his son might have the merit
of being her apparent savior, and in this
way they obtained an acquittance for the
former incumbent. Thereon Citizeness
Laguerre made Francois Gaubertin her
prime minister, partly from policy, partly
from gratitude.

The future purveyor of provisions to
the armies of the Republic had not wished
to spoil mademoiselle by high living : he
transmitted to Paris about thirty thou-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

249

sand livres annually, whereas Aig-ues
must have produced at the very least
forty thousand in those days ; the diva in
her innocence was consequently greatly
surprised when Gaubertin promised her
thirt^'-'Six.

In order to account for the fortune of
the regisseur of Aig-ues we must go hack
to the beginning". Through his father's
influence young- Gaubertin was elected
mayor of Blangy. He was able, there-
fore, in spite of the law of the land,
having- it in his power to intensify or
mitig-ate the severity of the crushing
requisitions of the Republic, by terror-
izing (a newly coined expression) the
debtors of the State to extract from them
g-old and silver in payment of their dues.
The worthy steward turned in assignats
to his employer in settlement of his ac-
counts so long- as this paper money con-
tinued to be current, which, if it did not
increase the public wealth, made many
private fortunes. In the course of three
years, from 179'3 to 1795, 3'oung- Gauber-
tin made at Aigues a hundred and fift^^
thousand livres, with which he operated
at Paris. Mademoiselle Lag-uerre, with
more assignats than she knew what to do
with, was obliged to raise money on her
diamonds, which were of no further use to
her; she g-ave them to Gaubertin, who
sold them and faithfully returned the ]Dro-
ceeds in silver. Such an instance of prob-
ity touched mademoiselle deeply; her
confidence in Gaubertin after that was as
g-reat as in Piccini.

In 1T96, when he took to wife the Citi-
zeness Isaure Mouchon, daughter of an
old friend of his father in the daA's of the
Convention, Gaubertin was worth three
hundred and fifty thousand francs in coin,
and as the stability of the Directorate ap-
peared to him a matter of some doubt, he
wished to have mademoiselle approve the
accounts of his five years' stewardship,
excusing- himself on the g-round that he
was about to make a new departure.

^'1 shall be a family man," said he.
" You know the reputation that intend-
ants generally have ; my father-in-law is
a P.epublican of more than Roman integ-
rity, and a man of influence besides ; I

desire to show him that I am worthy to
be connected with him."

Mademoiselle Laguerre approved Gau-
bertin's accounts in the most flattering
terms.

In order to gain the confidence of the
lady of Aig-ues the regisseur tried in the
beginning- to keep the peasants in check,
fearing-, and with good reason, that the
revenue would suffer from their devasta-
tions, and that his own bonus from the
wood-merchant would be cut down ; but
in those times the sovereig-n people were
everywhere making- themselves very much
at home ; madame, on seeing- her kings
so hear at hand, was afraid of them, and
told her Richelieu that it was her desire,
above all thing-s, to die in peace. The in-
come of the former ornament of the stage
was so much in excess of her expenditure
that she allowed the most fatal prece-
dents to be established. To avoid a law-
suit she suffered her neig-hbors to trench
on her property. Her park being- sur-
rounded b}^ walls too lofty to be scaled,
she had no fear of being- disturbed in her
present enjoyments, and, like the true
philosopher she was, demanded nothing
but tranquillity. A few thousand francs
of income more or less, the reductions in
his lease exacted by the wood-merchant
to pay for the depredations committed by
the peasants, what were those thing-s to
the careless, prodig-al ex-cantatrice, whose
hundred thousand francs of yearly rev-
enue had all been spent on her pleasures
and who had submitted without a mur-
mur to a reduction of two-thirds on her
sixty thousand francs of rental ?

''Ha ! " said she, with the insouciance
of the high liver of the old regime, " every
one must live, even the Republic ! "

Mademoiselle Cochet, confidential maid
and female g-rand vizier to her ladj^ship,
had attempted to enlighten her mistress,
when she saw the ascendency that Gau-
bertin was acquiring- over her whom he at
first called Madame, notwithstanding- the
laws concerning equalitj^ ; but Gaubertin,
in turn, enlightened Mademoiselle Cochet,
by producing a denunciation said to have
been received by his father, the public
prosecutor, in which she was accused of

250

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

being in correspondence with Pitt and
Coburg-. From that time forth the pair
reigned with divided authority, but after
the fashion of Montgomery ; Cochet would
speak a good word for Gaubertin in Made-
moiselle Laguerre's ear, and he would do
the same for her. The female attend-
ant's bed was already made, moreover ;
she knew that she was down in madame's
will for sixty thousand francs. Madame
was so habituated to the Cochet that she
could not dispense with her; the girl
knew all the secrets of her dear mistress's
toilet, she had a thousand pretty tales
with which to bring sleep to dear mis-
tress's eyes at night, and a store of flat-
teries with which to awake her in the
morning ; finally, she never could see any
change in dear mistress up to the day of
her death, and when dear mistress was in
her grave, she doubtless found her better
looking there than ever.

The j^early pickings of Gaubertin and
Mademoiselle Cochet, in the way of salary
and perquisites, became so considerable,
that had they been the dear creature's
own father and mother their affection
for her could not have been greater. No
one can tell the extent to which the rogue
makes much of and pets his dupe ; no
mother is so loving and attentive toward
a cherished daughter as is one of these
Tartuffes toward the cow that he is milk-
ing for his own special benefit. What suc-
cess attends the representation of " Tar-
tuff e" played before a private audience !
That shows the value of friendship. Mo-
liere died too early ; he should have given
us Orgon maddened b}'^ the persecutions
of his family and children, longing for
Tartuffe's flatteries, and saving : " Those
were the good old times ! "

During the last eight years of her life.
Mademoiselle Laguerre did not receive
more than thirt}' thousand francs of the
fifty which the Aigues property actually
yielded. Gaubertin, as we maj^ see, had
attained the same administrative results
as his predecessor, althoug'h rents and the
price of all kinds of country produce had
materially increased between 1791 and
1815, to say nothing of the additions
that Mademoiselle Laguerre was con-

stantly making to her domain. But the
scheme b,y virtue of which Gaubertin
hoped to obtain possession of Aigues at
madame's death compelled him to keep
this magnificent estate in a condition of
apparent poverty as to its visible income.
The Cochet had been initiated into the
project and was to have a share of the
profits. As the former ornament of the
stage in her declining days, with a fort-
une in the funds styled consolidated (the
language of finance often serves to con-
ceal a good joke) which paid her an an-
nual interest of twenty thousand livres,
spent barely the twenty thousand francs
aforesaid, it amazed her to hear of the
fresh acquisitions her steward was mak-
ing year after year to employ the surplus
funds, for she had hitherto alwaj^s spent
her income before she received it. She
attributed the diminishing requirements
of her old age to the honesty of Gauber-
tin and Mademoiselle Cochet.

" They are a pair of pearls ! " she said
to those who came to see her.

Gaubertin, moreover, was careful that
his accounts should appear perfectly reg-
ular. He charged himself rigorously on
the books with all the rentals; everything
that was to undergo the inspection of the
cantatrice, whose strong point was not
arithmetic, was clear, lucid and precise.
It was in the items of expenditure that
the steward found his profits : the cost of
breaking up new land, fencing and drain-
ing, commissions to brokers, repairs, the
new processes he invented, details which
madame never thought of investigating,
and which he oftentimes made double
what they should be, thanks to the con-
nivance of contractors, whose silence was
purchased by advantageous bargains.
This easy way of doing business acquired
for Gaubertin the esteem of the public,
and madame's praises were in the mouth
of every one ; for besides what she distrib-
uted in works of public utility, she spent
a great deal in charity.

'' God bless and save her, dear lady ! "
was what every one said.

Everybody, in fact, got something from
her, either as a gift out and out or indi-
rectly. As if in atonement for the errors

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

251

of her youth the aged artiste was con-
scientiously pillaged, and pillaged in such
an artistic way that every one imposed a
certain degree of restraint on himself,
so that the matter should not be carried
to such a length as to open her ej-es and
make her sell Aigues and return to Paris
to live.

It is to this interest of banded plun-
der that is to be attributed the murder
of Paul Louis Courier, who was so im-
prudent as to mention his intention of
selling his propert^^ and removing his
wife, off whom several Tonsards of Tou-
raine were living. With this example
before their eyes, the plunderers of Aigues
hesitated to kill the goose that laid them
golden eggs ; they would not cut down a
young tree except as a measure of last
necessity, when their longest poles were
too short to reach the persimmons in the
topmost branches. In the interest of
their own j)eculations, the\'' did as little
mischief as possible. In spite of all, how-
ever, during the last years of Mademoi-
selle Laguerre's life, the usage of going
to the forest to collect wood had degener-
ated into a most shameless abuse ; on
some moonlight nights, no less than two
hundred fagots would be bundled up and
carried off. And as for gleanage and
ballebotage, Aigues lost by them one-
fourth of its products, as Sibilet has
shown.

Mademoiselle Laguerre had laid an in-
junction on Cochefs marrying during her
lifetime, prompted by a sort of proprietary
feeling as between mistress and maid, of
which examples are not infrequent, and
which is not more ridiculous than our
mania for holding on until our last gasp
to wealth that can do us no earthl}^ good,
at the risk of being poisoned by our im-
patient heire. Twenty days after Made-
moiselle Laguerre's funeral, therefore,
Mademoiselle Cochet was married to the
corporal of the gendarmerie of Soulanges,
a man by the name of Soudry, very good-
looking and about forty-two years old,
who, ever since the time when the gen-
darmerie was created in 1800, had been
coming to Aigues almost daily to visit
her, and was in the habit of dining at

least four days out of the seven with her
and Gaubertin.

All her life long ma dame had taken her
meals in solitarj'- state, unless when she
had company. Never, notwithstanding
the terms of familiarity on which the\'
lived, were Cochet and the Gaubertins
admitted to the table of the leading lady
of the Royal Academy of Music and the
Dance, who, to the last breath she drew,
retained all the awlful majesty her position
gave her, with all the paraphernalia — car-
riage, horses, servants, rouge and high-
heeled slippers — thereto pertaining. She
reigned upon the stage, she reigned in
social life, and she continued to reign in
the retirement of the country, where her
memory is still respected and where she
occupies, to the minds of the best society
of Soulanges, a position certainly not in-
ferior to any member of the court of Louis
Seize.

This man Soudry, who commenced to
make love to the Cochet almost as soon
as he made his appearance in the countr}-,
was the owner of the finest house in Sou-
langes ; his pay was about six thousand
francs and he had a prospect of a pension
of four hundred francs whenever he should
leave the service. The Cochet, once she
had changed her name to Soudry, was
treated with the highest consideration
in Soulanges. She maintained the strict-
est silence as to the amount of her sav-
ings, which, like Gaubertin's funds, were
invested at Paris with a person named
Leclercq, agent for the wine-dealers of
the department and himself a native of
the country, in whose business the stew-
ard had a silent interest ; but if public
opinion was to be believed, the ci-devant
lady's maid was one of the first fortunes
in that little town of some twelve hun-
dred souls.

Much to the surprise of the entire
country-side. Monsieur and Madame Sou-
dry in their marriage contract legiti-
mized a natural son of the gendarme,
whom this action would entitle to in-
herit Madame Sondrj^'s fortune. On the
very day when this son had a mothei*
officially bestowed upon him, he con-
cluded his law studies at Paris, where

252

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

lie proposed to serve liis apprenticeship
in order to prepare himself for a place
in the mag'istrac3%

It is hardl3'" necessar3^ to state that a
mutual understanding- extending- over a
period of twenty years had eng-endered
a friendship of the firmest kind between the
Gauhertins and the Soudrys. To the very
last day of their lives they g-ave themselves
out, urhi et orhi, to he the most uprig-ht,
the honestest, the best people in the entire
re?Jm of France. This mutual liking that
two men be^r each other, based on the re-
ciprocal knowledge of the dark stains there
are on the white tunic of their conscience,
constitutes one of the most difficult ties
to loosen there are in this wide world.
You, vary friend, who are reading- this
social drama, are so well assured of this
that to explain the duration of certain
friendships that put your egotism to the
blush, you sa}'' of the two devoted ones :
" Surely fhey must have committed some
awful crime together ! "

After an incumbency of five and twenty
years the steward found himself owner of
a snug- fortune of six hundred thousand
francs, and the fair Cochet had in the
neighborhood of two hundred and fift^^
thousand. The activity with which these
funds were turned over and over by the
firm of Leclercq & Co., Quai de Bethune,
He Saint Louis, rivals in business of the
house of Grandet & Co., assisted materi-
ally in building up the huge fortune of the
commission merchant as well as that of
Gaubertin. At Mademoiselle Laguerre's
death Jenny, the intendant's oldest daugh-
ter, was sought in marriage by Leclercq,
the head of the house in the Quai de Be-
thune. Gaubertin was at that time flat-
tering- himself with hopes of becoming-
master of Aigues, by virtue of a plot
hatched in the office of Maitre Lupin, the
notary, whom he had set up in business
at Soulanges twelve years previously.

Lupin, son of the last intendant of the
Soulang-es family, had lent himself to
various not strictly honorable practices :
appraisements at fifty per cent under
value, advertisements published in ob-
scure journals ; all the methods, in fine,
that are unfortunately so common in the

country by which g-reat properties are
frequently knocked down to favored par-
ties for a g-reat deal less than they are
worth. Of late, they say, a company
has been formed at Paris that has for its
object to extort money from these wil}''
individuals by threatening- to outbid them.
But in 181G the fierce light of the daily
press did not beat upon France as it does
at the present day, and the accomplices
might safely count on the success of their
scheme for partitioning- the Aigues prop-
erty in secret between la Cochet, the
notary and Gaubertin, who promised
himself, in petto, to secure the others'
shares by a payment of ready money as
soon as the property should be in his
name. The lawj^er employed by Lupin to
look after the partition sale had sold his
business on credit to Gaubertin for the
latter's son, so that he was quite read3''
to wink at this robbery if so be that any
of the eleven farmers of Picardy, to whom
this inheritance was such an unexpected
windfall, should consider himself robbed.
Just as all the parties in interest were
soothing- themselves with the belief that
their fortunes were to be increased two-
fold, there came a lawyer from Paris on
the very day before the sale, whose object
was to commission one of the lawyers of
Ville-aux-Fayes (who had formerly been a
clerk in the Parisian lawyer's ofl3.ce) to
purchase Aig-ues, and the property was
knocked down to him for a million one
hundred thousand and fifty francs. None
of tlie conspirators dared g-o above the
bid of eleven hundred thousand francs.
Gaubertin believed there was foul play on
Soudry's part, just as Lupin and Soudry
believed themselves defrauded 'bj Gau-
bertin, but the decree of sale reconciled
them. The lawyer of Ville-aux-Fayes,
although suspecting the existence of a
plot on the part of Gaubertin, Lupin and
Soudry, did not think best to inform his
old emploj'^er, and for this reason : Should
the new owners see fit to blab, the con-
spirators would soon make it so hot for
the ministerial functionary that he would
have to leave the countr\^ This reticence,
quite characteristic of the provincial, will
be fully justified; moreover, by the out-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

253

come of this story. If the provincial is
sly and secretive, it is because he is com-
pelled to be ; his justification lies in the
perils that environ him, expressed most
admirably in the proverb : ' ' One must
hoivl icith the wolves!" which explams
the meaning- of the character of Philmte.

When General Montcornet took posses-
sion of Aig-ues, Gaubertin did not con-
sider himself sufficiently wealth^'- to g-ive
up his place. In order to secure the rich
banker as his son-in-law, he had had to
pay a dowry of two hundred thousand
francs with his oldest daughter ; the
business he had purchased for his son
would cost him thirty thousand francs;
there were left him therefore only three
hundred and seventy thousand francs,
from which he would sooner or later
have to take the dowry of Eliza, his sec-
ond daughter, for whom he proposed to
arrang-e a match fully as advantag-eous
as that of her elder sister. The regis-
seur thought he would study the Comte
de Montcornet for a while to see if there
was not a possibility of his becoming- dis-
gusted with Aigues, in which event he
would turn to his own individual account
the conception that had come to naught.

"With the cunning- peculiar to those
who have acquired their wealth by un-
derhanded means, Gaubertin thoug-ht,
and not without a good deal of reason,
too, that between an old soldier and an
old cantatrice there must be many points
of resemblance. A child of the Opera, an
old general of Napoleon's, must not their
habits of prodigality, their reckless insou-
ciance be indentical ? Does not wealth
bestow its favors capriciously, blindly,
on the soldier as well as on the actress ?
If we encounter military men who are
shrewd, politic and far-seeing-, is it not
the exception rather than the rule ?
Most frequently, on the contrary", the
sojdier, especially when he is a hard-
riding, tough old cavalry officer, is
simple, confiding, a g-reenhorn in busi-
ness and not likely to bother his head
with the wearisome, countless details in-
volved in a supervision of his property.
Gaubertin flattered himself that he sliould
be able to take and keep the g-eneral in

the same toils in which Mademoiselle La-
guerre had ended her da3^s. But it so
chanced that the emperor had once, of
malice prepense, suffered Montcornet to
be in Pomerania what Gaubertin now
was at Aigues; the g-eneral therefore
had some knowledge of stewards and
their ways.

In coming- to Aigues to plant cabbag-es,
to use the first Due de Biron's expression,
the old cavalrj'- officer wished to have an
occupation to occupy his mind in order
that he might cease to remember his dis-
grace. He had turned his arm}' corps
over to the Bourbons, a service that had
been performed by many another g-eneral
and st^ied the disbandment of the Army
of the Loire; but never could he atone for
his crime in having ridden behind the
Man of the Hundred Days on his last
battlefield. It was impossible for the
peer of 1815, in presence of the foreigner,
to keep his name on the army list ; still
less could he remain at the Luxembourg-.
Montcornet, therefore, accepted the ad-
vice of a marshal, disgraced like himself,
and took himself off to cultivate carrots
and turnips. The g-eneral had his share
of that acuteness that is often met with
among- the old wolves of the watch-fire,
and he had not much more than begun to
look into his affairs than he recog-nized in
Gaubertin a true type of the steward of
the old regime, a rascal, one of the kind
that Napoleon's dukes and marshals,
those mushrooms spawned from the dreg's
of the populace, met so many of in their
experience.

The sag-acious officer of cuirassiers, per-
ceiving Gaubertin's peculiar aptitude in
all matters pertaining- to rustic adminis-
tration, felt what a g-ood thing- it would
be to retain him until he himself should
be somewhat better posted in the minutiie
of his new and unsought occupation. He
accordingly assumed an air of cheerful
insouciance, imitative of Mademoiselle
Laguerre, which threw the steward off
his g-uard. This seeming- silliness lasted
exactl}^ so long- as the g-eneral was ac-
quainting- himself with the strong- and
weak points of the property, the state of
the revenue, the manner of collecting- it.

254

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

how and where his people were robbing-
him, the improvements and economies
that were necessary. Then, having-
cauglit Gaubertin one fine morning with
his hand in the bag, to use the time-
honored expression, the general fell into
one of those towering rages that come
so natm^al to your conquering hero. He
made that day a great mistake, one of
those mistakes that are as likely as not
to alter the entire existence of a man not
blessed with his wealth and firmness, and
from which sprung the ills, g-reat and
small, with which this veracious history
is crowded. Brought up in the imperial
school, accustomed to mow down all be-
fore him with his saber, scorning- the
pekins with a most righteous scorn,
Montcornet did not consider it necessar}^
to use much ceremon^^ when it came to
turning a rascally steward out of doors.
Civil life, with its thousand snares and
pit-falls, was unknown ground to this
g-eneral whose temper was already soured
b}' disgrace ; he therefore humiliated
Gaubertin most bitterly, who moreover
drew down upon himself this tongue-lash-
ing by a retort that excited Montcornet
to fury by its cynicism.

'^You are living off my land!" the
comte said to him with sarcastic severity.

" Did you think I had been drawing
my living from above?" Gaubertin re-
plied with a laugh.

" Out of here, out with joxx, you dog !
I discharge you ! " roared the general,
raining blows upon him with his horse-
whip, though the steward has alwaj^s
denied having been struck, the scene
having passed behind closed doors.

'' I am not going without my quitus,"
Gaubertin coolly answered when he had
put the table between himself and the
irate soldier.

*' We shall see what they will have to
say to you in the police court," Montcor-
net replied with a shrug of the shoul-
ders.

When Gaubertin heard himself threat-
ened with a suit in the police court, he
looked the comte in the face and smiled.
That smile had the effect of relaxing the
general's arm as if the sinews had sud-

denly been cut. What could have been
the meaning of that smile ?

Some two years before, Gaubertin's
brother-in-law, a man named Gendrin,
who had long been judge of the tribunal
of first instance at la Ville-aux-Fayes,
had been made president of the court
through the influence of the Comte de
Soulanges. Monsieur de Soulanges, who
had been made a peer in 1814, and had
remained faithful to the Bourbons
through the Hundred Days, had ap-
plied for this appointment to the Garde
des Sceaux. This relationship gave Gau-
bertin a certain amount of importance in
the countr3% for a president of tribunal
in a small town is, relatively speaking,
a more exalted personage than the first
president of a royal court, who finds
sundry luminaries in the departmental
capital to dim his own effulgence, to
wit, the bishop, the prefect, the receiver-
general, while a simple president of
tribunal has nothing of this sort to
contend against, the king's attorney
and the sub-prefect being officers that
are removable at will. Young Soudrj',
who was .young Gaubertin's inseparable
companion at Paris as well as at Aigues,
had just been appointed substitute to the
procureur in the capital of the depart-
ment. Soudry, senior, who, before he
bloomed out into a corporal of gen-
darmes, was a sergeant of artillery,
had been wounded in battle wiiile pro-
tecting Monsieur de Soulanges, then hold-
ing- a position on the staff. At the time
when the gendarmerie was created the
Comte de Soulanges, at that time a
colonel, had obtained the corporalcy at
Soulanges for the man who saved his
life, and later he solicited the position
for Soudry, junior, in which that young-
man was now beginning his career. Fi-
nally, the marriage of Mademoiselle
Gaubertin being now fixed so that it
was beyond the power of the people in
the Quai de Bethune ±o withdraw, the
faithless steward felt that he was a
greater power in the country than a
lieutenant-general who had been shelved.

If there were no other moral attaching
to this historj^ than that which is to be

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

255

found in the quarrel between the general
and his steward, it would still be of use
to many persons for their guidance in the
affairs of life. To him who reads his
Machiavelli understanding-ly, it is made
clear that man's highest prudence con-
sists in never threatening, in acting with-
out speaking, in making a golden bridge
for the flying enem^^, and in not stepping,
as the proverb has it, on the serpent's
tail ; finally, in refraining from wounding
the amour-propre of our inferiors as we
would refrain from sacrilege. Deeds, no
matter how prejudicial they may be to
others' interests, are forgiven in the long
run, and may be explained and accounted
for ; but our self-love, which never ceases
to bleed from a w^ound received, no mat-
ter how long ago, never forgets, never
pardons. Our moral being is more sensi-
tive, more living, so to speak, than our
physical ; the heart and arteries are less
readily affected than the nerves. In a
word, our inner being dominates us, say
and do what we vadoj. There is a possi-
bility of reconciling two families that
have declared vendetta against each
other, as in Brittanj^ or La Vendee in the
time of the civil wars, but the robbed and
the robber are not to be reconciled, more
than are the detractor and his victim. It
is only in melodrama that enemies rail
and scold before transfixing each other
with their swords. The savage and the
peasant, who is allied to the savage, never
speak except to ensnare their adversar3\
Ever since 1789, France has been trjang,
in direct opposition to all the evidence, to
make men believe that they are equal ;
you may say to a man : " You are a
rascal ! ' ' and the matter is passed over
as a joke, but only prove the fact by
catching that man red-handed, and horse-
whipping him, only threaten to hale him
before the police court, and then you
demonstrate the fact that all men are
not equal. If the masses cannot forgive
their betters their superiority, how shall
we expect the rascal to pardon the honest
man?

Montcornet should have dismissed his
steward and given his place to an old
soldier, under pretext of discharging an

ancient obligation, in which case neither
Gaubertin nor the general would have
been deceived, and the latter, sparing the
former's amour-propre, would have af-
forded him a door by which he might
retreat ; Gaubertin would in that case
have left the rich landowner to himself,
would have forgotten his downfall amid
the battles of the auction-room, and might
perhaps have gone to Paris to seek em-
ployment for his capital. But the regis-
seur, driven from the door like a dog,
conceived against his quondam master
one of those implacable enmities that con-
stitute an element of provincial life, and
which, by their vindictiveness and per-
sistency, and by the plots and schemes
to which they give rise, would astonisli
the diplomats, who are wont to he aston-
ished by nothing under the sun. An in-
satiable thirst for revenge counseled
him to retire to Ville-aux-Fayes, gain a
position there whence he might do Mont-
cornet all the mischief possible, and raise
up against him such a host of enemies
that he would ultimately be compelled to
sell the Aigues property.

Everj'^thing conspired to mislead and
deceive the general, for Gaubertin 's ex-
terior was not calculated to alarm him
or put him on his guard. It was a settled
principle of long standing with the regis-
seur to affect, not povert}^, but strait-
ened circumstances. It was a rule of
conduct that had been instilled in him
by his predecessor. For the last twelve
years, therefore, he had never failed in
and out of season, whenever the occasion
offered, to make a great to-do about his
three children, his wife, and the enormous
expense of supporting so large a family.
Mademoiselle Laguerre, when Gaubertin
professed himself too poor to pay for his
son's schooling, had assumed that bur-
den. She gave her dear god-son an an-
nual allowance of a hundred louis, for she
was Claude Gaubertin's god-mother.

The following day cam^ Master Gau-
bertin, accompanied by a keeper named
Courtecuisse, and insolently demanded
from the gener-al his acquittance, at the
same time exhibiting for the other's bene-
fit the flattering discharge papers he had

256

2 HE HUMAN COMEDY.

received from mademoiselle, and he beg-g-ed
in terms of biting- irony to be shown where
he, Gaubertin, had any property, landed
or otherwise. If he had taken presents,
he said, from the wood-dealers and from
the farmers on the renewal of their leases,
it was because Mademoiselle Laguerre
had always sanctioned it, and not only
was slie benefited pecuniarily by this
course, but it also insured her peace of
mind. The people of the country would
have laid down their lives for mademoi-
selle, while by continuing his present
course the g-eneral was laying- up trouble
for himself in the future.

Gaubertin— and this trait is not infre-
quent in callings where other peoples'
propert}^ is appropriated by methods not
contemplated by the Code— believed him-
self to be a strictly honest man. In the
first place, the coin of the realm that he
had extorted from the tenants of Made-
moiselle Laguerre — who had been paid in
assignats, the reader will remember — had
been in his strong-box so long- that he
looked on it as a legitimate acquisition.
It was simply a matter of exchange, and
exchange is no robbery. On the whole,
he didn't know but he had incurred a rislv
by taking- the ready mone3\ Again, look-
ing- at the matter from a leg-al point of
view^, mademoiselle was bound to take her
rents in assig-nats. That legal should be
a good stout adjective ; it upholds many
a fortune ! Finally, going back to the
remotest times w^hen great properties and
stewards have existed, tViat is to say, to
the beginnings of organized society, the
intendant has forg-ed for himself a chain
of reasoning- very similar to that which is
employed b^'' our cooks of the present day,
and which is briefly this :

" If my mistress should do her market-
ing- herself," says dame cook, "very like-
h' she would paj^ more for her provisions
than I put them in at ; she is a gainer \)y
the operation, and it is better that the
little profit I make should be in my
pocket than ih the shop-keeper's."

"Mademoiselle would never g-et thirty
thousand francs out of les Aigues if she
tried to run the property herself ; the
peasants, dealers and laborers would rob

her of the difference : it is much better
that I should have it, and think of the
care and trouble I am saving- her ! " was
what Gaubertin said to himself.

The Catholic religion alone has power
to put an end to these trafiickings with
conscience, but since 1789 religion has
ceased to exert its influence so far as two-
thirds of the French people are concerned;
hence it followed that the peasants, who
are naturally quick-witted and prone to
imitate the example of their betters, in
the valley of Aigues had reached a frig-ht-
ful condition of demoralization. They at-
tended mass on Sundays, it is true, but
outside the church ; for it was their
regularly appointed place of rendezvous,
where they met to talk business and
make barg-ains.

It is time now that w'e should take
account of all the evil and rtiisery pro-
duced by the ex-diva's prodigal reckless-
ness and happ3^-g'o-lucky way of manag--
ing her affairs. Mademoiselle Laguerre,
with unconscious selfishness, had betrayed
the cause of all those who have sonje-
thing-, every one of w^hom is the object of
the unrelenting hatred of those who have
nothing-. Since 1792 the landed propri-
etors of France have recognized their
community of interest and acted accord-
ing-ly. But, alas ! if the g-reat feudal
families, far less numerous than the bour-
geois families, could not see their mutual
interdependence either in 1400 under Louis
XL or in 1600 under Richelieu, is there
room for belief that notwithstanding- the
vaunted progress of the nineteenth cent-
ury, the bourgeoisie will be more united
than was the old noblesse ? An olig-archy
of a hundred thousand men of wealth has
all the draw^backs of a democracy and
none of its advantages. The egotism of
the family'-, summed up in the sayings :
"Each man for himself," "Everyman's
house his castle," will slay the eg-otism of
the oligarchy, so requisite to our modern
society and w'hich we have seen carried
into practice in Eng-land during the three
last centuries with such wonderful results.
Do w^hat we may, the landed proprietors
will never be brought to see the necessity
of that discipline which makes the Church

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

257

such an admirable model of government
until the time comes when they are at-
tacked in their pockets, and then it will
be too late. The audacity with which
communism, the living- and breathing
log-ic of democracy, is to-da^^ attacking-
the moral order of society makes it clear
that the popular Samson is become more
prudent, and instead of attempting to pull
down the social columns of the banquet-
hall is silently undermining them in the
cellar.

VII.

• EXTINCT SOCIAL SPECIES.

The Aigues estate could not dispense
with a steward, for it was by no means
the general's intention to renounce the
pleasures of the winter season at Paris,
where he had a splendid mansion in the
Rue Neuve des Mathurins. He accord-
ingly w^ent to work to hunt up a succes-
sor to Gaubertin, but he certainlj^ pursued
his g^uest with less ardor than was dis-
played by Gaubertin to impose on the
old warrior a man of his selection.

There is no confidential post that calls
for more special knowledge and more ac-
tivit\^ than does the stewardship of a great
estate. This difficulty is experienced only
by certain wealthy proprietors whose
property is situated outside the circum-
ference of a circle described about the
capital, commencing at a distance of
some forty leagues. At that point there
is an end of the great farms whose prod-
ucts find an assured outlet in the Parisian
markets, and which afford large and
certain incomes, secured by long leases
that never go begging for lack of pur-
chasers, frequently men of great wealth.
These gentlemen farmers come in their
own carriage to pay their rent, bring-
ing great rolls of bank-notes, unless their
factor in the Halles may be charged to
make the settlement. Thus it is that
in the departments of Seine-et-Oise, Seine-
et-Marne, Oise, Eure-et-Loire, Seine-In-
ferieure and Loiret, there are farms which
have cost their owners such a pretty
Balzac — i

penny that they do not always return
one and a half per cent on the invest-
ment. This yield is enormous when com-
pared with the yield of farm property in
England, Holland and Belgium ; but at
fifty leagues from Paris the management
of a large farm calls for so many different
processes, the products are so diverse,
that it is really a manufacturing indus-
try, with all the attendant risks. A
wealthy proprietor is neither more nor
less than a merchant, obliged to seek a
market for his goods, just as the manu-
facturer has to find an outlet for the
products of his looms and smelting fur-
naces. Nay, he has even competition to
contend against : the peasant and the
small farmer make things Avarra for him
by having recourse to expedients that
cannot be used by self-respecting per-
sons.

An intendant must be acquainted with
surveying, must have the customs and
usages of the country at his finger-ends,
together with its markets and trade pe-
culiarities ; he must possess a smattering
of law that he may protect the interests
intrusted to him, must be a competent
bookkeeper, and enjoy the most robust
health ; in addition to these things, it will
be well for him if he has a fondness for
athletics and horseback riding. It will
not answer for the intendant to be a man
of the people, having as he does to repre-
sent the master and be in daily contact
with him. As there are few stewards
whose salary amounts to as much as a
thousand crowns, this problem would
seem to be insoluble. How are all these
virtues to be obtained at a moderate price
in a land where those who possess them
have an abundance of other occupations
open to them ? You may bring in a man
who is a stranger to the countr^^, but the
probability is that it will cost yon a great
deal of money while he is gathering expe-
rience. Or you may take a young man
to the manor born and break him in, in
which case the chances are ten to one
he will prove ungrateful and 3^ou will
wish you hadn't. And so j^ou may take
your choice : on the one hand gross igno-
rance and doltish stupidity, on the other

'258

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

brains and intellig-ence always on the look-
out for number one. Hence this social
nomenclature and the natural histor}^ of
the species intendant, described in these
terms by a g-reat Polish nobleman : ''We
have two sorts of regisseurs," he used to
say, " the one who thinks of himself alone
and the one who thinks of us and himself ;
happy the employer who falls in with the
latter ! As for the sort that thinks only
of us, that is a vara avis, and has never
been met with yet."

We have elsewhere seen something- of
a steward who had his master's interests,
conjointly with his own, at heart (see
"A Start in Life,'' in Scenes from Pri-
vate Life)-; Gaubertin is the intendant
occupied exclusively with his own fortune.
To present to our readers the third term
of the worth}^ Pole's proposition would
be to expose to the admiration of the
public an improbable character, and yet
one that the nobility has known in its
day (see "The Collection of Antiques,"
in Scenes from Provincial Life), but
that has unfortunately vanished with it.
The perpetual division of our g-reat fort-
unes must necessarily effect a g-reat
modification in the manners of our aris-
tocracy. If there are not in France at
the present day twenty g-reat fortunes
managed by stewards, fifty years hence
there will not be a hundred great estates
controlled by intendants, unless changes
are made in the civil law. Every wealth^'-
landowner will watch over his own inter-
ests. This transformation, which has al-
ready begun, suggested to a witty old
lady the reply she made to some one who
asked her why it was that since 1830 she
had been spending- all her summers in
Paris: ''I have given up visiting at the
chateaux since their owners have con-
verted them into farms." But what is
to be the outcome of the strugg-le, daily
growing- fiercer and fiercer, between man
and man, rich and poor ? It is with the
sole purpose of casting some light on this
tremendous social problem that the au-
thor has written this essay on country
life and customs.

The reader may divine the perplexities
that beset the old general when he had

discharged Gaubertin. Like any other
man free to do a thing or refrain from
doing it, he had said to himself in a casual
sort of way : '■' I will discharge that ras-
cal;" but he had failed to take his own
personal equation into account, had not
reckoned wdth his impetuous, fier^' dis-
position and the old rough-rider's red-hot
rage that was only waiting to blaze up
until the discovery of some delinquency'
should loose the seals from his self-band-
aged eyes.

Montcornet, a child of Paiis, now a
landowner for the first time, had neg-
lected to provide himself with a steward
in advance, and when he had studied the
lay of the land, he saw how absblutely
indispensable to a man of his character
and disposition was a go-between of some
sort to communicate between him and so
many and such ill-conditioned people.

Gaubertin, who, in the course of the
two hours that their quarrel lasted, had
formed a pretty shrewd idea of the quan-
dary in which the general would present-
1}^ find himself, left the room that had
witnessed the dispute, and mounting his
nag, galloped off to Soulanges and there
summoned the Soudrj'-s in solemn con-
clave. When he said, " We have parted
compan}'-, the general and I ; we must
give him a steward of our selection with-
out his knowing it ; who shall it be ? "
the Soudrj^s knew what was going on in
their friend's mind. It is not to be for-
gotten that Corporal Soudry, who had
been for seventeen years at the head of
the cantonal police, had the benefit of
the experience which his wife had ac-
quired while she was confidential maid to
a theatrical lady.

"It will be a cold day," said Madame
Soudry, "before j'^ou find any one equal
to our poor Sibilet."

" The very thing ! " exclaimed Gau-
bertin, his face still scarlet from the af-
fronts he had swallowed. " I say. Lupin,"
he said to the notary, wiio was present
at the conference, " do you run over to
Ville-aux-Fayes and put a flea in Mare-
chal's ear in case that big braggart of a
cuirassier should go to him for advice."

Marechal was the lawyer whom his

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

259

former employer, who had charge of the
general's Parisian business, had naturally
enoug-h recommended to Monsieur de
Montcornet as legal adviser after the
purchase of Aigues.

Sibilet was a notary's clerk and eldest
son of the clerk of the court at Ville-aux-
Fayes ; he had not a penny to bless him-
self with, was twenty-five years old, and
madly in love with a young lady of Sou-
langes, daughter of the justice of the
peace.

This worthy magistrate, Sarcus by
name, with a salary of fifteen hundred
francs, had married a penniless young
ladj^ the oldest sister of Monsieur Ver-
mut, the apothecary at Soulanges. Al-
though an only daughter. Mademoiselle
Sarcus, whose face was her fortune, could
not well have lived on the meager pay of
a provincial notary's clerk. Young Sibi-
let, who was related toGaubertin by one
of those obscure ties that make pretty
much all the inhabitants of our small
towns cousins to one another, had an
ill-paid place in the land office that he
owed to the influence of Gaubertin and
his father. The miserable 3'outh had the
doubtful pleasure of being a father twice
in three years. The clerk of the court
had five other children dependent on him,
and could do notliing to assist his oldest
son. The justice of the peace had only
the house he lived in at Soulanges, and
his income was one hundred crowns.
Young Madame Sibilet, therefore, spent
most of her time at her father's with her
two children. Adolphe Sibilet, whose
business called him away from home a
good deal, came to see his Adeline from
time to time. It may be that marriage,
viewed under such aspects, explains the
fecundity of our jvomen.

Gaubertin's exclamation, though this
brief sketch of young Sibilet's life will
assist the reader's understanding of it,
requires further explanation.

Adolphe Sibilet, who, as our sketch of
him may have shown, was as ungainly as
he well could be, was one of those men
who can only reach a woman's heart by
the way of the mayor's office and the
altar. Endowed with a suppleness like

that of a spring of well-tempered steel, he
would yield the point at issue only to go
back to it again at a more favorable oc-
casion ; this deceptive disposition may be
said to resemble cowardice, but his ap-
prenticeship to business in the office of a
country notary had induced in Sibilet the
habit of concealing this defect under an
appearance of gruffness that simulated a
strength he was far from possessing.
Many a man hides his emptiness under
an assumed bruskness ; be brusk with
him in turn and jqw. will see him collapse
like a punctured toy balloon. So much
for the court clerk's son. But as men, for
the most part, are not very observing, and
as of those who are three-fourths observe
only the effect without seeking to find the
cause, Adolphe Sibilet's truculent air
passed for rude candor, for a capacity
that his employer highly extolled, and for
a repulsive probity that had never been
tried in the fire of temptation. There are
people who derive advantage from theii\
faults just as others do from their virtues.
Adeline Sarcus was a good-looking
young person, who had been brought up
by her mother (deceased three years be-
fore her daughter's marriage) with as
much care as a mother can bestow on an
only daughter in a small country town ;
the girl had loved the young and attrac- ,
tive Lupin, only son of the notary of Sou-
langes. Lupin's father, as soon as he be-
came aware of this incipient romance,
having his eye on Mademoiselle Elisa
Gaubertin as a wife for his son and heir,
bundled 3"oung Amaurj' Lupin off to Paris
to his correspondent. Master Crottat, the
notary, where, persuading himself and
others that he was learning to engross
deeds and draw contracts, Amaury was
guilty of various foolish actions, and suc-
cessfully cultivated a very promising crop
of debts, being incited thereunto by a cer-
tain Georges Marest, a clerk in the office
and a young man of wealth, who under-
took to exhibit to him the mysteries of
Paris. When Maitre Lupin went to Paris
to bring home his bo}^ Adeline was al-
ready Madame Sibilet. When the amor-
ous Adolphe presented himself as a suitor,
indeed, the old justice of the peace, under

260

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the urging of the elder Lupin, hastened
Che marriage, and Adeline gave her con-
sent out of her hopeless despair.

It cannot be said that the land-office
offers a brilliant career. Like many of
those posts that offer no future, it is a
sort of governmental dust-bin into which
rubbish is shot. Adolphe, working from
early morning until late at night, soon
discovered how dark and unproductive
was his hole, and so, as he trotted about
from tillage to village, spending his
scanty earnings on shoe-leather and trav-
eling expenses, he did a great deal of hard
thinking on the subject of finding another
place that should be permanent and pay
him better. No one can imagine, unless
he be cross-e3^ed and have two children
born m lawful wedlock, the ambition that
three years of mingled love and misery
had developed in this young man, whose
mental and physical vision alike were af-
fected by strabismus and whose happiness
was ill-assured, not to say halting. The
moving cause of most concealed mean-
nesses and petty delinquencies is doubt-
less an incomplete happiness. Man
accepts more resignedly, perhaps, a
misery destitute of hope than those
alternations of love and sunshine with
constant rain. If the body contracts
disease, the mind contracts the leprosy
of env3^ In baser souls this leprosy be-
comes a cupidity that is at once cow-
ardly and brutal, daring and timorous ;
in minds of finer mold it engenders anti-
social doctrines, that are used as a ladder
to enable one to dominate his superiors.
Might not a proverb be formed from this
idea : ' ' Tell me what j^ou have, and I will
tell you what are your opinions ? "

Although he loved his wife, Adolphe
was constantly saying to himself: ''I
have done a foolish thing ! I have three
shackles and only two legs ! I should
have delayed marrying until I had made
my fortune. It is alwaj^s easy to find an
Adeline, and Adeline will keep me from
finding a fortune."

Adolphe, who as we have said was re-
lated to Gaubertin, had visited the latter
three times in three years. The few
words they exchanged showed Gaubertin

that his relative's heart was of that black
mud that fructifies and brings forth flow-
ers of evil under the burning conceptions
of legal robbery. He artfully sounded
the depths of that character that wj^s
ready to embrace any scheme, no matter
how base, provided only it were profita-
ble. And at every visit Sibilet grumbled
and bewailed his fate.

"Employ me, cousin," said he, ''take
me as clerk and make me your suc-
cessor. You shall see how I will work !
I feel capable of leveling mountains to
give my Adeline, I won't saj'^ luxury, but
decent comfort. You made Monsieur
Leclercq's fortune ; whj^ can't yon get
me a situation at Paris, in the bank ? "

"We'll see; I'll do something for you
later on," replied his ambitious relative.
" Meantime make all the friends you can ;
every things helps."

Such being his frame of mind, Madame
Soudr^^'s letter bidding her protege come
to her in all haste, brought Adolphe hur-
rying to Soulanges, with a thousand cas-
tles in the air dancing before his e3'es.

Old man Sarcus, to whom the Soudrys
demonstrated the necessity^ of doing some-
thing for his son-in-law, had gone that
very morning to pay his respects to the
general and propose Adolphe for the
vacant stewardship. By the advice of
Madame Soudr}^ who was become quite
the oracle of the little town, the old man
took his daughter with him, and her ap-
pearance produced a favorable impression
on the Comte de Montcornet.

"I will not decide," said the general,
"until I have further references, but I
will take no further steps to fill the place
and meantime will endeavor to ascertain
if your son-in-law possesses the necessary
qualifications for it. Thejiope of seeing so
charming a lady established at Aigues — "

"And the mother of two children, gen-
eral," Adeline put in with considerable
tact, by way of avoiding the old officer's
gallantrj'.

All the general's investigations were
forestalled and rendered unavailing by
the admirable tactics of the Soudrj-s,
Gaubertin and Lupin, who secured the
influence of the principal persons in the

A TRAGEDY OF TEE PEASANTRY.

261

city where the royal court held its ses-
sions : Counselor Gendrin, a distant rela-
tive of the president at Ville-aux-Fa^^es,
Baron Bourlac, the procureur-g-eneral to
whom young- Soudry, the royal procureur,
was indebted for his position, and Sarcus,
counsel to the prefecture, a third cousin
of the justice of the peace. From his
lawj^er at Ville-aux-Fayes, therefore, to
the prefecture, which lie visited in person,
the general found every one well disposed
toward the poor clerk in the land office —
he was such an interesting- 3'oung fellow,
so every one said. His marriag-e made
Sibilet as irreproachable as a novel by
Miss Edgeworth, and enabled him, more-
over, to pose as a disinterested person.

The time that the dismissed intendant
necessarily spent at Aigues before taking
his departure was turned to account by
him in making trouble for his old master,
the nature of which may be indicated by
one occurrence out of many. On the
morning he was to leave he arranged
matters so as to fall in with Courtecuisse,
the only keeper there was at Aigues, al-
though the extent of the property re-
quired at least three.

" So, Monsieur Gaubertin," said Courte-
cuisse, " yon and our bourgeois have been
having words, I hear? "

"You heard of it, did you?" replied
Gaubertin. " Well, yes ; the general
thought he could browbeat me as he used
to do his cuirassiers ; he don't know us
Burgundians, though. Monsieur le Comte
was not satisfied with the way I served
him, and I was not satisfied with the w^ay
he treated me. So we discharged each
other, and almost came to blows about
it too, for he is a terribly violent man.
Be on the lookout for him,' Courtecuisse I
Ah, old fellow, I was in hopes to have
given you a better master — "

"I know all about that," replied the
keeper, " and I would have served yon
faithfullj'. Dame ! haven't we known
each other twenty years ? You got me
the place in the time of poor dear made-
raoigelle, who is now a saint in glory.
Ah, wasn't she a good woman ! They
don't make any like her nowadays. She.
was a mother to the countrv about her — "

"See here, Courtecuisse, don't you want
to help us put up a nice little job on the
old Turk ? "

"Are you going to remain in the coun-
try, then ? The talk was you w^ere going
to Paris."

" No, I am going into business at Ville-
aux-Fayes while waiting to see how things
will turn out here. The general has no
idea what the neighborhood is like ; he
will soon make himself hated, 3'ou see.
I want to see what the upshot will be.
Don't 5'ou go about your work too zeal-
oush\ He will tell you to ride the people
rough-shod, for he is beginning to see
how the cat jumps ; but you are not going
to be such a gaby as to run the risk of
getting a sound thrashing from the folks
about here, and likely something even
worse, for the sake of saving him a few
sticks of wood."

" He will discharge me, m^'^ dear Mon-
sieur Gaubertin, and you know what a
nice little home I have down there b}^ the
Porte d'Avonne — "

" The general will soon tire of the prop-
erty," Gaubertin replied. "And if he
should discharge you, you won't be long
out of a place. Besides, you see those
woods there," said he, pointing to the
forest ; " I shall have more to say about
them than the owners."

" Those Parisian Arminacs ought to
stick to their own cit^^ mud ! " said the
keeper.

The expression Arminacs (Armagnacs,
Parisians, enemies of the Dukes of Bur-
gundy-) has been used as a term of re-
proach ever since the troubles of 4he
fifteenth centur3^ on the marches of upper
Burgundy-, where it is diversely corrupted
in different localities.

"He will go back there beaten ! " said
Gaubertin. " And some of these days we
shall be cultivating the park of Aigues,
for it is robbing the people that one man
should set apart for his own pleasure two
thousand acres of the very best land in
the whole valley."

'' Ah, the deuce ! four hundred families
might get their living off it," said Courte-
cuisse.

" If you want four or five acres of it foi*

262

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

yourself, you must help us to get the best
of that old rascal."

While Gaubertin was fulminating- excom-
munication against the doug-hty colonel
of cuirassiers, the worth}^ justice of the
peace was presenting- to the latter his
son-in-law Sibilet, tog-ether with Adeline
and her children ; they had all come over
from Soulanges in a little wicker carriag-e
borrowed from the justice's clerk, Mon-
sieur Gourdon, brother to the doctor at
Soulang-es, and a richer man than the
magistrate his master. This sig-ht, so
unworthy of the mag-istracy, is one that
is frequentlj'^ to be seen in the minor
courts, where the perquisites of the clerk
exceed the salary of the president, while
it would be so natural to make the clerk-
ship a salaried office and thus decrease
the expense of litigation.

The comte was well pleased with the
candor and dignified bearing- of the old
magistrate and the g-race and beauty of
Adeline, who both gave their pledg-es
with the most entire good faith, being-
ignorant of the tacit convention between
Gaubertin and Sibilet ; he accorded at
once to the youthful and interesting- pair
terms that put the position of intendant
on an equality with a sub-prefectship of
the first class.

A pavilion designed by Bouret with the
twofold object of adding to the attractive-
ness of the landscape and affording shelter
to the regisseur, a charming little struct-
ure where Gaubertin had lived, and of
which a fair idea may be had by refer-
ring to the description of the Porte de
Blaaigy, was assigned to the Sibilets as
their dwelling-place. Mademoiselle, on
account of the extent of the property and
the remoteness of the market-towns that
the steward had constantly to visit on
business, had allowed Gaubertin the use
of a horse ; the general confirmed this to
Gaubertin's successor. He made them
an allowance of twenty-five " setiers " of
wheat, three casks of wine, all the wood
they could burn, hay and oats in abun-
dance, and finallj^ they were to have three
per cent on the gross income collected.
Instead of the forty thousand francs of
rental that Mademoiselle Laguerre re-

ceived in 1800, the general proposed ta
have sixty thousand in 1818, and reason-
ably enough, taking into consideration the
great additions that had been made to
the property in the interim. The new
intendant, therefore, had a certain pros-
pect before him of nearly two thousand
francs of salar}^ at no distant day. He
was housed, fed and warmed gratis, his
horse and poultry-j^ard cost him nothing,
he was free of taxes, and the comte gave
him permission to plant a kitchen -garden,
promising not to higgle over the cost of a
few days' work b}^ the gardener. These
advantages represented an additional
two thousand francs. To jump from the
land-office and a salary of twelve hundred
francs to the superintendence^ of Aigues
was like passing from penury to opulence.

'' Only look out for my interests," said
the general, " and that will not be all.
First of all, I can get you the collection
of the taxes of Conches, Blangy and
Corneux, by dividing these villages off
from the district of Soulanges. Aod.
when you shall have brought my income
up to sixty thousand francs net, you shall
be recompensed still further."

It happened, most unfortunately, that
the worthy magistrate and Adeline were
so imprudent, in the gladness of their
hearts, as to mention to Madame Soudry
the comte's promise relative to the tax-
collectorship, never stopping to think
that the collector of Soulanges was a
man of the name of Guerbet, brother to
the postmaster at Conches and a connec-
tion, as will be seen later, of the Gau-
bertins and the Gendrins.

" It won't be such an eas^^- thing to do,
my child," said Madame Soudry, "but
let Monsieur le Comte go ahead and try
it; you can't imagine how easilj^ the most
difficult things are often carried through
at Paris. Why, I have seen the Cheva-
lier Gluck at the feet of my late mistress,
and she sang the part he wrote for her,
too — and yet she would have let them
chop her into mincemeat for Piccini, who
was one of the nicest men that ever lived.
The dear man ! he never came to see
madame but he took me round the waist
and called me his belle friponne."

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

263

'* Ah, come now!'' cried the corporal
when his wife told him the news, " does
he tliiilk he is going to be emperor here,
turn evorything upside down, and make
the people of the valley wheel right and
left as he would the men of his regiment ?
What a nerve these officers have ! — but
let's have patience; Messieurs de Sou-
langes and de Ronquerolles are with us.
Poor old Guerbet ! little does he think
there is a plot to rob his rose-bush of
its finest blossoms ! "

Father Guerbet, the tax-gatherer of
Soulanges, passed for a wit, which is
equivalent to saying he was the nierry-
andrew of the little town ; he was also
one of the ornaments of Madame Soudry's
drawing-room. The corporal's tirade
gives a fair idea of the opinion that pre-
vailed relatively to the bourgeois of
Aigues from Couches to Ville-aux-Fayes,
and Gaubertin made it his business to
see that the fire should not go out for
want of fuel.

Sibilet assumed the duties of his posi-
tion toward the end of the autumn of the
year 1817. The year '18 went by with-
out the general once showing his face at
Aigues, the preparations for his approach-
ing marriage with Mademoiselle de Trois-
ville, which occurred earl}'^ in 1819, keeping
him for the greater part of the summer
in the vicinity of Alencon, where was the
residence of his future father-in-law. Be-
sides Aigues and his sumptuous hotel at
Paris, General de Montcomet enjoyed an
income of sixty thousand francs from
Government bonds and the pay of a lieu-
tenant-general on the retired list. Al-
though Napoleon had ennobled this dis-
tinguished cavalry officer, giving him a
coat-of-arius with the appropriate device:
Sound the Charge ! Montcornet knew
that his father had been a plain cabinet-
maker in the Faubourg Saint- Antoine,
and would gladly have forgotten it. He
counted as nothing his grand cordon of
the Legion of Honor, his cross of Saint-
Louis, his hundred and forty thousand
francs of income ; he was dying to be
made a peer of France. With the bee
of aristocracy buzzing in his bonnet, the
sight of a cordon bleu almost set him

frantic. The superb cuirassier of Essling
would have lapped the mud of the Pont
Royal if he might thereby have secured
admission to the houses of the Navarreins,
the Lenoncourts, the Grandlieus, the
Maufrigneuses, the d'Espards, the Van-
denesses, the Verneuils, the d'Herou-
villes, the Chaulieus, etc. In 1818, when
he became convinced that there was no
chance of the Bonaparte family ever re-
turning to power, Montcornet liad some
of his female friends hang out a sign for
him in the Faubourg Saint - Germain,
offering heart, hand, hotel, fortune, all
he had, if only some great family would
accept him as a son-in-law.

After unheard-of efforts the Duchesse
de Carigliano discovered the shoe to fit
the general's foot in one of the three
branches of the Troisville family, that of
the vicomte, who had served under the
Russian flag since 1789 until he returned
from his self-imposed banishment in 1815.
The vicomte, who was poor as a church-
mouse, had married a Princess Scherbel-
lof with a fortune of about a million, but
two sons and three daughters had quickly
impoverished him again. The family was
an old and powerful one ; it embraced a
peer of France, the Marquis de Troisville,
inheritor of the name and arms, and two
deputies, blessed with a numerous prog-
eny, whose aim in life was to secure all
they could from the public crib, like fishes
diving after crumbs. Montcornet was
very well received on being presented by
the marechale, who was more favorably
disposed toward the Bourbons than many
of the duchesses created under Napoleonic
auspices. The price demanded by Mont-
cornet, in return for his fortune and con-
jugal tenderness and fidelity, was a com-
mission in the Royal Guards and a patent
creating him marquis and peer of France ;
but the three branches of the Troisville
family would only promise to use their
best efforts for him.

"You know what that means," the
marechale said to her old friend, who
would have preferred more explicitness.
" We are not the king's masters ; we can
only enlist his favor." «

The marriage contract was drawn mak-

264

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

ing- Virg-inie de Troisville Montcornet's sole
heir. He was his wife's most devoted and
humble slave, as is set forth in Blondet's
letter, but had no children ; meantime he
had been received b}^ Louis XYIII., who
g-ave him the cordon of Saint-Louis, ac-
corded him permission to quarter his own
ridiculous scutcheon with the Troisville
arms, and promised him a marquisate as
soon as he should have shown sufficient
devotion to the royal cause to entitle him
to the peerage. A few days after this
audience the Due de Berri was assasi-
nated ; there was an upheaval of the Gov-
ernment, the Villele ministry assumed the
reins of power ; all the plans concerted by
the Troisvilles were disarrang-ed, and it
became necessary to look for other mini,s-
terial peg-s to which to attach their wires.
"We must wait," the Troisvilles said
to Montcornet, who was treated with the
hig-hest consideration in the Faubourg-
Saint-Germain.

This will explain why it was that Aig-ues
saw nothing of the g-eneral until May,
1820.

The great, the unspeakable delig-ht in-
spired in the bosom of the cabinet-maker's
son by the possession of a young, charm-
ing-, gentle and accomplished wife, a
Troisville, in fine, who had opened for
him the doors of all the salons in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, tog-ether with
the pleasures that Paris showered on him
with a lavish hand, had so completely
effaced the memory of the scene with the
reg-isseur of Aig-ues that the g-eneral had
utterly forgotten Gaubertin, even to his
very name. In 1820 he took his comtesse
to Aigues in order to show her the prop-
erty. He checked Sibilet's accounts, and
approved his proceedings without giving
them very close attention ; a happy man
is not a higgler. The comtesse, pleased
to find that the steward's wife was a pre-
sentable person, made her some gifts, as
she did also to the children, with whom
she diverted herself a "moment.

She ordered some alterations made in
the ch§,tteau y^y an architect whom she
brought down with her from Paris, for it
was her purpose — which made the general
wild with delight — to spend six months

of every 3'ear in this magnificent retreat.
It took all the comte's savings to pay for
the changes the architect was commis-
sioned to make, and for the elegi^nt furni-
ture that was ordered from Paris. It
was then that Aigues received the finish-
ing touch that made it a monument,
unique of its kind, of the artistic products
of four centuries.

In 1821, the general received an urgent
summons from Sibilet to come down be-
fore the beginning- of May. Affairs of
importance were to be considered! The
nine year's lease, at thirty'- thousand
francs, granted in 1812 by Gaubertin to
a wood-dealer, would expire on the 15th
of May.

Sibilet at first, jealous of his good name,
refused to have anytliing to do with the
renewal of the lease. " You know, Mon-
sieur le Comte," he wrote, *^that I do
not soil my fingers with such matters."
Then the wood-merchant put in a claim
for the half of the indemnity which Gau-
bertin had extorted from him, and which
Mademoiselle Laguerre had consented to
pay rather .than go to law. The reason
of this indemnitA^ was the way the forest
was pillaged by the peasants, who acted
as if they had full and entire right of cut-
ting wood for fuel. Gravelot Brothers of
Paris, wood-merchants, refused to pay the
last installment of their lease, alleging,
and offering to prove by experts, that
the quantit}^ of wood was less by a fifth
than what it should be ; and they declared
that this was owing to the bad precedent
established b}^ Mademoiselle Laguerre.

" I have summoned these gentlemen to
appear before the court of Ville-aux-
Fayes," said Sibilet in his letter, "for
they have elected to have the case tried
here. I greatlj'- fear it will go against
us."

" Our bread and butter is at stake,
pretty one," said the general, showing
the letter to his wife. " Shall we go
down to Aigues a little earlier this year
than we did last ? "

"' Do you go ; I will come and join you
as soon as the weather becomes settled,"
replied the comtesse, who was not unwill-
ing- to be left alone at Paris. .

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

265

The general, who well knew where the
wound lay through which the life-blood
of his revenues was leaking, started off
alone, therefore, firmly' resolved to treat
the robbers with the utmost rigor ; but,
as we shall see, he reckoned without his
host — and that host was Gaubertin.

VIII.

GREAT REVOLUTIONS IN A SMALL VALLEY,

''Well, Sibilet," said the general to his
steward the morning after his arrival,
addressing him with a familiarity that
showed what a value he placed on the
knowledge of the ex-clerk ; " well, Sibilet,
so the situation is grave, is it, to make
use of parliamentary jargon ? "

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte," replied the
intend ant.

The luckj" owner of Aigues was walking
to and fro in front of the administrative
oflQ.ces, along a bit of ground that Madame
Sibilet had appropriated to herself for a
flower-garden, at the end of which com-
menced the broad meadows, irrigated by
the magnificent canal, of which Blondet
has given a description. A distant view
of the Chateau des Aigues w^as to be had
from there, just as from Aigues any one
troubling himself to look could see the
end, not the front, of the steward's
pavilion.

" But where are all the difficulties 3'ou
speak of?'' the general continued. "I
shall press the suit against the Grave-
lots ; if we lose, it won't kill us, and I
shall get so much free advertising for
the lease of my woods that the success-
ful competitor will pay me something
like its true value."

" That is not the right way to look at
the matter. Monsieur le Comte," Sibilet
replied. "Suppose you have no bidders
for the lease, what are j^ou going to do
then?"

"Cut my wood myself, and sell it."

" You mean to say yo\x will be a wood-
dealer ? " said Sibilet, with a barelj^ per-
ceptible movement of the shoulders.
" Very well. We won't stop to consider

matters at this end ; let's see how they
will be at Paris. You will have to hire
a yard, take out a license and pay the
fees; there will be the river and harbor
dues, there will be the octroi dut}", there
will be the expense of unloading and pil-
ing ; finally, to find an agent you can
depend on^"

" There's no use talking of it," the gen-
eral abruptly interrupted, with terror on
his face. " But why do you say there
will be no bidders for the lease?" t

" You have enemies in the country."

" And who may thej be ? "

" First of all, Monsieur Gaubertin."

"What, the scoundrel whose place you
occupy? "

" Not so loud, Monsieur le Comte ! "
said Sibilet with a look of affright ; "for
mercy's sake, not so loud ! my cook might
overhear us."

" What ! can't I speak my mind, and
on my own property, of a wretch who
plundered me ? " roared the general.

" For the sake of your own tranquillity.
Monsieur le Comte, come further away
from the house. Monsieur Gaubertin is
mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes."

" Then Ville-aux-Fayes is to be con-
gratulated. A thousand thunders ! but
it must be a nicely governed town ! "

" Please give me your attention, Mon-
sieur le Comte ; believe me, serious mat-
ters are at stake — nothing less than your
entire future here."

• ' I am listening. Let us go and take
a seat on that bench."

"Monsieur le Comte, when you dis-
charged Monsieur Gaubertin he had to
look about him for a livelihood, for he
was not rich — "

" Not rich ! when he was plundering
me at the rate of twent\' thousand francs
a year ! "

"Monsieur le Comte, I am not attempt-
ing to justify him," Sibilet continued.
" I would be glad to see Aigues prosper,
were it only to demonstrate Gaubertin's
rascality- : but let us not deceive our-
selves— we have as our enemy in him
the most dangerous scamp there is in
all Burgundy, and he is in a position
where he can make trouble for you."

266

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

''How ? " asked the general anxiously.

" At this day Gaubertin is at the head
of a combination that supplies Paris with
about one-third of all the wood it uses.
As ag-ent-g-eneral, commissioned to look
after the interests of the wood trade, he
directs all the operations in the forest,
from the time the timber is felled until
it is floated away in rafts. He is in con-
stant relations with the workmen and
controls the price of labor. It has taken
him three years to create this position
for himself, but he is intrenched in it as
if it were a fortress. He is every man's
man ; he does not favor one merchant
more than he does another ; he has
brought system and order into the busi-
ness, and their transactions are made
more advantageously^ and with less ex-
pense tlian when each of them had his
own agent, as they used to have in the
past. In this way, ma}^ it please you, he
has succeeded so well in ridding himself
of competition that he controls absolutelj^
the public sales ; the crown and the State
are tributary to him. The crown and
State timber, which has to be sold at
auction to the highest bidder, belongs
to Gaubertin 's dealers by a sort of pre-
scriptive right ; no one to-day feels him-
self sufficiently strong to try to take it
from them. Last year Monsieur Ma-
riotte, of Auxerre, egged on b}" the
superintendent of the public domain,
did attempt to bid against Gaubertin ;
at first Gaubertin made him pay the
usual price, what the wood was worth,
but when it came to getting it out the
laborers of Avonne demanded such fanc^'
prices that Monsieur Mariotte was obliged
to bring others from Auxerre, and the
men of Ville-aux-Fayes thrashed them
within an inch of their life. Indictments
were found against those concerned in the
proceedings, one for conspiracy and one
for rioting'. The trial cost Monsieur Ma-
riotte a great deal of money ; for, to say
nothing of the odium he incurred by se-
curing a verdict against penniless work-
ingmen, he had to pay the costs, the
defendants having nothing. And right
here let me giye a'ou a maxim for your
guidance, for. you will have all the poor

of this canton against you : never bring
suit against the needy, for it is bound to
insure you the liatred of all the poor in
the vicinity. But I have not finished my
story. Figuring everything up, poor old
Mariotte, a good, honest man, is still
losing money on that purchase of his.
Forced to pay spot cash for his wood, he
sells it on time ; Gaubertin, in order to
ruin his rival, gives terms such as were
never heard of : he sells his wood five per
cent under cost ; consequently Mariotte's
credit, poor man, has had some • rude
shocks. Finally, Gaubertin is still fol-
lowing Mariotte up and hounding him
so unmercifully that it is said he is go-
ing to leave, not Auxerre alone, but the
department, and I think he is right in
doing so. And in this way the land-
owners have long been sacrificed to the
dealers, who make prices to suit them-
selves, just as at Paris the second-hand
dealers secure their goods by collusion
with the auctioneer. But Gaubertin
saves the landowners so much expense
and trouble that they are gainers, after
all."

" In what way ? " inquired the general.

''In the first place, the more a business
is simplified the more profitable it event-
ually becomes to all concerned," Sibilet
replied. " Then the proprietors have se-
curity that they will receive their returns
when they are due, and that is a great
point, as you will learn, in matters con-
nected with agricultural enterprises.
Finally, Gaubertin is the father of the
laboringman ; he pays him well and gives
him steady work ; consequently the woods
of the dealers and such of the landlords
as intrust their interests to Gaubertin —
Messieurs de Soulanges and de Ronque-
rolles, for instance — are never pillaged.
The women go there and pick up the dead
branches, nothing more."

" Gaubertin has made good use of his
time, the infernal scoundrel ! " exclaimed
the general.

''He is a great man ! " replied Sibilet.
" As he says, instead of being steward of
Aigues, he is regisseur of the fairest half
of the department. He takes but a pinch
from each, and that pinch, on a business

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

267

of two millions, bring-s him in forty or
fifty thousand francs a 3'ear. ' The
Parisian chimneys pay the whole ! ' he
says. There is the enemy j^ou have to
fig-ht with. Monsieur le Comte ! And so,
my advice to j^ou would be to knock under
and be friends with him. He is connected,
as 3'ou are aware, with Soudry, the cor-
poral of gendarmes at Soulanges, and
with Monsieur Rigou, our mayor here at
Blang-y ; the gardes champetres are his
creatures ; hence it will be impossible to
put an end to the delinquencies that cause
you such annoyance. Your woods have
been going to ruin for some time past, for
the last two years especiall3\ It follows
that the Messieurs Gravelot have a fair
chance of winning their suit, for they say :
*By the terms of the lease you are to
guard the woods at your expense; you
do not guard them, and we are subjected
to loss by your failure to comply with the
terms of the contract ; consequentl3% paj^
us damages.' That sounds specious
enough, but it won't win them their
suit necessarily."

**It will be best to fight the suit and
have done with it, even if it does cost us
something. So that we may be free from
anno^'ance in the future," said the gen-
eral.

"That will please Gaubertin," Sibilet
replied.

"Why so?"

"Going to law with the Gravelots is
the same thing as a conflict with Gauber-
tin, who is their representative ; hence
nothing will please him so well as this
suit. He says so openly ; he declares he
will fight the case to the end, even if he
has to carry it to the Court of Appeals."

"Oh, the villain !— the— the— "

"' If 3'^ou conclude to carry out your pur-
pose and be your own factotum," Sibilet
went on, turning the knife around in the
wound. " You will find 3'ourself at the
tender mercies of the workingmen, Avho
will treat you as they did poor Mariotte.
Charging j^^ou extortionate!}' for labor
and placing you in a situation where you
will have to sell at a loss. If you should
try to secure a tenant 3'ou will find none,
for you must not expect that any one will

risk for a private person what Father
Mariotte risked for the crown and the
State. And then again, let the simpleton
go and tell the administration of his
losses if he will ! The ' administration ' is
a gentleman very like 3'our humble serv-
ant when he was in the land-office, a
worthy man in a threadbare coat reading
a newspaper behind a desk. You will not
find him an^' softer-hearted when his pay
is twelve thousand francs than when it is
twelve hundred. Talk as you like of re-
ductions, of reclamations on the treasury,
as represented in the person of this gentle-
man ! He will finish cutting his pen and
his answer to you will be turlututu. You
are outside the pale of the law, I tell you.
Monsieur le Comte."

" What am I to do ? " cried the general,
whose blood was boiling in his veins,
striding to and fro before the bench.

"Monsieur le Comte," was Sibilet's
cruel answer, " what I am about to saj'-
is contrary to nay own interests, but you
must sell Aigues and leave the country !"

On hearing these words the general
bounded as if he had been shot and gave
Sibilet a penetrating look.

" A general of the Imperial Guard run
away from a set of rascals such as they !
and when the comtesse is fond of Aigues!"
said he. " Sooner than do it I will give
Gaubertin a blow on the public square of
Ville-aux-Fayes, so that he ma.y be com-
pelled to fight me, and I may kill him like
a dog."

"Monsieur le Comte, Gaubertin knows
better than to be entrapped into a quar-
rel with 3'ou. And then it would never
do to insult in public so important a per-
sonage as the ma^'or of Ville-aux-Faj'es."

•' I will have him dismissed ; the Trois-
villes will sustain me when my fortune is
at stake."

" You cannot do it. Monsieur le Comte;
there's no use trying. Gaubertin has
long arras, and 3''ou will onl}' make the
situation worse than it is."

" And about the 'suit ? " said the gen-
eral. "We must think of the present."

"' Monsieur le Comte, I can put you in
the way of gaining it," Sibilet replied
with an air of sagacit3\

268

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" Good bo}', Sibilet ! " said the general,
shaking- his steward warmly by the hand.
" And how will you do it ? "

" You will win in the Court of Appeals,
in my opinion, on a legal technicality. I
think that the Gravelots have a strong
case, but it is not always sufficient to
have the law and the facts on one's side ;
there are forms to be observed which the
Gravelots have failed to comply with, and
when forms and facts are opposed to each
other, form always carries the day. The
Gravelots should have made a formal de-
mand on you to have the woods more
strictly guarded. They have no right to
come in at the expiration of their lease
and ask damages for things that hap-
pened nine years ago ; there is a clause
in the lease that will sustain us in a de-
murrer on that point. You will lose at
Ville-aux-Fayes, you may also lose in the
next court the* case is heard before, but
you will win at Paris. The expert testi-
mon}'- will cost you a heavy sum, the
costs will be ruinous; even if you come
out ahead you will have to draw checks
to the amount of twelve or fifteen thou-
sand francs — ^but you will gain the suit if
your mind is set on it. It won't help you
any with the Gra\;elots, for it will be
even more expensive for them than for
you ; 3'^ou will be their hete noire, you
will get the name of being quarrelsome,
you will be slandered and calumniated —
but you will win."

" What am I to do ?" repeated the gen-
eral, on whom Sibilet's arguments pro-
duced the effect of a violent irritant. As
he called to mind the horse-whipping he
had inflicted on Gaubertin he devoutly
wished that it had been his own back in-
stead that received the blows ; his blazing
face showed Sibilet the agony of torment
he was in.

" What are you to do, Monsieur le
Comte ? Compromise the suit — it is the
only thing to, do. But you cannot appear
in the matter yourself ; ^''ou must let peo-
ple think that I am robbing j^ou. In our
probity reside all our fortune and our
peace of mind, poor devils of stewards
that we are, and we cannot afford to be
suspected of dishonesty ; we are always

judged by appearances. Gaubertin saved
Mademoiselle Laguerre's life in his earlier
days, and 3^et,he had the .reputation of
plundering her right and left ; she recom-
pensed his silent devotion by leaving him
a diamond worth ten thousand francs,
and Madame Gaubertin carries it at this
day set in the handle of her umbrella."

The general cast on Sibilet a second look
as penetrating as the first, but the steward
did not appear to notice the distrust that
lay concealed beneath that guileless, smil-
ing candor.

'' Monsieur Gaubertin would be so de-
lighted to find that I am a dishonest
man," Sibilet w^ent on, "that he would
become my friend and protector, and
should I make him some such proposition
as this : ' I can get twenty thousand
francs out of Monsieur le Comte for the
Gravelots, provided they will go halves
with me,' he would open both his ears to
listen. If your adversaries agree to this
I can bring you back ten thousand francs;
you will only be out ten thousand, you
save appearances, and that is the end of
the business."

"You are a good fellow, Sibilet," said
the general, taking his hand and warmly
clasping it. "If you only do as well in
the future as you are doing now I shall
say you are the pearl of stewards."

"As for the future," the regisseur re-
plied, "3^ou will jiot starve if there is no
wood cut for the next two or three yeai'S.
Begin by guarding your forests more care-
fully. The Avonne won't run dry between
now and then. Gaubertin may die; he
may consider himself rich enough to re-
tire ; finally, j^ou will have time to set up
some one to compete with him in his busi-
ness. The cake is big enough for tw^o ;
look for another Gaubertin to fight Gau-
bertin."

" Sibilet," said the old soldier, delight-
ed to see a way out of his difficulties, " if
you can arrange the matter in the way
you speak of I will give you a thousand
crowns. As for the other matters, we'll
think them over."

"Above all. Monsieur le Comte," said
Sibilet, " put more keepers in your woods.
Go and see for yourself what the peas-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

269

ants have done to them during 3'our two
3'ears' absence. What could I do ? I am
your steward ; I am not a keeper. To
protect the property you should have a
head keeper, who should be mounted, and
three men undei- him."

'* We'll see to defending- our interests.
If there's to be war we'll fig-ht. That
don't scare me one bit," said Montcornet,
nibbing his hands.

'• It will be a war of money-bags," said
Sibilet, " and of that kind of war you
don't know so much as you do of the
other. Men arc killed, principles sur-
vive. You Avill find your enemy on the
battlefield where every landlord has to
fight it out, the field of realization ! It
is an easy enough matter to grow your
products, the trouble lies in disposing of
them, and in order to dispose of them it
behooves \o\\ to be on good terms with
every one."

" I shall have the people of the neigh-
borhood on my side."

•'How so?"

''By "conferring benefits on them."

" Confer benefits on the peasants of the
valley, on the shopkeepers of Soulanges!"
said Sibilet, with an irony that flashed
more brightl}'' from one eye than from
the other, causing him to squint most
horribly. "' Monsieur le Comte cannot be
aware of the task he is proposing to him-
self. Our Saviour would die a second
time on the cross were He to attempt it !
If you value your peace of mind, mon-
sieur, follow Mademoiselle Laguerre's ex-
ample and submit silently to their thiev-
eries— or else make the people fear you.
The populace, like women and children,
are governed best by terror. Therein
lay the great secret of the Convention,
and of the emperor."

'•' Oh, come ! this is not the forest of
Bondy ! " exclaimed Montcornet.

''My dear," said Adeline, coming up
and addressing Sibilet, "your bi-eakfast
is readj" — Pardon me, Monsieur le Comte,
but he has had nothing to eat since morn-
ing, and has been to Ronquerolles to de-
liver a load of grain."

"Be off with you, Sibilet," said the
comte.

The next morning", the ex-cuirassier got
up before it was fairly light and came
back by way of the Porte d'Avonne with
the intention of having a talk with his
solitary keeper and finding what his opin-
ion of matters was.

There was a portion of the forest, some
thousand acres in extent, that skirted the
Avonne, and not to deprive the landscape
of any of its picturesque beaut}^, a row of
majestic old trees had been left on either
bank of the stream, which here stretched
aw^aj'' for a distance of three leagues,
straight almost as a cana-l. The mis-
tress of Henri IV., to whom Aigues once
belonged, and who was as passionately
fond of the chase as the Bearnais himself,
had caused a high, single-arched bridge
to be built in 1593 in order to afford a
passage from this portion of the forest
to the much larger tract that was pur-
chased at her request and was situated
on the montain side. The Porte d'Avonne
was built at that time to serve the pur-
pose of a hunting lodge, and every one
knows what taste and magnificence the
architects lavished on these buildings that
were devoted to what was then the chief
amusement of the nobility and royalty.
From this central point six broad avenues
started, their junction forming a crescent.
In the center of this crescent rose an obe-
lisk bearing on its summit a golden sun,
which bore on one side the arms of Na-
varre, and on the other those of the Com-
tesse de Moret. There Avas a second cres-
cent laid out on the bank of the Avonne
and communicating with the other by
means of a straight avenue, at the fur-
ther end of which a glimpse might be
obtained of the bridge, which, by its
graceful curves, reminded one of Venice.
Between two handsome iron railings,
similar in design to the railing, now un-
fortunatel}' destroyed, that used to in-
close the garden of the Place Royale at
Paris, rose a lirick pavilion, with courses
of stone cut, like those of the chateau, in
lozenge-shaped points, with a verj'- high-
pitched roof and windows Avhose lintels
of stone were cut in a similar fashion.
This antiquated stxle, which gave the
pavilion an imposingly noble air, is in :

270

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

cities suited only to the buildings of a
jail, but here it mated well with the
somber surrounding- of the forest. A
belt of trees formed a screen, behind
which the kennels, an ancient falconry,
a pheasant-house and the cabins of the
whippers-in, once the wonder and de-
light of Burgundy, were now mouldering
away in ruin.

From this magnificent pavilion there
started forth in 1595 a royal hunting
party; it was preceded by those noble
hounds that Paul Veronese and Rubens
so loved to paint, the spirited horses, now
to be seen onh* in the canvases of Wou-
vermans, pranced and neighed as if proud
of their fat, rounded croups that shone
Avith a blue-white satiny sheen, while
bringing up the rear were valets in gor-
geous livery and the jack-booted, yellow-
breeched huntsmen that fill the scene in
Van der Meulen's pictures. The date
commemorating the Bearnais's visit and
the hunting party in honor of the fair
Comtesse de Moret was car*ved in the
stone of the obelisk under the royal arms.
The jealous leman, w^hose son was sub-
sequently legitimated, would not allow
the arms of France, reminder of her
shame, to appear beside those of her
royal lover.

As the general stood and gazed on this
venerable monument its roof was green
with corroding moss, the elaborately
carved stone work, gnawed by the unre-
lenting tooth of time, seemed to cry out
from a thousand mouths against the prof-
anation. In many places the panes had
fallen from the leaden settings of the
casements, giving the hoary pile the ap-
pearance of a one-eyed giant. Yellow
gilliflowers grew among the balustrades,
the ivy with its white, hairy fingers ex-
plored each nook and crann3^ Everything
was going to ruin, and told that the occu-
pant possessed no tast«, no reverence for
the glories of the past. Two of the win-
dows on the first floor had been broken
out and the vacant spaces filled with ha}'^.
Through a window of the rez-de-chassee
farming implements and fagots might
be seen piled in the room within, while
from another a cow's muzzle was pro-

truded, informing visitors that Courte-
cuisse, to save himself the trouble of a
journey to the offices, had converted the
great banqueting ball of the pavilion — a
statelj^ room with lofty, ornamented ceil-
ing, in the panels of which were depicted
the arms of the owners of Aigues from
the earliest times — into a cow-shed. The
approaches to the structure were disfig-
ured by grimy, filthy palings, forming
inclosures where hogs were wallowing
beneath roofs of decaying boards, where
fowls were pecking and ducks swimming
in green stagnant puddles ; the manure
was carted away at half-yearly intervals.
Ragged garments were hung out to dry
on the weeds and brambles which grew
in unchecked profusion.

As the general came up by the avenue
that led to the bridge Courtecuisse's wife
was washing a saucepan, in which she
had been boiling her matutinal coffee.
The keeper was seated on a chair in the
sunshine, watching his wife as a wild In-
dian might watch his squaw. Hearing
the tramp of a horse he looked around,
recognized his master, and arose with a
hang-dog look.

''Well, Courtecuisse, my lad," the gen-
eral said, " it no longer surprises me that
the peasants cut my wood instead of the
Gravelots : you seem to have easj'- times
of it here ? "

"Faith, Monsieur le Comte, I have
spent so many nights in your damp
woods that I have caught the rheuma-
tism. I am so bad this morning that my
wife has been making me a poultice ; she
is just washing out the saucepan."

" It appears to me that a man must be
more hungry than ill to require a poultice
of coiTee," said the general. " See here,
rascal, I went through my woods yester-
day, and afterward through those of Mes-
sieurs de Soulanges and Ronquerolles.
Theirs are well-guarded, while mine are
in a shameful condition."

'* Ah, Monsieur le Comte, they are old-
timers in the country, they are ; people
respect their property. How do yon
think I can contend against six com-
munes ! I value my life more than your
woods. A man who should attempt to

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

271

watch your woods as they ought to be
watched would get a hullet in his head
for his pains."

**You cowardly hound!" shouted the
general ; then, repressing the wrath that
Courtecuisse's impudent answer aroused
in him. '•' The weather was magnificent
last night, but it will cost me a hundred
crowns in the present and a thousand
francs in the future for damages. You
will have to leave your snug berth, my
lad, unless there is a change. But there
is mercy for the repentant sinner. Here
is what I am going to propose to you :
.you shall have all the penalties and in ad-
dition three francs for every arrest you
make. If I am not a gainer neither will
you be, and you will get no pension, while
if you do 3"our duty and put down this
pilfering you shall have a pension of a
hundred crowns a year for life. Think it
over and make your choice. Here are six
roads," said he, pointing with his whip to
the six convergent avenues, ''you can use
but one of them, as was the case with
me, who did not fear the bullets. Try to
choose the right one."

Courtecuisse, a little stumpy man of
forty-six, with a round red face like the
moon at full, was very fond of his ease ;
it was his hope and expectation to live
and die in this pavilion, that was become
his pavilion. The forest afforded grazing
for his two cows, he had all the wood he
needed, he spent his time cultivating his
little garden instead of chasing up the
evil-doers. This method of doing busi-
ne^ suited Gaubertin, and Courtecuisse
could read Gaubertin like a book, so the
keeper only followed up the depredators
when it suited him to do so, in order to
satisfy some petty private grudge. He
might hound a girl who rejected his ad-
vances, or some one whom he did not
like, but he had long ceased to hate, be-
loved as he was by every one for his com-
pliant, jaelding disposition. There was
always a place for Courtecuisse at the
table of the Grand-I-vert, the fagoters
all treated him with deference, he and
his wife received gifts in kind from the
plunderers. They brought in his wood
from the forest for him, they trimmed

his vines ; in every one of his delinquents
he had a servant.

Comforted as to his future by what
Gaubertin had said to him, and counting
on receiving his little jDlot of ground when
the estate should be sold, he was abruptly
awakened from his pleasant dream by the
business-like proposition of the general,
who was at last, after four years, show-
ing himself in his true colors as a master
determined to be hoodwinked no longer.
Courtecuisse took from their pegs his
cap, game-bag and musket, put on his
leggings and the belt on whose plate
were engraved the flre-new Montcornet
arms, and loitered off in the direction of
Ville-aux-Fayes at that slouching gait
which the rustic assumes when he is
revolving some deep project in his mind,
staring vacantly into the woods mean-
while, and whistling to his dogs.

" You complain of your kind, generous
master," said Gaubertin to Courtecuisse,
"and you have only to reach out your
hand and gather in a fortune ! What,
does the idiot offer you three francs for
every arrest you make and the penalties !
You have only to come to an understand-
ing with your friends to make arrests
enough to satisfy the old fool — dozens of
them, hundreds of them, if he wants !
With a thousand francs in hand, there is
nothing to prevent you from bujdng the
Bachelerie from Rigou ; you will be a
bourgeois, will work for j-ourself, or
rather will make others work for you,
and will take your ease in a house of
your own. But mind this : be sure and
arrest no one but persons without means.
One gets no wool from a sheep that has
been shorn. Close with 3'our master's
offer, and let him have the costs to pa^''
if he is eager. Tastes vary. There is old
Mariottc ; didn't he prefer to make losses
rather than gains, in spite of all I told
him ? "

Courtecuisse, whose admiration for
Gaubertin knew no bounds, went back
home itching with a desire to be a bour-
geois and property owner, like the rest of
them.

General de Montcornet related the re-
sult of his expedition to Sibilet.

272

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

"Monsieur le Comte acted wisely/'
replied the steward, rubbing- his hands,
" but it won't do to stop half way.
The garde-champetre, who suffers our
fields and orchards to be laid waste,
should be removed. Monsieur might
easily get Miaaself elected mayor of the
commune, and talce on an old soldier who
would not be afraid to execute his orders
in place of Vaudoyer. Surely a g-reat
proprietor should be master on his own
estate. Just see the trouble we are hav-
ing with our present mayor ! "

The ma^'or of the commune of Blangy,
Rigou by name, an unfrocked Benedictine
monk, had married, in the year I. of the
Eepublic, the maid-of -all-work of the old
cure of the place. Notwithstanding the
holy horror with which the prefecture re-
garded a married monk, he had retained
his office since 1815, for there was no one
else in Blangy capable of filling the posi-
tion. But in 1817, when the las.hop sent
the Abbe Brossette to oflB.ciatein the par-
ish of Blangy, which had not had the ad-
vantag-es ©f spiritual instruction for five-
and-twenty years, violent dissensions, as
was only to be expected, at once arose
between the renegade and the young
priest, of whom we have heard something
alreadj^

The magistrate, who had until then
been regarded with contempt, gained
popularit}'^ from the war which now broke
out between the mairie and the parson-
age. Rigou, whom the peasants had de-
tested for his usurious practices, suddenly
came to the front as the representative
of their political and financial interests,
which agitators -declared were imperiled
by the Restoration, and more still by the
clergy.

The " Constitutionnel, " prop and chief
organ of the liberal party, after making
its round from the Cafe de la Paix to the
houses of the various functionaries, usu-
cilly reached Rigou on the seventh day
after its arrival in the town, for the sub-
scription, though taken in the name of
Pere Socquard, the proprietor of the cafe,
was paid for by twenty persons. Rigou
would hand the sheet over to Langlume,
the miller, who cut it into strips which

he distributed among- those who had
mastered the art of reading. It was to
the prermers- Paris and irreverent dis-
tortion of the news of the great liberal
journal, therefore, that the public of the
valley looked for its instruction. In this
way Rigou became a hero, much as did
the venerable Abbe Gregoire. For him,
as for certain bankers of Paris, politics
veiled disgraceful peculations under the
purple haze of popularity.

In those days this perjured monk, like
the great orator Francois Keller, was
looked up to as a defender of th6 rights
of the people, he who but a sliort time
before would not have dared to walk
abroad after nightfall for fear lest he
might stumble into some ditch in the
fields and meet his death there, accident-
ally. To persecute a man political!}^ is
not only to aggrandize him, but also to
pardon all his past. The liberal party
wrought many nairacles in this respect.
Its mischievous journal, which managed
in those da3-s to make itself as dull, as
slanderous, as credulous, as stupidly un-
truthful, as the masses to whose danger-
ous tendencies it pandered, has done as
much harm, if that be possible, to private
interests as to the Church.

Rigou had flattered himself with the
hope that in a disgraced Bonapartist
general, a child of the people whom the
Revolution had raised to power, he would
find an enemy to the Bourbons and the
priests ; but the general, acting on the
counsel of his unavowed ambition, man-
aged matters so as to avoid Monsieur and
Madame Rigou's visit during- his first so-
journ at Aigues. When the reader shall
have seen more of the terrible Rigou,
the l^mx of the vallej^, he will understand
more fully the extent of the second great
fault into which the general's aristocratic
tendencies led him, and will see how the
comtesse made matters worse by an im-
pertinence that will find its proper place
in this narrative.

If Montcornet had onl^^ taken pains to
win over the mayor, if he had made ad-
vances, it is more than probable that the
renegade's influence might have neutral-
ized that of Gaubertin. So far from doing

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

1273

that, there were three suits now pending-
before the tribunal of Ville-aux-Fa3'es,
between the general and the ex-monk,
one of which had already been decided
in favor of Rig-ou. Until now Montcor-
net had been so wrapped up in his vanitj',
his marriag-e had so occupied his atten-
tion, that he had quite forg-otten the
existence of the mayor ; but Sibilet had
no more than g-iven him the advice to
take possession of Rig:ou"s office, than he
called for post horses and hurried off to
pay a visit to the prefet.

The prefet, Comte Martial de la Roche-
Hug-on, had been the g-eneral's bosom
friend since 1804 ; it was a word whis-
pered in Montcornet's ear by the then
minister, in a conversation that took
place at Paris, that determined the
former to purchase the Aig-ues property.
The Comte Martial, who had been prefet
under Napoleon and was prefet still under
the Bourbons, flattered the bishop in
order to keep himself in place. Now, as
it happened, monseig-neur had several
times requested Rig-ou 's removal. Mar-
tial, who was well acquainted with the
affairs of the commune, was hig-hly
pleased \yith the petition of the general,
who received his appointment within the
month.

There was nothing- strange in the cir-
cumstance that the general, during his
stay at the prefecture, where his friend
gave him a bed, should make the acquaint-
ance of a non-commissioned officer in the
old Imperial Guard who was having
trouble in securing his pension. The
general had previously had an opportu-
nit}^ of befriending this brave man, whose
name was Groison ; he was entirely- penni-
less. Montcornet promised Groison to
secure his pension for him, and offered
him the position of garde-champetre at
Blang3% where he might paj^ his debt of
gratitude by protecting his, the general's,
interests. The new mayor and the new
garde-charapetre assumed their offices
simultaneously, and, as may be imagined,
the chief's instructions to his subordinate
were precise and explicit.

Vaudoyer, the dismissed garde, a peas-
ant of Ronquerolles, like most gardes-

champetres, was good for nothing but to
dawdle about pot-houses, tell silly stories,
and let himself be flattered b^^ the poor,
who are never better pleased than Avhen
they have a chance to corrupt this sub-
altern authority, the outer bulwark of
property. He was acquainted with the
corporal at Soulanges, for corporals of
gendarmes, performing as they do semi-
judicial functions in the preparation of
criminal cases for the court, are brought
into close contact with the gardes-cham-
petres, their natural spies. Soudry sent
Vaudoyer to Gaubertin, who received his
former acquaintance hospitably and gave
him something to wet his whistle with,
listening attentively meanwhile to the
other's tale of woe.

"My dear fellow," said the mayor of
Ville-aux-Fayes, who had a different lan-
guage for every one, " the thing that has
happened you is what we must all look
forward to. The nobles have come back,
and the men ennobled by Napoleon are
making common cause with them ; what
they all have in view is to crush the peo-
ple, re-establish old laws and customs,
and rob us of our property ; but we are
Burgundians, we must defend our rights,
we must drive the Arminacs back to their
holes in Paris. Go back to Blang}^; 3'ou
shall have a place under Monsieur Polis-
sard, who has the contract for the Ronque-
rolles timber. Go, my lad ; I will see
that you have steady work the year
through. But bear this in mind : the
people who own that wood are friends of
ours : there is to be no thieving there,
else the fat will all be in the fire. Let the
fagoters go to Aigues to do their steal-
ing, and if you come across a purchaser
send him to our people and not to Aigues.
You will have your old place again, for
this won't last ; the general will soon
sicken of living among thieves. Do you
know that the old ruffian called me a
thief — me, the son of the purest, the most
upright of republicans; me, the son-in-
law of Mouchon, the famous representa-
tive of the people, who had not enough to
give him decent burial when he died I "

The general raised the pay of his garde-
champetre to three hundred francs, and

274

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

built a new mairie, in which he gave him
free quarters ; the next thing- he did was
to secure a wife for his henchman, in the
person of the orphan daughter of one of
liis tenants, who had left the girl three or
four acres of vineyard. Groison's attach-
ment to the general was that of a dog to
his master; the entire commune respected
him for his fidelity. The garde-champetre
was feared, but as a ship-captain is feared
hj a crew whose love he has not ; the peas-
ants shunned him as a scabby sheep is
shunned \)y the flock. He was greeted
with gloomy silence, or else with jeers
and raillery, cloaked by an affectation of
careless jollity. He was a sp3^ watched
by other spies. He was powerless against
numbers. The evil-doers took pleasure in
hatching mischief that could be traced to
no one, and the old mustache fretted and
fumed at his impotency. Groison found
in his duties the attraction of a war of
partisans, and the pleasures of the chase
where thieves and robbers were the
quarr3^ His warlike experience had
taught him that loyalty which consists
in placing an honest game, and so this
enemy to all underhand dealing conceived
a violent hatred for those peasants who
plotted so perfidiously, stole so adroitly,
and wounded him in his self-love. He
was not long in perceiving that the other
estates were respected ; the pilferings
were confined strictl}^ to the Aigues
property ; he therefore despised and
hated those peasants who were so un-
grateful as to plunder an old general
of the empire, a man who was b^'' nature
generous and kind-hearted. But it was
all in vain that he flew from place to
place ; he could not be everywhere at
once, and his foes were legion. Groison
demonstrated to his 'general the neces-
sity of putting his forces on a war foot-
ing, making clear to him- how little his
own devotion could accomplish and the
evil dispositions that prevailed among
the inhabitants of the valley.

''There is something under all this,
general," he said. "These people are
too bold ; they fear nothing ; they seem
to have enlisted the good God on their
side ! "

" We shall see," replied the general.

Fatal word ! For the true statesman
the verb to see has no future.

At this time Montcornet had to solve a
question that seemed to him particularly
urgent ; namely, to find an alter ego to
take his place at the mairie while he was
away at Paris. He had to have a man
who knew how to read and write, and in
the entire commune Langlume, who was
his tenant at the mill, was the only one
who fulfilled these conditions. The selec-
tion was as bad as bad could be. Not
only were the interests of the general
who was mayor, and the miller who was
adjunct diametrically opposed to each
other, but Langlume had business rela-
tions of an extremely shady character
with Rigou, who loaned him the funds he
required in his business or in speculation.
The miller was accustomed to buy the
grass cut from the lawns of the chateau
to feed to his horses, and had laid his
pipes in such a way that Sibilet could find
no other purchaser. The product of all
the meadows of the commune was dis-
posed of at a fair price before that of
Aigues, and that of Aigues, although of
better quality, being left until the last,
had to go for what it would fetch. So
Langlume was temporary adjunct ; but
in France the temporar^^ is the eternal,
though some folks do say that the French
are changeable. Langlume, acting on
Rigou's advice, affected to treat the gen-
eral with the greatest consideration, and
so, by the sovereign will of the historian,
he found himself occupying the adjunct's
chair at the moment when this drama
opens.

In the absence of the maj^or Rigou, who
was de facto a member of the communal
council, ruled there unchallenged, and
put through various measures that were
contrary to the general's interests.
Sometimes he would cause to be voted an
expenditure that benefited no one but the
peasantry, and of which the burden fell
chiefly on Aigues, wliich, by reason of its
extent, paid two-thirds of the taxes;
again he would refuse his consent to
necessary appropriations, such as an in-
crease of the abbe's salary, the repairing

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

275

of the parsonag-e, or the wages {sic) of a
schoohnaster.

'^ What would hecome of us if the peas-
ants knew how to read and write?"
Lang-lume said ingenuously to the gen-
eral, by way of justifying this certainly
not ver^' liberal proceeding against a
brother of the Christian Doctrine whom
Abbe Brossette had endeavored to bring
to Blangy.

On his return to Paris the general,
highly pleased with his old Groison, set
about hunting up some old soldiers of the
Imperial Guard with whom to raise his
army for the defense of Aigues to a stand-
ard of efficiency. After a good deal of
running here and there, and of pestering
with questions his friends and sundry
half-pay officers, he at last lighted on one
Michaud, formerly quartermaster's ser-
geant in the cuirassiers of the Guard, one
of those men who are known in camp-fire
language as durs a cuire, a name that
had its origin in some garrison kitchen,
where it is no unusual thing for the beans
to prove refractory in the boiling. From
his numerous acquaintance Michaud se-
lected three men worthy to be his assist-
ants, and who gave promise of making
keepers '^ without fear and without re-
proach." The first, whose name was Stein-
gel, was an Alsatian of unmixed blood ;
he was natural son to the general of the
same name, who met his fate early in
Napoleon's career, at the beginning of
the campaign of Italy. He was tall and
vigorous, of that breed of soldiers that,
like the Russians, is accustomed to obey
passively and unconditionally. Nothing
could stop him in the execution of his
&u.ty ; he would have taken an emperor
or a pope and thrown him coolly out at
window had such been the command of
his superior. Danger was a thing of
which he knew not the name. Intrepid
among- the daring legionaries, he had
never received a scratch during his six-
teen years of soldiering. It made not a
particle of difference to him whether he
slept on the ground or between sheets ;
when things were a little rougher than
usual all he would say was : " It appears
that's the way it is to-day ! "

The second recruit, Vatel, was a sol-
dier's son and corporal of voltigeurs ; he
had the gayety of the lark, but was rather
too unprincipled where the fair sex was
concerned, and was utterly' destitute of all
sense of religion ; he was brave to rash-
ness, and would have done his duty with
a laugh if ordered out to shoot his best
friend. Futureless, not knowing where
to turn, he saw in the duties that were
enjoined on him the promise of a mimic
war that might prove interesting, and as
the Grand Army and Napoleon stood him
in stead of religion, he swore a great oath
to stand by the brave Montcornet through
thick and thin. His was one of those dis-
putatious natures to whicli life without
enemies seems dull and colorless — the nat-
ure of the lawyer or the policeman. Had
it not been for the presence of the bailiff
he would have seized old Tonsard and her
bundle of fagots right in the middle of
the tap-room of the Grand-I-vert, regard-
less of the principle that a man's house is
his castle.

The third man, Gaillard b}^ name, be-
longed to the plodding, laborious class of
soldiers ; he had been cut to pieces with
musket-balls and saber-cuts, and had re-
tired from the service with the rank of
sous-lieutenant. When he thought of
the emperor's fate all else seemed as
nothing to him ; but his supreme indif-
ference to everj^thing carried him to as
great lengths as Vatel's fiery nature car-
ried him. With a natural daughter look-
ing to him for support, he saw in the
position that was offered him a means of
livelihood, and accepted it as he would
have taken service in a regiment.

The general went down to Aigues in
advance of his recruits in order to dis-
charge Courtecuisse before their arrival,
and on reaching home he was almost
paralyzed by his keeper's audacious in-
solence. There is much of the ridiculous
in all the affairs of man, but Courtecuisse
had overstepped the limit.

One hundred and twent3^-six complaints
had been entered against delinquents,
most of whom were accomplices of Courte-
cuisse, and referred to the justice's court
sitting at Soulanges, and of this number

276

THE HUMAN COMEDY

sixty-nine had resulted in judg-ment for
the plaintiff. Branet, delighted with such
a windfall,, had made haste to take out
the necessary papers to obtain what is
styled, in leg-al parlance, proces-verhaux
de carence, a miserable expedient where
the power of justice ceases. It is a pro-
ceeding* by which the sheriff's officer
makes return that the judg^ment debtor
has nothing, is absolutely a pauper. It
is clear that where there is nothing to
take nothing can be obtained, and the
creditor, even if he be the king, must go
unsatisfied. These paupers, selected with
discernment, lived in the five adjoining
communes, whither the sheriff's officer
betook himself, duly supported and aided
by his faithful myrmidons, Vermichel and
Fourchon. Monsieur Brunet had forward-
ed all the judgments to Sibilet, accom-
panied by a bill of charg-es amounting to
five thousand francs, requesting him to
ask the Comte de Montcornet for further
instructions.

At the very moment when Sibilet, with
this great mass of papers ready to his
hand, was tranquilly explaining to his em-
ployer what had been the outcome of the
orders, too innocently and unreflectingly
given to Courtecuisse, and was compos-
edly watching one of the most violent
tantrums that ever French general of
cavalry gave way to, Courtecuisse him-
self appeared upon the scene, his object
being to pay his duty to his master, and
make a demand on him for eleven hun-
dred francs or thereabouts, that being tlie
sum to which the promised emoluments
amounted. Thereon the true nature of
the man asserted itself, and the general
lost his head; rank, title, dignity were
thrown to the winds ; he was once more
the trooper and rough-rider, and vomited
foul language, of which later he could not
help but be ashamed.

"Eleven hundred francs, indeed!" he
roared. ''ElcA^'en hundred thousand cuffs
on 5'our ear, eleven hundred thousand
kicks in 3-our — ! Do you suppose I don't
know what's what ? Get out of here, or
I'll smash you flat ! "

The general's face was fairly blue
with rage ; Courtecuisse, beholding it.

took to his heels and was off like a
shot.

"Monsieur le Comte," said Sibilet, very
gently, '"'you are making a mistake. "-

" I — making a mistake ? "

" For Heaven's sake. Monsieur le Comte,
be careful ; that rascal will have j^ou up
before the court."

"What do I care? Go and see that
the scoundrel leaves the place this ver3'
instant ; keep an eye on him to see that
he doesn't carry off some of my propert^?^
• — and settle with him for what I owe
him."

Four hours later the entire neighbor-
hood was agape, gossiping and gabbling
after its manner over this pretty scene.
The general had almost murdered poor
Courtecuisse, people said ; he refused to
pay him what was coming to him ; he was
trying to cheat him out of two thousand
francs. Reports of the wildest character
began to circulate in relation to the mas-
ter of Aigues ; it was affirmed that he
was violently insane. The following- day,
Brunet, who had served so man}' papers
for the general's account, placed in his
hands, for Courtecuisse's, a summons to
appear before the justice's court. A
thousand flies were hovering around the
lion ready to sting ; his torment was only
beginning.

The installation of a keeper is attended
with certain formalities ; he has to go
before the court and be sworn. Some
daj^s elapsed, therefore, before the three
new men bloomed out as servants of the
public. Although the general had writ-
ten to Midland to come on at once and
not wait until the pavilion of the Porte
d'Avonne was made ready to receive him,
the future head keeper was detained by
preparations for his marriage, and could
not get away for two weeks.

During this time, and pending the ac-
complishment of the legal formalities,
which the authorities at Ville-aux-Fayes
seemed to make it their business to hin-
der and delay as much as possible, the
woods of Aigues were laid waste by the
plunderers, who made the most of the op-
portunity afforded them by the unguarded
condition of the property.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY

277

It was a great clay in the valley, from
Conches even to Ville-aux-Fayes, when
the three keepers came out in all the
bravery of their brand-new livery, green,
like the emperor's, for they were well set-
up men, with faces that showed they were
not to be trifled with, firm on their legs,
active and alert, and looking as if thej
were not to be scared by the prospect of
a night in the forest.

Groison was the only man in the entire
canton who turned out to welcome the
veterans. Highly pleased to be thus re-
enforced, he let slip some threats against
the robbers, who would presently find
themselves close-pressed and deprived of
their opportunities for mischief. War
was declared with the usual formalities,
you see, b}'' proclamation both open and
secret.

Sibilet represented to the general that
the gendarmerie at Soulanges, and par-
ticularlj'- their corporal, were covertl}'
hostile to the Aigues interest ; he pointed
out to him how desirable it was to have a
force animated b}'^ a more friendly feeling.

"'With a reliable corporal and men de-
voted to 3'^our interest you would have
the district under 3'our thumb," said he.

The general took post-horses once again
and hurried off to the prefecture, where
he succeeded in persuading the general
commanding the division to retire Soudry
and replace him by a man named Viallet,
an excellent gendarme from the county-
seat, of whom the general and the prefet
spoke most highly. The gendarmes of
the Soulanges compan}^ were dispersed by
the colonel of the gendarmerie, an old
friend of Montcornet's, among the other
towns of the department ; their successors
were picked men, to whom the word was
quieth^ passed that they were to keep a
sharp lookout and see that the Comte de
Montcornet's propertj'' received no dam-
age in the future, and they were further
enjoined not to let themselves be seduced
by the blandishments of the people of
Soulanges.

This last revolution, which was accom-
plished with a rapidity that allowed no
time to thwart it, scattered astonishment
and dismay through. Ville-aux-Fayes and

Soulanges. Soudry, who chose to con-
sider himself dismissed, made a complaint,
and Gaubertin found means to get him
appointed maj'or, a step that placed the
gendarmerie under his command. There
were loud outcries against Montcornet's
tyranny, and he became the object of uni-
versal hatred. Not only had he taken the
bread from the mouths of half a dozen
families, but men were wounded in their
vanit3^ The peasantry, aroused b}"- the
incendiary speeches of the small bour-
geois of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes,
as well as by the words of Rigou, Lan-
glume and Monsieur Guerbet, postmaster
of Conches, firmly believed they were on
the verge of losing what they called their
rights.

The general compromised the suit
against his former keeper by paying him
what he claimed.

For a consideration of two thousand
francs Courtecuisse bought a little prop-
erty that was land-locked, so to speak,
within the domain of Aigues, having a
single outlet that afforded passage to the
game. Rigou had always refused to sell
the Bachelerie, but he now derived a
malicious pleasure from letting Courte-
cuisse have it at a price far below its
value in order to spite Montcornet. Cour-
tecuisse thus became one of his numerous
creatures, for he could at any time call
on him for the balance of the purchase
moncj', the ex-keeper having paid only a
thousand francs down.

Michaud, the three keepers, and the
garde-champetre henceforth led tlie lives
of guerillas. Sleeping in the woods, scour-
ing them constantly at every moment of
the night and daj', studying their issues,
familiarizing themselves with the various
species of timber and their location, accus-
toming their ears to the different sounds
that break the silence of the forest, they
soon became adepts in the woodman's
art. They also contracted the habit of
observing faces, making themselves ac-
quainted with the different families that
inhabited the villages of the canton and
the individuals who composed them, in-
vestigating their morals and manners,
their characters and means of livelihood.

278

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

This was not so easy a thing to do as one
mig-ht imagine, for the peasants who got
their living from Aigues met these intelli-
gent measures either with dumb silence
or simulated subraissiveness.

From the very first Michaud and Sibi-
let were mutually antagonistic. The
loyal and upright soldier, the honor of the
non-commissioned officers of the Young
Guard, could not endure the regisseur's
sullen airs, his nature compounded of
treacle and brutality, and dubbed him
the Chinaman. He soon became aware
that Sibilet was putting obstacles in tlie
way of measures that were radically
good, and was advocating others that
were of doubtful utility. Instead of try-
ing to mollify the general, Sibilet, as the
reader maj^ have discovered in the course
of tliis narrative, was continuall}^ excit-
ing him and egging him on to violent
measures, while at the same time doing
his best to break his spirit b^^ a multi-
tude of petty cares and annoyances, and
by raising up for him a crop of difficulties
that was renewed daily .as regularly as
the sun rose. While knowing nothing of
the disloyal and disingenuous role adopted
by Sibilet, who had promised himself from
the start to serve either the general or
Gaubertin as self-interest might seem to
dictate, Michaud was satisfied that the
steward's nature was a greedy, self-seek-
ing, and thoroughly bad one ; hence he
could not see how he could be an honest
man. The general was not displeased to
see his two chief officers at variance. Mi-
chaud's enmity induced him to keep an
eye on the regisseur, a species of espion-
age to which he would not have stooped
if the general had required it of him.
Sibilet attempted to win the head keeper
to liimself by caresses and flatter^'-, but
never succeeded in making him abandon
the air of studied politeness that the hon-
est soldier placed between them like a
barrier.

These preliminary details having been
made clear to the reader, he will now be
in a x^osition to understand what the gen-
eral's enemies had in view, as well as the
interest of the conversation he had with
his two ministers.

IX.

ON MEDIOCRACY.

" Well, Michaud, what is there new ?"
Asked the general, when the comtesse had
left the dining-room.

" We won't talk business here, general,
if you will let me have vay way about it ;
walls have ears, and I want none but our
own to receive what I have to say."

'^^ Very well," replied the general. " Sup-
pose we go and take a walk ; if we follow
the path through the meadows no one
can hear us."

A few moments later the general was
striding over the meadows accompanied
by Sibilet and Michaud, while the com-
tesse, with Abbe Brossette and Blondet
to right and left of her, took her way
toward the Porte d'Avonne.

Michaud related the recent occurrences
at the Grand-I-vert.

" Vatel was wrong," said Sibilet.

''They proved that by blinding him,"
replied Michaud ; ''but let it pass. You
remember that we proposed to levy on
the cattle of our judgment debtors, gen-
eral. Well, that scheme has come to
naught. Brunet — and his confrere Plis-
soud is just as bad as he— will never
support us loj^ally ; they will alwaj^s find
means to warn people of the projected
levy. Vermichel, Brunet's assistant, was
at the Grand-I-vert a while ago looking
for Father Fourchon, and Marie Tonsard,
Bonnebault's very good friend, has gone
to Conches to spread the alarm. Finally,
the depredations are beginning again."

"We must show our power; it is daily
becoming more and more necessary," said
Sibilet.

" What did I tell you ? " exclaimed the
general. "We must insist that the judg-
ments which carry Avith them imprison-
ment be enforced ; if the parties won't
pay their fines and the costs of court they
rnust be locked up."

" Those people regard the law as a
nullity and comfort one another by sa\'-
ing we dare not arrest them," Sibilet
replied. "They think j-ou are afraid!
They must have accomplices at Ville-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

279

aux-Faj'^es, for the procureur-royal seems
to have pig"eon-holed the papers."

" It is my opinion," said Michaud with
a ghince at the general's anxious face,
'' that by the use of money you can still
save 3^our property,"

'• It is better to spend money than
resort to measures of severity," Sibilet
rejoined.

'' What do you propose ? " asked Mont-
cornet of his head keeper.

"My plan is ver3^ simple," said Mi-
chaud : " inclose your forest, just as 3"0u
do your park ; trespassing- then becomes
a criminal offense, punishable by the
courts of assize."

''The material alone would cost nine
francs the running' fathom !" Sibilet sneer-
ingly objected. " Monsieur le Comte would
have to pay out over a third of all that
Aigues is worth."

''Very well," said Montcornet, " I shall
g-o and see the procureur-general ; I will
g-o at once."

"It is more than likelj^," Sibilet re-
plied, "that the procureur-g-eneral is of
the same mind as the procureur-royal,
otherwise there would not be such negli-
g-ence."

"That is what I must see about!"
cried ]\Iontcornet. " The whole concern
shall go by the board, judges, ministers,
procureur-general and all ; I will go to
the g"arde des sceaux, and if necessary
to the king-."

At a sig"n made him by Michaud the
g-eneral turned and said to Sibilet : "Adieu,
my dear sir." The regisseur understood.

" Is it the wish of Monsieur le Comte,
as mayor," the regisseur asked with a
bow, "that the necessar-y steps should
be taken to repress the abuse of gleaning ?
The harvest is at hand, and if the decrees
regulating certificates of pauperism and
forbidding paupers from the neighboring
communes to glean on our land are to be
published, there is no time to lose."

"Confer with Groison, and do it!"
said the coihte. " With such people to
deal with." he added, "the law must be
carried out to the very letter."

Thus, in a momentary fit of irritation,
did the comte accede to a plan which

Sibilet had been pressing- on him for the
last two weeks and to which he had re-
fused his consent, until now, in the white
heat of the ang-er inspired in him by
Vatel's accident, he looked at it more
favorably.

When Sibilet had taken himself off, the
comte turned to his keeper and said in an
undertone :

" Well, my dear Michaud, what is it ? "

"' You have an enemy in the camp,
g-eneral, and you confide to him things
that you should keep secret even from,
your nightcap."

"' I share j'our suspicions, my dear
friend," said Montcornet; "but I am
not g-oing to commit the same blunder
twice. I am waiting- for you to be thor-
oughly posted in the business of the stew-
ardship ; when that time comes, and when
Vatel is capable of taking 3^our place, I
mean to g-et rid of Sibilet. But what
have I to reproach the man with, after
all ? He is industrious, he is honest ; I
don't believe he has stolen five hundred
francs in five years. He has the meanest
disposition on the face of God's earth, but
that's all there is against him. If he has
any plan, what can it be ? "

"I will find out what it is, general,"
said Michaud in a g-rave voice ; " for he
certainh" has a plan, and, with your per-
mission, I think a thousand francs would
get it out of that old rascal Fourchon,
although, since this morning, I have my
suspicions that Father Fourchon would
serve God and the devil with equal will-
ingness. Their object is to force you to
sell the estate ; that rascally old cobbler
told me so. Know this : from Conches
to Ville-aux-Fayes there is not a peasant,
not a small bourgeois, not a farmer, not
an innkeeper, who has not his money laid
b}' in readiness against the day when
the carcass shall be cut up and divided.
Fourchon tells me that Tonsard, his son-
in-law, has already signified the allot-
ment he desires. The idea that you will
have to sell your estate dwells in the air
of the valley like a pestilential vapor.
Perhaps the steward's pavilion and some
of the surrounding- land is what Sibilet
expects as the price of his treachery. Not

280

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

a word is spoken between you and me that
is not known at Ville-aux-Fayes almost as
soon as it leaves our mouths, Sibilet is
related to your enemy Gaubertin. What
you let slip just now about the procureur-
g-eneral will likely enough be reported to
him before you can reach the prefecture.
You don't know the people of this can-
ton ! "

"Don't know them, s^y you? TYiey
are the dreg-s of humanity, the lowest
of the low! Ah!" cried the general,
"I would rather a hundred times see
Aigues in ashes than knuckle to such
scoundrels ! "

" We -won't burn Aigues yet awhile ;
we'll see if we can't find some way of out-
witting these pigmies. From the threats
they utter there is reason to expect the
worst. Speaking of fire, therefore, gen-
eral, I would advise you to see that
your farm buildings are covered by in-
surance."

" Oh, Michaud, do you know what they
mean by calling me a Tapissier ? As I
was walking along the Thune yesterday,
some urchins shouted at me, ' There goes
the Tapissier ! ' and then they took to
their heels."

" Sibilet could tell you ; he would like
nothing better, for it pleases him to see
you in a passion," Michaud answered
with an air of deep distress. '''But as
you ask me, Monsieur le Comte — ^well, it
is the nickname those ruffians have given
you."

" And on account of what ? "

" Why, general, on account of — of your
father."

"Ah, the blackguards!" cried the
general, his face ashy white. " Yes,
Michaud, my father was a cabinet-maker;
the-comtesse knows nothing — oh! may
she never, never — But what matters it,
after all ? Have I not danced with queens
and empresses ? I will tell her all this
very night," he said after a pause.

"They say you are a coward, too,"
Michaud continued.

"Ah!"

" They ask how it was you got off safe
at Essling, where so many brave men
lost their lives."

A smile was the only answer the gen-
eral vouchsafed to this insinuation.

" Michaud, I am going to the city ! "
he exclaimed with a sort of fury, " if
only to attend to taking out the insur-
ance policies. Tell Madame la Comtesse
where I am gone. They desire war ;
very well, they shall have it, and I, for
my part, will do my best to make things
hot for these bourgeois of Soulanges and
their precious peasants. We are in the
enemy's countrj^, remember ; be prudent.
Caution the keepers to keep within the
law. See that poor Vatel is well cared
for. The comtesse is badly frightened ;
let her know nothing of the troubles,
otherwise she will never come here
again."

The general, and even Michaud himself,
had no idea of the gravity of the impend-
ing peril. Michaud, a stranger to this
part of Burgundy, underrated the enemN^'s
resources, even when he saw them in ac-
tion, and the general was a believer in the
efficacious might and majest3'^ of the law.

In the eyes of some twenty millions of
human beings the Law, in France, is but
a white paper nailed to the door of the
church or of the mairie. Hence the word
papers employed b}^ Mouche to express
his notion of supreme authority. There
are cantonal mayors (we are not speaking
now of the mayors of simple commtuies)
who make bags to hold grapes or seeds
from their copies of the " Bulletin des
Lois." As for the communal mayors,
were a.nj one to specify the number of
those who can neither read nor write, and
the manner in which they keep their civil
records, he would not be believed. The
gravity of this situation, with which well-
informed statesmen are perfectly famihar,
will doubtless decrease with time; but
the principle that centralization — against
which people clamor so loudly, as in
France they howl down everything that
is for the public good — the principle that
centralization will never touch, the force
against which it will break eternally, is
that which the general was about to en-
counter and for which we can find no
better name than mediocracy.

In the past, curses loud arid deep were

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

281

heaped oil the tA-ranii}- of the nobles ; at
the present day the popular outcry is
directed against the money-kings and the
abuses of those in power, which, after all,
are nothing more than the inevitable gall-
ing of the social yoke, called by Rousseau
a contract, b}'^ this one a co-nstitution, \)j
that one a charter ; here king, there
czar, in Great Britain parliament ; but
the leveling-down process, begun in 1789
and continued in 1830, paved the wa}^ for
the paltering supremacy of thelx>urgeoisie
and delivered over to it France, bound
hand and foort. A state of affairs that is,
unfortunately, only too common at the
present d.iiy, the subjection of a canton,
a small town, a sous-prefecture, by a sin-
gle family ; such a state of affairs, in a
word, as a Gaubertin was able to bring
about at the height of the Restoration,
will serve to show the extent of this social
evil better than any mere dogmatic asser-
tion can do. Many tyrannized localities
will recognize the picture, many a man
who accepted his fate and suffered in si-
lence will here find that little public ci-git
which sometimes makes up in part for a
great private calamity.

At the moment when the general was
deluding himself with the notion that he
was commencing afresh a war that had
never ceased, his former steward had com-
pleted the meshes of the net in which he
now held the entire arrondissement of
Ville-aux-Fayes. To avoid being tedious,
it will be necessar}^ to give a succinct
account of the various genealogical rami-
fications by virtue of which Gaubertin
enwrapped the whole district, like a gi-
gantic boa winding itself about a tree
so artfully that the wayfarer is deceived
and takes it for an integrnl portion of the
vegetable growth.

In 1793 there were living in the Avonne
valley three brothers named Mouchon. It
was in 1793 that the valley began to be
called by the name of Avonne instead of
Aigues, out of hatred for its old lords.

The senior of this family, who had been
intendant to the house of Ronqucrolles,
was elected to the Convention as member
for his department. Like his friend, the
elder Gaubertin, the public prosecutor

who assisted the Soulanges in their hour
of peril, he saved the lives and property of
the Ronquerolles. He had two daugh-
ters, one of whom married Gendrin, the
lawyer, the other the younger Gaubertin;
he died in 1804.

The second brother, through the influ-
ence of the deputy, obtained the post-
mastership at Conches without having
to' pay the customar^'^ tribute. He died
in 1817, leaving as heir to all his wealth
a daughter, married to a rich farmer of
the neighborhood named Guerbet.

The remaining Mouchon, having em-
braced the religious calling, had been
cure at Ville-aux-Fayes before the Revo-
lution, was cure when the Catholic relig-
ion was restored, and still held the curac}'
of that small capital. He would not swear
feahy to the Republic, and lived for a
long time in hiding at Aigues, in the
old manor-house, where he was secretly
protected b}^ the two Gaubertins, father
and son. He had reached the age of
sevent^^-seven years at the period of our
story, and on account of the similarity
between his character and disposition
and those of the natives, he enjoyed their
affection and esteem. Saving even to
penuriousness, he had the reputation of
being very rich, and this 'presumption of
fortune did not detract from the consid-
eration in which he was held. The bishop
thought very highly of the Abbe Mou-
chon, who was always mentioned as the
venerable cure of Ville-aux-Fayes ; and
a circumstance that, no less than his
wealth, endeared Cure Mouchon to the
towmspeople was the positive knowledge
that he had more than once declined to
go and officiate in an aristocratic parish
of the departmental capital, where mon-
seigneur desired his presence.

At this time Gaubertin, mayor of Ville-
aux-Faj-es, had a valuable supporter in
Monsieur Gendrin, his brother-in-law and
president of the tribunal of first instance.
The 3'-ounger Gaubertin, whose practice
in the court exceeded that of any other
lawj^er, and whose name was famous
throughout the arrondissement, was al-
ready talking of selling out his business,
though he had pursued it but five years.

282

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

It was his desire to succeed his uncle Gen-
drin on the bench when the latter should
retire. President Gendrin's only son was
in charg-e of the office where deeds and
mortg-ages were recorded.

Soudry's son, who for two years past
had occupied the chief position in the
public ministry, was a tool of Gauber-
tin's. Cunning- Madame Soudry had not
failed to fortify the position of her hus-
band's son ; she had married him to Ri-
gou's only daughter. The united fortunes
of the old monk and of Corporal Soudry,
which must eventually fall to this j^oung-
man, made him a person of g-reat conse-
quence in the department. '

The sous-prefet of Ville-aux-Fayes,
Monsieur des Lupeaulx, nephew to the
secretary -general of one of the g-reat de-
partments of state, was the happy man
who had been selected as the husband of
Mademoiselle Elisa Gaubertin, the may-
or's second daughter, whose dowry, like
her elder sister's, was to be the neat sum
of two hundred thousand francs, leaving-
expectations put of the question. The
public servant unconsciously did a sen-
sible thing- when he fell in love with
Mademoiselle Elisa, on his arrival at
Ville-aux-Fayes, in the j^ear 1819. Had
it not been for his marriag-e prospects,
he would long- ago have been compelled
to file his request for an exchang-e of
posts ; but now he was in posse one of
the great Gaubertin connection, the head
of which had his eye fixed on the uncle
much more than on the nephew in this
alliance. Consequently the uncle, in
furtherance of the nephew's interests,
threw all the influence he could dispose
of in favor of Gaubertin.

And thus it was that the church, the
mag-istracy in its twofold form, remov-
able and irremovable, the municipality
and the administration, constituting* the
four-footed animal called power, moved
its four leg's at bidding of the mayor.

Learn now how that supremacy had
fortified itself above and below the sphere
in which it acted :

The department in which Ville-aux-
Fayes is situated is one of those whpse
population entitles them to six deputies.

Ever since there had been a left-center in
the Chamber, the arrondissement of Ville-
aux-Fayes had elected as its represen-
tative Leclercq, Gaubertin's son-in-law,
member of the banking firm that handled
the money of the wine trade, and who had
recently been made a regent of the Bank
of France. The number of electors sent
by this fertile valley to the electoral col-
leg-e was always sufficiently larg-e to in-
sure the election of Monsieur de Ronque-
rolles, who was devoted to the interests
of the Mouchon famil3^ The electors of
Ville-aux-Fayes accorded their support to
the prefet, on condition of his retaining-
the Marquis de Ronquerolles in his seat.
Gaubertin, therefore, who was the first to
sug-gest this arrang-ement, was viewed
with a very friendly eye at the prefecture,
where he saved the authorities from many
an unpleasant experience. The prefet was
expected to see to it that three straight-
out ministerialists and two left-centerists
were returned. As the two last-named
deputies were, one, the Marquis de Ron-
querolles, brother-in-law to the Comte
de Serizy, and the other a regent of the
Bank, they did not inspire the Cabinet
with mortal terror. As long as this con-
dition of affairs lasted, the Ministry of the
Interior thought that the department
conducted its elections very nicely.

The Comte de Soulanges, peer of France,
with the expectancy of a marshal's baton,
faithful to the Bourbons, knew that his
domain was well administered and well
guarded by Lupin the notary and by Sou-
dry ; he might well be considered a pro-
tector by Gendrin, whom he had succes-
sively made judge and president, aided,
however, by Monsieur de Ronquerolles.

Messieurs Leclercq and de Ronquerolles,
then, had their seats in the left-center,
but nearer the left than the center, an
obviously advantageous position for a
man who regards his political conscience
as a garment to be donned and doffed at
will.

Monsieur Leclercq's brother had re-
cently been appointed to a coUectorship
in Ville-aux-Fayes.

In addition to all this Leclercq, the
banker and deputy, had lately purchased.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

283

at no great distance from the little capi-
tal of the Vale d'Avonne, a magnificent
property, embracing park and chateau,
which brought him in thirty thousand
francs yearh^ and secured his position in
the canton.

Thus we see that in the higher regions
of the State, iu the two Chambers and
in the most important ministry, Gauber-
tin could reckon on an influence that
was equally powerful and active ; and he
had not yet teased it for trifles or wearied
its patience with too many serious re-
quests.

The counselor Gendrin, he who had
been appointed president by the Cham-
ber, was the grand factotum of the
judiciary. The first president, who was
one of the three ministerial deputies and
had made himself indispensable as the
mouthpiece of the center, left the business
of his court to Gendrin to conduct for six
months at a time. Finall}^ the counsel
to the prefecture, a cousin of Sarcus,
known as Sarcus the Rich, was the pre-
fet's mainstay and himself a member of
the Chamber. Had it not been for the
ties of family that united Gaubertin and
young Du .Lupeaulx, there would have
been an intimation from the arrondisse-
ment of Ville-aux-Fayes that a brother of
Madame Sarcus was desired for sous-
prefet. Madame Sarcus, wife of the
counsel, was a Vallat of Soulanges, a fam-
ily that was connected with the Gauber-
tins ; it was said that she had looked
with favor on Lupin the notary when she
was younger.

Although she was forty-five years old,
and had a grown son who was an engineer,
Lupin never visited the capital that he
did not call to pay his respects or dine
with her.

The nephew of Guerbet, the postmaster,
whose father, as we have shown, was tax-
gatherer at Soulanges, held the important
position of juge d 'instruction to the court
at Ville-aux-Fayes. The third judge, son
of Maitre Corbinet the notary, was of
course owned by the all-powerful mayor,
body and soul ; finally, young Vigor, son
of the lieutenant of gendarmes, was the
supplementary judge.

Sibilet's father, the original clerk of
the court, had given his sister in marriage
to Monsieur Vigor, the lieutenant of gen-
darmerie at Ville-aux-Fayes. This worthy
man, who was father of six children, was
cousin to Gaubertin's father by his wife,
who was a Gaubertin- Vallat.

Some eighteen months previously to
this time the united efforts of the two
deputies. Monsieur de Soulanges and
President Gaubertin, had succeeded in
obtaining for old Sibilet's second son a
situation as commissar^'^ of police.

Sibilet's oldest daughter had married
Monsieur Herve, a teacher, whose school
had been transformed into a college by
reason of this marriage, and for the last
year Ville-aux-Fayes could boast of hav-
ing a proviseur (something midway be-
tween a schoolmaster and a professor).

The Sibilet who was chief clerk to
Maitre Corbinet was only waiting for
the sureties promised by Gaubertin,
Soudry and Leclercq to step into his
master's shoes.

The youngest son was employed in the
ofiB-ces of the public domain, and had the
promise of succeeding the registrar, as
soon as that functionary should reach the
age of retirement.

And, finally, the youngest daughter,
aged sixteen, was engaged to Captain
Corbinet, brother of the notary, for whom
a position had been obtained in the gen-
eral post-office.

The posting privilege at Ville-aux-Fayes
was in the hands of the elder Monsieur
Vigor, the banker Leclercq's brother-in-
law, and he was commander of the
National Guard.

An old maid of the Gaubertin- Vallat
branch, sister to the wife of the clerk of
the court, kept a little shop where she
had a monopoly'' of the sale of stamped
paper.

Thus, turn whichever way 3'ou might
in Ville-aux-Fayes, you were certain to
fall up against some member of this in-
visible, intangible clique, whose chief,
known and recognized as such by all,
great and small, was Gaubertin, maj^or
of the town and agent for the combLued
wood-dealers !

284

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Step down into the vale of Avonne and
you still find Gaubertin exercising- bis
potent sway. At Soulan«-es through
Soudry, through Lupin, adjunct to the
mayor and intendant for the property of
Monsieur de Soulanges, with whom he
was in constant communication ; through
Sarcus, the justice of the peace, through
Guerbet the tax-collector, through Gour-
don the doctor, who had married a
Gendrin-Vatebled. He ruled Blangy by
means of Rigou and Conches by the post-
master, who was lord and master of his
commune. The influence that the am-
bitious mayor of Yille-aux-Fayes enjoyed
in the rest of the arrondissement ma}^ be
judged from the way he struck out his
tentacles in the valley of the Avonne.

A good deal depended on the head of
the Leclercq firm. The banker had given
his assurance that Gaubertin should step
in and take his place as soon as he, Le-
clercq, should secure the receiver-gener-
alship of the department. Soudry was
to be promoted from his procureurship to
be advocate-general to the cour royale,
and the wealthy juge d 'instruction, Guer-
bet, was looking forward to a counselor-
ship. These changes would carr^^ with
them advancement for the 3'oung and-
ambitious spirits of the town and be the
means of obtaining for the clique still
more friendships among needy families.

Gaubertin 's influence was so great that
the savings and secret hoards of the
Rigous, the Soudrys, the Gendrins, the
Guerbets, the Lupins, na3', even of Sar-
cus the Rich himself, were invested in
accordance with his dictates. Ville-aux-
Fayes placed the most implicit trust in
its mayor. Gaubertin's capacity was no
less vaunted than his probity, than his
good-nature ; he was devoted to his rel-
atives, to his constituents, but then he
expected a devotion fully as great from
them in return. The municipal council
fairly worshiped him. The department
was unanimous in its reproach of Mon-
sieur Mariotte of Auxerre for going coun-
ter to this exemplary man.

Unaware of their strength, no occasion
having ever presented itself of showing
it, the good bourgeois of Ville-aux-Fayes

merely congratulated themselves on the
fact that they had no outsiders among
them, and therein they thought them-
selves excellent patriots. There was
nothing, however, that escaped the notice
of this keen-sighted tyranny, itself invisi-
ble, and which every one believed to be
the chief glory of the place. As soon,
therefore, as the liberal opposition de-
clared war on the Bourbons of the elder
branch Gaubertin, who, unknown to his
wife, had been keeping a natural son at
Paris whom he did not know what to do
with, a young man who went by the name
of Bournier, and having heard that the
3^outh was proof-reader in a printing-
oflice, made application for a newspaper
license for Ville-aux-Fayes. The journal
thus started was dubbed the " Courrier
de TAvonne ;" it came out three times a
week, and commenced by taking all the
legal advertising away from the organ of
the prefecture. This departmental sheet,
which was favorable to the administra-
tion in its general scope, but championed
the ideas of the left-center more particu-
larh', and which became very valuable to
the trading community of Burgund}" by
its accurate commercial and financial re-
ports, was entirely devoted to the in-
terests of the triumvirate composed of
Gaubertin, RigoU and Soudry. Bournier,
now master of a fine plant from which he
was reaping substantial profits and with
the mayor for backer, was pacing court
to the daughter of lawyer Marechal. It
seemed likely that a marriag-e would re-
sult.

The only stranger in the great Avon-
naise happy family was the engineer-in-
ordinary of the Department of Roads and
Bridges ; but application had been made
for his removal in favor of Monsieur Sar-
cus, son of Sarcus the Rich, and there was
a fair prospect that this one hole in the
net would speedily be mended.

This formidable combination, which mo-
nopolized all trusts, both public and pri-
vate, which was sucking the country dry,
which had attached itself to authority as
a remora clings to the bottom of a ship,
escaped the most prying vision. General
de Montcornet had no suspicion of its

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

285

existence. The prefecture rubbed its
hands and chuckled over the prosperity
of the arrondisseinent ; and at the Minis
try of the Interior, the bureaucrats were
wont to say: ''Tliere is a model sous-
prefecture ; everything- g-oes along" on
greased Avlieels I How happy we would
be if all the arrondissements were like
that one ! '"' Family feeling and local
pride were so interwoven there that, as
is the case in many small towns, and
even prefectures, an oflSce-holder not to
the manor born would have been driven
from the arrondissement within the year.

Montcornet's friend, tlie Comte de la
Roche-Hugon, had been turned out of
office a short time before the g-eneral's
last visit. This action threw the states-
man into the arms of the liberal oppo-
sition, where he became a sort of fugle-
man to the left, which he deserted with
much promptitude when offered an em-
bassy. His successor, luckily for Mont-
cornet, was a son-in-law of the Marquis
de Troisville, the comtesse's uncle, the
Comte de Casteran. The prefet received
Montcornet like a relative and politely
told him to make himself at home at the
prefecture. When he had given audience
to the generaPs complaints, the Comte
de Casteran sent invitations to the bishop,
the procureur-general, the colonel of g"en-
darmerie, the counselor Sarcus, and the
g-eneral commanding the division, for
breakfast the following" morning-.

Baron Bourlac, the procureur-g-eneral,
who gained so much celebrity by his con-
nection with the La Chauterie and Rifael
trials, was one of those men who stand
ready to serve any and every Government
and who are highly valued b}'" those in au-
thority for their devotion to power, be it
what it may. During- his elevation, pri-
marily to the fanatical zeal with which he
served the emperor, he was indebted for
the preservation of his judicial standing- to
his rigid inflexibility and the conscious-
ness of his professional digmity that he
carried with him into the performance
of all his duties. The procureur-g-eneral,
who in former days had been implacable
in his pursuit of the fragments of the
Chouannerie, displaj^ed equal implaca-

bility in following up the Bonapartlsts ;
but advancing- years and the storms of
life had abraded the roughnesses of his
character, and like manj' another who
has been a '"tough case," in his day,
he was become charming in speech and
manner.

The Comte de Montcornet explained the
state of affairs, spoke of the apprehen-
sions of his head keeper, and wound up
by an allusion to the necessity of making"
examples and strengthening the hands of
the landlords.

The public functionaries listened to him
with great gravity-, but confined their re-
plies to commonplaces, as : " Of course,
the law must make itself respected. —
Your cause is that of every landed pro-
prietor.— We will look into your case, but
great caution is demanded under our pres-
ent circumstances. — A monarchy should
certainly be able to do more for the people
than the people could do for itself, even if
it were, as in 1793, sovereign. — The pro-
letariat is suffering; we have duties to-
ward it as much as toward you and your
class."

The hard-hearted procureur-general as-
sumed a paternal tone, and discoursed so
serious]}'' and feelingly on the situation of
the lower classes that the Utopians of the
future, could they have heard him, would
have been convinced that our high-grade
functionaries had mastered all the diffi-
culties of the knotty problem that puzzle
modern social scientists.

It is proper to state here that at this
period of the Restoration bloody collisions
occurred in several portions of the king-
dom, owing to no other cause than the
devastating of forests by the peasants
and the so-called '"rights" which the}'
arrogantly claimed for tliemselves. Nei-
ther the ministry nor the court looked
with favor on emeutes of this description,
or on the blood that was shed in the vari-
ous efforts, successful and unsuccessful, to
repress them. While admitting the ne-
cessity of severe measures. Government
frowned on executive officers when they
put down the peasants, and dismissed them
if they showed weakness. This being the
case the prefets trimmed their sails so as

286

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

to g-et out of the deplorable business as
best they could.

At the beg-inning of the conversation
Sarcus the Rich had made a signal to
the prefet and the procureur-general ;
Montcornet did not catch this sig-nal,
which determined the tenor of the inter-
view. The procureur-general was fully
posted on the situation in the Aigues
valley through the medium of his subor-
dinate, Soudry.

''I predict a terrible conflict," the
king's procureur at Ville-aux-Fayes had
said to his chief, to see whom he had
come up to Paris expressly. " Our g-en-
darmes will be killed without mercy, so
my spies tell me. The trial will result
unsatisfactorily. The jury won't find
for us when it sees it will incur the ha-
tred of the families of twenty or thirty
defendants; it won't g-ive us a verdict
ag-ainst those accused of murder; it won't
accord the long- sentence of imprisonment
that we shall be forced to demand against
the murderers' accomplices. Even if you
address the court in person the most j^ou
will obtain will be a few years' seclusion
for the most g-uilty. It is better to shut
our eyes than to open them, when, by
opening- them, we are sure to bring" about
a collision that will result in bloodshed
and perhaps cost the Government six
thousand francs in costs, to say noth-
ing of the prisoners' maintenance at
the galleys. It is too dear a price to
pay for a victor3^ that is certain to
expose the weakness of justice to every
eye."

Montcornet, too high-minded to sus-
pect the existence of "Mediocracy" in
his valley and the mischief it was doing-,
said nothing of Gaubertin, whose breath
was kindling into life the smoldering-
coals that were to break out into new
troubles. When the breakfast was con-
cluded the procureur-general took the
Comte de Montcornet by the arm and
conducted him to the prefet 's private
office. On emerging from this conference
the g-eneral wrote a letter to the com-
tesse, mforming her that he was about
to leave for Paris and would return in a
week's time. The result of the measures

recommended hy Baron Bourlac will show
how wise was his advice, and how, if
Aigues was to escape the evil fate in
store for it, it could only be by yielding:
implicit obedience to the policy secretly
dictated by the magistrate to the Comte
de Montcornet.

There are readers, those who devour
books merely to be thrilled and interested,
who will accuse the author of this work
of spinning out his explanations unneces-
sarily ; but it is only fair to remark that
the historian of manners and morals is
subjected to laws far more severe than
those that g-uide the mere historian of
facts. He is to give a semblance of prob-
ability to everything', even to the truth,
while in the domain of history, properly
so-called, the impossible is noted down
and is justified simply for the reason that
it did actually happen. The vicissitudes
of social or private life spring- from a mul-
titude of small causes that depend on an
infinity of conditions. The savant has to
dig down into the bosom of the avalanche
that has swept away villages in its course
in order to show you the bits of stone,
detached from the summit of the snowy
mountain, which alone can reveal the se-
cret of the formation of the Titanic mass.
If a suicide were all there was in question
in this tale, there are five hundred of them
every year in Paris ; the melodrama is so
common as to be vulgar, and no one cares
to hear any extended reasons for it ; but
who can ever be brought to believe that
the suicide of property happened in these
days when wealth is prized more highly
than life ? De re vestrd agitur, said an
old fable-monger ; it is for those who pos-
sess something-, anything, that this book
is written.

Bear in mind that this conspiracy of a
town and an entire canton against an old
soldier, who, in spite of his reckless dar-
ing, had escaped the perils of a thousand
battles, was not a solitary instance ; there
have been similar occurrences in more
than one department where the victims
had no other thought than to benefit
their fellow-men. This condition is a
constant menace to the man of genius,
the statesman, the g-reat agriculturist;

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

287

in a word, to every one endeavoring- to
introduce new methods.

This final explanation, which bears
somewhat of a political character, will
serve not only to present the personages
of the drama in their true light, and g-ive
weight to circumstances that might oth-
erwise appear trivial, but it will cast a
vivid illumination upon the stage where
all the social interests are the actors.

A SAD YET HAPPY WOMAN.

As the g-eneral was seating- himself in
his carriage to g-o to the capital, the com-
tesse was nearing- the Porte d'Avonne,
where Michaud and his wife Ol3^mpe had
installed their lares and penates some
eighteen months before.

Any one seeing- the pavilion now and
remembering- the description of it g-iven
in a previous chapter would have said it
had been torn down and rebuilt. In the
first place, the fallen bricks had been re-
placed and the joints whence the mortar
had fallen out repointed. The g-reen moss
that disflg-ured the slates of the roof had
been cleared away, and the white rail-
ings, relieved against the dark-blue back-
ground, restored something- of its original
cheerful aspect to the building-. The man
whose duty it was to attend to the alleys
of the park had cleaned up the approaches
and strewn them with a layer of white
sand. The sills and lintels of the win-
dows, the cornice, all the stonework, in
fine, had been restored, so that the
structure presented its pristine appear-
ance of majesty and splendor. The poul-
try-yard, the stables for cows and horses,
had been removed once more to their
proper position in the rear of the prem-
ises, where they were masked by clumps
of trees, and instead of disgusting- the
beholder b3' their repulsive accessories
they charmed his ear bj'" their cooings,
duckings, gentle murmurs and fiapping
of wings, which, mingling with the sound
of the summer breeze rustling- the forest
leaves, constitutes one of the most deli-

cious harmonies of nature. The place had

something of the wildness of the forest
and the trim elegance of an English park.
All the surroundings of the pavilion pre-
sented an indescribabh' neat and attrac-
tive appearance, while the interior, under
the care of a young and happy bride,
wore a very different aspect from that it
had shown only a short while before under
the brutal rule of a Courtecuisse.

It was the time of year when the place
appeared at its best, in all its natural glo-
ries. A few beds of flowers exhaled their
perfume to mingle with the wild woodland
odors. From some recently mown mead-
ows round about the delicious smell of
fresh-cut hay greeted the nostrils.

When the comtesse and her two friends
reached the end of one of the winding-
paths that came out at the pavilion, they
beheld Michaud's wife seated before her
door, working on a child's layette. The
woman's pose and occupation gave an
added human interest to the landscape
that made its charm complete, an in-
terest and charm that were in real life
so touching that certain painters have,
mistakenly we think, attempted to trans-
fer them to their canvas. .They forg-et
that the spirit, the inner meaning- of a
landscape, has a grandeur such that,
when it is faithfully reproduced by
them, it dwarfs and crushes man, while
in nature there is never an incongruity
between the scene and the personag-e
who fills it. When Poussin, the French
Raphael, made the landscape subsidiary
to the figures in his "Bergers d'Arca-
die," he knew well that man is a trivial,
miserable object when Nature is accorded
her rightful place in a picture.

The picture was one full of simple and
strong emotions : Aug-ust in all its glory,
the harvest waiting- for the sickle. In it
was found the realization of the dream of
many a man, whose turbulent, inconstant
life, a mixture of g-ood and evil, has made
him long for rest.

Let us tell in a few brief words the
story of this couple. When Montcornet
offered to Justm Michaud the keepership
at Aigues, the latter did not respond
with much warmth to the advances of

288

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

the famous cavalry officer, for he was
thinking- of re-enlisting- ; but while they
were palavering- a.nd conducting- the ne-
g-otiations that finally landed him in the
hotel Montcornet he had a glimpse of
madame's first maid. This young- wo-
man, who had been intrusted to the
comtesse's care by some honest farmer
in the neig-hborhood of Alengon, had
hopes of being heiress to some twenty
or thirty thousand francs at the death
of certain of her relatives. Like many
farmers who have married ^^oung- and
have parents living-, the girl's father
and moDher were poor and unable to
give their oldest daug-hter an educa-
tion ; they therefore placed her out at
service with the comtesse. Madame de
Montcornet had Mademoiselle Olympe
Charel instructed in sewing- and dress-
making-, and did not compel her to take
her meals with the other servants ; she
was rewarded for lier kindness \)j one of
those unswerving, unquestioning- friend-
ships that are such a comfort to Pari-
sian ladies.

Olympe Charel was a pretty lass of
Normandy, with golden reflections in her
brown hair and a slig-ht tendency to em-
bonpoint, with a pair of brig-ht e^^es to
illuminate her intelligent, pretty face and
a nose verging on the genus pug, with a
modest air despite her figure voluptuous
as an Andalusian maid's ; she had the
various airs and graces that a young wo-
man not raised b}^ birth much above the
level of the peasantry can acquire by such
intimacy as a mistress may condescend
to permit. She was becomingly attired,
kept herself neat and decent, and her
language was tolerably good. Michaud,
therefore, was easily enslaved, the more
so when he learned that the fair one
would have quite a little fortune at some
future day. What difficulties there were
came from the comtesse, who could not
endure the thought of parting with such
a treasure ; but on Montcornet 's explain-
ing to her how the land lay at Aigues,
she withdrew her opposition, and the only
obstacle in the way of an early marriage
was the consent of the parents, which
was readily obtained.

Michaud, following the good example
given by his general, regarded his young
wife as a superior being to whom he was
to yield military obedience, without stop-
ping to ask why or wherefore. In the
quiet of his home and in his busy life
outdoors he found those elements of con-
tent desired by soldiers on abandoning
their profession : sufficient v/ork to keep
the body limber and in good condition,
enough fatigue to give him healthful
sleep by night. For all his well-known
bravery, Michaud had never received a
wound of any consequence, and conse-
quently was free from those aches and
pains that often make the old soldier so
uncomfortable a companion ; like all men
of great physical strength he was even-
tempered ; therefore his wife loved him.
Since their arrival at the pavilion the
happ3^ couple had been enjoying the de-
lights of their honeymoon, blessed by the
harmonies of nature and of the art whose
creations surrounded them on every hand
— a rare concatenation ! Our surround-
ings are not always in accord with our
mental state.

The scene they beheld before them was
such a charming one that the comtesse
motioned to Blondet and Abbe Brossette
to stop, for they were in a position whence
they could see pretty Dame Michaud with-
out being seen by her.

*' When I take my walks abroad I al-
ways come to this part of the park," said
she. " The sight of the pavilion and its
pair of turtle-doves gives me as much
pleasure as the most magnificent land-
scape."

And she leaned significantly on Emile
Blondet's arm as if to impart to him a
sentiment too impalpable to be expressed
in words, but which a woman will not fail
to divine.

"\ wish the comte would take me on at
Aigues as porter or something ! " Blondet
laughingly replied. "^Well, what ails
you now ? " he added, perceiving the ex-
pression of sadness his words had brought
to the comtesse's face.

"Nothing."

Women always answer with that hyp-
, ocritical : "Nothing," when they have

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

289

some notion in their head of more im-
•portance than usual.

" But we ma^- be troubled with thoughts
which to you men may seem frivolous, but
which to us are very terrible," she added.
"I, too, have a wish; I would I were in
Olympe's place."

*'God grant your wish!" said the
Abbe Brossette, smiling- to disguise the
serious meaning that lay hidden in his
words.

Madame de Montcornet was alarmed to
perceive in Ol^^mpe's face and manner an
expression of melancholy and apprehen-
sion. A woman can tell what is passing
in another woman's mind merely by the
way she sets her needle in the cloth at
every stitch. It was a fact that the head
keeper's wife, though she had on her
back a becoming pink gown, and her
brown locks were tastefully arranged on
her pretty head, was not thinking of mat-
ters attuned to the splendor of her ap-
parel, the beauty of the day, or the work
she had in hand. The expression of pro-
found anxiet^^ on her smooth forehead,
her unseeing gaze, now bent on the sand-
ed path, now on the dark foliage of the
forest, were the more striking that she
knew not she was observed.

" And I was envying her lot ! What
can she have to sadden her ? " said the
comtesse to the cure.

''Can you explain, madame," rejoined
the abbe in an undertone, ''why it is
that when man's happiness seems most
complete he is alwa^'s assailed by some
vague presentiment of coming evil ? "

"Cure," Blondet interjected with a
smile, " you are tr\-ing to imitate the
bishop with your oracles. 'Nothing is
stolen, all is paid for,' Napoleon used
to say."

*' Such a maxim, let fall from imperial
lips, assumes proportions no less impor-
tant than if it were the utterance of so-
ciety," rejoined the abbe.

" Well, Olympe, my child, what is the
matter ? " said the comtesse, stepping
forward toward her former attendant.
"You seem thoughtful and sad. You
and your husband have not been having
a tiff, I hope ? "

Balzac — j

Dame Michaud rose, and In doing so her
expression changed.

"Come, my child," said Emile Blondet
in a fatherly tone, "tell me what it is that
makes that pretty face so pensive ; aren't
we almost as well off here in our pavilion
as the Comte d'Artois in the Tuileries?
Haven't we the bravest soldier of the
Young Guard for our husband, and isn't
he the handsomest man in all the world,
and doesn't he love us to distraction? Why
one would take 3^ou for a nest of nightin-
gales in a thicket of laurels ! If I had only
known what Montcornet intended doing
for his head keeper, hanged if I wouldn't
have thrown up my occupation as penny-
a-liner and applied for the situation ! "

" It is not a place that would suit a man
of your talent, monsieur," Olympe replied,
smiling on Blondet as if he were an old
acquaintance.

"But what ails j'ou, child ? " said the
comtesse.

" I am afraid, Inadame — "

" Afraid ! and of what ? " the comtesse
sharply asked, who was reminded by the
woman's words of Mouche and Fourchon.

"Are you afraid of the wolves? " asked
Emile, making a sign to Dame Michaud
of which she failed to catch the meaning.

" No, sir ; but of the peasants. I was
born in le Perche, where there are plenty
of bad people, Heaven knows, but I think
the people here are a great deal worse
than they are there. I have no call to
meddl6 with Michaud 's affairs, and I
don't ; but he distrusts the peasants so
that he goes armed, even in broad day-
light, when he has to cross the forest.
He tells his men to keep always on the
lookout. Horrid-looking men come roam-
ing around here, with faces on them that
promise no good. I was up yonder by
the spring the other dd^y, where the little
brook has its rise that flows into the park
through an iron grating, about live hun-
dred steps from here — ^you know the place,
madame ? — they call it the Silver Spring.
Well, there were two women there wash-
ing clothes, just where the brook crosses
the path that leads to Conches ; they did
not know that I was near. Our pavilion
can be seen from there; one of the old

290

THE HUM AX COMEDY.

women pointed to j. ' Look ! ' says she.
* Just think of the money they have
squandered on that fellow who has
stepped into g-oodman Courtecuisse's
shoes.' The other speaks up and says :
' Don't 3^ou suppose a man will be want-
ing- g"ood pay for tormenting- poor folks
the wa}' he does?' 'He won't torment
them much long-er,' sa^s the first old
woman ; 'the thing- has g-ot to end. We
have a right to the wood, any waj^ ; the
mistress who is dead and g-one always let
us do up our fagots. That was thirty
years ago, so it is an established custom.'
' Well, we'll see how things will be next
winter,' the other went on. ' My old man
has sworn by ever3^thing that's good and
holy that all the gendarmes on the face of
the earth sha'n't keep us from going to
the wood ; he says he'll go himself, and
then let them look out for their precious
skins.' ' Pardi, we can't freeze to death,
and we must have • wood to bake our
bread,' the first woman saj's. 'They
want for nothing, the people down there.
Michaud's huzz}^ of a wife will have all
she wants, see if she don't ! ' And, oh !
madame, the^^ said, the most dreadful
things about me, about you, and about
Monsieur le Comte. They wound up by
saying that they would burn the farm-
buildings first and then the chateau — "

" Nonsense ! " said Emile, "that is
merel}^ old women's gabble. They have
been robbing' the general, and there is to
be a stop put to it ; naturally enough
these people are angrj-. That's all there
is to it. You must remember that the
Government is always the strongest,
even m Burgundy. A regiment of cav-
alry would be ordered down here in short
order should there be serious trouble."

The cure made signs to Madame Mi-
chaud from behind the comtesse's back
to be silent about her fears, which were
doubtless an effect of that second sight
which results from genuine passion. The
soul, when occupied exclusivelj^ by one
loved being, finally embraces the imma-
terial world which surrounds it and be-
holds in it the elements of the future. A
woman experiences in lier love the same
presentiments whicb at a later period are

lights to guide her in her maternit3^
Thence come those fits of melancholy, •
that unaccountable sadness, for which
the sterner sex, engrossed in the daily
struggle for existence, in their unceasing
activities, can assign no reason. Every
genuine love becomes for a woman an
active introspection, more or less lucid,
more or less profound, according to her
nature.

" Come, child, show Monsieur Blondet
your pavilion," said the comtesse, whose
anxiety made her forget the Pechina, for
whose sake too she had come.

The interior of the pavilion, now that it
was put in repair, did no discredit to the
splendor of the exterior. The architect
who had been sent down from Paris with
his mechanics, by taking which step the
master of Aigues had given fresh cause
of complaint to the men of Ville-aux-
Fayes, had divided the rez-de-chaussee
up into four apartments, which was the
way it had been arranged originally.
First came an antechamber, at the fur-
ther end of which was an ancient balus-
traded winding staircase, and behind
which was the kitchen ; on one side of
the antechamber was the dining-room,
and on the other a drawing-room with or-
namental ceiling and wainscoting of old
oak, now black with age. The architect
whom Madame de Montcornet had select-
ed to superintend the repairs had given
especial care to harmonizing the furni-
ture of this apai'tment with its ancient
decorations.

At this date, fashion had not as yet
given a fictitious value to the debris of
past centuries. The sturdy old fauteuils
in carved walnut, the high-backed chairs
upholstered in tapestry, the consoles, the
mantel-clocks, the tall screens, the tables,
the chandeliers that were to be found in
the shops of the second-hand dealers
in Ville-aux-Fa3'es and Auxerre, were
fifty per cent cheaper than the trashy
furniture made in the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine ; the architect, therefore, had
simplj^ bought a few loads of these an-
tiquities, only using some discretion in
selecting them, and these, supplemented
by some things from the chateau that

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

291

had been put on the retired list, g-ave to
the salon of the Porte d'Avonne quite an
artistic appearance. As for the dining--
room, he had the woodwork grained to
represent oak, and covered the walls with
a paper that was known as "Scotch,"
and Madame Michaud hung- white muslin
curtains with g-reen borders at the win-
dows, and introduced some mahog-any
chairs upholstered in g-reen cloth, two
enormous side-boards, and a mahogany
table. A few pictures, chiefly battle
pieces, served to light up the room, which
was w^armed by an earthen-ware stove,
on either side of which fowling-pieces were
hung against the wall. This inexpensive
luxury had been given out up and down
the length of the valley as the non
plus ultra of Oriental magnificence, and,
• strange to sa^', had excited the covetous-
ness of Gaubertin, who, while promis-
ing himself the pleasure of demolishing
Aigues, reserved to himself in petto this
gorgeous pavilion.

On the first floor the couple had three
chambers at their disposal. Any one
looking at the muslin curtains dependent
from the windows could have told in a
, moment that they had been hung by
some one who had fixed ideas as to what
was the right and proper thing for a
Parisian bourgeoise to have in her bed-
room. Up here, where Dame Midland's
will was law, she had insisted on having
a smooth, gloss}^ paper. The furniture
was of that common sort, of mahogany
and tawdry Utrecht velvet, that one sees
everjrvx'here, and included an immense
double, four -post bed, with a canopy
whence the curtains of embroidered mus-
lin descended in sweeping folds, while on
the mantel-shelf was an alabaster clock,
flanked on each side by candelabra care-
inWy done up in gauze and kept in counte-
nance by two vases of artificial flowers
under their protecting shades of glass,
the whole the wedding-present of the
ex-cavalryman. Upstairs, in the garret,
ivere the rooms of the cook, the man-
servant and Pechina, which had all felt
the effect of the recent restoration.

'^ Oh'mpe,^my girl, you are keeping
something back," said the comtesse as

she entered the state bedroom, lea\ang
Einile and the cure outside, who went
downstairs on hearing the door close.

Madame Michaud, who was tongue-
tied, so to speak, hy remembrance of
Abbe Brossette's signals, to avoid speak-
ing of her fears, which were livelier than
she was willing to allow, disclosed a secret
that reminded the comtesse of the object
of her visit.

'•'I love Michaud with all my heart,
madame, and you know I do ; tell me,
how would you like to know you had a
rival by jon, in your own house?"

"What do 3'ou mean, a rival?"

"Yes, ma'am; that little blackamoor
you sent to me loves Michaud without
knowing it, poor child ! I did not know
what to make of her conduct for a long
time, but the last few days have enlight-
ened me."

"And she onl}^ thirteen years old!"

"Yes, ma'am. And you will admit
that it is not unreasonable for a woman
w^ho wall be a mother in a few months to
have her fears; but I didn't want to speak
about them before those gentlemen, so I
rattled away about trifles of no impor-
tance," the head keeper's wife generously
said.

As a matter of fact, Madame Michaud
was perfectly at ease so far as Genevieve
Niseron was concerned, but for some
da^'s past she had fears, and most hor-
rible ones, that the peasants had first
inspired and then done their best to
aggravate.

" And what have 3'ou seen ? '

"Everything, and nothing," replied
Olympe, looking the comtesse in the
face. "The child moves like a snail
when I tell her to do anji^hing, while
Justin has onl^^ to ask for a thing and
she is off like an arrow. She trembles
like a leaf when she hears ni}'- husband's
voice, and her face is like that of a saint
in heaven when she is looking at him ;
but she has not the least idea it is love,
she is entirely ignorant of her passion."

" Poor child ! " ejaculated the comtesse
in a tone of supreme ingenuousness.

"And then Genevieve is sad when
Justin is away from home," Dame Mi-

292

THE HUMAX COMEDY,

chaud continued, ''and if I ask her for
her thoughts she tells me she is afraid
of Rigou — the silly thing- ! When Justin
is tramping- the woods at night the child
is as anxious and restless as I am mj^self .
If I open my window to listen for the
sound of my husband's horse's hoofs I
am sure to see a light burning in the
chamber of la Pechina, as they call her,
and I know she is watching and waiting ;
and she can't be made to go to bed until
he is safe at home."

''And only thirteen j'ears old !" re-
joined the comtesse. " The wretched
girl ! "

"No," Olympe repUed, "she is not
wretched ; this passion will be her sal-
vation."

"From what?" asked Madame de
Montcornet.

"From the fate that is in store for
almost every girl of her age. She is not
so bad-looking now that I have cleaned
her up and made her presentable, and
there is something wild and fantastic
about her that takes the men's fanc3^
She has changed so that madame wouldn't
know her. Nicolas, the son of the old
rascal who keeps the Grand-I-vert and
the hardest case in the whole commune,
is after the child and follows her up as he
would pursue the wild game of the forest.
If it is incredible that a man as rich as
Monsieur Rigou should have begun to
pester this ugly duckling with his atten-
tions when she Avas only twelve j^ears
old, it is quite sure that Nicolas has his
eye on la Pechina ; Justin told me so. It
is frightful to think of, for the peasants
about here live like brute beasts ; but
don't be alarmed, madame : Justin and
I and our two servants will look after
the little one ; she never goes out alone,
except by daylight, and then never
farther than the gate of Conches. And
if she should be taken unawares, her
sentiment for Justin would give her
strength and courage to resist, just as
ervQYj woman who has a preference can
beat off the man she hates."

" It was on her account that I came to
see you to-day," said the comtesse; "I
had no idea that my visit would be so op-

portune. The child won't be thirteen for-
ever. She is going to make a very pretty
girl."

" Oh, madame !" Olympe rejoined with
a sinile of confidence, " I am not afraid of
Justin. Such a man ! and such a heart
in him! If you but knew how grateful
he is toward his general, to whom he de-
clares he is indebted for all his happiness.
He is too devoted ; he would _risk his life
as he would in battle, and he forgets that
he will soon be a father."

"Well, well," said the comtesse, look-
ing at Olympe in a way that brought the
roses to her cheek, " at the time you left
me I was sorry, but I am not sorry now,
seeing you so happj^ What a sublime
and noble thing is conjugal love ! " she
added, giving utterance to the thought
that she had not dared express before the
Abbe Brossette a short while before.

Virginie de Troisville remained wrapped
in meditation, and Madame Michaud re-
spected her silence.

"Tell me, is the child truthful?" in-
quired the comtesse, with a sudden start
as of one waking from a dream.

" You can believe what she says as 3'ou
would believe me, madame," replied Ma-
dame Michaud.

" Knows how to hold her tongue ? "

"Like the grave."

" And is she affectionate ? "

" Ah, madame, her humility toward
me at times bespeaks an angelic nature.
She comes and kisses my hands, and
sometimes she says the queerest things.
' Do people ever die of love ? ' she asked
me only daj^ before yesterday. ' Why do
you ask that question ?' says I. ' I want-
ed to know if it is a malady ! ' "

"And she said that?" exclaimed the
comtesse.

"Yes, and I could tell you a great deal
more if I could only remember all her
sayings," replied Oljmipe. "She seems
to know more of the subject than I do
myself."

" Do you believe she is capable of tak-
ing your place and being to me what you
were ? for I find I can't get along with-
out an Olympe by me," said the comtesse,
smiling rather sadly.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

293

" Not at present, madame — she is
too young ; but in a couple of j^ears slie
might. And then I could send you word
at any time if it should seem best to re-
move her from here. She has much to
learn ^-et, for she knows nothing- of the
world. Old Niseron, Genevieve's g-rand-
father, is one of those men who would
cut off their rig'ht hand rather than tell
a lie; he would stand before a bakery
and starve. Those opinions are inbred
with him, and his g-randdaug-hter has
been brought up in them. The Pechina
would consider herself your equal, for the
g"ood man has made a stanch Republican
of her, as he says — just as old Fourchon
is bring-ing- Mouche up to be a Bohemian.
I laug-h at her notions, but the}^ might
not please you ; she would respect 3'ou
as a benefactress, not as a superior.
What can 3'ou expect ! the little thing- is
as wild and untamed as a hawk. And be-
sides, her mother's blood has something-
to do with it all."

" Who was her mother ? "

" What, did madame never hear the
stor}^? Well, then, the son of the old
sacristan at Blangy, an extremely fine-
looking young fellow, so ever^^ one sa^^s,
fell into the clutches of the great con-
scription. In 1809 this member of the
Niseron family Avas nothing more than a
gunner, whose battery was attached to
an armj^ corps that had orders to ad-
vance from Illyria and Dalmatia through
Hungary in order to cut off the retreat
of the Austrian army in the event of
the emperor's gaining* a victory at Wa-
gram. Michaud was in Dalmatia; he told
me all about the movement. Niseron,
like the lady-killer he was, while in gar-
rison at Zara gained the love of a pretty
Montenegrin, a mountain lass, who was
not particularly averse to the attentions
of the French soldiers. This resulted in
the girl's losing caste with her country-
women and being compelled to leave the
city after the withdrawal of our troops.
So Zena Kropoli, who received from her
compatriots the epithet of the French
Girl, followed the artillerj'-men. She
found her way to France after the dec-
laration of peace. Auguste Niseron so-

licited permission from his f amil^^ to marry
the Montenegrin, but the poor woman died
in January, 1810, at Vincennes, in giving
birth to Genevieve. The necessary papers
validating the marriage arrived a few days
later. Auguste Niseron wrote to his fa-
ther, asking him to come to Vincennes,
bringing with him a wet nurse, remove
the child and take charge of it. It was
fortunate he did so, for he was killed at
Montereau by an exploding shell. The
little Dalmatian was baptized Genevieve
in the parish church of Soulanges, where
she obtained the protection of Mademoi-
selle Laguerre, who Avas deeph^ affected
by the little romance ; the child would
seem to be fated to have the masters of
Aigues for her protectors. From time to
time Pere Niseron received clothing for
the little one, and even pecuniary assist-
ance, from the chateau."

At that moment the comtesse and
Ol^^mpe, looking from the window near
them, beheld Michaud advancing toward
Blondet and the Abbe Brossette, who
were walking up and down the roadway
before the house and conversing.

''Where is she ? " asked the comtesse.
" Your story has made me impatient to
see her."

" She went to carrj- a pitcher of milk
to Mademoiselle Gaillard, who lives near
the Porte de Conches; she can't be far
away, for she started more than an hour
ago."

*' Very well ; I will walk along that
way with the gentlemen ; perhaps we
shall meet her, "said Madame Montcornet
as she descended the stairs.

As the comtesse was opening her par-
asol Michaud came up to saj'' that the
general would probably leave her a widow
for a couple of da^^s.

" Michaud," said Madame de Mont-
cornet in hurried accents, " you must not
attempt to deceive me ; I know that grave
events are occurring in the neighborhood.
Your wife is beset with fears, and if there
are many people like that old Fourchon
about here this is not a fit countrv to live
in—"

''If what you say w^ere so, madame,"
Michaud laughingly made answer, ''we

294

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

keepers would not be long in the land of
the living-, for it is the easiest thing- in the
world to get rid of us. The peasants are
kicking- up a little fuss, that's all there is
of it. You'll find they won't g-o any
further, thoug-h ; they value their lives
too much, the air of the fields is too sweet
to them, Olympe has been frightening-
3-ou with some of these absurd rumors,
but a woman in her condition is scared to
death by a bad dream," he added, taking
his wife's arm and pressing it in a way to
enjoin silence.

"Cornevin ! Juliette ! " cried Michaud's
wife, in quick response to whose appeal
the face of the old cook appeared at the
kitchen window, " I will be back present-
h^ ; look out for the pavilion while I'm
gone."

Two huge dogs set up a loud barking,
showing that the Porte d'Avonne was not
without a garrison. At the racket raised
by the mastiffs Cornevin, an old fellow
from le Perche, Olympe 's foster-father,
emerged from a clump of trees, exposing
to view one of those hard-featured coun-
tenances of which his district would seem
to have the monopol3^ The old man had
''been out" with the Chouans in 1T94
and '99.

Accompanied by her guests and by
Michaud and his wife, the comtesse
struck into that one of the six forest
alle3^s which led straight to the Porte
de Conches, and was crossed by Silver
Spring brook. The cure, Michaud and
his wife were talking in an undertone
of the disclosures that had been made
to Madame de Montcornet concerning
the condition of the countr3\

'•' Perhaps the hand of Providence is
in it," the cure was saying; ''for if ma-
dame so wills it, we maj' yet succeed, by
gentleness and kindness, in softening
those men's hearts — "

About six hundred 3-ards from the
pavilion, the comtesse perceived, lying
in fragments in the alley, a red earthen-
ware pitcher, and the traces of spilled
milk.

" What can have happened to your
little charge ? " said she, calling to Mi-
chaud and his wife, who had turned

and were on their way back to the pa-
vilion.

" She has met with an accident like
Perrette's," Blondet replied.

" No, the child has been surprised and
chased by some one, for she threw her
pitcher to the side of the path," said
the Abbe Brossette, stooping to examine;
the ground.

" It is the trace of the Pechina's foot,
most certainly," said Michaud. " She
must have turned very suddenly, for see
how she has disturbed the gravel. Yes,
that's it ; she must have wheeled and run
for the pavilion as hard as she could."

The head keeper advanced slowlj^, ob-
serving minutely the imprint of footsteps
along the pathwaj^, and came to a halt
in the middle of the alley, about a hun-
dred paces from where the fragments of
the pitcher lay, at which point the traces
of Pechina's footsteps ended.

" She turned and made for the Avonne
here," he said. " Perhaps she found her
retreat cut off in the direction of the pa-
vilion."

" But she has been away from the
house more than an hour ! " cried Ma-
dame Michaud.

Consternation was depicted on every
face. The cure moved rapidly off toward
the pavilion to examine the condition of
the road in that direction, while Michaud,
with the same thought, went up the path
toward Conches.

"Good heavens, she must have fallen
here ! " said Michaud, as he came back to
the spot where the footprints were inter-
rupted in the middle of the alley. " Look
there ! "

It was true ; the gravel of the alley
testified unmistakably to the fall of a
human body there.

" The footprints going toward the for-
est are those of a person wearing felt
shoes," said the cure.

" The footprints of a woman," observei
the comtesse.

"And those down yonder, where the
broken pitcher lies, were made by a man,'*
Michaud added.

"I do not see traces of more than one
person's footsteps here," said the cure.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

295

who had followed as far as the wood the
trail left by the woman who wore felt
shoes.

" They must have carried her into the
wood ! " exclaimed Michaud.

''If it is really a woman's footstep,
the m^^stery is inexplicable/"' remarked
Blondet.

''That Nicolas, the brute, has had
something- to do with the business," Mi-
chaud grimly said. " He has been prowl-
ing about and watching- the Pechina for
some days past. I la}^ hid for two whole
hours under the bridge of the Avonne
this morning-, trying- to catch the dirty
rascal. He may have had a woman to
help him in his undertaking- — "

"It is frightful!" said the comtesse.

" Oh ! the Pechina w^on't let herself be
entrapped," said the keeper. "She is as
likely as not to have thrown herself into
the Avonne and swam across. I think I
will g-o down and take a look at the river-
bank. Do you, my dear Olympe, return
to the pavilion, and you, g-entlemen, with
madame, will do well to walk along the
path tosvard Conches."

"What a country!" exclaimed the
comtesse.

" You will find bad characters where-
ever you g-o," observed Blondet.

"Is it true, cure," asked Madame de
Montcornet, " that I saved this child from
Rig-ou's clutches ? "

" You may consider that every g-irl un-
der fifteen that you are so kind as to re-
ceive at the chateau is a victim wrested
from that monster," the Abbe Brossette
replied. " When he tried to entice this
child to his house at her tender ag-e the
renegade had two objects in view, to sat-
isfy his base appetite and his veng-eance.
When I engaged Pere Niseron as sacris-
tan I imj)ressed on the simple-minded man
what Rig-ou's intentions were, who had a
good deal to say about repairing the
wrongs of his uncle, my predecessor in
•the curacy. That is one of the old may-
or's g-rievances against me ; it contributes
to swell his hate. Pere Niseron swore a
solemn oath in Pigou's presence that if
any harm came to Genevieve he would
kill him, and further, that he should hold

him responsible for any attempt against
the child's honor. I would not be sur-
prised to learn that Nicolas Tonsard's
persecutions are only the result of some
infernal plot of this old sinner, who firmly
believes that his will is law in the com-
mune."

" He has no respect for justice, then ? "
said Blondet.

" In the first place, he is father-in-law
to the procure ur du roi," replied the cure,
who paused for a moment. "Then you
can have no idea," he continued, "of the
utter indifference that the police of the
canton and the public prosecutor and his
officers display toward these g-entr3\ So
long- as the peasants refrain from burning
farm-building-s and poisoning- wells ; so
long- as they don't commit murder, and
pay their taxes promptly, they are allowed
to do pretty much as they please other-
wise ; and as they are devoid of all relig-
ious principle, the state of affairs is most
horrible. Why, on the other side of the
Avonne valle\^ there are feeble old men
who dare not remain alone at home, for
in that case they would be g-iven nothing
to eat, so the}'^ fare forth to the field until
their poor old legs refuse to support them
longer; if they once take to their bed,
the^^ know it is only to die of starvation.
Monsieur Sarcus, the justice of the peace,
says that should the Government attempt
to bring- all the criminal class to justice it
would be ruined by the costs."

" There is a clear-sighted magistrate
for you ! " cried Blondet.

" Ah, monseigneur used to know how
things were in this valley, and particu-
larly in this commune," the cure went on.
"Religion is the onl^^ cure for so many
and so g-reat evils ; the law to me seems
powerless, with all the changes they have
made in it — "

The g-ood man's reflections were broken
in upon by shouts emanating- from the
forest, and the comtesse, preceded by
Emile and the abbe, courag-eously darted
forward in the direction of the sounds.

296

THE HUMAN COMEDY

XI.

THE OARISTYS, EIGHTEENTH ECLOGUE OF

THEOCRITUS, NOT MUCH LIKED IN

A COURT OP ASSIZES.

The sagacity of the Indian, which Mi-
chaud's new business had developed in
him, together with a Ivnowledge of the
passions and interests of the commune of
Blangy, have served to explain in part
a new idyl in the Greek style.

Nicolas, Tonsard's second son, had
drawn an unlucky number in the con-
scription. Two years previous, thanks
to the intervention of Soudry, Gauber-
tin, and Sarcus the Rich, his elder bro-
ther had been pronounced unfit for mili-
tary service, because of a pretended
weakness in the muscles of the right
arm, but as Jean Louis had since wielded
the heaviest implements of husbandry
with remarkable facility, some rumor
of it had got about in the canton.

Soudry, Rigou and Gaubertin, the pro-
tectors of the famih', therefore warned
the innkeeper that it would be of no use
for him to try and shelter the great,
strong Nicolas from the conscription law.
Nevertheless, the mayor and Rigou were
so alive to the necessity of conciliating
men who were so bold and so capable of
evil doing, cleverly directed b}^ them-
selves against les Aigues, that Rigou
gave some hope to Tonsard and his son.

The late monk, to whom Catherine,
who was excessively devoted to her bro-
ther, went from time to time, advised her
to apply to the comte and comtesse.

" Perhaps they will not be sorry for the
opportunity to do you this service, in or-
der to conciliate you, and we shall have
gained that much," he said to Catherine.
"And if the shopman refuses you — well,
we w^ill see."

Rigou foresaw that the refusal of the
general would augment by a new griev-
ance the wrongs the peasants suffered
from the great landowners, and would
give to the confederates a new opportuni-
ty of earning Tonsard's gratitude, in case
the ex-mayor's crafty mind could conceive
some means of liberating Nicolas.

Nicolas, who was soon to appear before
the board of review, had little hope that
the general would interfere, because of the
grudge which les Aigues had against the
Tonsards. Realizing that his speedy de-
parture left him no time for winning la
Pechina, he resolved at all hazards to ob-
tain a final interview with her. But the
girl scorned and despised him, and eluded
all his attempts to speak with her. For
three days now he had watched for her,
and she w^as well aware of the fact.
Whenever she went a few steps away
from the gate, she saw Nicolas's head in
one of the allej^s running parallel to the
pafk, or on the Avonne bridge. She •
might have rid herself of this unwel-
come persecution b}^ apphnng to her
grandfather, but she hesitated to put
the two men more at enmity than they
already Avere.

Genevieve had heard Pere Niseron
threaten to kill any man who should
harm his grandchild, and the thought of
possible horrors which might follow any
complaint on her part, kept her silent.

Before she ventured forth to c^Yry the
milk which Madame Michaud sent to
Gaillard's daughter, who kept the Con-
ches gate, and whose cow had lately
calved, la Pechina first reconnoitered,
like a cat when it puts its paw out of
the door. She saw no trace of Nicolas ;
she listened to the silence, as the poet
says, and hearing nothing, she supposed
that her persecutor was at work. The
peasants had begun to cut their grain,
for they harvested their ow^n little plots
of ground first, in order to be at liberty
to earn the high wages given to the
harvesters. But Nicolas was not the
man to mind losing two days' work,
especially as he was to leave the country
after the Soulanges fair, and for the
peasant, to become a soldier is to enter
upon another state of existence.

"When la Pechina, with her pitcher on
her head, had accomplished half her,
journe}^, Nicolas sprang like a wildcat
from among the branches of an elm
where he had concealed himself in the
foliage, and fell like a thunderbolt at her
feet. La Pechina threw down her pitcher

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

297

and trusted to her ag-ilitj- to g-ain the pa-
vilion. A hundred feet farther on, Cath-
erine Tonsard, who had also been on the
watch, emerged from the wood, and
sprang' so heavily upon la Pechina that
she knocked her down. The violence of
the blow stunned the child ; Catherine
picked her up, took her in her arms and
carried her into the w^ood, to a small
grassy spot where one of the spring-s
bubbled up which formed the source of
the Arg-ent.

Catherine was tall and large, like the
models which painters and sculptors use
to represent Libert3^ She had the same
full bust, the same muscular limbs, the
same robust yet flexible fig-ure, the same
plump arms and sparkling e3^es ; the
same proud haughtj'- air, full curls, and
lips parted in the half -ferocious smile
W'hich Eug-ene Delacroix and David
(d'Ang-ers) have both so admira^bly
caught and represented. The fiery, em-
browned Catherine was the image of the
people ; she flashed forth insurrections
from her clear yellow eyes, which were
piercing- and full of soldierly insolence.
She inherited from her father a violence
■which caused every one in the cabaret,
except Tonsard himself, to fear her.

"Well, how are 3"ou, old w^oman?" in-
quired Catherine of la Pechina.

She had deposited her burden on a hil-
lock near the spring-, and restored her to
consciousness by dashing cold water upon
her.

" Where am I ? " asked the j^oung- g-irl,
opening- her beautiful dark e3'es, so bright
that it seemed as if a ray of sunshine had
suddenly gleamed forth.

" If it had not been for me," said Cath-
erine, ''you would have died."

" Thanks ! " replied the girl, in aston-
ishment. " What happened to me ? "

" You stubbed 3"our toe against a root,
and fell flat, as if you had been shot. Ah !
how you w^ere running ! You were run-
ning as if for 3'our life."

"It was your brother's fault," replied
la Pechina, remembering that she had
seen Nicolas.

"M3" brother ! I did not see him," said
Catherine. "And what did poor Nicolas

do to you, that 3'ou should run from-
him as if he were a wolf ? Is he
not handsomer than your Monsieur
Michaud?"

" Oh I '■' said la Pechina, with a gesture
of superb scorn.

" See here, little one, you will make
trouble for yourself if you love those who
persecute us. Why don't you take our
part?"

" Whj'- do 3^ou never go to church ? and
why do you steal by night and b}^ day ? "
demanded the girl.

"Those are bourgeois reasons," replied
Catherine disdainfull}', and without sus-
pecting la Pechina's attachment. " The
bourgeois love us as they love good cook-
ing ; they must have new dishes every
daj^ Where did you ever see a bour-
geois ^vho would marry one of us peas-
ants? You see if Sarcus the Rich al-
lows his son to marry the beautiful
Gatienne Giboulard, of Auxerre, although
she is the daughter of a rich miller. You
never went to Socquard's, at the Tivoli
of Soulanges ; come with me there, and
you will see the bourgeois. You will
think they are hardly worth the money
they throw to us. Come to the fair this
year ! "

" They say that the fair at Soulanges
is beautiful!" exclaimed la Pechina,
naivelj^

"I can tell 3^ou what it is," said Cath-
erine. "Everyone looks at a girl when
she is pretty. Of what use is it for you
to be as pr6tt3^ as 3^ou are, if you cannot
be admired ? The first time I ever heard
some one say : ' What a fine girl ! ' all
TCij blood was on fire. That was at Soc-
quard's, in the midst of a dance ; m3''
grandfather, who w^as plaj'ing on the
clarionet, heard it and smiled. Tivoli
seemed to me as grand and beautiful as
heaven ; it is all lighted b3^ glass lamps,
3'ou see, and it looks' like Paradise. The
gentlemen of Soulanges and Auxerre and
Ville-aux-Fa3^es are all there. Ever since
that night I have always loved the place
where that sentence sounded in m3'- ears
like martial music. A girl would give
her soul, m3'- child, to hear that said of
her by a man whom she loved."

298

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

*' Yes, perhaps go/'' replied la Pecliina,
pensively.

"Come, then, and listen to it there,"
exclaimed Catherine. " You will be sure
to hear it. A beautiful g-irl like you has
plenty of chances. Monsieur Lupin's son,
Amaury, who has a coat with g-old but-
tons, might want to marry 3^ou. And
that is not all one finds there. If 3^ou only
knew ! See here, Socquard's boiled wine
makes you forget all your troubles. It
g-ives you the most beautiful dreams ! you
feel as if you were walking upon air. Have
you never drank boiled wine ? Well then,
you have never known what it is to live."

This privilege which grown-uj) people
possess of drinking boiled wine now and
then so excites the curiosity of children,
that Genevieve had once wet her lips in a
small g-lassful of it which had been or-
dered by the doctor for her sick grand-
father. This trial had left such a magical
memory in the child's mind, that she list-
ened all the more readily to Catherine,
who counted upon this very thing" to com-
plete the plan which had already partly
succeeded.

''^What do they put in it?" asked la
Pechina.

''All sorts of things," replied Catherine,
looking furtively around to see if her bro-
ther were coming ; '' in the first place,
things which come from the Indies, cinna-
mon, and herbs which change you by en-
chantment. You think you have every-
thing 3'ou love best. It makes you happ3^
You don't mind anything."

" I should be afraid to drink boiled wine
at the dance," said la Pechina.

" Wh}^ ? " returned Catherine ; " there
is not the least dang-er ; just think of all
the people you will see there ! All the
bourg-eois will look at us. Ah ! daj's like
those make up for a good many weeks of
miser3\ A g-irl would be content to see
that and die."

" If Monsieur and Madame Michaud
would only come — " said la Pechina, with
her eyes on fire.

" But 3^ou have not g-iven up your grand-
father Niseron, the poor dear man, and
he would be so pleased to see jon adored
like a queen. Do you prefer these bour-

g-eois, Michaud and the rest, to your grand-
father and the Burgundians ? You must
not deny your own people. And after all,
the Midlands could not object, if your
grandfather himself took you to the fete.
Oh ! if you only knew what it was to
have a man so devoted to you that when
you said 'go ' he would go, and when yo\x
said ' come ' he would come. And your
looks, little one, are enough to turn any
man's head. Since those people at the
pavilion have taken you up, you look like
an empress."

Catherine, while adroitly making la
Pechina forget Nicolas, and thus causing
suspicion to disappear from her innocent
soul, distilled the superfine ambrosia of
compliments for her. -And without know-
ing it, she had put her finger upon a ten-
der place. La Pechina, while nothing but
a poor peasant, was extremely precocious.
Her mixture of Montenegrin blood with
that of Burgundy, and her birth in the
midst of the hardships of war, no doubt
contributed to this effect. She was
slig'ht, slender, brown as a tobacco leaf,
and petite ; she possessed an incredible
amount of strength, which was invisible
to the peasant e^-e, to whom the myste-
ries of nervous organisms are unknown.
Nerves do not enter into the medical
system in the country.

At the age of thirteen, Genevieve had
"got her growth," as the saying is, al-
though she was small for her age. Did
her face owe to its origin or to the sun of
Burgundy its topaz tiiit, at once somber
and brilliant ; somber in color, and bril-
liant in the grain of its tissue, which
made her appear mature, although still
only a girl ? But this maturity of look
was redeemed by the vivacity, the sparkle
and the richness of light which made la
Pechina 's eyes look like two stars. Like
all eyes full of sunshine, which perhaps
require a powerful shade, the eyelashes
were wonderfully long. The hair, which
was blue-black, and fine, long and abun-
dant, crowned with its masses a forehead
modeled after that of the antique Juno.
This magnificent diadem of hair, these
great Armenian eyes and this goddess-
like brow made the rest of the face seem

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

299

insignificant. The nose, although pure
in drawing at its beginning, terminated
in broad, flat nostrils. Passion some-
times inflated these nostrils, and gave to
the face an expression that was almost
furious. In like manner with the nose,
all the lower part of the face seemed un-
finished, as if the clay in the fingers of
the divine Sculptor had suddenly given
out. Between the lower lip and the chin
the space was so short that any one in
attempting to take la Pechina by the
chin would be obliged to touch her lips ;
but the teeth distracted attention from
this fault ; they seemed endowed with
souls of their own, so brilliant, well-shaped
and transparent were they ; they were
plainl}'' revealed by a mouth which was
rather large, and which was rendered
noticeable by sinuosities that made the
lips resemble the odd windings of the
coral.

The shell-shaped ears were so trans-
parent that they looked rosy in the sun-
shine. The complexion, though radiant,
showed a marvelous delicacy of skin. If,
as Buffon says, love lies in the touch, the
softness of this skin must have been as
active and penetrating as the scent of the
datura. The chest, as well as the body,
was very thin; but the feet and hands,
which were wonderfully small, showed
unusual nervous power, and an active
organism.

This mingling of .diabolical imperfec-
tions and divine beauties, which was
harmonious in spite of its dissonances,
for it was made in unison 'hj means of
a native pride ; this defiance which was
written in the eyes, that of a powerful
soul in a feeble body, made the girl some-
thing marvelous. Nature had created
her a w^oman, and the circumstances of
her antecedents and birth had given her
the face and physique of a boy. She was
like the Afrite and the Genii of the
Arabian Nights.

Her appearance did not belie her indi-
viduality^. She had the soul of her fiery
look, the spirit of the lips made brilliant
by her wonderful teeth, the thought of
her sublime forehead, and the fury of her
dilating nostrils. Thus love, as it is felt

on the burning sands and in the deserts,
agitated the mature heart of this thirteen-
year-old child of Montenegro, who, like
that snowy summit, was never to know
the flowers of springtime.

It will thus be understood that la
Pechina, by means of the passion which
flashed in her every pore, was capable of
attracting not only the young, common-
place Nicolas, but also the old usurer,
Rigou. The two extremes of life united on
this common ground, this fancy for the
young girl whom all the inhabitants of the
valley had been in the habit of pitting
as a sickly deformity.

It is easy now to understand the ex-
clamation: *' Piccina ! " which had es.
caped the comtesse when she had seen
Genevieve on the high-road, in the pre-
vious 3^ear, wondering at the sight of a
carriage and a lady dressed as Madame
de Montcornet was dressed. This was the
girl who loved the great, beautiful, noble
head keeper, as children of her age know
how to love, with childish fervor, with the
strength of youth, and with the devotion
which is born of true poetr3^ Catherine
passed her coarse hands Qver the most
delicate, most highly strung cords of this
harp. To dance beneath Midland's eyes,
to go to the Soulanges fete, to shine there,
to write herself upon the memory of her
master ! What ideas ! To put them into
her volcanic head Avas to throw live coals
upon straw that had been dried in the
August sun.

''No, Catherine," replied la Pechina ;
" I am ugly and small ; my destiny is to
live alone, and unmarried."

''Men like little women," replied Cath-
erine. " Do 3"ou see me ? " and she ex-
tended her arms; "my atyle pleases
Godain, and little Charles, who came
with the comte ; but Lupin's son is afraid
of me. It is only the little men who ad-
mire me, and who say at Ville-aux-Fayes
or Soulanges : ' What a fine girl I ' But
j'^ou ^v^\\\ please the large men."

" Ah ! Catherine, are 3'ou sure ? " cried
la Pechina, delighted.

" It is true, because Nicolas, who is the
handsomest man in the canton, raves
about 3^ou ; he dreams of you, and he

300

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

thinks of nothing' else, and yet he is
liked by all the girls. He is a proud
fellow ! If 3'ou wear a white dress and
yellow ribbons, you will be the most
beautiful girl in Socquard's house, on the
day of Notre-Dame, in the eyes of every-
body^ from Ville-aux-Faj^es. Come, will
you go ? Here, I was cutting" some grass
there for ray cows ; I have in my gourd
a little boiled wine which Socquard gave
me this morning," she added, watching
la Pechina's expression. '^I feel good-
natured, and we will share it ; then you
will believe that you are beloved — "

While this conversation was going on,
Nicolas, choosing the softest tufts of
grass on which to place his feet, had
slipped up noiselessly as far as the trunk
of a great oak, a short distance behind
the hillock on which his sister and la
Pechina were seated. Catherine, who
kept glancing around, at length saw
her brother just as she was about to
take the gourd of boiled wine.

" Here, take some," she said to the girl.

" It burns me," said Genevieve, return-
ing the gourd to Catherine after taking
two swallows.

''Stupid! look," returned Catherine,
emptjang the rustic flask at a draught,
*' let it slip down like that ! it is like a
ray of sunshine to light up your stomach."

" But I ought to have carried my milk
to Mademoiselle Gaillard," exclaimed la
Pechina. " Nicolas frightened me."

"Then you don't like Nicolas ? "

"No," replied la Pechina. "Why does
he run after me ? There are plenty of
girls who do like him."

" But if he likes you better than all the
girls in the valley ? "

"I am sorry for him," she returned
coldly.

"It is easy to see that you don't know
him," replied Catherine.

At the same time she seized her by the
arm. Genevieve, turning quickly, per-
ceived Nicolas.

When she saw her detested admirer,
she uttered a loud cry, and twisting her-
self free from Catherine with unlooked-for
dexterity, she started to run. Catherine,
however, caught hold of her once more.

and tripped her up, so that she fell to the
ground. Springing up again, she called
loudly for help, as Nicolas attempted to
detain her, and seizing him by the throat,
she closed her fingers tightly upon it, in
an agony of fear.

" She is strangling me ! Help, Cath-
erine ! " he called, in a voice which he
could scarcely make audible.

La Pechina was Yty this time uttering
piercing cries, which Catherine sought to
stifle by putting her hand over the girl's
mouth ; but la Pechina bit her flngers
until she drew blood.

Just then Blondet, the comtesse and the
cure appeared on the border of the woods.

" There are the bourgeois of les Aigues, ' '
said Catherine, stepping back.

"Do you want to live ? " asked Nicolas,
in a harsh whisper.

"What do 3'ou mean?" returned la/ •
Pechina. ;■

" Tell them that we were only playing, "
and I will forgive you," replied Nicolas,
darkly.

"Do 3^ou promise ?" added Catherine,
whose look was even more terrible than
Nicolas's murderous threat.

" Yes, if you will let me alone," replied
the girl. " Besides, I shall never go out
again without my scissors."

' ' You keep still, now, or I will kick
you into the Avonne," said the ferocious
Catherine.

"You are a pair of monsters," cried
the cure. "You deserve to be arrested
and taken before the court."

" Come now ! what do you folks do in
your salons ? " said Nicolas, giving Blon-
det and the comtesse such a look that
they shivered. " You play with each
other, don't you? Well, the fields are
ours. We can't work all the time ; we
were playing. Ask my sister and la Pe-
china if we were not."

" I wonder how you fight, if that is the
way you play ? " said Blondet.

Nicolas threw a murderous look at him.

"Speak!" said Catherine, taking la
Pechina by the arm and clutching' it
until it was black and blue, "were we
not amusing ourselves?"

"Yes, madame, we were amusing our-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

301

selves," replied the girl, who was com-
pletely exhausted, and looked as if she
were ready to faint.

''You hear, madame? " said Catherine
boldh', darting- one of those looks at the
comtesse which, from woman to woman,
are like so many dag-g-er thrusts.

She took her brother's arm, and they
went away tog-ether, knowing- that the}'
had not imposed upon those whom the}' left
behind. Nicolas turned twice, and each
time he caught Blondet's eye. The jour-
nahst looked contemptuously after the
great fellow, who was five feet eight
inches tall. His coloring was vigorous,
his hair was black and curly, and his
shoulders broad ; and his face, whose ex-
pression was not naturally one of bad-
humor, had lines around the mouth
which betrayed his innate cruelty and
idleness. Catherine was holding up her
blue and white striped skirt with a sort
of perverse coquetry.

" Cain and his wife ! " said Blondet to
the cure.

" You do not know how nearly right
you are," returned the abbe.

"Ah ! Monsieur le Cure, what will the}^
do to me ? " asked la Pechina, when the
brother and sister were too far away to
hear her voice.

The comtesse, who was as white as her
handkerchief, was so much agitated that
she did not hear either Blondin, the cure,
or la Pechina.

*'It is enough to make one want to run
away from this terrestrial paradise," she
murmured at length. "But the first
thing to be done is to save this child from
them."

" You are right ; this child is a poem,
a living poem," said Blondet, in a low
voice to the comtesse.

The girl just then was in that state
in which the soul and body smoke, as it
were, after the fire of an anger which
has called every intellectual and physical
faculty into play. Dressed in a goAvn of
alternate brown and yellow stripes, with
a collar Avhich she had herself ironed
early that morning, the girl had as yet
taken no thought of her earth-stained
dress and her crushed collar. When she

found that her hair had fallen down, she
looked for her comb. It was just at this
moment that Michaud, who had also been
attracted b}' the cries, appeared upon the
scene. When she saw him, la Pechina
recovered all her energy.

"No one harmed me. Monsieur Mi-
chaud," she cried.

Her words and look told Blondet and
the cure instantly more even than Ma-
dame Michaud had told the comtesse
concerning the strange girl's infatuation
for the head keeper. He, however, did
not perceive it.

" The wretch ! " cried Michaud, and by
that involuntary but powerless gesture,
which is employed by fools and wise men
alike, he shook his fist at Nicolas, whose
burly form was disappearing in the shad-
ows of the forest which he and his sister
were entering.

"Then j'ou were not playing," said the
abbe, looking keenh'^ at la Pechina.

"Do not tease her," said the comtesse;
" and let us go back."

La Pechina, although exhausted, had
yet sufficient strength to walk : her be-
loved master was looking at her ! The
comtesse followed Michaud along one of
those footpaths known onl}" to poachers
and keepers, where two could not walk
abreast, but Avhich led them straight to
the Avonne gate.

"Michaud," she said, when they were
in the midst of the woods, " some way
must be found of ridding the countr}"- of
this wicked wretch; the child's life may
not be safe."

"In the first place," replied Michaud,
"the child shall not leave the pavilion
alone again ; my Avife will take into the
house Yatel's nephew, who has the care
of the park allej' s ; we will let some fellow
from my wife's country take his place,
for we must not put an}" men at les Aigues
just now of whom we are not sure. With
Gounod and Cornevin, the old foster-
father, in. the house, the cows will be well
cared for, and la Pechina will not go out
alone."

"' I will speak to my husband about
helping you out with the extra expense,"
replied the comtesse ; " but this does not

302

THE. HUMAN COMEDY.

rid us of Nicolas. How shall we accom-
plish that?-"'

''The means is simple, and is already
found/' answered Michaud. "Nicolas is
to g-o in a few days to the recruiting'-
board ; instead of asking" that he be ex-
empted from service, the g'eneral, upon
whose protection Tonsard is counting-,
has onh" to recommend that he be ac-
cepted— "

" I will go myself, if it be necessarj^,"
said the comtesse, "to see my cousin De
Casteran, our prefect ; but in the mean-
time I am afraid — "

These words were exchanged at tlie end
of the path which terminated at the main
alley. When t\\ey reached the top of the
ditch, the comtesse involuntarily uttered
a crj^ ; Michaud came quickly forward to
help her, thinking she had hurt herself
with some thorn; but he started at the
sight which met his eyes.

Marie and Bonnebault, seated beside the
ditch, seemed to be talking together, but
were undoubtedly concealed there for the
purpose of listening. They had evidently
left their place in the wood upon hearing-
the sound of voices.

After six years of service in the cavalry,
Bonnebault, who was a tall, thin fellow,
had returned to Conches some months
previously, with a discharge which he
owed to his misconduct ; he would have
spoiled the best of soldiers by his example.
He wore mustaches and a goatee, a pe-
culiarity which, added to the prestige of
the attitude and bearing that soldiers ac-
quire in barracks, made Bonnebault the
admiration of all the girls in the vallej^.
Like all soldiers, his hair was cut short
behind, while that on the top of his head
was curled. He brushed it back from his
face with a coquettish air, and put his
foraging cap jauntiW on one side. Com-
pared to the other peasants, who were
usually in rag'S, like Mouche and Four-
chon, he seemed superb in his linen pant-
aloons, his boots, and his little short vest.
These clothes, bought at the time when he
received his discharg-e, were somewhat the
worse for his field life ; but the cock of the
vallej'' possessed better ones for fete days.
He was said to live upon the liberality of

his friends, and the sums that he received
barel}^ sufficed for the dissipations of all
kinds to which frequent visits to the Cafe
de la Paix gave rise.

In spite of his round, flat face, which
was not displeasing- at first sight, the ras-
cal had something sinister in his aspect.

One reason for this may have been that
he squinted, or, to speak more correctly,
one of his eyes did not follow the move-
ment of fhe other ; he was not exactly
cross-ej'ed, but his eyes were not always
together, to borrow a term from the art-
ists. This defect, although slig-ht, g-ave
a dark, uneasy look to his expression, in
which it was in accord with the move-
ment of the forehead and brows that re-
vealed a laxit}^ of character, a disposition
to deg-radation.

In cowardice as in courage, there are
several kinds. Bonnebault, who would
have fought like the bravest of soldiers,
was a coward befpre his own vices. Idle
as a lizard, active only in what pleased
him, without anj" delicacy, at once proud
and mean, capable of everything-, but too
indolent to achieve an3'thing-, his happi-
ness consisted in doing- evil or in lajang-
waste. This kind of character does as
much harm in the depths of the countrj?^
as in a regiment. Bonnebault, like Ton-
sard and Fourchon, wanted to live well
and do nothing. Therefore he had his
plans all made. While making- the most
of his fine figure, with ever-increasing suc-
cess, and of his talent at billiards, with
varying- fortune, he flattered his fancy
with the idea that some day, in his qual-
ity'' of habitual frequenter of the Cafe de
la Paix, he would marry Mademoiselle
Aglae, the only daug-hter of Pere Soc-
quard, the proprietor of the establish-
ment, which, in proportion, was to Sou-
lang-es what Ranelagh is to the Bois de
Boulogne. To embrace the career of inn-
keeper, and to have the responsibil-
ity of the public balls, was a destiny
which seemed like wielding- a marshal's
baton to a do-nothing like him. The ras-
cal's morals, life and character were so
plainly written upon his face, that the
comtesse allowed a slig-ht exclamation to
escape her, at sight of the couple, who

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

303

made much the same impression upon her
as if they had been a couple of serpents.
Marie's head was turned concerning- Bon-
nebault. His mustache and his bold air
went to her lieart, as tlie fascinations and
fasliion and manners of a De Marsay
please a Parisienne. Each social spliere
has its distinction ! The jealous Marie
repelled Amaury, the other dandy of the
little town ; she wanted to be Madame
Bonnebault.

^' Hallo! Are you coming"? Hallo!"
called Catherine and Nicolas in the dis-
tance, when they saw Marie and Bonne-
bault.

The shill cry resounded in the woods
like the call of savag-es.

When he saw the couple, Michaud
started, for he repented of having" spoken.
If Bonnebault and Marie had overheard
the conversation, nothing" but harm could
come of it. This fact, apparentl^^ insig"-
nificant, was destined to have a decisive
influence, in the existing" state of feeling"
between les Aigues and the peasants ; as
in a battle, victor^'- or defeat may depend
upon a brook which a g"oathead maj'- leap
with both feet at once, but which the
artillery cannot cross.

After saluting" the comtesse g"al]antly,
Bonnebault took Marie's arm with the air
of a conqueror, and walked away triumph-
antly.

" That is a very dang"erous man," said
Michaud in a low tone to the comtesse.
" If he lost twenty francs at billiards, he
could be made even to assassinate Ilig"ou.
He turns as readily to a crime as to a
pleasure."

'*I have seen too much for one day,"
replied the comtesse', taking" Emile's arm ;
"let us return, g"entlemen."
♦ She bowed in a melancholy way to Ma-
dame Michaud as she watched la Pechina
enter the pavilion. She was profoundly
sad.

''Madame," said the abbe, "does the
difficulty of doing" g"ood here deter you
from making" the attempt ? For five j^ears
I have lain on a pallet, lived in a house
without furniture, said mass without any-
bod}^ to listen to me, preached without
an audience, and lived upon six hundred

francs given me by the State, and g"iven
a third of that in charity, without asking
more of the bishop. But I do not despair.
If you knew what my winters are here,
you would understand the full meaning" of
the word. I warm myself onlj'- with the
hope of saving this valley, and reconquer-
ing it for God. It is not a question ojf us,
madame, but of the future. We are
ordained that we may say to the poor :
'Learn to be poor,' or in other words:
' Suffer, be resigned, and toil, ' but at the
same time we should also say to the rich :
'Learn how to be wealthy,' or in other
words : ' Be intelligent in benevolence,
pious, and worthy of the station in which
God has placed you.' Well, madame, you
are onh'- the agents of the power which
giv-es the fortune, and if j^ou do not obe}'
its conditions, you will not be able to
transmit it to your children as you re-
ceived it. You are despoiling your pos-
terit}^. If you continue in the selfish course
of this singer, whose indifference has most
certainly caused the evil, the extent of
which alarms you, you will see again the
scaffolds where j^our predecessors died for
the faults of their fathers. Do good ob-
scurely, in some little corner of the earth;
as Rigou, for example, does evil. Those
deeds are the prayers which please God
most. If in each commune three beings
tried to do good, France, our beautiful
countr}', would be saved from the abyss
toward which we are hastening, and Avhere
we are being rapidly dragged by a relig-
ious indifference to everything that is
not ours. Change your morals first, and
then you can change 3'our laws."

Although profoundly moved at this
appeal of Catholic charity, the comtesse
replied by the fatal nous verrons of the
rich, a phrase which contains many
promises, without calling upon the purse,
and which permits them afterward to
cross their arms in the comfortable belief
that every evil is remedied.

When he heard her answer, the Abbe
Brossette saluted Madame de Montcor-
net, and took a path which led directly
to the Blangy gate.

" The feast of Belshazzar will be the
eternal type of the last days of a caste,

304

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

an oligarchy, a domination," lie said
to Mmself. " My God, if it be Thy holy
will to let loose the poor as a torrent to
reform society, I can understand why
thou wouldst abandon the rich to. their
blindness."

XII.

IN WHICH THE CABARET IS THE PARLIA-
MENT OF THE PEOPLE.

Old Mother Tonsard's screams had at-
tracted several persons from Blang-y, who
were curious to know what was going* on
at the Grand-I-vert ; for the distance be-
tween the cabaret and the village was no
greater than that between the cabaret
and the Blangy gate. One of these curi-
ous ones was Mseron himself, la Pechina's
grandfather, who, after having rung the
second Angelus, was returning to work
in his little bit of vineyard, his last re-
maining piece of ground.

The old vine-dresser was bowed by toil ;
his face was pale, and his hair silver ; he
was the sole representative of honesty in
the commune. During the Revolution he
had been president of the club of the Jac-
obins at Ville-aux-Fayes, and one of the
jury at the revolutionary tribunal of the
district. Jean Francois Niseron, who
was made of the same stuff as the apos-
tles, had been a tj^pe of the portrait of
Saint Peter, alwaj^s the same, in which
the painters have made him with the
square forehead of the people, the strong,
naturally curly hair of the laborer, the
muscles of the man of toil, the complexion
of the fisherman, the powerful nose, the
half mocking mouth that scoffs at harm,
and the neck and shoulders of the strong
man who cuts fagots in the neighboring
wood to make the fire for dinner, while
the doctrinarians are disputing within.

Such, when he was forty years old, at
the beginning of the Revolution, had been
this man, hard as iron and pure as gold.
He was an advocate of the people ; and he
believed in a Republic, liking the sonorous
sound of the word, which was, perhaps,
more imposing to him than the idea. He

believed in the Republic of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, in the brotherhood of men, in
the exchange of fine sentiments, in the
reward of merit, in election without in-
trigue, and in short, in all that in the
limited extent of a small country, like
Sparta, is possible, but which the pro-
portions of an empire render nothing less
than chimerical. He signed his opinions
with his blood', for he sent his onl^^ son to
the frontier ; he did more, he signed them
with his interests, the last sacrifice of
egotism. He was the nephew and sole
heir of the cure of Blang^', who, in con-
sequence of his nephew's opinions, left
his whole property to his servant. Nise-
ron respected the decision of the testator,
and accepted povert3% which came to him
as promptly as decadence came to the
Republic.

Never did a farthing, or a branch of a
tree, belonging to another, pass into the
hands of this sublime Republican, who
would have made the Republic accept-
able if he could have made people listen
to his teachings. He refused to buy
national property ; he denied to the Re-
public the right of confiscation. In reply
to the demands of the committee of public
safety, he wanted the virtue of citizens
to perform for the sainted country those
miracles which those who intrigued for
power would achieve by means of gold.
This patriot of antiquity publicly re-
proached Gaubertin the father for his
secret treasons, his connivance with
wrong-doing, and his depredations. He
reproved the virtuous Mouchon, the repre-
sentative of the people, whose virtue was
due largely to incapacity, like that of so
many others who, gorged with the most
immense political resources ever given by
a nation, and armed with the whole force
of a people, did not extricate from it as
much grandeur as Richelieu succeeded in
finding in the weakness of a king. Thus
the citizen Niseron became a living re-
proach to everybody. The good man
was therefore soon buried beneath the
avalanche of forgetfulness with these
words: '"^ He is satisfied with nothing."

He went back to his home at Blangj'',
to see his illusions vanish one by one, to

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

305

see the Republic end in an empire, and to
lall into the depths of poverty beneath
the e3'es of Rigou, who knew how to hyp-
ocritically bring- him. to that pass. Do
you know why ? Never had Jean Fran-
cois Niseron accepted anything- from Ri-
gou. Reiterated refusals told the man to
whom the cure's property had fallen how
deeply he was despised by the cure's
nephew. And finall3'' this cold contempt
was crowned by the terrible threat con-
cerning his granddaughter, of which the
Abbe Brossette had spoken to the com-
tesse. •

The old man had written a history of
the twelve years of tlie French Republic,
full of those grandiose features which
give immortality to this heroic time.
Crimes, massacres and spoliations the
good man ignored ; he had alwaj's ad-
mired devotion, righteous vengeance,
gifts to the country, and the rally of
the people to the frontiers, and he con-
tinued to dream still.

The Revolution has had many poets
like Pere Niseron, who sing their songs
in the country or in the army, secretly or
openh', by means of deeds concealed be-
neath the vapors of the hurricane, as, un-
der the Empire, wounded men who had
been forgotten cried out: ''Vive I'Em-
pereur ! " before they died. This sub-
limity belongs especially to France.

The Abbe Brossette had respected this
inoffensive conviction. The old man had
become greatly attached to the cure, be-
cause he had once heard him say : " The
true Republic is in the Gospel." And
the old Republican carried the cross, and
wore the robe, half red and half black,
and was sober and serious at church, and
lived on the triple functions with which
he had been invested by the Abbe Bros-
sette, who had thought to give the good
man, not enough to live on, but enough
to keep him from starving.

This old man, the Aristides of Blangy,
spoke but little, like all the noble dupes
who wrap themselves in the mantle of
resignation ; but he never hesitated to
blame evil ; therefore the peasants feared
him as thieves fear the police. He did
not come six times a year to the Grand-

I-vert, although he was always welcome
there. The old man cursed the want of
charity in the rich, and their egotism re-
pelled him, and this was the chord by
which he seemed to be in unison with the
peasants. Therefore they said : " Pere
Niseron does not like rick folks ; he is one
of us."

His beautiful life won for him from the
whole A^alley the civilian's crown contained
in these words : " The good Pere Niseron !
there never was a more honest man."
He was often chosen as umpire in dis-
putes, and was known by the magical
name of "the village elder."

This old man, who was alwaj^s ex-
tremely neat, although almost destitute,
always wore small-clothes, long, milled
stockings, hob-nailed shoes, the quasi-
French coat with large buttons, which
was still used hy the older peasants, and
the broad-brimmed felt hat ; but on or-
dinary daj^s he wore a vest of blue cloth
which was so much patched that it re-
sembled patchwork. The pride of the
man who felt himself to be both free and
deserving of his liberty was expressed on
his face, in his step, and in something
almost noble in his bearing; moreover,
he was dressed in something besides
rags.

" What is going on, mother," he said ;
" I heard you from the church."

They told the old man of Vatei's at-
tempt, but the}^ all spoke together, after
the manner of country people.

" If you did not cut the tree, Vatel was
wrong," said the old man; ''but if you
did cut the tree, then you have been guilty
of two evil deeds."

"Take a glass of wine," said Tonsard,
offering a full glass to the old man.

"Shall we go now ? " asked Vermichel
of the sheriff.

"Yes, we will do without Pere Four-
chon, and take the' deputy of Conches,"
replied Brunet. " You go on ; I must
take this deed pp to the chateau ; Pere
Rigou has gained his second lawsuit, and
I am to notify them of the verdict."

And Monsieur Brunet, ballasted by two
little glasses of brandy, remounted his
gray mare, after saying good-day to

306

2 HE HUMAN COMEDY.

Pere Niseron, for every one in the valley
respected the old man.

No science, not even that of statistics,
can estimate the more than telegraphic
rapidity with which news spreads in the
countr3% nor how it leaps over the steppes
of uncultivated land which are in France
an accusation against administrators and
capitals. It is a known fact in contem-
poraneous histor}^ that the most cele-
brated of bankers, after having- nearly
killed his horses between Waterloo and
Paris (to gain what the emperor lost : a
royalty) only preceded the fatal news by
a few hours. Thus, an hour after the
struggle between old mother Tonsard and
Vatel, several other of the habitues of
the Grand-I-vert were assembled there.

The first to come was Courtecuisse, in
whom it would have been difficult to rec-
ognize the jovial game-keeper, the rubi-
cund canon, for whom his wife made his
cafe-au-lait in the morning, as we have
seen in a former recital. Aged, thin and
haggard, he offered to all a terrible les-
son, which enlightened no one.

" He wanted to climb higher than the
top of the ladder," those who pitied the
man and blamed Rigou w^ere told; "he
wanted to be a bourgeois."

In truth, Courtecuisse, when he bought
the estate of La Bachelerie, wanted to
pass for a bourgeois, and had boasted to
that effect. And now his wife went about
picking up manure ! She and her hus-
band rose before daylight, dug their
garden, which was richly manured, and
succeeded in getting several crops from
it, but without doing anything more than
paying Rigou the interest due on the re-
mainder of the price. Their daughter,
who was at service at Auxerre, sent
them her wages ; but in spite of so manj^
efforts and in spite of this help, they found
themselves without a red cent when the
money became due. Madame Courte-
cuisse, who had formerly allowed herself
a bottle of boiled wine and a roast, now
drank nothing but water. Courtecuisse
scarcely dared enter the Grand-I-vert
for fear of leaving three sous there ; de-
prived of his power, he had lost his free
drinks at the cabaret, and like an idiot

he complained of ingratitude. In fact,
like almost all peasants bitten by the
demon of proprietorship, he found that
food decreased in proportion as toil in-
creased .

"Courtecuisse has built too many walls,"
they said, envious of his position. '^ He
should not have made espaliers until he
was his own master."

The good man had improved and fer-
tilized the three acres of land sold him by
Rigou, and the garden belonging to the
house was beginning to bear, and he
feared to be turned out. Dressed like
Fourchon, he who had formerly worn
shoes and huntsman's gaiters now went
about in sabots, and he accused the bour-
geois of les Aigues of having caused his
poverty-. This gnawing anxiety gave to
the fat little man, and to his face, which
had formerly been so jovial, a gloomy
and stupefied appearance which made
him resemble a sick man who is being
devoured by a poison or by some chronic
malad}'.

" What is the matter with 3^ou, Mon-
sieur Courtecuisse ? has any one cut off
your tongue?" asked Tonsard, finding
that the man remained silent after he
had heard the story of the battle which
had just taken place.

"It is enough to make one dumb, to
try and think up some way of settling
with Monsieur Rigou," replied the old
man, dismally.

"Bah!" replied old Mother Tonsard,
"you have a daughter seventeen years
old ; can't she do something for you ? "

" We sent her to Auxerre, to Madame
Mariotte the elder, two years ago, to get
her out of harm's way," he replied. "I
would rather die than — "

" Nonsense," interrupted Tonsard ;
" here are my girls ; are they dead ?
And if any one dares to say that the^' are
not good girls, he will have to reply to
my gun."

"No," said Courtecuisse, shaking his
head, "I will not hav.e her troubled. I
would rather get the money by shooting
one of these Arminacs."

'•' You must not be too tender of her,"
said the innkeeper.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

301

Pere Niseron touched Tonsard lightly
on the shoulder.

"What you have just said is not well,"
remarked the old man. " A father is the
guardian of his famih\ In allowing- your
daughters such freedom, ^-ou have drawn
censure upon ^^ourself, and upon the class
to which you belong. The masses of the
people should set the rich an example of
virtue and honor. You are selling j^our-
self to Rigou, soul and body; do not bring
your daughter into the question.*'

*^Just see how badl}^ off Oourtecuisse
is ! " said Tonsard.

" Look at me," returned Pere Niseron ;
*' and yet I sleep quietly, and there are no
thorns in my pillow."

*'Let him talk, Tonsard," said the wife
in her husband's ear. " Those are his
ideas, you know, the jDOor dear man."

Bonnebault and Marie, with Catherine
and her brother, arrived at this moment
in a state of exasperation, caused by the
knowledge of Michaud's project, which
they had overheard. When Nicolas en-
tered, he uttered a frightful curse upon
the house of Michaud, and against les
Aigues.

"It is harvest time," he said; "very
well ; I shall not go away without light-
ing m3^ pipe at their haystacks." And he
struck a great blow with his fist upon the
table before which he was sitting.

" You must not chatter like that be-
fore everybod}"," said Godain, motioning
toward Pere Niseron.

"If he told a word, I would wring his
neck as I would that of a chicken," re-
turned Catherine fiercely; "he has had
his day. Tliey call him virtuous, but it is
nothing but his temperament."

It*was a strange and curious spectacle,
all these lifted heads, all these people
grouped in this hole of a place, at the
door of which old Mother Tonsard had
stationed herself as sentinel, to make sure
that they could talk their secrets in
safety.

Of all these faces, that of Godain, Cath-
erine's lover, was perhaps the most fright-
ful, although not the most pronounced.
Godain was a miser without gold, the
most cruel of all misers ; for the man who

seeks money takes precedence over the
man who hoards it. The latter looks
around him, but the former looks straight
ahead with a terrible fixity. Godain was
a t^-pe of the greater number of peasant
faces.

He was a short man, who had been
returned on account of not having the
requisite height for the military service ;
he was naturally thin, and was still more
withered by toil and by the dull sobriety
beneath which excessive laborers like
Courtecuisse expire in the country. He
had a face no larger than a man's fist,
which was lighted by two yellow eyes
striped with green lines with brown dots,
which showed a thirst for gain at any
risk. His skin was glued to his temples,
and was brown as that of a mummy.
His scanty beard pricked through his
wrinkles like stubble in the furrows.
Godain never perspired ; he did not thus
waste his substance. His hairj', claw-
like hands, nervous and constantly' in
motion, seemed to be made of old wood.
Although he was scarceh' twenty-seven
\'ears old, white threads could already be
distinguished in his shock of reddish-
black hair. He wore a blouse, through
the opening in which could be seen, out-
lined in black, a shirt of strong linen,
which he wore for more than a month,
and then washed for himself in the
Thune. His sabots were mended with
old iron. The original material was no
longer recognizable through the nume-
rous patches and mendings ; and on his
head he wore a frightful cap, evident-
ly picked up in the street at Ville-aux-
Faj^es.

Clairvoj^ant enough to see the elements
of fortune in a marriage vxith Catherine,
he wished to succeed Tonsard at the
Grand-I-vert ; he therefore employed all
his cunning and power'to capture her for
his wife ; he promised her riches and a
free and happy life ; and he finally guar-
anteed his future father-in-law an enor-
mous rent, five hundred francs a year for
the cabaret until he could buy it, trusting,
by reason of an understanding that he
had with M. Brunet, to making the pay-
ments by giving his note. He was a tool-

308

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

maker by trade, and worked for the
wheelwright when work was plenty, hut
he also hired himself out by the day at
hig-h wages. Although he had about
eighteen hundred francs, which he had
lilaced with Gaubertin, unknown to any
one, he lived like a beggar, sleeping in his
master's barn, and gleaning at the har-
vest. He wore, sewed into the top of his
Sunday pantaloons, Gaubertin's note,
which increased in amount each year, b}^
the added interest, and by his own sav-
ings.

" What do I care ?" exclaimed ISTicolas,
in replj^ to Godain's prudent caution. " If
I am to be a soldier, I would rather have
the sawdust of the basket drink all my
blood at once, than to shed it drop b}^
drop. And I will rid the countrj^ of one
of these Arminacs whom the devil has let
loose upon us."

And he related what he called Michaud's
plot agi^inst hiin.

"Where do you suppose France is to
get her soldiers?" asked the white-
headed old man gravely, rising and
standing before Nicolas in the pause
which followed this horrible threat.

'' A man does his time and comes back,"
replied Bonnebault, twisting his mus-
tache.

When he saw that the worst characters
in the country-side were assembled, Nise-
ron shook his head and left the cabaret,
after offering a sou to Madame Ton-
sard in payment for his wine. When he
had gone, the movement of satisfaction
throughout the assembly proved that
all those present felt that the living
embodiment of their conscience had left
them.

*' Well, what do you say to all this,
Courtecuisse ? " asked Vaudoyer, who
had come in accidentally and had just
heard of Vatel's attempt.

Courtecuisse clicked his tongue against
his palate, and put down his glass on the
table.

"Vatel is wrong," he replied. *' In
the mother's place, I would wound my-
self, and go to bed, and pretend I was
sick, and then I would have the shopman
and his keeper arrested, and get twenty

crowns damages out of them. Monsieur
Sarcus would award them."

"At all events, the shopman would
give them, in order to avoid scandal,"
said Godain.

Vaudoyer, the former garde-champetre,
a man five feet six inches tall, with a
face which was pitted with small - pox,
and scooped like a nut-cracker, main-
tained a doubtful silence.

"Well," said Tonsard, attracted by
the sixty francs, "what is the matter
with that, you great canarj^ bird ? They
might have broken twentj^ francs' worth
of my mother, and this is a good waj'' of
getting even with them. We can make
talk enough for three hundred francs,
and Monsieur Gourdon can go and tell
them at les Aigues that the mother
broke her hip."

"And we would break it," interrupted
his wife ; " that is done in Paris."

"That would cost dear," replied Go-
dain.

" I have heard too much about the king's
people to believe that things would go as
you wish," said Vaudo3'er at last ; for he
had often assisted justice and the ex-brig-
adier Soudr3\ " As for Soulanges, that
part of it would be all right ; Monsieur
Soudry represents the Government, and
he wishes no good to the shopman ; but
the shopman and Vatel, if you attack
them, will be malicious enough to defend
themselves, and they will say : ' The
woman was to blame ; she had a tree ;
if not, she would have allowed her fagot
to be examined on the road, and? would
not have run ; if she got hurt, she has
only her theft to thank for it.' No, you
would not have a sure thing."

" Did the bourgeois defend himself -v^en
Ihad him summoned ? " demanded Courte-
cuisse. " He paid me."

"If you like, I will go to Soulanges,"
said Bonnebault, "and consult Monsieur
Gourdon, the clerk, and let you know this
evening whether it will be of any use."

" You are only looking for an excuse to
hang around that great turkey of a girl
there at Socquard's," replied Marie Ton-
sard, giving him a pat on the shoulder
that made his lungs ache.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

309

Just then they heard a verse of the old
Burg-undian Christmas song- :

" One fine moment of his life
Was when, at table one day,
He changed the water in the jar
To wine of Madeii'a."'

They all recognized the voice of old
Pere Fourchon, "who seemed to he par-
ticularly pleased hy the verse, and whom
Mouche was accompanying in falsetto.

"Ah ! thej'- are full," cried old Mother
Tonsard to her daughter-in-law ; " your
father is as red as a gridiron."

"Hail! "cried the old man; "what a
lot of you beggars there are here! Hail I"
he repeated to his granddaughter, whom
he surprised in the act of kissing Bonne-
bault. " All hail ! Marie, full of vices !
may Satin be with thee ; cursed art thou
among- women, etc. All hail, the com-
pany ! You are done for. You mdbj say
farewell to your sheaves. There is some
news. I told you the bourgeois would
crush you ; well, he is going to scourge
you with the law. Ah ! that is what it is
to fight the bourgeois. They have made
so man}^ laws that they have one for
every occasion."

A terrible hiccough suddenly gave an-
other turn to the ideas of the honorable
orator.

" If Vermichel was there I would blow
in his mouth ; he would think it was wine
of Alicante ! What a wine ! If I were
not a Burgundian, I would be a Spaniard.
A wine of God ! I believe the Pope uses
it when he says his mass. What a wine! I
am young again. See here, Courtecuisse,
if your wife was here, I would think she
was young again ! There is no mistake
about it, Spanish wine beats boiled wine.
We must get up a revolution, if only for
the sake of raiding the cellars."

"' But what is yowc news, papa?" asked
Tonsard.

" There will be no harvest for you all :
the shopman forbids you to glean."

"Forbids the gleaning!" cried they
all, the shrill tones of the women sound-
ing' above the rest.

"Yes," said Mouche, "he is going* to
take an order, and have it printed by

Groison, and posted in the canton, and
only those who have certificates of pau-
perism will be permitted to glean."

" And notice this ! " added Fourchon ;
"' the folks from the other communes will
not be admitted."

"What! what!" said Bonnebault.
"My grandmother, and I, and your mo-
ther, Godain, will we not be allowed to
glean here ? What a pack of idiots ! a
plague upon them ! But this general of
a mayor is letting loose all the devils
of hell!"

" Shall you glean, Godain ? " asked
Tonsard of the wheelwright, who was
talking- to Catherine.

"I have nothing," he replied. "I am
a pauper, and I shall apply for a certifi-
cate."

" What did they give father for his
otter, my boy?" asked the innkeeper's
wife of Mouche.

Although he was yielding to the pangs
of indigestion, and his head was swim-
ming from the effects of two bottles of
wine, Mouche, seated upon Mother Ton-
sard's knee, put his head upon Madame
Tonsard's neck and whispered softly in
her ear :

" I don't know, but he has some gold.
If you will give me plenty to eat for a
month, perhaps I can find out his hiding--
place ; he has one."

"Father has some gold," whispered
Madame Tonsard to her husband, who
was talking louder than all the rest in
the eager discussion that was going on.

" Hush ! here comes Groison ! " ex-
claimed the old woman.

A profound silence reigned in the caba-
ret. When Groison was once more at a
safe distance, Mother Tonsard made a
sign, and the discussion began again, as
to whether they should g-lean, as in times
past, without a certificate.

"You will have to obey," said Pere
Fourchon, "for the shopman has g-one
to see the prefect and ask for some troops
to keep order. They will kill jow like the
dogs that we are," he cried, striving- to
overcome the thickness of utterance pro-
duced by the Spanish wine.

This announcement, ridiculous though

310

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

it was, made them all thoughtful ; tliQj
believed the Government capable of mas-
sacring them without ^i\>y.

''There were troubles like that in the
neighborhood of Toulouse, where I was
in garrison," said Bonnebault ; "we
marched, and the peasants were baj^o-
neted and arrested. It was fun to see
them resisting the troops. Ten were sent
to the galleys, and eleven to prison, and
they were all crushed. The soldier is a
soldier, and you are beggars ; they have
a right to bayonet you, and away you
go."

"Well," said Tonsard, "what have
we to fear from them, after all ? Can
they take anything from us ? And if
they put us in prison, they will at least
give us something to eat ; and the shop-
man cannot imprison the whole country.
Besides, they are better fed at the king's
expense than they are in their own houses,
and they are warmed in winter."

"You are all ninnies!" shouted Pere
Fourchon. " It is better to gnaw at the
bourgeois than to attack them openly;
otherwise you will get your backs broken.
If you really prefer imprisonment, of
course that is another matter. One does
not work so hard as in the fields, it is
true, but neither does one have so much
liberty."

"Perhaps," said Vaudoyer, who was
the boldest in his advice, "it might be
better for some of us to risk our skins in
ridding the country of this beast of a
Gevaudan who has planted himself at
the Avonne gate."

" To make an end of Michaud? " asked
Nicolas; "' I am Avith you."

" The time has not come for that," said
Fourchon; "we should lose too much.
We must look miserable, and cry hun-
ger ; then the bourgeois of les Aigues and
his wife will want to help us, and we will
make more by that than by gleaning."

"You are a set of moles," cried Ton-
sard. " Suppose we do have a quarrel
with the law and the troops, they can't
put the whole neighborhood m prison,
and in Yille-aux-Fayes and in the old
lords there are people who are willing to
take our part."

" That's true," said Courtecuisse ; "no
one complains but the shopman ; Mes-
sieurs de Soulanges and de Ronquerolles
and the others are satisfied. And onl^^ to
think that, if this cuirassier had only had
the courage to get himself killed like the
rest, I might still be living at my Avonne
gate ; and now he has upset everything,
until I don't know myself."

" They will not send out the troops for
a bourgeois like that, who has got him-
self disliked by every one in the country,"
said Godain. "It is his own fault. He
wants to upset everything here, and
overturn everybody ; the Government
will tell him to hold his tongue."

" The Government never says anything*
else; it can't, the poor Government,"
said Fourchon, seized with a sudden ten-
derness for the Government; " I pity it,
the good Government. It is unfortunate ;
it is penniless, like us, and that is hard
for a Government that has to earn its
own living. Ah ! if I were the Govern-
ment ! "

"But," exclaimed Courtecuisse, "they
told me at Yille-aux-Fayes that Monsieur
de Ronquerolles had spoken in the Assem-
bly of our rights."

"That was in Monsieur Rigou's jour-
nal," said Yaudoyer, who knew how to
read and write, in his quality of former
garde-champetre. "I read it."

In spite of his pretended tenderness, old
Fourchon, like many of the lower class
whose faculties are stimulated by drunk-
enness, followed with an intelligent ear
and an attentive eye this discussion, which
was made a singular one by reason of the
many side remarks. Suddenly he rose
and took up his position in the middle of
the room.

"Listen to the old one; he's drunk,"
said Tonsard. " He has a double share of
malice; he has his own, and that of the
wine too."

" My children, " said Fourchon, "don't
butt against an^^thing ; you are too weak.
Take my advice, and go at it sideways.
Plaj'" dead ; play sleeping dogs. The little
lady is already scared. We will soon drive
her out. She will leave the country, and
if she goes, the shopman goes too, for he

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

311

is dead in love with her. That's the plan.
But to hasten their departure, my advice
is to take away from them their counsel,
their streng-th, our spy, our master.''

" And who is that ? "

"That damned cure," repUed Tonsard ;
" he comes here to hunt for sins and to
stir up trouble."

'•'That's true ! " cried Yaudoyer; ''we
were happy without the cure. We must
g-et rid of him ; he is the enemy."

"Shall we g-lean, or shall we not glean ?"
said Bonnebault. " I don't care anything-
about your abbe, not I ! I belong- to Con-
ches, and we have no cure there to disturb
our consciences."

"Wait," said Vaudo3'er. " Rig-ou, who
knows all about the law, oug-ht to know
Avhether the shopman can forbid us the
g-leaning-, and he will tell us whether we
are rig"ht. If the shopman is right, then,
as the old man says, we will take him
sideways."

"There will be blood spilled," said !N"ic-
olas darkly, as he rose after drinking a
whole bottle of wine which Catherine had
given him to keep him from talking. "If
you Avill take vaj advice, we will get rid
of Michaud. But yon are all cowards."

"Not I," said Bonnebault. "If you
are my friends, and will keep your mouths
shut, I will take care of the shopman.
What a pleasure it would be to put a
bullet through him ! I would be revenged
then on all those cursed officers."

" Hold on ! " exclaimed Jean Louis Ton-
sard, who had followed Fourchon into the
house.

This fellow, wiio had been for several
months courting Rigou's pretty servant,
Avas taking his father's place in trimming
hedges and trees. As he went about to
the different bourgeois houses he talked
with masters and men, and collected ideas
which made of him the man of resource,
the plotter of the famil3\ It will be seen
later that in pajdng his court to Rigou's
servant, he was giving a proof of his
sagacity.

"Well, prophet, what is the matter
with you?" asked the innkeeper of his
son.

" I say that you are playing right into

the hands of the bourgeois," replied Jean
Louis. " Frighten the people of les Aigues
for the sake of maintaining your rights,
if you will, but to drive them out of the
country' and force them to leave les Aigues,
as the burgeois of the valley want them
to do, is against our own interests. If
you help to divide the great estates, where
will there be any land to be divided at the
next revolution ? Then you will get land
for nothing, as Rigou did; while if you
put it into the mouths of the bourgeois
now, they will spit it out again to you
very much smaller and dearer ; you will
be working for them, like all who work
for Rigou. Look at Courtecuisse."

This argument was too profound for the
drunken listeners to seize it ; for they all,
except Courtecuisse, Avere saving up their
money to have a share in the spoils of les
Aigues. Thus they let Jean Louis talk,
Avhile they themselves followed the ex-
ample of the Chamber of Deputies, and
continued their own private conversations.

"Well, you will all be Rigou's tools,"
exclaimed Fourchon, who was the only
one to understand his grandson.

Just then Langlume, the miller of les
Aigues, passed, and Madame Tonsard
hailed him.

"Is it true, monsieur le depute," she
asked, "that they have forbidden the
gleaning ? "

Langlume, a jovial little man, with a
face Avhitened by flour, dressed in a whitey
gray suit, came up the steps, and at once
the peasants assumed their serious de-
meanor.

"Well, yes, and no. The needy will
glean ; but the measures that they are
taking will be ver3^ advantageous to you."

"' How ? " asked Godain.

" If they keep all the poor people from
gleaning here," replied the miller, wink-
ing after the Norman fashion, "there is
nothing to prevent you from going else-
where, unless all the mayors follow the
example of the mayor of Blang3^"

"Then it is true?" asked Tonsard,
threateningh'.

" I am going back to Conches to tell
the friends," said Bonnebault, putting his
cap on his ear and twirling his hazel stick.

312

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

And the beau of the valley went away,
whistling the air of the soldier's song- :

"You who know the hussars of the guard,
Do you know the trombone of the regiment?"

'' See here, Marie ! he is taking a queer
road to go to Conches," cried old Mother
Tonsard to her granddaughter.

'• He is going to see Aglae/' exclaimed
Marie, hounding to the door ; " I'll have
to give that girl a good thrashing ! "

" Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, " go
and see Rigou ; then we shall know what
to do. He is our oracle, and his advice
will cost nothing."

"Another folly," said Jean Louis in a
low tone. " He betra^^s every one ; as
Annette has told me, he is more danger-
ous than if he got angry."

''I want 3^ou to be prudent," added
Langlume, '' for the general has gone to
the prefecture on account of your mis-
deeds, and Sibilet said that he had sworn
on his honor to go as far as Paris and
speak to the chancellor of France, or to
the king, or the whole shopful, if neces-
sary, to have his rights with his peas-
ants."

" His peasants ! " they exclaimed.

" So we do not belong to ourselves any
longer !"

"Whereupon Vaudoyer went out to find
the former mayor.

Langlume, who had already gone out,
turned to say :

"You heap of idleness, have jo\i anj^
incomes to make you your own masters?"

Although this was said laughingly, it
was understood, as a horse understands a
lash of the whip.

xin.

THE COUNTRY USURER.

Strategically, Rigou was at Blangy
in the position of an advance sentinel in
war ; he watched over les Aigues, and did
it well. The police never have spies that
can compare with those who serve hate.

When the general first arrived at les

Aigues, Rigou doubtless had some de-
sign upon him which was frustrated by
his marriage with a Troisville, for at that
time he had seemed to w^ant to protect the
great landowner. His intentions had then
been so evident that Gaubertin had judged
it necessary to initiate him into the con-
spiracy which had been formed against
les Aigues. Before accepting a part in
the play, Rigou wished, according to his
own expression, to put the general at the
foot of the wall.

When the comtesse was fairly installed
at the chateau, one day a little basket
carriage, painted green, entered the grand
courtyard of les Aigues. The maj^or, with
his wife, got out, and came up to the house.
Rigou saw the comtesse at a window. She
was devoted to the bishop, to religion and
to the Abbe Brossette, who hastened to
warn her against her enemy ; and the
comtesse sent word by Francois that
" Madame was out."

This insulting message, worthj'- of a
woman who had been born in Russia,
made the visitor's face turn yellow\ If
the comtesse had had the curiosity to see
the man of whom the cure had said : " He
is as one of the damned, who, to refresh
himself, plunges into iniquity as into a
bath," perhaps she would have avoided
establishing between the mayor and the
chateau that cold and calculating hatred
which the liberals felt for the royalists,
augmented as it was by the further in-
citements of contiguity of neighborhood
in the countrj^, where the memory of a
wound to self-love is continually revived.

A few details concerning this man and
his morals will not only serve to explain
his participation in the conspiracy called
" the great affair " by his two associates,
but wnll paint a type which is very curi-
ous, that of one of those rural existences
peculiar to France, which have hitherto
been drawn by no pencil. Moreover,,
nothing about this man is insignificant,
whether it be his house, his method of
blowing the fire, or his way of eating ;
his manners and opinions will be a power-
ful factor in the history of this valley.
This renegade explains the utility of de-
mocracy ; he is at once the theory and

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

313

the practice, the alpha and omega, the
summum.

Perhaps the reader will remember cer-
tain masters in avarice who have been
described in former scenes of this work ?
In the first place, the provincial miser,
Pere Grandet, of Saumur, wlio was mis-
erh' as a tig-er is cruel ; then Gobseck the
usurer, the Jesuit of gold, relishing only
its power, and delighting in the tears of
misfortune, knowing what caused them ;
then the Baron de !N"ucingen, who ele-
vated fraudulent transactions in money
to the height of politics. The reader will
also remember the portrait of the miserly
servant, old Hochon, of Issoudon, and
that other miser through family interest,
little La Baudraye, of Sancerre. Well,
human sentiments, and particularly those
of avarice, have so many different shades
in the different centers of our society, that
one more miser remains upon the boards
of the theater of the study of morals.
There remains Rigou. He was the t^-pe
of the egotistic miser, full of tenderness
for his own pleasures, but hard and cold
toward others ; he was the ecclesiastical
miser, the monk who had remained a
monk in order that he might express the
juice of the citron called good living, and
who had ceased to be a monk in order
that he might catch at the public money.
And in the first place, let us explain the
continued happiness which he derived
from sleeping beneath his own roof.

Blang}^, composed of tl^e sixty houses
described by Blondet in his letter to Na-
than, is built on rising ground, at the left
of the Thune. As all the houses have
gardens, the effect of the village is charm-
ing. Some of the houses are situated be-
side the stream. At the summit of the
hill is the church, formerl}^ flanked by its
presbytery, and surrounded by its ceme-
tery, as in so many villages.

The sacrilegious Rigou had not failed
to \)\ij this presb3'ter3', which had been
built hy the good Catholic, Mademoiselle
Choin, on land bought by her for that
purpose. A terraced garden, from which
a view was obtained of the estates of
Blangy, Soulanges and Cerneux, situated
between the two seigneurial parks, sep-

arated this ancient presbytery from the
church. On the opposite side was a
meadow which had been bought by the
last cure a short time before his death,
and surrounded with walls by the defiant
Rigou.

The mayor had refused to restore this
presbytery to its original use, and the
commune had been obliged to buA' a peas-
ant's house situated near the church : it
was necessary to spend five thousand
francs to enlarge it, restore it, and add
a garden to it, whose wall divided it from
the sacristy, so that communication was
established, as formerly, between the
cure's residence and the church.

These two houses, built on a line with
the church, to which they seemed to be-
long by means of their gardens, looked
out upon an open space planted with
trees, which formed the principal square
of Blang3% for opposite the new cure the
comte had constructed a building which
was destined to hold the ma^-'or's office,
the quarters of the garde-champetre, and
the school of brethren of the Christian
Doctrine so vainly solicited by the Abbe
Brossette.

Thus the houses of the former monk
and the young cure were not only both
united and divided by the church, but
they overlooked each other. The whole
village spied upon the Abbe Brossette.
The Grande-Rue, which began at the
Thune, wound up to the church. Vine-
yards and peasants' gardens, and a little
wood, crowned the hill of Blangy.

Rigou 's house, the most beautiful in
the village, was built of large round
stones, peculiar to Burgundy, held in a
yellow mortar, roughly put on with the
trowel, which produced undulations
pierced here and there by the stones,
which were for the most part black. A
band of mortar, in which not a stone was
to be seen, outlined at each window a
frame which time had streaked with fine
and capricious fissures, such as are often
seen on qld ceilings. The shutters, rough-
ly made, were painted a solid dragon-
green. Some flat mosses grew between
the slates on the roof. It was the type
of a Burgundian house ; travelers can see

314

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

thousands of similar ones in that part of
France.

A private door opened upon a corri-
dor, halfway down which was the well of
the wooden staircase. On entering, one
saw the door of a large hall with three
windows, overlooking the square. The
kitchen, built under the staircase, got its
light from the court, which was pebbled
carefully, and which was entered by a
porte-cochere. These rooms composed
the ground floor.

The first floor contained three rooms,
and there was a little room in the roof.

A woodshed, a coach-house and a stable
adjoined the kitchen, and made the other
side of the square. Above these lightly
built constructions were the granary, a
fruit-room, and a servant's room.

A poultry -yard, a stable and some pig-
sties were opposite the house.

The garden, which was about an acre
in extent, and was inclosed by walls, w^as
a typical cure's garden, full of espaliers,
fruit trees, trellises, alleys sanded and
bordered with box, and vegetable beds
enriched with manure from the stables.

Above the house was a second inclos-
ure, planted with trees, inclosed with
hedges, and large enough to pasture
two cows at once.

Inside the house the hall was paneled
and hung with old tapestries. The walnut-
w^ood furniture, brown wuth old age, and
covered with needlework tapestry, har-
monized with the wooden paneling and
with the floor, which was also of wood.
The ceiling had three projecting beams,
which were painted ; the space between
them was ceiled. The chimnej^-piece, of
walnut wood, surmounted by a glass in
a grotesque frame, had no other orna-
ment than two copper eggs upon a marble
base which separated in the middle ; the
upper half turned back, and showed a
candlestick.

These candlesticks with two ends, orna-
mented with chains, an invention of the
reign of Louis XV,, were becoming rare.
A common, but excellent clock stood on
a green and gold bracket against the
wall opposite the windows. Curtains,
which grated upon their iron rods, were

fifty years old ; their material, of cotton
in squares like mattresses, alternately
red and white, came from the Indies. A
sideboard and a dining-table completed
the furnishing, which was cared for with
the utmost neatness.

Beside the chimney-piece was an im-
mense easy-chair, Rigou's special seat.
In the corner, above the little honheur-
du-jour which served him for a secretary,
hanging on a common nail, was a pair of
bellows, the origin of Rigou's fortune.

From this concise description, whose
style rivals that of auction handbills, it
is easy to see that the two rooms of
Monsieur and Madame Rigou must have
contained only the strictest necessaries ;
but this parsimonj'' did not prevent the
articles from being of good material. The
most exacting of ladies would have been
perfectly comfortable in a bed like that of
Rigou, which was composed of an excel-
lent mattress, sheets of fine linen, and
heaped up with a down covering which
had been purchased for some abbe by a
devotee, and guarded from draughts by
good curtains. And it w^as the same
with everything, as will be seen.

In the first place, the miser had reduced
his wife, who could neither read, w-rite, nor
do accounts, to a state of the most abso-
lute obedience. After having ruled her
deceased master, the poor creature ended
by being the servant of her own hus-
band, doing his cooking and washing, re-
ceiving onl3^ 30 little help from a very
pretty girl named Annette, who was
nineteen years old, and as much afraid of
Rigou as her mistress, and who earned
thirty francs a yesiv.

Tall, wrinkled and thin, Madame Ri-
gou, a woman with a yellow face, colored
with red on the cheekbones, with her
head always wrapped in a handkerchief,
and wearing the same skirt all the year
round, did not leave her home two hours
a month, and kept her activity by means
of the care which a devoted servant gives
to a house. The cleverest observer would
have found no trace of the magnificent
figure, the freshness of a Rubens, the
splendid embonpoint, the superb teeth
and the virgin's eyes which had once rec-

A TRAGEDY OF TEE PEASANTRY.

315

ommended the young" girl to the notice of
the cure Niseron. The birth of her only
daughter, Madame Soudry the j^ounger,
had decimated her teeth, dimmed her
eyes, and blighted her complexion. It
seemed as if the ling-er of God had been
laid upon the priest's wife. Like all rich
housekeepers in the country, she liked to
see her wardrobes full of silk dresses,
either in the piece or newly made up ;
and she had laces and jewels which could
have no possible use except to make Ri-
g"Ou's young" servants commit the sin of
envy and wish that she was dead. She
was one of those beings, half animal and
half woman, who seem to live instinct-
ively. Since she had become uninterest-
ing", the leg"acy of the late cure would
have been inexplicable except for the curi-
ous circumstance which prompted it, and
wiiich we relate for the benefit of the im-
mense tribe of heirs.

Madame ISTiseron, the wife of the old
sexton, overwhelmed her husband's uncle
with attentions ; for the inheritance of
the propert}^ of an old man of seventy-
two, estimated to be over forty thousand
livres, would put the family of the sole
heir in a position of comfort wiiich w^as
impatiently awaited by the late Madame
Niseron. Besides her son, she had a
charming" little girl, full of fun, and in-
nocent, one of those creatures who seem
born only to fade away, for she died at
the age of fourteen. She was the petted
darling of the presbytery, and she was
as much at home in her g-rand uncle the
cure's house as in her own ; she went
there in fair weather and foul, and was
very fond of Mademoiselle Arsene, the
prettj^ servant whom her uncle took into
his house in 1789, by favor of the license
introduced into the ecclesiastical disci-
pline by the first revolutionary storms.

In 1791, at the time the cure ISTiseron
offered an asj-lum to Rigou and his bro-
ther Jean, the child played an innocent
little joke. While she was enjoying" with
Arsene and the other children the g"ame
which consists in concealing-, each in his
turn, an object for which the others
search, to cries of ''You are burning!"
or " You are freezing ! " according" to

whether they approach or recede from
the soug"ht-for object, the little Genevieve
conceived the idea of hiding in Arsene's
bed the bellows which hung in the hall.
The bellows could not be found, and the
game ceased. Genevieve, taken away by
her mother, forgot to return the bellows
to its place. Arsene aud her aunt, the
old housekeeper, sought for the bellows
for a week, and then they looked no
longer, for they found something" to take
its place ; the old cure blew his fire with
an air cane, made in the days when air
canes were fashionable. Finally, one
evening, a month before her death, the
housekeeper, after a dinner at w^hich
the Abbe Mouchon, the Niseron family'-
and the cure of Soulanges had been
present, began anew her jeremiads con-
cerning the bellows, for she was not able
to explain their disappearance.

" Why ! they have been in Arsene's
bed for the last fortnight," said the
little Genevieve, laug"hing" heartil}^ ; " if
the g"reat lazy thing- had made her bed
she would have found them."

Everybody beg"an to laugh, but to the
laughter succeeded the most profound
silence.

" There is nothing" to laugh at in
that," said the housekeeper; ''since I
have been ill, Arsene has watched with
me at night."

In spite of this explanation the Cure
Niseron threw upon Madame Niseron and
her husband the thunder-wielding look of
a priest who suspects a conspiracy. The
housekeeper died, Rigou knew so w'ell
how to make the most of the cure's hate
that the Abbe Niseron disinherited Fran-
cois ISTiseron in favor of Arsene Richard.

In 1823 Rigou still, out of gratitude,
used the air-cane to blow the fire, and
left the bellows on the nail,

Madame Niseron, w^ho loved her /laugh-
ter passionately, did not long" survive her ;
mother and daughter both died in 3 794.
When the cure died Rigou occupied him-
self with Arsene's affairs, and took her
for his wafe.

The former brother proselyte of the
abbe, who was attached to Rigou as a
dog to his master, became at once the

316

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

groom, the gardener, the herdsman, the
valet and the steward of this sensual
Harpagon.

Arsene Rigou, who in 1821 married
without a dowr^^ the prosecuting' at-
torney', had her mother's beauty and
her father's craft}' mind.

Rigou was at that time sixty-seven
years old, and he had not been ill for
thirty years ; nothing seemed to touch
his almost insolent health. He was tall
and dry, with a brown circle around his
eyes ; his ej^elids were almost black ;
when he exposed his wrinkled red neck
in the morning, he looked like a condor,
all the more because his nose, which was
very long, and thin at the end, helped
this resemblance by its bright red color.
His head, which was half bald, would
have frightened connoisseurs by the shape
of his skull, which was like an ass's back-
bone— the index of a despotic will. His
gray eyes, almost veiled behind their
streaked lids, were made for hj'pocrisy.
Two locks of an undecided color, the hairs
of which were so thin that they did not
conceal the skin, floated above his ears,
which were large, high, and without
rims; a feature which reveals cruelty
of the moral order, when it does not de-
note folly. The mouth, which was very
wide, with thin lips, denoted a man who
liked to eat and drink much, by a fall
at the corners like two commas, where
the juice or the saliva ran out when he
ate or talked. Heliogabalus must have
been like this.

His unvarying costume consisted of a
long blue redingote with a military col-
lar, a black cravat, pantaloons, and a
large waistcoat of black cloth. His thick-
soled shoes were garnished outside with
nails, and inside with a woolen lining
knitted by his wife on winter evenings,
Annette and her mistress also knit the
master's stockings.

Rigou was named Gregoire, and his
friends were in the habit of making a play
upon his name by calling him Grigou (G.
Rigou) .

Although this sketch describes his char-
acter, no one would ever imagine how far,
without opposition and in solitude, the

former Benedictine had carried the science
of egotism, of good cheer, and of all kinds
of self-indulgence. He ate alone, waited
on b3^ his wife and Annette, who ate after
him, with Jean, in the kitchen, while he
digested his dinner, sipped his wine, and
read the '^news." In the country, news-
papers are never known by their proper
names ; they are always called " the
news."

The dinner, like the breakfast and the
supper, was always composed of the
nicest materials, and cooked with that
science which distinguishes a cure's
housekeeper from all other cooks. Ma-
dame Rigou made their own butter twice
a week. Cream was a component part
of all their sauces. The vegetables came
freshly picked from their frames to the
saucepan. The Parisians, who are accus-
tomed to eat salads and vegetables which
accomplish a second vegetation from ex-
posure to the sun, the infection of the
streets, and fermentation in the shops,
and which have been watered by the mar-
ket-women, to give them a deceitful fresh-
ness, know nothing about the exquisite
flavor of these products to which Nature
has confided virtues, fugitive yet powerful,
when they are eaten, as it were, alive.

The butcher from Soulanges brought
his best meat, under penalty of losing the
custom of the redoutable Rig-ou. The
poultry, raised on the premises, was, of
course, of the finest quality.

This hypocritical care distinguished
everj'thing intended for Rigou. While
his slippers were of coarse leather, they
were lined with good lamb's wool. While
his coat was of coarse cloth, it did not
touch his skin, for his shirt, washed and
ironed at home, had been spun by the
cleverest fingers of La Frise. His wife,
Annette and Jean drank the wine of the
country, which came from Rigou's own
vineyard ; but in his particular cellar,
the finest wines of Burgundy were side
by side with those of Bordeaux, Cham-
pagne, Roussillon, the Rhone, and Spain,
all bought ten years in advance, and al-
ways bottled by Brother Jean. The
liquors coming from the Isles were from
Madame Amphoux; the usurer had ac-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

317

quired enough of them to last him his life
time, from the sale of a castle in Eur-
g-undy.

Rig-ou nte and drank like Louis XIV.,
one of the greatest known consumers.
He was discreet and clever in his secret
prodig-alit}^, he disputed his smallest bar-
gains as only people of the church know
how to dispute them. Instead of taking-
infinite precautions against being cheated,
the wil3' monk kept samples, and had
written agreements; but if his wine or
his provisions came from a distance, he
gave warning that at the slightest fault
in quality, he should refuse to accept
them.

Jean, the director of the fruit-room,
was trained to know how to preserve in
their freshness the finest fruits known in
the department. Rigou ate pears, ap-
ples, and sometimes grapes at Easter.

Never was a prophet more blindly
obeyed than was Rigou in his own house,
in his least caprice. The movement of
his great black e\'ebrows made his wife,
Annette and Jean mortally' uneasy ; he
held his three slaves by the minute multi-
plicit\' of their duties, which were like a
chain. Every moment these poor people
were beneath the lash of a required duty,
and of his watchfulness ; but they finally
found a kind of pleasure in the accomplish-
ment of these constant tasks, and did not
grow weary of them. The sole object of
the care and thoughts of all three was the
well-being of this man.

Since 1795, Annette was the tenth pretty
maid who had been emplo3'"ed by Rigou,
who intended to strew his wa^^ to the
tomb with these relays of young girls.
Annette had come at the age of sixteen,
and at nineteen she was to go away.
Each one "of them, chosen from Auxerre,
Clamecy and in the Morvan, were at-
tracted by the promise of a fine settle-
ment in life ; but Madame Rigou obsti-
nately persisted in living. And always, at
the end of three years, a quarrel, brought
on by the insolence of the servant toward
her poor mistress, necessitated her re-
moval.

Annette, a chef d'oeuvre of fine, piquant
beaut}'^, deserved the crown of a duchess.

She was not wanting in wit. Rigou knew
nothing of the understanding between her
and Jean Louis Tonsard, which proved
that he allowed himself to be taken in by
the pretty girl, the only one to whom
ambition had suggested flattery as a
means of blinding his lynx-like eyes.

This exquisite life, this life comparable
to that of Bouret, cost him almost noth-
ing. Thanks to his white slaves, Rigou
could cut and gather in his fagots, his
hay and his wheat. To peasants, manual
labor is a very little thing, particularly
in consideration of a promise of more
time given for payment of interest. Ri-
gou, while demanding little premiums on
each month's delay, exacted from his
debtors manual service, drudgery to which
they submitted, thinking they gave noth-
ing because it did not come out of their
pocket. Rigou sometimes received thus
more than the face value of the debt.

Deep as a monk, silent as a Benedictine
at work upon history, wily as a priest,
deceitful, like all misers, keeping always
within the limits of the law, this man
might have been Tiberius at Rome, Rich-
elieu under Louis XIIL, or Fouche, if he
had had the ambition to go to the Con-
vention ; but he was wise enough to be
a Lucullus without fasting, a voluptuous
miser. To occupy his mind, he played
with a hatred made out of whole cloth.
He harassed the Comte de Montcornet.
He made the peasants move by a play
of concealed threads, whose management
amused him like a game of chess where
the pawns were living men, where the
knights rode horseback, where fools like
Fourchon talked, where the feudal castles
shone in the sun, and where the queen
maliciousl}' checked the king.

Every day when he rose, this man saw
from his window the proud edifice of les
Aigues, the chimne3'S of the lodges, and
the superb gates, and he said to himself :
''All this will fall ! I will dry up these
brooks ; I will lay low these woods." He
had both his great and his little victims.
While he meditated the ruin of the cha-
teau, he flattered himself \>x thinking
that he would kill the Abbe Brossette by
pin-thrusts.

318

THE HUMAN OOMEDT.

To finish the portrait of this ex-monk,
it will suffice to say that he went to mass,
regretting" tliat his wife still lived, and
expressing a desire to become reconciled
with the Church as soon as he should
become a widower. He saluted the Abbe
Brossette with deference, when he met
him, and spoke g'ently to him, without
passion. Usualh', all those who belong
to the Church, or who have g"one out
from it, have an insect-like patience ;
they owe it to the oblig"ation to preserve
decorum, an education which, from the
age of twenty, is wanting* to the majority
of Frenchmen, even to those who believe
themselves to be well brought up. All
the monks whom the Revolution drove
from their monasteries and who went
into business have shown, by their cold-
ness and reserve, the superiority which
the ecclesiastical discipline g-ives to all
the children of the Church, even to those
who desert it.

Enlig-htened in 1792 by the affair of the
will, Gaubertin at length understood the
cunning" hidden beneath the face of
the clever hypocrite ; so he made himself
his accomplice, and worshiped with him
before the g-olden calf. When the house
of Leclercq was founded, he told Rigou
to put fifty thousand francs into it, and
he guaranteed them to him. Rig-ou was
all the more desirable as a sleeping- part-
ner, since he allowed his principal and
interest to remain and accumulate. At
this time Rigou's interest in the concern
amounted to more than a hundred thou-
sand francs, although, in 1816, he had
taken out the sum of one hundred and
eighty thousand francs to place it in the
funds, from which investment he derived
an income of seventeen thousand francs.
Lupin knew of a hundred and fdty thou-
sand francs which Rigou had in mort-
gages of small sums on g-ood property.
Ostensibly Rigou had about forty thou-
sand francs of net income from landed
property. But as fc^ his savings, they
were an unknown quantity which no rule
of calculation could determine, just as the
devil alone knew of the schemes which he
plotted with Lang-lume.

This terrible usurer, v/ho counted upon

at least tAventy years more of life, had
invented fixed rules of procedure. He
never lent to a peasant who had not at
least six acres, and who had not paid half
of the purchase money. It will be seen
that Rigou knew well the defects of the
law of dispossession, as applied to small
holdings, and the danger to the Treasury
and to propert3'--holders of too g-reat a
division of land.

How can a peasant be sued for the value
of one furrow, when he only owns five?
The foresight of private interest will al-
ways distance by twenty-five years that
of an assembly of legislators. What a
lesson for a country ! The law will always
proceed from one vast brain, one man of
g-enius, and not from nine hundred intelli-
g'ences, which, however great they may
be, are belittled by being in a crowd.
Does not Rigou's law contain, in effect,
the principle of that which has yet to be
found, to stop the nonsensical spectacle
of property divided into halves, thirds,
quarters, and tenths of a hundred, as in
the commune of Argenteuil, where there
are thirty thousand divisions of land ?

Such operations required an amount of
trickery as extended as that which weighed
upon this arrondissement. Besides, as
Rig-ou caused Lupin to draw at least a
third of the deeds which annually passed
throug-h his hands, he found a devoted
ally in the notary of Soulanges. The
shark could thus include in the contract
of the loan, which was always witnessed
by the wife of the borrower Avhen he was
married, the sum to which the illeg-al in-
terest amounted. The peasant, delighted
to have only five per cent to pay annual-
\j, during the duration of the loan, always
hoped to extricate himself from the debt
by means of abnormal work, or by im-
provements which should increase the re-
turns.

Hence came the deceitful marvels born
of what imbecile economists call " small
farming-," the result of a false policy by
which we are oblig-ed to carrj'- French
money to Germany to buy the horses
which our own country no long-er fur-
nishes, a mistake which will diminish to
such an extent the raising of horned cat-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

319

tie that meat will soon be unattainable
not only by the people, but b}^ the middle
class also.

Thus, between Conches and Ville-aux-
Fayes, many a man's toil went for Rig"ou,
who was respected b}^ all, while the work
for which the general, the only one who
scattered any money through the neigh-
borhood, paid high prices, brought him
nothing but curses and the hatred of the
poor for the rich man. Such facts would
be inexplicable without a glance at the
middle classes. Fourchon was right ;
the bourgeois were taking the place of
the nobles. These small proprietors, of
whom Courtecuisse was a type, were sub-
ject to mortmain to the Tiberius of the
valley of the Avonne, just as in Paris
the penniless manufacturers are the peas-
ants of the banking system.

Soudry followed Rigou's example, from
Soulanges to five leagues beyond Ville-
aux-Fayes. The two usurers shared the
arrondissement.

Gaubertin, whose rapacity was exer-
cised in a higher sphere, not only did not
compete with his associates, but he pre-
vented other capital in Ville-aux-Faj^es
from taking the same fruitful road. It
will thus be eas\'' to see what an influence
this triumvirate of Rigou, Soudry and
Gaubertin would have at elections, upon
electors whose fortunes depended upon
their good-will.

Hate, intelligence and fortune composed
the three sides of the terrible triangle de-
scribed by the closest enemy to les Aigues,
the sp3" upon the general, in constant com-
munication W' ith sixty or eighty small pro-
prietors, relatives or allies of the peasants,
who feared him as men always fear a
creditor.

Rigou was the outgrowth of Tonsard ;
the one lived upon natural, and the other
upon legal, thefts. Both were fond of
good living ; it was the same nature un-
der two aspects, the one natural, and the
other sharpened by a cloister education.

When Vaudoyer left the cabaret of the
Grand-I-vert to consult the ex-maj^or, it
was about four o'clock. This was Rigou's
dinner-hour.

When he found the private door shut.

Vaudoyer looked through the curtains,
and called :

"Monsieur Rigou, it is I, Vaudoyer."'

Jean came out at the porte-cochere,
and motioned to Vaudoyer to enter,
saying :

" Come this way ; monsieur has com-
pany."

The company was Sibilet, who, under
pretext of coming to an understanding
with Rigou concerning the verdict which
Brunet had just brought, was talking
with him upon a very different subject.
He had found the usurer finishing his
dessert.

On a square table, covered with daz-
zlingly white linen (for, regardless of the
work he gave his wife and Annette, Ri-
gou insisted upon having clean linen
every da}'), the steward saw a dish of
strawberries, apricots, peaches, figs and
almonds, all the fruits of the season in
profusion, served on plates of white china,
upon grape leaves, almost as daintily as
at les Aigues.

When he saw Sibilet, Rigou told him to
push the bolts of the inner doors, which
were made for each outer door, tcii pro-
tect from the cold as well as to a,^den
sounds, and asked him what important
business brought him in broad day-light,
when it was so much safer to confer by
night.

''The shopman talks of going to Paris
to see the keeper of the seals ; he is ca-
pable of doing 5'ou much harm; of ask-
ing for the removal of j^our son-in-law, of
the judges of Ville-aux-Faj^es, and of the
president, particularly when he reads
the verdict which has just been given
in your favor. He is turning refractory ;
he is cunning; he has an adviser in the
Abbe Brossette who is capable of tilting
with you and Gaubertin. The priests are
powerful. The bishop likes the Abbe
Brossette. Madame la Comtesse has
spoken of going to see her cousin, the
prefect, the Comte de Casteran, about
Nicolas. Michaud is beginning to under-
stand our little game."

'•'You are afraid," said the usurer, soft-
ly, casting a look upon Sibilet which sus-
picion rendered less impassive than usual,

320

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

and which was terrible. " You are cal-
culating- whether it would not be better
worth 3'our while to come out on the g-en-
eral's side,"

" I don't see, when you shall have divid-
ed les Aigues, where I am to find my four
thousand francs to invest Gvevj year,
honestly, as I have done for the last five
3'ears," replied Sibilet, shortly. "Mon-
sieur Gaubertin has made me some very
fine promises ; but the crisis is approach-
ing- ; there is certainl}^ going- to be fight-
ing. To promise and to keep are two dif-
ferent things, after the victory has been
won."

"I will speak to him," replied Rigou,
tranquilly. " In the meantime, this is
what I should reply to you, if I were in
his place : ' For the last five years, you
have taken four thousand francs to Mon-
sieur Rigou every year, and the worthy
man has given you seven and a half per
cent, which g-ives you now an account of
twenty-seven thousand francs, because
of the accumulation of interest ; but, as
there exists a deed, under private sig-
nature, between 3'ourself and Rigou, the
ste-v^rT-d of les Aig-ues will be sent away
on'e^ 3 day when the Abbe Brossette shall
put this deed before the shopman, par-
ticuJarly after an anonymous letter which
shall tell him of 3^our double-dealing-. You
would therefore do better to keep with us,
without asking- for your pay in advance,
for Monsieur Rigou, who is not legally
bound to give you seven and a half per
cent, would make you an offer of your
twenty thousand francs ; and before you
could touch the money, your suit, drawn
out by means of chicanery, would be
judged by the court of Ville-aux-Fayes.
If you behave wisely, when Monsieur
Rigou shall become proprietor of your
tribunal at les Aigues, jom will be able to
go on with about thirty thousand francs,
and thirty thousand others which Rigou
might intrust to 3'ou, which would be all
the more advantageous since the peasants
will rush for the estate of les Aigues,
which will be divided into little pieces,
after the manner of poverty in the world.'
That is what Monsieur Gaubertin might
say to you ; but I have nothing at all to

say ; it does not concern me. Gaubertin
and I have our own complaint to make of
this son of the people who is abusing his
own father, and we are pursuing our own
idea. Gaubertin may need you, but I
need no one, for everybody is devoted to
me. As for the keeper of the seals, he is
often changed, while we are always here."

"Then you knew all about it," said
Sibilet, who^^felt like a donkej'^ beneath a
pack saddle.

" All about what ?" asked Rigou, slj^ly.

"About '^hat the shopman will do,"
replied the steward humblj' ; " he went
to the prefecture in a rage."

" Let him go ! If the Montcornets did
not use wheels, what would become of the
coachmakers? "

" I will bring you three thousand francs
this evening at eleven o'clock," said Sibi-
let; "but you ought to do me a good
turn by giving up to me some of your
maturing mortgages, the kind that will
be worth some good plots of ground to
me."

" I have the one belonging to Courte-
cuisse, and I want to treat him gently,
for he is the best shot in the department ;
in transferring it to you, you will seem to
be harassing him on the shopman's ac-
count, and that will be striking two blows
with one stone. He would be capable of
anything if he found himself lower than
Fourchon. Courtecuisse has ruined him-
self on La Bachelerie. He has improved
the land, and put walls for the fruit to
train against. The little property must
be worth four thousand francs, and the
comte would gladly give you that for the
three acres which fit in with his own
land. If Courtecuisse had not been so
idle, he would have been able to pay his
interest with game killed on the place."

" Well, transfer it to me, and I will get
m}^ butter out of it, and I shall have the
house and garden for nothing. The comte
wil buy the three acres."

"What part of it will you give me ? "

" Good heavens ! you would draw milk
from an ox ! " exclaimed Sibilet ; "and
after I have just got from the shopman
the order to regulate the gleaning ac-
cording to the law."

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

331

" Did you get that, my boy ? " said
Rig-ou, who, several days before, had sug-
gested the idea to Sibilet, telling him to
advise the general to that effect. " We
have him ; he is lost. But it is not enough
to hold him by one string ; we must wind
him with cords like a roll of tobacco.
Draw the bolts, ni}'" good fellow ; tell my
wife to bring the coffee and liquors, and
tell Jean to harness up. I am going to
Soulanges. Good-by until this evening.
How do 3^ou do, Yaudoyer," he added,
as his former garde-champetre entered.
" Well, what is it ? "

Vaudoyer related all that had just
taken place at the carabet, and asked
Rigou's opinion as to the legality of the
steps meditated by the general.

''He has the right," replied Rigou,
curtly. "We have a hard lord. The
Abbe Brossette is malicious ; he suggests
all these measures because you do not go
to mass, you heap of unbelievers ! I go ;
there is a God, you know. If you endure
everything, the shopman will keep on
encroaching."

"Well, we shall glean," said Vau-
doyer, with the resolute accent which
distinguishes the Burgundian.

"Without any certificate of pauper-
ism?" asked the usurer. "They say
that he has gone to the perfecture to ask
for troops, to keep yon in order."

" We will glean as we have always
done," repeated Vaudoyer.

"Glean, then! Monsieur Sarcus will
judge whether you are right," said the
usurer^ as if he were promising the glean-
ers the protection of the justice of the
peace.

"We will glean, and we will be in
force ! or Burgundy will be no longer
Burgundy," said Vaudoyer. "If the
gendarmes have sabers, we have scythes,
and we will see ! "

At half past four the great green gate
of the old presbytery turned upon its
hinges, and the bay horse, led by the
bridle by Jean, turned toward the square.
Madame Rigou and Annette, who had
JQst come out of the private door, looked
at the little wicker carriage, painted
green, with its leather hood, where the
Balzac — k

master was comfortably seated on his
soft cushions.

" Do not be late home, monsieur," said
Annette, making a little face.

The villagers, who were already awaro
of the threatening steps that the mayor
was about to take, came to their doors or
stopped in the street when t'hey saw Rigou,
thinking that he was on his way to Sou-
langes to defend them.

"Well, Madame Courtecuisse, our ex-
mayor is probably on his way to defend
us," said an old woman who was knitting,
and who was much interested in the ques-
tion of forest depredations, since her hus-
band sold the fagots that he stole from
Soulanges.

"Yes, his heart aches for what has
happened ; he is as sorry about it as all
the rest of you," replied the poor woman,
who trembled at the name of her creditor,
and who praised him through very fear.

" To sa}"- nothing of the shameful way
they have treated him. Good-day, Mon-
sieur Rigou," she added, for Rigou had
bowed to her as well as to his debtor.

When the usurer crossed the Thune,
which was fordable at all times, Tonsard,
who had come out of his cabaret, spoke to
him on the road.

"Well, Pere Rigou," he said, "does
the shopman want us to be his dogs ? "

"We will see about that," replied the
usurer, whipping up his horse.

" He will know how to defend us," said
Tonsard to a group of women and chil-
dren who gathered around him.

" He is thinking as much about you as
an innkeeper thinks of his gudgeons when
he is getting his chickens ready to fry,"
returned Fourchon.

" Take the clapper out of your throat
when you are drunk," said Mouche, pull-
ing the old man by his blouse, and making
him fall upon the bank beneath a poplar
"If that mastiff of a monk heard that,
you would not sell your stories to him an j'
more at such a price."

Rigou was hurrying to Soulanges, on
account of the important news brought
to him by the steward of les Aigues, which
seemed to him to menace the secret coali-
tion of the bours-eois of the Avonne.

322

THE HUMAN COMEDY,

XIV.

THE FIRST SOCIETY OF SOULANGES.

About six kilometers from Blangy, to
speak in round numbers, and at an equal
distance from Ville-aux-Fayes, lies the
little town of Soulanges, surnamed la
Jolie. It is built in the form of an am-
phitheater, on an elevation, a branch of
a chain of hills parallel to the one at the
base of which runs the Avonne.

At the foot of this elevation the Thune
jQows over a clay bottom for a space of
about sixty acres, at the end of which the
mills of Soulanges, built on several islands,
form a g^roup as graceful as any landscape
architect could devise. After watering-
the park of Soulanges, where it supplies
beautiful rivers and artificial lakes, the
Thune empties into the Avonne through
a magnificent channel.

The chateau of Soulanges, rebuilt under
Louis XIV., from designs by Mansard, is
one of the most beautiful in Burgundy,
and faces the town. Thus Soulanges and
the castle each have a beautiful view. The
high-road winds between the town and
the pond, rather pretentiously called by
the country people the Lake of Sou-
langes.

The little town presents one of those
compositions, so rare in France, where
French prettiness is absolutely missing.
The prettiness of Switzerland is there,
as Blondet said in his letter ; the pretti-
ness of the neighborhood of Neufchatel.
The bright vine^^ards which form a belt
for Soulanges complete this resemblance,
which does not include the neighborhood
of the Jura and the Alps. The streets,
placed one above another on the hill,
have few houses, for they all have gar-
dens, which produce masses of verdure
rarely seen in capitals. The blue or red
. roofs, mingled with flowers, trees, and
trellised terraces, offer varied but har-
monious aspects.

The church, an old one of the Middle
Ages, built of stone, thanks to the munifi-
cence of the lords of Soulanges, who re-
served first a chapel near the choir, and
then a subterranean chapel, for their

tomb, has for a portal, like that of
Longjumeau, an immense arcade, fringed
with flower-beds and ornamented with
statues, and flanked by two pillars in
niches terminating in spires. This door,
which is so common in small churches of
the Middle Ages which chance has pre-
served from the ravages of Calvinism, is
crowned by a triglyph above which is
a sculptured Virgin, holding- the infant
Jesus. The low sides are composed
without of five arcades defined by stone
ribs and lig-hted by g-lass windows. The
apse rests on arched abutments that are
worthy of a cathedral. The clock-tower,
which is in a branch of the cross, is a
square tower surmounted by a chime of
bells. This church can be seen at a great
distance, for it is at the top of the great
square, at the foot of which passes the
road.

The public square, which is of a g-ood
size, is bordered with original construc-
tions, all of different periods. Many of
them, half wood and half brick, whose
timbers have a facing of slate, date back
to the Middle Ages. Others, built of
stone, and having a balcony, show the
gable so dear to our ancestors, and date
back to the twelfth century. Several
attract attention by old projecting beams
with grotesque figures whose projections
form pent-houses, and which recall the
time when the middle class was essential-
ly commercial. The most magnificent
is the old bailiwick, a house with a sculpt-
ured front, on a line with the cliurch,
with which it corresponds admirably.
At its sale as national property, it was
bought by the commune, which turned it
into the mayor's house and courthouse,
where Monsieur Sarcus had presided ever
since the establishment of justices of the
peace.

This slight sketch will permit a g-lance
at the square of Soulanges, ornamented
in the middle by a charming- fountain
brought from Italy, in 1520, by the Mar-
shal de Soulanges, which would not have
dishonored a great capital. A perpetual
stream of water, supplied from a spring
at the top of the hill, was distributed by
four cupids in white marble, holding- shells

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

323

in their hands and baskets of grapes on
their heads.

Learned travelers who passed that way,
if there ever were an^"^ after Blondet, might
recog-nize the pubhc square illustrated by
Moliere and \)Y the Spanish theater, which
reigned for so long on the French stage,
and which will always prove that comedy
was born in a warm country, where life
is passed on the public square. The
square at Soulanges still further resem-
bles this classic square, always alike in
all theaters, in that the first two streets,
intersecting it just above the fountain,
afford the exits so necessary to masters
and valets, when the}'' want to meet or
escape each other. At the corner of one
of these streets, which is called the Rue
de la Fontaine, shines the coat of arms of
Master Lupin, The houses of Sarcus, the
tax-gatherer Guerbet, Brunet, registry
clerk Gourdon and his brother the doctor,
and old Monsieur Gendrin-Yattebled, the
head keeper of the waters and forests, all
kept in perfect order by their proprie-
tors, stand around the square, which is
the aristocratic part of Soulanges.

Madame Soudry's house — for the pow-
erful individuality of Mademoiselle La-
guerre's former waiting-maid had domi-
nated the importance of the chief of the
communit}' — was entirely modern, and
had been built b}'- a rich wine merchant,
a native of Soulanges, who, after having
made his fortune at Paris, returned in
1793 to buy wheat for his birthplace. He
was massacred as a monopolist by the
populace, led on by a miserable mason,
Godain's uncle, with whom he had had
disputes relating to his ambitious build-
ings.

The settlement of this estate, which
was eagerly disputed among the heirs,
lingered along, until, in 1798, Soudry, on
his return to Soulanges, was able to buy
for a thousand crowns in specie the wine
merchant's palace \ and he at first leased
it to the department for the headquarters
of the gendarmerie. In 1811 Mademoiselle
Cochet, whom Soudry consulted in every-
thing, strongl}'- opposed a renewal of the
lease, finding their own house uninhabi-
table, as she said, in such close quarters

to barracks. The town of Soulanges,
aided b}' the Government, then built a
house for the gendarmes, in a street at
angles to the mayor's house. Then the
brigadier swept his house and restored
it to its primitive luster, which had been
tarnished by the stable and the gen-
darmes.

This house, only one storj' high, with a
roof pierced by mansard windows, had
three fronts, one overlooking the square,
one the lake, and one a garden. The
fourth side overlooked a court which
separated .the Soudry's from the next
house, which was occupied by a grocer
named Vattebled, a man not in the first
society, and the father of the beautiful
Madame Plissoud, of whom we shall hear
more later.

The fagade looking out upon the lake
was bordered by a garden terrace, with a
wall of medium height, terminating in a
stone balustrade, and running parallel
with the high-road. The entrance to the
garden was down this terrace, by means
of a staircase, on each step of which was
an orange tree, a pomegranate, a myrtle,
or other ornamental tree ; for these a hot-
house was required, which was situated at
the foot of the garden. From the square,
the house was entered by means of a flight
of several steps. According to the custom
in small towns, the carriage gate, re-
served for state occasions, for the mas-
ter's horse, and for extraordinary arrivals,
was rarely opened. The frequenters of
the house, who usually came on foot, used
the flight of steps.

The style of the house was plain. The
different stories were indicated by lines ;
the windows were incased in frames alter-
nately slender and strong, like those of
the pavilions Gabriel and Perronnet on
the Place Louis XV. These ornaments,
in such a small town, gave a monumental
appearance to this celebrated house.

Opposite, at the other angle of the
square, was the famous Cafe de la Paix,
whose peculiarities and renowned Tivoli
Avill require later a more detailed descrip-
tion than that of the Soudry mansion.

Rigou rarely came to Soulanges, for
every one went to him, the notary Lupin

324

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

as well as Gaubertin, and Soudr\' as well
as Gendrin, so much was he feared. But
it will be seen that every learned man,
like the ex-monk, would have imitated
Rigou's reserve, by means of the sketch,
which will be necessary here, of per-
sons of whom it is said in the coun-
try: " They are the first society of
Soulang-es."

Of all these fig-ures, the most original
one, as will be expected, was that of Ma-
dame Soudrj^, whose personality, to be
well painted, requires the most minute
brush.

Madame Soudry permitted herself " a
suspicion of rouge," in imitation of Made-
moiselle Laguerre; but this slight tint
had changed, by force of habit, to
patches of vermilion, so picturesquely
called carriage wheels by our ancestors.
The wrinkles of her face becoming deeper
and more numerous, the mayor's wife
thought she could fill them up with
paint. Her forehead became too yellow,
and as her temples reflected like a mirror,
she put on a little white, and made the
veinings of youth by light lines of blue.
This painting gave an excessive vivacity
to her tricky eyes, and her face would
have looked very odd to a stranger ; but
as they were accustomed to this fictitious
brilliancy, the society in which she moved
thought her beautiful.

Her dress was always low in the neck,
showing her back and her chest, which
were whitened and varnished by the
same processes employed upon her face ;
but fortunately, under pretext of exhibit-
ing her magnificent lace, she kept these
chemical products half concealed. She
alwaj'S wore whalebones in the body of
her dress, whose point was very long;
and the waist was trimmed everywhere
with knots of ribbon. Her skirt always
creaked, so much did the silk and the fur-
belows abound.

This attire, which deserves the name
of apparel, a word which will soon be
inexplicable, was in the evening com-
posed of the most expensive damask ;
for Madame Soudry possessed countless
habiliments, each one costlier than the
other, comprisiiig the whole of the im-

mense and splendid wardrobe of Made-
moiselle Laguerre, and all made over by
her in the latest fashion of 1808. The
hair of her blonde wig", crimped and
powdered, seemed to lift up her superb
cap with its bows of cherry-red satin, to
match the ribbons of her trimmings.

If you will imagine, beneath this ultra-
coquettish cap, a monkey's face of ex-
treme ugliness, in which the flat nose, as
fleshless as that of Death, is separated,
by a wide margin of hairy lip, from a
mouth with false teeth, where the sounds
are mingled as in hunting horns, you will
with difficulty understand why the first
society of the town, and all Soulanges,
in fact, thought this woman beautiful,
unless we recall the terse, ex-prof esso
treatise which one of the most spirituel
women of our own time has recently
written on the art of making one's self
beautiful, in Paris, by the accessories by
which one is surrounded.

In the first place, Madame Soudry
lived in the midst of mag*nificent gifts
gathered together in her mistress's
house, which the ex-Benedictine called
fructus belli. Then she made something
exclusive of her ugliness by exaggerating
it, and by giving herself the air and the
manner which belong only to Parisian
women, whose secret is known even to the
most vulgar among them, who are always
more or less mimics. She laced to excess,
she wore an enormous hoop, she wore dia-
monds in her ears, and her fingers were
loaded with rings. And finally, above
her corset, between two mounds of fiesh
well covered with pearl-white, shone a
beetle made of two topazes with a dia-
mond head, a present from her dear mis-
tress, the fame of which had gone abroad
throughout the department. Like her
late mistress, she always wore her arms
bare, and waved an ivorj' fan painted by
Boucher, to which two little rose-diamonds
served as rivets.

When she went out, Madame Soudry
held over her head the true parasol of the
eighteenth century, consisting of a stick
at the top of which was a green umbrella
with green fringe. When she walked
about the terrace, a passer-by, looking^ at

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

325

her from a distance, would have believed
he saw a Watteau figure.

In the salon, hung with red damask,
with damask curtains lined with white
silk, whose chimney-piece was ornamented
with china images after the manner of the
good time of Louis 'K.Y . — in this salon full
of furniture of gilded wood with hind's
feet, we can understand that the people
of Soulanges might say of the mistress
of the house : " The beautiful Madame
Soudry ! " Thus the house became the
pride of this principal town of the can-
ton.

If the first societ3'^ of the little town be-
lieved in its queen, it was equally true
that the queen believed in herself. By a
phenomenon which is not rare, and which
the vanity of the mother, like that of the
author, accomplishes every moment be-
fore our eyes for literary works as well
as for marriageable daughters, in seven
years la Cochet had buried herself so well
in madame, the mayor's wife, that she
had not only succeeded in forgetting her
former condition, but she actually be-
lieved herself to be a Avell-born woman.
She remembered so well the toss of the
head, the treble voice, the gestures and
mannerisms of her former mistress, that
she was able to reproduce her imperti-
nence also. She knew her eighteenth cen-
tury, and had her anecdotes of the great
nobles and their relatives at the end of
her tongue. This anteroom erudition
gave her a style of conversation which
made her seem very distinguished. And
her soubrette wit passed for the finest in-
telligence. In morals, perhaps, she was
not the real article; but, with savages,
paste is as good as diamonds.

This woman found herself praised and
worshiped, as formerly'- her mistress had
been worshiped, by people of good so-
ciety, who found a dinner at her house
every day, if they liked, and coffee and
liquors if they came to dessert, which
they frequently did. No woman's head
could have resisted the exhilaration of
this continued incense. In the winter the
salon was well warmed and lighted with
candles, and filled with the richest of the
bourgeois, who praised and made away

with the fine liquors and excellent wines
taken from dear mistress's cellar. Thus
they and their wives enjoyed luxurj^ and
at the same time economized coal and
candles. And her praises were sung for
five leagues around, and even as far as
Ville-aux-Fayes.

" Madame Soudr^^ does the honors of
her house marvelously well," the people
said, when they talked over the families
in the neighborhood; ''she keeps an
open house, and makes everybody feel
at home. She knows how to do the hon-
ors with her fortune. She knows how to
make folks laugh. And what magnifi-
cent silver ! There is no house like it
an^^where, except at Paris."

The silver service, which had been given
to Mademoiselle Laguerre by Bouret — a
magnificent service by the famous Ger-
main— had been literally stolen by la
Soudry. At Mademoiselle Laguerre's
death, she had simply put it in her own
room and it had never been claimed by
the heirs, who knew nothing of the worth
of the inheritance.

For some time the twelve or fifteen per-
sons who represented the first society" of
Soulanges had been in the habit of speak-
ing of Madame Soudry as the intimate
friend of Mademoiselle Laguerre, ignor-
ing the word ''maid," and pretending
that she had sacrificed herself to her
friendship for the singer, by becoming
her companion.

It was strange, but true, that all these
illusions became realities to Madame Sou-
dry, and she believed them in her heart of
hearts. She reigned tjTannically over her
husband.

The gendarme, who was condemned to
love a woman ten years older than him-
self, who kept the control of her own
fortune, humored her in her idea of her
beautj'-. Nevertheless, when some one
envied him, and spoke to him of his hap-
piness, he sometimes wished that the other
man was in his place.

The portrait of this queen is slightly
grotesque, but several examples of the
same kind, of that date, ma3' be still
found in the provinces, some more or less
noble, and others belonging to the Avealthy

326

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

class; as, for example, the widow of a
farmer-g-eneral in Touraine who still wore
fillets of veal on her cheeks. This portrait,
painted from nature, would be incomplete
without the diamond frame in which it
was incased, and without the principal
courtiers, a sketch of whom is also neces-
sary, were it only to explain how formid-
able such Lilliputians are, and what the
organs of public opinion are like in little
country towns. Let no one deny, how-
ever, that there are localities which, like
Soulanges, without being- either a city, a
village, or a little town, have character-
istics of each. The faces of the inhabi-
tants are different from those in the heart
of large, commonplace provincial towns ;
the country life has its influence on morals,
and this mixture of tints produces figures
that are truly original.

After Madame Soudry, the most im-
portant person was the notary Lupin,
the business manager of the house of
Soulanges ; for it is useless to speak of
old Gendrin-Vattebled, the head keeper,
a nonogenarian at the point of death,
who had been confined to the house ever
since the advent of Madame Soudry ; but
after having reigned over Soulanges in
the character of a man who has enjoyed
his position ever since the reign of Louis
XV., he still spoke in his lucid moments of
the jurisdiction of the Marble Table.

Although he could count fort3^-five sum-
mers. Lupin was fresh and ros^^, thanks
to the plumpness which invariably at-
taches to people who live indoors. He
still sung romances, and adhered to the
elegant costume of drawing-room sing-
ers. He looked almost Parisian with his
carefully varnished boots, his saffron -
yellow waistcoats, his well-fitting coats,
his rich silk cravats and his fashionable
pantaloons. He had his hair curled by
the hairdresser of Soulanges, who was
the fashion-monger of the town, and at-
titudinized as something of a rake. He
alone had been to Paris, where he had
been received \)y the Soulanges. Thus
it would have been impossible not to rec-
ognize at once the supremacy that he ex-
ercised in point of elegance both as a
fashionable man and as a judge, only by

hearing him speak a single word, with
three modifications, the word ''croute." *

A man, a piece of furniture, or a wo-
man, might be " croute," or antiquated ;
in a second degree of imperfection,
"crouton;" but the third form of the
term, "croute-au-pot," was the superla-
tive of contempt. " Croute" might be
remedied, but " crouton" was hopeless ;
and as for " croute-au-pot ! " oh ! better
never have come forth from nothingness.
As for praise, he reduced it to a repetition
of the word " charming." " It is charm-
ing" was the positive of his admiration.
If a thing was " charming ! charming ! "
it was perfectly correct. But when it
came to "charming! charming! charm-
ing ! " then the ladder could be drawn in
at once ; the heaven of perfection was
reached.

The scrivener, for he called himself
scrivener, petty notary, and keeper of
notes, seeming to put himself by his
raillery above his ofiBLce, was on terms of
gallantry with the mayor's wife, who
had a secret liking for him, although he
was blonde and wore spectacles. La
Cochet had never fancied any except
dark men, with mustaches, and with
hairy tufts on their fingers ; but she
made an exception in Lupin's favor, be-
cause of his elegance, and she thought
furthermore that her triumph at Sou-
langes would not be complete without an
adorer.

The notary's voice was a counter-tenor;
he sometimes gave a specimen of it in a
corner or on the terrace, one of his ways
of earning a reputation for ' ' making him-
self agreeable," a rock against which all
men of talent, and men of genius also,
alas ! come to grief.

Lupin had married an heiress in sabots
and blue stockings, the only daughter of
a salt merchant, who had become rich
during the Revolution, which was an
epoch when smugglers of salt made enor-
mous profits, by favor of the reaction
which took place against duties on impor-
tations. But he prudently left his wife at
^ ^

* The word " croute " is a slang term for " be-
hind the age; antiquated."

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

32^

home, where she amused herself with a
platonic attachment for a clerk, named
Bonnet, who played in the second g'rade
of society the role his patron filled in the
first.

Madame Lupin, who was a woman with-
out any education at all, only appeared
upon hig-h festival days, when she was
like an enormous Burg-undy barrel dressed
in velvet, and surmounted by a little head
which was buried in shoulders of a doubt-
ful tint. No known method was capable
of keeping" her belt in its proper place ;
and 'the imagination of a poet, or better
still, that of an inventor, could not have
found on Bebelle's back a trace of that
undulating sinuosity which is usually
produced there by the vertebra of an
ordinary woman.

Lupin concealed beneath his coarse ex-
terior a subtle mind ; he had the good
sense to keep quiet about his fortune,
which was at least as large as that of
Rigou.

Monsieur Lupin's son, Amaury, was
the despair of his father. He was an
onl3^ son, and he refused to follow the
paternal career ; he abused his position
as only son by making enormous drafts
on the cash-box, but he never exhausted
his father's indulgence, for the notary
after each escapade always said : " I used
to be just like that myself." Amaury
never came to Madame Soudry's ; he said
she bored him, and he preferred the pleas-
ures to be found at the Cafe de la Paix.
He kept company with all the worst
characters of Soulanges, even that of
Bonnebault. He replied to his father's
remonstrances by the perpetual refrain :
*' Send me to Paris ; I am bored to death
here."

While Lupin was the musician of the
first society, Monsieur Gourdon, the
doctor, was its learned man. It was
said of him : "We have here a scholar
of the first merit." Madame Soudrj",
in memory of the days when she had
dressed Madame Laguerre for the opera,
attempted to persuade all her friends,
even Lupin, that they would have made
their fortunes with their voices, and in
like manner, she was wont to regret that

the doctor had never published any of his
ideas.

Monsieur Gourdon merely repeated the
ideas of Buffon and Cuvier, which would
scarcely have given him authority to pose
as a savant before the eyes of the people
of Soulanges ; but he was making a col-
lection of shells, and a herbarium, and he
knew how to stuff birds. He had the
glory of having promised a cabinet of
natural history to the town of Soulanges ;
and henceforth he passed in the depart-
ment for a great naturalist, the successor
of Buffon.

This physician, like a banker of Geneva,
whose pedantry, cold manner and puritani-
cal propriety he copied, without having
either the monej' or the calculating spirit,
exhibited with excessive complacency the
famous cabinet, which was composed of a
bear and a monkey, which had died on
their way to Soulanges ; all the rodents
of the department, the field-mice, the
dormice, the mice and the rats, etc. ; all
the curious birds killed in Burgundy,
among which shone an eagle of the Alps,
taken in the Jura. He possessed a col-
lection of lepidopteras, a word which
made every one expect to see monstrosi-
ties, and caused them to remark when
they saw the collection : " Why, it is
nothing but butterflies ! " He had a fine
lot of fossil shells, gathered from the col-
lections of several of his friends, who had
bequeathed their accumulations to him
when they died ; and finally, he had min-
erals of Burgundy and the Jura.

These treasures, which were kept in
cupboards with glass doors, below which
cases of drawers contained a collection of
insects, occupied the whole of the first
floor of Gourdon's house and were rather
effective by reason of the oddity of their
classification, the .magic of their colors,
and the assemblage of so many objects to
which no one paid any attention when
they were seen in their natural state, but
which were greatly admired under glass.
There was a special day for going to see
Monsieur Gourdon's cabinet.

'•I have," he said to those who were
curious, "five hundred subjects in orni-
thology, two hundred mammifers, five

328

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

thousand insects, three thousand shells,
and seven hundred specimens of mineral-
ogy."

"What patience you have had ! " said

the ladies.

''A man must do something- for his
countr3'/' he would reply.

He drew an enormous profit from his
carcasses by the phrase: "1 have left it
all to the town in my will." And then
the visitors admired his philanthropy.
There was some talk of devoting the
whole of the second floor of the mayor's
house, after the physician's death, to the
Gourdon Museum.

" I count upon the gratitude of my fel-
low-citizens to attach my name to it,"
he would say, "for I cannot hope that
they will put up a marble bust."

"But that will be the least that they
can do," they would reply ; "are you not
the glor3^ of Soulanges ? "

And the man finally came to look upon
himself as one of the celebrities of Bur-
gundy. The most solid income is not that
which comes from consols, but that which
is derived from self-love. The savant, to
borrow a phrase from Lupin, was happy,
happy, happy!

Gourdon, the registry clerk, was a
mean-looking little man, all of whose
features were gathered in the neighbor-
hood of his neck, in such a manner that
the nose seemed to be the point of de-
parture for the forehead, the cheeks, and
the mouth, which was attached to it as
all the ravines of a mountain are bom at
the summit. He was regarded as one
of the great poets of Burgundy, a Piron,
it was said. The merits of the two bro-
thers caused them to be spoken of in this
way: "We have at Soulanges the two
brothers Gourdon, two very distinguished
men, two men who would be sure to hold
their own in Paris."

The clerk was excessively fond of the
game of cup and ball, and this mania
brought on another, that of wanting to
sing the praises of the game, which was
all the rage in the eighteenth century.
In mediocre intellects, one mania often
accompanies another. Gourdon junior
brought forth his poem in the reign of

Napoleon. It is needless to say that it
belonged to a healthy and prudent school.
Luce de Lancival, Parnj^ Saint-Lambert,
Roucher, Vigee, Andrieux, Berchoux,
were its heroes. Delille was his god,
until one da}' when the first society of
Soulanges agitated the question whether
Gourdon was not superior to Delille, after
which the clerk always spoke with exag-
gerated politeness of Monsieur the Abbe
Delille.

The poems, written from 1780 to 1814,
were made after the same pattern, and
the one on the cup and ball will illustrate
them all. They required a certain knack.
The "Chorister" is the Saturn of this
abortive generation of jocular poems,
which usually had about four cantos, it
being recognized that six would wear the
subject threadbare.

This poem of Gourdon's, named the
"Ode to the Cup and Ball," followed
the poetical rules of these departmental
works, which were invariable in their
form ; they contained in the first canto
the description of the object sung about,
beginning, as did that of Gourdon, with
an invocation, whose opening lines were
as follows :

" I sing- this fine game which belongs to all ages.
To the little and great, to the fools and the
sages."

After having described the game, and
the most beautiful cups and balls known,
and told of what assistance the game was
to the business of the Singe-Vert and other
dealers in toj'-s, and after proving that the
game attained to the dignity of a science,
Gourdon ended his first canto with this
conclusion, which is like that of the first
canto of all poems :

" It is thus that the arts and the sciences too
Turn to profit a thing which seems trivial to
you."

The second canto is destined, as usual,
to describe the manner of using the object,
and the way in which one can derive profit
from it in the eyes of women and in the
world : a few lines will illustrate.

" Look now as he plaj's, in the midst of them all.
With his eye closely fixed on the ivory bail.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

329

How he watches attentively every move,

As the disk flies aloft, or descends from above.

When the ball falls at length on his maladroit

wrist.
His mistress consoles him ; the place she has

kissed.
He needs not your pity ; the hurt is but small,
And one smile from her lips recompenses for

all."

It was this picture, worthj- of Virgil,
which put in question the pre-eminence
of Delille over Gourd on. The word disk,
disputed by the positive Brunet, furnished
material for discussions which lasted
eleven months ; but Gourdon the savant,
one evening when the disputants were
getting- red in the face, crushed the anti-
disk party by observing :

*' The moon, which is called a disk by
the poets, is a globe."

" How do you know?" asked Brunet.
"We have never seen but one side."

The third canto contained the regula-
tion story, in this case the celebrated
anecdoter referring to the cup and ball.
Every one knows it by heart ; it was
about a famous mistress of Louis XVI. ;
but according to the formula employed
in the '^Debats" from 1810 to 1814, for
praising these works, ''It borrowed new
charms from the poetry and the acces-
sories which the poet knew how to throw
around it."

The fourth canto, in whicli the poem
was resumed, was ended by these bold
lines, which were suppressed from 1810
to 1814, but which came to light again
in 1824, after Napoleon's death.

" I dared to sing thus in those times of alarm.
Ah 1 if kings would ne'er carry a different arm,
If people would always employ their leisure
In games that would give them such innocent

pleasure.
Our Burgundy then, which has long lived in

fear.
Would return to the good days of Saturn and

Rhea."

These verses have been printed in a
first and only edition, from the press of
Bournier, the printer at Ville-aux-Fayes.

One hundred subscribers, by a sub-
scription of three francs each, secured to
the poem the dangerous precedent of an

immortality, and the poem was none the
less beautiful to them because these hun-
dred persons had each heard it a hundred
times in detail.

Madame Soudrj^ had just suppressed
the cup and ball, which had lain on the
pier-table in the salon, and which for the
last seven years had been an excuse for
recitation ; she had at length discovered
that the cup and ball rivaled her own
attractions.

As for the author, who boasted of hav-
ing a well-filled portfoho, the terms in
which he announced the advent of a ri-
val to the first societj^ of Soulanges will
sufficiently characterize him.

" There is a ver^^ curious bit of news,"
he had said, about two years previous ;
" there is another poet in Burgundy !
Yes," he continued, seeing the general
astonishment painted on the surrounding
faces, " he is from Macon. But what do
you suppose he does ? He puts the clouds
into his verses. They are a perfect jum-
ble ; lakes, stars, waves ! Not a single
'reasonable image, not an argument. He
is ignorant of the very sources of poetry.
He calls the sky by its name, he saj'S
moon quite plainly, instead of 'star of
the night.' People will go so far in their
wish to be original," he added, mourn-
fully. " Poor young man ! to be a native
of Burgundy, and to sing odes to water ;
it is a great pit3^ If he had consulted
me, I would have given him one of the
finest subjects in the world, a poem on
wine, an ode to Bacchus, for which I feel
myself too old."

TJiis great poet was ignorant of the
greatest of his triumphs (although he
owed it to the fact that he was a Bur-
gundian), that of having lived in Sou-
langes, which is entirely ignorant of the
modern Pleiades, even of their names.

A hundred Gourdons sang under the
Empire, and yet the period has been ac-
cused of lacking literature ! Consult the
'"' Bookseller's Journal," and 3'ou will see
poems on the game of chess, on back-
gammon, on geography, typography,
comedy, etc., without counting Delille's
masterpieces on pity, imagination, and
conversation : and those of Berchoux on

330

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

gastronomy, the science of dancing-, etc.
Perhapc in fifty j^ears people will be mak-
ing fun of the thousand poems that fol-
lowed meditations, orientals, etc. Who
can foresee the changes in taste, the od-
dities of fashion, and the transformations
of the human mind ? The generations as
they pass will sweep away every vestige
of the idols that they find on their path,
and they make new gods which will in
their turn be overthrown.

Sarcus, a handsome little old man with
a head sprinkled with gray, occupied him-
self both with Themis and Flora., or, in
other words, with legislation and with a
hot-house. He had been meditating for
twelve years a book on the " History of
the Institution of Justices of the Peace,"
"whose political and judiciary role had
already," according to him, " had several
phases, for they all existed by reason of
the Code of Brumaire, in the year IV.,
and to-day this institution, so precious to
the country, had lost its value for want
of salaries which were in harmony with
the importance of the functions, which
should be performed by officials whose
office would be permanent." He was
called in the community an able man,
and was accepted as the politician of this
salon. He was certainl}'- its bore. It was
said of him that he talked like a book.
Gaubertin promised him the Legion of
Honor, but he put it off until the day
when, as Leclercq's successor, he should
be seated on the benches of the center
left.

Guerbet, the tax-gatherer, the man of
wit, a great heavy fellow with a butter-
face, a false forelock and gold earrings,
which were always getting in the way of
his shirt-collars, had the hobby of po-
mology. Proud of possessing the finest
fruit-garden in the arrondissement, he
gathered his first crops a month later
than those of Paris. He cultivated in
his hot-beds the most tropical fruits, even
bananas, nectarines and green peas. He
proudly brought a bouquet of strawber-
ries to Madame Soudry when the}'- were
worth ten sous a basket in Paris.

In Monsieur Vermut, the apothecary,
Soulanges possessed a chemist who was

more of a chemist than Sarcus was a
statesman, or Lupin a singer, or Gour-
don the elder a savant, or his brother a
poet. Nevertheless, the first society of
the town paid little attention to Vermut,
and for the second he did not even exist.
Perhaps the one class instinctively felt
the real superiority of the thinker who
seldom spoke, and who smiled at follies
with such a mocking air that they were
suspicious of l^s science, w^hich they ques-
tioned under their breath ; as for the
other class, they did not take the trouble
to think of him at all.

Vermut was the butt of Madame Sou-
dry's salon. No society is complete with-
out a victim, some one to pity, to mock
at, to scorn, and to protect. Vermut,
occupied with scientific problems, came
with a loosely tied cravat, an open waist-
coat, and a little green redingote which
was alw^ays soiled.

The little man, who had the. patience of
a chemist, could not play (according to
the word which is used in the provinces
to express the abolition of domestic power)
Madame Vermut, who was a charming
woman, merry, and a good gamester, for
she could lose fort}'' sous without saying
a word, who railed against her husband,
plagued him with her epigrams, and de-
scribed him as a fool who knew how to
distill nothing but ennui. Madame Ver-
mut was one of those women who in a
small town are the life of society. She
furnished the little world with salt ; kitch-
en salt, it is true, but what salt ! She
permitted herself jokes that were rather
broad, but they were allowed to pass ;
she w^as capable of saying to the Cur6
Taupin, who was a man seventy years of
age, with white hair :

''Hold 3'our tongue, my lad ! "

The miller of Soulanges, who had an
income of fifty thousand francs, had an
only daughter w^hom Lupin had in his
mind for Amaury, since he had lost all
hope of marrying him to Mademoiselle
Gaubertin, and President Gaubertin also
had designs upon her for his son, the
keeper of mortgages ; which was another
source of antagonism.

This miller, a Sarcus Taupin, was the

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

331

Nucingen of the town. He was said to
have three millions ; but he would enter
into no speculations ; he thought only of
the grinding of wheat, and of monopoliz-
ing' it, and he recommended himself by an
absolute lack of good manners or polite-
ness.

Guerbet the father, brother of the post-
master of Conches, had an income of
about ten thousand francs, besides his
salary as tax-gatherer. The Gourd ons
were rich ; the doctor had married the
only daughter of old Monsieur Gendrin-
Vattebled, the head keeper of waters and
forests, who was expected to die ; and the
registry clerk had married the niece and
sole heir of the Abbe Taupin, the cure of
Soulanges, a fat priest who had retired
within his cure as a rat in his cheese.

This clever ecclesiastic, who had a firm
place in the best society and was kind
and complaisant with the second class,
and apostolic to the unfortunate, was
much loved in Soulanges ; he was cousin
to the miller, and cousin to Sarcus, and
he belonged to the middle class people of
the Avonne valley. He always dined in
the town ; he economized ; he went to
weddings and left before the dancing
began ; he never talked politics ; he did
without the necessities of the service,
saying: ''That is my business;" and
the3^ allowed him to do it, saying : " We
have a good cure." The bishop, who
knew the people of Soulanges, without
being deceived as to the value of the cure,
thought himself fortunate in having in
such a town a man who could get religion
accepted, who could fill his church and
preach in it to nodding bonnets.

It is useless to point out that Pere
Guerbet understood finances perfectly,
and that Soudry might have been minis-
ter of war. Thus, not onl}^ did each of
these worthy bourgeois possess one of
those specialties of caprice, so necessary
to the existence of a provincial man, but
furthermore, each one had no I'ival in his
own particular field in the domain of
vanity.

If Cuvier had gone to the place anony-
mouslj'', the first society of Soulanges
would have been convinced that he knew

ver3'^ little in comparison with Monsieur
Gourdon the physician. " Nourrit, with
his pretty thread of a voice," said the no-
tar^^, with protecting indulgence, "would
have been thought scarcely worthy to
accompany the nightingale of Soulanges."
As to the author of the '*' Ode to the Cup
and Ball," which was at that time being
printed, it was thought that such another
poet could not be found, not even in Paris ;
for Delille was dead.

This provincial society, so complacently
satisfied with itself, could thus express all
social superiorities. The imagination of
those who, at some period in their lives,
have lived for any length of time in a
little town of this kind, can perhaps alone
fully imagine the air of profound satis-
faction upon the faces of these people,
who believed themselves the solar plexus
of France, all armed as they were with an
incredible cunning for evil-doing, and who>
in their wisdom, had decreed that one of
the heroes of Essling was a coward, that
Madame de Montcornet was a schemer,
and that the Abbe Brossette was an am-
bitious little man ; and who, fifteen years
after the sale of les Aigues, had dis-
covered the obscure origin of the general,
who was surnamed by them the Shopman.

If Rigou, Soudry and Gaubertin had all
lived in Ville-aux-Fayes they would have
quarreled ; their pretensions would in-
evitably have conflicted ; but fate willed
it that the Lucullus of Blangy should
feel the necessity of solitude to roll at his
ease in usurj^ and voluptuousness ; that
Madame Soudr^^ was intelligent enough
to understand that she could reign only
at Soulanges, and that Ville-aux-Fayes
was Gaubertin's headquarters. Those
who are fond of studying social nature
will confess that General Montcornet was
particularly unfortunate in finding such
enemies separated and fulfilling the evolu-
tions of their power and their vanity at
distances from each other which did not
permit their orbits to conflict, and which
thus doubled their power for mischief.

Nevertheless, if all these worthy'- bour-
geois, proud of their easy circumstances,
regarded their society as much more har-
monious than that of Ville-aux-Fayes,

533

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

and repeated with comic importance this
saying- of the valley : " Soulansres is a
town of pleasure and society," it would
scarcely be prudent to think that the
Avonne capital would accept this su-
premac}^. Gaubertin's salon secretly
made fun of Soudry's. From Gaubertin's
manner of saying" : " We others, Ave are
a city of immense commerce, a busy cit^'-,
and we are foolish enough to wear our-
selves out making fortunes ! " it was easy
to recognize a slight antagonism between
the earth and the moon. The moon flat-
tered itself that it was useful to the earth
and the earth lorded it over the moon.
The earth and the moon, notwithstanding,
lived in terms of closest intimacy. Dur-
ing the carnival, the best society in Sou-
langes always attended the four balls
given b}'^ Gaubertin, by Gendrin, by
Leclercq, the receiver of finances, and by
Soudr.y, junior, the king's deputy. Every
Sunday, Soudr3% junior, his wife. Monsieur,
'Madame and Mademoiselle Elisa Gauber-
tin, dined at the house of the Soudrj's of
Soulanges. When the sous-prefect had
been invited, when the postmaster. Mon-
sieur Guerbet of Conches, arrived to par-
take of the feast, Soulanges was treated
to the spectacle of four department equi-
pages standing before the Soudrys' door.

XV.

THE CONSPIRATORS AT THE QUEEN'S.

On arriving there, about half-past five
o'clock, Rigou knew he would find the
habitues of the Soudrys' salon all at
their posts. At the mayor's house, as
was the custom in the city, they dined
at three o'clock, according to the fashion
of the last century. From five to nine
o'clock, the notabilities of Soulanges met
to exchange their news, make their politi-
cal speeches, comment on the happenings
in the private life of all their neighbors,
talking of Aigues, which furnished gossip
for ever}'- hour in the day. It was the
business of exevj one to learn something
of what was passing there, and they knew

that by so doing their welcome would be
warmer from the heads of the different
houses.

After this obligator}' review, the}' sat
down to play "Boston," the only game
with which the queen was familiar. After
fat father Guerbet had mimicked Madanie
Isaure, Gaubertin's wife, by making fun
of her languid airs, imitating her shrill
voice, her little mouth and juvenile man-
ners ; when the cure. Monsieur Taupin,
had related one of the little stories of his
repetoire ; when Lupin had reported some
event of " Ville-aux-Fayes," and when
Madame Soudry had been overwhelmed
with sickly compliments, then they all
cried out: "We have had a delightful
game of Boston."

Too much of an egotist to put himself
out to travel the twelve kilometers, at
the end of which he would be apt to hear
the nonsense uttered by the frequenters
of this house and to see a monkey dis-
guised as an old woman, Rigou, very
superior in mind and in education to this
petty bourgeoisie, never showed himself,
except when business called him to the
notary's. He was excused from visiting,
offering as an excuse his occupations, his
habits and his health, "which would not
permit him," he said, "to return home
after night, by a route which ran along-
side the foggy Thune."

This great usurer imposed himself, how-
ever, a great deal on Madame Soudiy ;
who divined in him the tiger with steel
claws, the savage malice, the wisdom born
in the cloister, ripened in the brilliant
sunshine of gold, and with whom Gau-
bertin had never dared commit himself.

As soon as the wicker carriage and
horse had passed the Cafe de la Paix,
Urbain, Soudry's domestic, who was talk-
ing to the coffee-house keeper, seated on
a bench placed under the dining-room
windows, shaded his eyes with his hand,
in order to see more clearly to whom this
equipage belonged.

"Oh! here comes Pere Rigou! — Must
open the door. Hold his horse, Socquard,"
he said to the innkeeper, in a familiar
tone.

And Urbain, an old cavalry soldier, who

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

333

had not been able to pass an examination
for police officer, and had taken service
with Soudry, as a last resource, entered
the house, to g-o and open the door of the
court^^ard.

Socquard, this so truly illustrious per-
sonage in the valley, was there, as j'-ou
see, without any ceremony ; but there are
a great main^ illustrious men who have
the kindness to walk, to sneeze, to sleep
and to eat exactly like common mortals.

Socquard, a Spaniard by birth, could
lift eleven hundred-weig-ht : a blow from
his list, applied to a man's back, would
break the vertebral column. He could
twist a bar of iron and stop a carriage to
which a horse was harnessed. Milon de
Crotone of the valley, his reputation em-
barrassed all the department, and they
told the most ridiculous stories about him,
as they did about all celebrities. Thus,
they related in the Morvan, that one daj'"
he had carried a poor woman, her ass
and her sack to market on his back ; that
he had eaten an ox and drank a quarter-
cask of wine in one day, etc., etc. As
g-entle as a marriag-eable g"irl, Socquard,
who was a fat little man, with a pleasant
face, large shoulders, and a full chest, on
which his heart played a bellows, pos-
sessed a thread of a voice whose limpidity
surprised those who heard him speak for
the first time.

Like Tonsard, whose renown dispensed
with all outward proof of ferocity', like all
those who are vested with a public opin-
ion of any kind, Socquard never showed
off his triumphant muscular force, or at
least, only when asked to do so b}' friends.
He took the horse's bridle, when the
father-in-law of the king-'s deputy drew
up before the threshold.

" Are you well at home. Monsieur Ri-
gou ? " said the illustrious Socquard.

''Prett}'- well, my dear fellow," replied
Rigou. "■' Plissoud and Bonnebault, Vial-
let and Amaury, do they still live with
you?"

This question, though asked in a tone
of good-fellowship and interest, was not
one of those thoughtless questions thrown
by chance by a superior to an inferior.
In his spare moments, Rigou thought out

the slightest details, and already the ac-
quaintance of Bonnebault, of Plissoud
and the Corporal Viallet had been men-
tioned to Rigou by Fourchon as sus-
picious.

Bonnebault, for a few francs lost at
play, could sell the peasants' secrets to
the corporal ; or talk without an idea of
the importance of his babbling, after hav-
ing drank a few bowls of punch. But the
information of the otter hunter might be
the result of thirst, and Rigou paid no
attention to that, except in his connec-
tion with Plissoud, to whom his situation
ought to inspire a certain desire to op-
pose the inspirations directed against Ics
Aigues; were it for no other reason than
to grease his hand by one or the other of
the two parties.

Correspondent of the assurances, which
were beginning to show themselves in
Fi-ance, the agent of a society against
the chances of recruiting, which made his
fortune much more difficult to accumu-
late, his vices were a love of billiards and
the wine cup. With Fourchon, he culti-
vated the art of occupj'ing himself doing
nothing, and he expected to make his fort-
une by some unknown chance. He pro-
foundly hated the highest society, but he
acknowledged its power. Plissoud was
intimately acquainted with the bourgeoise
tyranny organized by Gaubertin ; he fol-
lowed up with his sarcasm the rich men
of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes. With-
out credit or fortune he did not seem to
fear them ; thus Brunet delighted at hav-
ing a despised competitor, protected him,
so that he would not sell his essay to some
ardent 3'oung man, like Bonnac, for ex-
ample, with wiiom he would have been
obliged to divide the patronage of the
canton.

" Thanks to these people, et ' bou-
lottes,'" replied Socquard; ''but they
imitate my mulled wine."

"Prosecute them!" said Rigou, sen-
tentiously.

"That would lead me too far," replied
the innkeeper, playing on his words, with-
out knowing it.

" Do they live peacef ulh- together, these
customers of vours ? "

334

THE HUMAN OOMEDY.

'* They are always having* some alter-
cation : but then they are gamesters, and
that pardons everything."

The windows of the salon, facing the
street, were filled with curious heads.
On recognizing his daughter-in-law's
father, Soudry came out to the steps to
receive liim.

''Well, ni3^ good fellow," said the ex-
soldier, using this word in its primitive
sense, " is Annette ill, that you favor us
with your societ}^ this evening ? "

By a remnant of gendarme bluntness,
the majT^or always went straight to the
point.

' " No, there is a quarrel," replied Rigou,
touching with the index finger of his right
hand the hand which Soudry held out to
him; ''we will talk about it, as it con-
cerns our children a little — "

Soudry, a fine looking man, clothed in
blue as though he still belonged to the
army, with a black collar, and spurred
boots, took Rigou's arm. The French
window was open on the terrace, where
the guests were walking about, enjoy-
ing the summer's evening, which glorified
the magnificent landscape spread around
them.

"It is a long time since we have seen
you, my dear Rigou," said Madame Sou-
dry, taking the arm of the ex-Benedic-
tine, and leading him out on the terrace.

"My digestion is so bad," replied the
old usurer. " Just see, my color is almost
as vivid as yours."

Rigou's appearance on the terrace
called forth an explosion of jolly saluta-
tions among these people.

" Laugh, Glutton ! I have discovered
one more," cried Monsieur Guerbet the
preceptor, offering his hand to Rigou,
who merelj' placed the index finger of
his right hand in it.

" Not bad ! not bad ! " said Sarcus, the
little justice of the peace, "he is a good
deal of a gourmand, our Lord of Blangy."

" Lord ! " replied Rigou, bitterly ; "it
is a long time since I have been the cock
of ray own dunghill."

"That is not the opinion of the hens,
you great rascal ! " said the Soudr^"^, giv-
ing him a playful tap Avith her fan.

" Are you well, my dear master ? " said
the notarj^ greeting his principal client.

"So, so," replied Rigoij, who again
placed his index finger in , the notary's
right hand. *

This gesture, by which Rigou restrained
any demonstrative hand grasps, should
have pictured the man's inner nature to
those who did not know him.

" Let us find a corner, in which we can
talk without interruption," said the an-
cient hobgoblin, looking at Lupin and
Madame Soudry.

"Let us return to the salon," replied
the queen. "These gentlemen," she added,
pointing out Monsieur Gourdonthe doctor,
and Guerbet, " are arguing on a ' point
de cote ' — "

Madame Soudry was delighted with
the point in discussion ; Guerbet was al-
ways so spirituel, he had said : " c'est un
point de cote." The queen thought it
was a scientific term, and Rigou smiled as
he heard her repeat this word with such
a pretentious air.

"What has the Tapissier done now^ ? "
demanded Soudry, who had seated him-
self beside his wife, his arm around her
waist.

Like all old women, the Soudry par-
doned many things for the sake of a
puT^lic exhibition of tenderness.

"But," replied Rigou, in a low voice,
as an example of prudence, " he has
started for the prefecture, there to re-
claim the execution of judgments and to
demand assistance."

"He is lost," said Lupin, rubbing his
hands; "they will butcher him."

"They will butcher him?" observed
Soudry, " that depends. If the prefect
and the general, who are his friends, send
a squadron of cavalry, the peasants will
butcher nobody — thej'- can, at a pinch,
defy the soldiers of Soulanges ; but it is
another thing to resist a charg-e of cav-
alry."

" Sibilet heard him say something more
dangerous than that, and that is what
brought me here," replied Rigou.

" Oh ! my poor Sophie ! " cried Madame
Soudry sentimentally, " into what hands
has Aigues fallen. This is what the Rev-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

335

olution has done for us ; be-tasseled bul-
lies ! They ought to have known that
when they turned a bottle upside down
the dregs wouW mount and spoil the
wine."

•'His intention is to go to Paris, and
intrigue near the keeper* of the seals, to
get favor in the tribunal."

"Ah ! " said Lupin, ''he has seen his
danger.'*"

" If they name my son-in-law for ad-
vocate-general, there is nothing to say
against it, and he will replace him by
some Parisian in his devotion," replied
Rigou, " If he demands a seat on the
bench for Monsieur Gendrin, if he has
Monsieur Guerbet, nominated for our
*juge d 'instruction,' president to Aux-
erre, he will upset all our plans. The
soldiers are already on his side ; if he
gains over the tribunal, and if he retains
near him such counselors as the Abbe
Brossette and Michaud, we will not be in-
vited to the feast. He can make a great
deal of trouble for us."

" How is it that for fifteen j^ears you
have not known how to rid yourself of
Abbe Brossette ? " asked Lupin.

''You do not know him. He is as
defiant as a blackbird," replied Rigou.
"He is not a man, this priest; he pays
no court to women. I can see no passion
of any kind in him ; he is unassailable.
A man who has a vice is always the valet
to his enemies, when they know how to
pull the string. The strong ones are
those who lead their vices, instead of
being led by them. The peasants are
getting along" very well, they hold our
world at baj^ against the abbe, but they
can as yet make no headway against him.
Look at Michaud ! Men like these are too
perfect, it is better for the good God to
call them to Him — "

"The Tapissier loves his wife and lie
can be caught by that — "

" Let us see if he follows out his ideas,"
said Madame Soudry.

"How ! " asked Lupin.

*' You, Lupin," replied Rigou, in an au-
thoritative tone, " you must wend your
way to the prefecture to see the beauti-
ful Madame Sarcus, this evening ! You

must manage to make her repeat to her
husband all that the Tapissier has said
and done at the prefecture."

"I will be obliged to sleep there," re-
plied Lupin.

"So much the better for Sarcus the
Rich, he will gain by it," remarked Rigou.
" As to you. Lupin, come back to Papa
Gaubertin's. You will announce to him
that a boon companion and myself," he
said, as he struck Soudry \s chest a great
blow, " will come and break a crust with
him, and ask a breakfast of him at mid-
day. Put him au courant with things,
so that each of us may agree, for it is a
question now of getting rid of this 'curs-
ed Tapissier. M-v idea in coming to you
was to say that he must embroil the Ta-
pissier with the tribunal, in such a way
that the keeper of the seals will laugh in
his face when he comes to ask him to
make changes in the government of Ville-
aux-Fayes — "

" Long live the Church people ! " cried
Lupin, patting Rigou on the shoulder.

Madame Soudry was immediately struck
with an idea, which could onl}' come from
the brain of an ex-lady's maid of an opera
singer.

" If we can only get the Tapissier to the
feast at Soulanges, and make him lose
his head to a pretty girl, he will perhaps
become entangled with this girl and quar-
rel with his wife, and by this she will
learn that a cabinet-maker's son will al-
ways go back to his first loves — "

"Ah ! my beauty," cried Soudrj^ "you
have more wit in you alone than all the
police force of Paris ! "

"This idea only goes to prove that
madame is our queen, as much by in-
telligence as by beauty," said Lupin,
gallantly.

Lupin was rewarded by a grimace, which
was accepted in the first society of Sou-
langes without protest as a smile.

"It would be better," said Rigou, who
had remained thoughtful for a long time,
" if this could be turned into a scandal."

"Verbal-process and complaint, a police
court affair," cried Lupin. "Oh! that
would be too fine ! "

" What pleasure," said Soudry naively,

336

THE HUMAN' COMEDY.

" to see the Comte de Montcornet, cross
of the Legion of Honor, commander of
Saint Louis, lieutenant-g-eneral, accused
of having- attempted in a public place,
bashfully, for example — "

" He loves his wife too much ! " said
Lupin, judiciously. ^' You will never lead
him as far as that."

"' That is not an obstacle ; but I can think
of no j'oung girl in the whole neighbor-
hood capable of making a saint sin. I
have been on the lookout for my abbe ! "
cried Rigou.

''What do you say to Gatienne Gibou-
lard, of Auxerre, the one Sarcus's son is
so crazy over?" asked Lupin.

" She would be the only one," replied
Rigou ; ^' but she would not do for us. She
thinks that all she has to do is to show
herself to be admired. She is not crafty
enough, and we need a trickster, a sly
one. But never mind, she will come."

" Yes," said Lupin ; ''the more pretty
girls he will see, the better our chances
are."

"It will be difficult to persuade the
Tapissier to come to the fair ! And , if he
does come to the feast, will he go to our
ball at the Tivoli?" said the ex-soldier.

" The reason that prevented him from
coming does not exist this year, my dear
heart," replied Madame Soudry.

" What reason was that, my beautj^? "
asked Soudry.

" The Tapissier tried to marry Made-
moiselle de Soulanges," said the notary'- ;
" he was told that she was too young,
and it piqued him. This is why Messieurs
de Soulanges and de Montcornet, these
two old friends — for both served in the
Imperial Guard — ^are so cold and distant
that they never see each other. The
Tapissier did not wish to meet the De
Soulanges at the fair ; but this year the\''
are not coming."

Ordinarily the De Soulanges familj' so-
journed at the chateau in July, August,
September and October ; but the general
commanded a regiment of artillery in
Spain,under the Due d'Angouleme, and the
comtesse had accompanied him. At the
siege of Cadiz, the Comte de Soulanges
•won, as we know, the marechal's baton,

which was in 1826. Montcornet's enemies
might well believe that the inhabitants
of les Aigues would not always look
down upon the feasts of Notre Dame in
August, and that it w^ould thus be easy
to attract them to Tivoli.

" That is right," cried Lupin. " Well,
it remains for you, papa." he said, ad-
dressing himself to Rigou, " to maneuver
in such a manner that you succeed in
making him come to the fair. We will
know how to entrap him."

The Soulanges Fair, which was cele-
brated on the 15th of August, was one of
the specialties of this city, and was more
important than all the other fairs for
thirty miles around — even than those of
the chief town of the department. Ville-
aux-Faj^es had no fair, for its feast, that
of Saint Sylvester, fell in winter.

From the 12th to the 15th of August
the merchants flocked to Soulanges, and
built, on two parallel lines, their wooden
booths and their canvas houses, which
lent an animated phj^siognomy to this
ordinarily deserted-looking place. Tlie
fifteen days during which the fair and
feast lasted produced a species of har-
vest to the little town of Soulanges. This
feast was authorized, and carried the
prestige of a tradition. The peasants, as
Father Fourchon said, left their com-
mune, where their work held them. For
all France, the fantastic outspreading of
improvised stores, objects of necessity or
of vanity to the peasants, wiio, besides,
have no ether shows, exercised a periodical
seduction over the imagination of women
and children. Thus, as soon as the 12th
of August came, the mayor of Soulanges
caused to be posted, the entire length
of the community of Ville-aux-Fayes,
placards, signed "Soudry," that prom-
ised protection to the merchants, to the
clowns and the "freaks" of every kind,
announcing the duration of the fair and
its most attractive spectacles.

On these placards, which were claimed
by Tonsard for Vermichel, this final line
could alwaj'^s be read :

" Tivoli will be illuminated by colored
lights."

The great effects produced bv the

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

337

Socquard ball on the imagination of the
inhabitants of this valley made them
very proud of their Tivoli. Those country
people who had ventured as far as Paris
said that the Parisian Tivoli only sur-
passed that of Soulanges in its size. Gau-
bortiii sturdily preferred Socquard 's ball
to the Tivoli ball at Paris.

"We will think it all over," saidRig-ou.
" The Parisian, this editor of newspapers,
will end by being- tired of his pleasure,
and we can attract all the domestics to
the fair. Sibilet, though his credit is
getting exceedingly low, may be able to
insinuate to his bourgeois that this is
a way to make himself popular."

" Find out then if the beautiful comtesse
is cruel to monsieur. It all lies in a nut-
shell, if we can only make him play the
fool at the Tivoli," said Lupin to Rigou.

"This little woman," cried Madame
Soudry, "is too much of a Parisienne
not to know how to obviate two incon-
veniences at once."

" Fourchon has married his grand-
daughter, Catherine Tonsard, to Charles,
Tapissier's second valet ; we will soon
know what is going on in the apart-
ments of Aigues," replied Rigou. " Are
you sure of Abbe Taupin ? " he said, as
he saw the cure coming in.

" L'Abbe and all the rest ? We hold
them as I hold Soudr3'^ ! " said Madame
Soudry, caressing her husband's chin, to
whom *ihe said : " Old fellow, you are
not unhappy, are you ? "

" If I can only get up a scandal against
this hypocrite of a Brossette, I count upon
them ! " said Rigou, in a low tone, which
he g;:*adually raised ; " but I do not know
if the spirit of the country can work upon
the priestls' spirit. You do not know
what it is. As I am not a fool, I will
not answer for myself ; and if I found
myself getting sick, I would no doubt
become reconciled to the Church."

" Permit us to hope so," said the cure,
for whose benefit Rigou had purposely
raised his voice.

" Alas ! the sin I committed in mar-
rying forbids this reconciliation," re-
plied Rigou. " I cannot kill Madame
Rigou."

" In the meantime, let us turn our
attention to les Aigues," said Madame
Soudry.

" Yes, " replied the ex-Benedictine. "Do
you know that I think our compatriot at
Ville-aux-Faj'^es stronger than us ? I have
an idea that Gaubertin wants les Aigues
for himself alone, and that he will leave
us out in the cold," added Rigou.

In his rambles, the country usurer had
with his baton of prudence been beating
Gaubertin 's obscure corners, and listen-
ing to their hollow ring.

"But les Aigues will fall to none of
us three. It would be necessary to de-
molish it from top to bottom ! " cried
Soudrj".

"Nevertheless, I should not be at all
astonished if hidden gold were found
there," said Rigou, slyly.

"Bah!"

"Yes; during the old-time wars, the
lords were often besieged and surprised,
and buried their treasures to keep them
from being captured ; and you know that
the Marquis de Soulanges-Hautemer, with
whom the cadet branch died out, was
one of the victims of the Biron conspiracy.
The Comtesse de Moret received the es-
tate by confiscation."

" See what it is to be acquainted with
the history of France!" cried the old
gendarme. "You are right, it is time
to tally our facts with Gaubertin."

"And if he evades us," added Rigou,
" we will see how we can get the best
of him."

" He is quite rich enough now to be an
honest man," said Lupin.

" I will answer for him as for myself,"
cried Madame Soudry; "he is the most
honest man in the kingdom."

"We believe in his honest}''," replied
Rigou ; " but nothing must be neglected
between friends. By the way, I suspect
some one in Soulanges of giving him the
tip."

"Who?" asked Soudry.

"Plissoud," replied Rigou.

"Plissoud," exclaimed Soudry, "the
poor jade ! Brunet holds him \>j the leg
and his wife by the jaw ; ask Lupin."

" What can he do ? " said Lupin,

338

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

''He wishes to enlig-hten Montcornet/'
said Rig-ou, '•' have his protection and
place liim — "

" Tliis will never weigh as much as his
wife to Soulang-es," said Madame Sou-
dry.

" He tells his wife everything- when he
is tipsy," observed Lupin. "We shall
know all in good time."

" The beautiful Madame Plissoud has
no secrets from you," replied Rig-ou.
''Well, we can make ourselves easy on
that point."

'• She is, nevertheless, as silly as she is
beautiful, " replied Madame Soudry. "I
would not change places with her ; for,
if I were a man, I would rather have a
homeh' witty woman than a beauty who
had not a word to say for herself."

"Ah!" responded the notary, biting
his lips, "she knows how to say three."

" Bosh ! " cried Rigou, making for the
door.

"Well," said Soudry, showing his
friend out, " I will see you to-morrow
early."

"I will call for you. By the wa.y.
Lupin," he said to the notary, who came
out with him to give orders for his horse
to be saddled, " see that Madame Sarcus
learns all that our friend Tapissier is
doing against us at the prefecture — "

" If she cannot know, who will ? "
replied Lupin.

The two deep politicians pressed each
other's hands and separated.

Rigou, who was not anxious to be found
traveling the roads alone at night — for he
was always prudent, notwithstanding his
recent popularity — said to his horse: "Go
along. Citizen ! " This was a little joke,
which this offspring of 1793 shot off
against the Revolution.

•' ' Pere Rigou does not make very long
visits," said Gourdon, the clerk, to Ma-
dame Soudry.

" They are entertaining, if they are
short," replied she.

" He abuses everything, as he does his
life," Gourdon answered.

"So much the better," said Soudry;
"my son will enjoy his wealth all the
sooner."

" Did he give you any news of Aigues ? "
asked the cure.

"Yes, my dear abbe," said Madame
Soudry. " Those people are the curse of
this country. I cannot understand whj'
Madame de Montcornet, who is a very
sensible woman, does not attend to her
interests better."

'•' They have a model under their eyes,
however."

"Who do you mean ? " asked Madame
Soudry, snickering.

" Soulanges."

" Ah ! yes," said the queen after a short
pause.

" Well, here I am ! " cried Madame
Vermut, entering at that moment, " and
without my re-active, for Vermut is too
inactive, to m}'- way of thinking, for me
to call him an active of any kind what-
soever."

" What the devil is that Rigou doing ? "
said Soudry to Guerbet, as he saw the
carry-all stop before the door of Le Tiv-
oli. " He is one of those tiger-cats whose
every action has an object."

" Sacre lui va ! " replied the fat little
preceptor.

" He is going into the Cafe de la Paix,"
said Doctor Gourdon.

" Do not be uneasy," replied Gourdon,
the clerk, " he is blessing them ; 3'ou can
hear their yelping from here."

"That cafe," added the cure, "is like
the temple of Janus. It called itself the
Cafe de la Guerre in the time of the Em-
pire, and they lived in a perfect calm ; the
most honorable bourgeois met there to
chat amicably — "

" He calls that chatting ! " said the
justice of the peace. " Ye gods ! what
conversations can compare to those of
Bournier ! — "

"But since, in honor of the Bourbons,
they have named it the Cafe de la Paix,
the}^ are continually quarreling," said
the Abbe Taupin, finishing the sentence
which the justice of the peace had taken
the liberty to interrupt.

This idea of the cure's was like quota-
tions from the " Bilboqueide," they some-
times repeated themselves.

"That is to say," replied Guerbet,

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

339

"that Burgundy will always be a coun-
try of blow^s."

" What 3^oa have just said is not bad !"
cried the cure ; ^' it's a true history of our
countr3^"

'• I know nothing" of the history of my
country," said Soudry ; ''but, before
learning it, I would like to know whj'-
my compatriot has just gone into the
cafe with Socquard ? ''

•'Oh I" replied the cure, "if he has
gone in, 3^ou may be certain that it is
from no deed of charit3\'''

" That man makes my flesh creep when
I see him," said Madame Vermut.

"He is so much to be feared," replied
the doctor, "that I could not reassure
mj'^self as to his death ; he is a man w^ho
would rise out of his coffin to play some
one a wicked trick."

" If any one can send the Tapissier here
on the 15th of August, and entangle him
in some scrape, it is Rigou," said the
mayor aside to his wife.

"Above all," she replied in a loud
voice, " if Gaubertin and thee, my dear
heart, mix up in it — "

"Listen to what I am saj'ing," cried
Monsieur Guerbet, giving Monsieur Sar-
cus'-s elbow a shove ; " he has found some
pretty girl at Socquard's, and he is put-
ting her into his carriage — "

"In the meantime — " added the clerk.

"Tliat is a joke without any malice in
it," cried Monsieur Guerbet, sarcastically.

"' You are wrong, gentlemen," said Ma-
dame Soudry. "Monsieur Rigou is only
thinking of our interests, for if I am not
mistaken, that girl is a daughter of Ton-
sard's."

"He is like the pharmacist who lays in
a stock of vipers," cried Guerbet.

"One would say that you had seen
Monsieur Vermut, our worth}'- pharma-
cist, from the way in which you speak."
replied Doctor Gourdon.

And he pointed out of the window,
across the square, to the little apothe-
cary of Soulanges, who was hurrying
along the str<'et.

"The poor little man," said the clerk,
who was suspected of being very atten-
tive to Madame Vermut ; "see how awk-

ward he is ! — And he is thought to be
wise ! "

"Without him," replied the justice of
the peace, "we would often be embar-
rassed at our autopsies. He was the one
who discovered the poison in poor Pige-
ron's stomach, and the Parisian chemist
at the court of assizes said he himself
could not have done any better — "

" He found nothing at all," responded
Soudry ; "' but as President Gendrin sa-id,
it is always better to presuppose poi-
son."

" Madame Pigeron did well to leave
Auxerre ! " said Madame Vermut. " She
was small-minded, and at the same time
a great rascal. Is it necessary to have
recourse to drugs to annul the marriage
tie ? Have we not much more certain
and 3'et innocent means of ridding our-
selves of any such burden ? I would like
to see a man find fault with my conduct !
Vermut is not very pleasing to me, but
he is not any sicker for that ; and Ma-
dame de Montcornet, just see how" she
strolls among her chalets and charter-
houses with that journalist, who comes
from Paris at her expense, and how they
cuddle each other under the genei-ars
eyes."

"At her expense?" cried Madame
Soudry. "Are you sure? If we could
only prove it, what a charming subject
it would be for an anonj^mous letter to
the general."

" The general ! " replied Madame Ver-
mut ; " but you would prevent nothing.
The Tapissier makes his own conditions."

" What conditions, m\' good friend ? "
demanded Madame Soudry.

" Well, he provides the lodgings."

"If poor Pigeron, instead of crossing
his wife, had only been wise, he might
have been alive to-daj''," said the clerk.

Madame Soudry leaned toward her
neig'hbor. Monsieur Guerbet de Conches ;
she treated him to one of her apish gri-
maces, which she flattered herself she
had inherited from her old mistress, as
she did her money, by right of conquest;
and redoubling her grimaces, as a sign
to the postmaster to watch Madame
Vermut, who was coquetting with the

340

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

author of the '•' Bilboqueide, " she said to
him :

"What bad taste that woman has!
What talk and what manners ! I do not
know that I can admit her much longer
' dans notre societe,' especially when Mon-
sieur Gourdon, the poet, is here."

•■' And verily, this is indeed a moral
society ! " said the cure, who had been
watching- and listening- to everything-,
without saying- a word.

After this epig-ram, or rather this satire
upon the "societe," which was so concise
and so true that it squelched every one.
It was proposed to plaj^a g-ame of Boston.

Is not this a picture of life, as it is, on
all the stag-es of what is commonly called
the world ? Change the terms, and there
is nothing- less, nothing- more in the g-ilded
salons of Paris.

XVI.

THE CAFE DE LA PAIX.

It was about seven o'clock when Rig-ou
was passing- before the Cafe de la Paix.
The setting- sun, slanting- across the pretty
town, bathed it in a rosy tint, and the
clear mirror of the waters of the lake
formed a contrast with the pomp of the
sparkling- windows, from which shone out
the most improbable and strangest colors.

He had become pensive, this deep poli-
tician, and buried deep in his plots, he had
allowed his horse to g:o his own g-ait, when,
as he neared the door of La Paix, he
heard his name mentioned in one of those
disputes which had made the name of
this establishment such a travesty, in
its habitual condition of contention.

To understand this scene, it is necessary
to explain the topography of this land of
milk and honey, bordered by the cafe on
the square and headed at the end of the
canton road b}'^ the famous Tivoli, which
the ringleaders intended should serve as
the theater for one of the scenes of the
conspiracy which had been brewing for
so long a time against General de Mont-
cornet.

From its situation at the corner of the
square and the roadway, the first floor of
this house, built after the fashion of Ri-
gou's, had thi-ee windows on the road-
way, and on the square two windows,
between which stood the glass door by
which you entered. The Cafe de la Paix
had a private door also, opening on an
alley way, which separated it from the
next house, that of Vallet, the haber-

dasher of Soulanges, and by which "you
passed into an interior courtyard.

This house, painted in golden yellow,
with green shutters, was one of the few
houses in the little town which boasted of
two stories and a mansard. And this
was why.

Before the marvelous prosperity of
Ville-aux-Fayes, the first story of this
house, Avhich contained four bedrooms,
each furnished with a bed and such
meager necessities as justified the name
of "furnished lodgings," were rented to
the people obliged to come to Soulanges
for the jurisdiction of the district, and to
visitors whom they did not have room
for at the chateau ; but, for twenty-five
years or more, these furnished rooms had
for lodgers only the mountebanks, the
feed merchants, the vendors of patent
medicines and the commercial travelers
who happened to pass that way. At the
time of the Soulanges fete, these rooms
rented as high as four francs a-piece per
day. These four rooms of Socquard's
brought him in a hundred francs, without
counting the income of the extraordinary
trade which his lodgers brought to his
cafe.

The facade of the side facing the square
was ornamented b}^ special paintings. In
the picture which separated each cross
piece of the door was seen billiard cues,
amorously tied with ribbons ; and above
the knots were painted bowls of smoking
punch, in Grecian cups. These words :
"Cafe de la Paix" shone forth, painted
in gold on a green background, at each
extremity of which were pyramids of tri-
colored billiard balls. The windows, out-
lined in green, had little panes of common
glass.

A dozen of arbor vitce trees, planted
right and left in their boxes, and which
were called trees by the frequenters of the
cafe, put forth a sickh^ pretentious vege-
tation. The awnings by which the shop
keepers of Paris and certain opulent citi-
zens protected their stores from the in-
tense heat of the sun were at that time
an mdvuown luxury in Soulanges. The
phials exposed on shelves behind the win-
dow panes no longer merited their name,
as the hennet liquor was subject to period-
ical cookings. In concentrating its rays
through the lenticular unevenness of the
panes, the sun caused the bottles of Ma-
deira, the syrups, the wines, and the
liquors to boil, and spoiled the boxes of
prunes and the bottles of bran died cher-
ries ; the heat being so intense that it
forced Aglae, her father and their boy to
pass their time on two benches placed on
each side of the door and but half shel-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

341

tered by the poor shrubs, which Made-
moiselle Socquard watered so carefulh-
with warm water. On certain daj'^s you
saw all three, the father, the dau^-hter
and the boy, stretched out like domestic
animals, sleeping- in the sunshine.

In 1804, when " Paul and Virginia" was
all Uie rage, the interior was hung- with
a paper representing- the principal scenes
of the novel. Here were pictured negroes
g-athering- cocoa, which beverage did not
play a ver^'" important part in this estab-
lishment, in which twenty cups of choc-
olate were not drunk during- a month.
This colonial commodity was so little in
demand among- the inhabitants of Sou-
langes that a stranger who would have
ventured to ask for a cup of chocolate
would have embarrassed good Pere Soc-
quard very seriously. He might, never-
theless, have obtained a cup of a nause-
ous brown concoction, made from little
tablets in which farina, shelled almonds,
and brown sugar were more prominent
than white sug-ar and cocoa, and which
was sold for two sous by the villag-e
g-rocers, and manufactured with the end
in view of ruining- the commerce of this
Spanish commodity.

As to coffee, Socquard simply boiled it
in a utensil known to all housekeepers as
the '' big- brown pot." He allowed the
powder, plentifully mixed with chicory,
to settle, and then served the decoction ,
with the sang-froid, Avorthy of a waiter
in a Parisian cafe, in a china cup which,
if thrown on the ground, would not be
broken.

At that time the respect paid to sugar
under the emperor was not yet done
away with in the town of Soulanges, and
Aglae Socquard generously carried four
pieces of sugar as larg-e as pebbles to the
grain merchant who had taken it into his
head to ask for this literary beverage.

The interior decorations, which were
relieved by mirrors in gilded fraines and
pegs upon which to hang hats and cloaks,
had not been changed since the time when
all Soulanges had come to admire these
fascinating paintings, and a counter in
imitation mahog-any, upon which stood
a marble fig-ure of St. Anne, in front
of it, again, two plaster vases and two
lamps, which were given by Gaubertin
to the beautiful Madame Socquard. A
clammy coating tarnished everything,
and could only be compared to that which
covers old pictures which have lain for-
gotten in the garret.

Tables painted to imitate marble, tabou-
rets in red Utrecht velvet, the Argand
lamp attached to a chain depending from
the ceiling- and decked out with crystals.

were part of the celebrities of the Cafe
de la Guerre.

There, between 1803 and 1804, the bour-
g-eois of Soulanges repaired to play domi-
noes and brelan, drinking- little glasses of
liquor and wine, picking- the fruits out of
the brandy in which they were preserved,
and munching- biscuits : for the hig-h price
of the colonial commoditj' had made cof-
fee, sugar and chocolate a luxury. Punch
was the great dainty, as was also a kind
of tea sweetened with syrup of capellaire.
These preparations were made with a
sug-ary substance, a syrup resembling-
molasses, the name of which is lost, but
which made the fortune of the inventor
of it.

These brief details will recall their ana-
logue to the memory of travelers ; and
those who have never left Paris will see
in imag-ination the ceiling- blackened by
smoke of the Cafe de la Paix and its
glasses tarnished by thousands of brown
points, which will prove to them in what
a state of independence the flies lived in
this happy cafe.

The beautiful Madame Socquard, whose
gallantries surpassed those of Tonsard
of the Grand-I-vert, had lorded it there,
dressed after the fashion of the last cent-
ury. She was very partial to turbans.
La Sultane had been as much the fashion
under the Empire, as the Ange is to-day.

All the valle}^, in past times, used to
come for patterns for new stj'les of tur-
bans, hats with broad brims, and fur bon-
nets, as well as the Chinese head-dresses
of the handsome cafetiere, to whose lux-
ury the big wigs of Soulanges all contrib-
uted. With her dress bodice under her
arms, in the style of our mothers, so
proud of their imperial graces, Junie (she
called herself Junie !) did the honors of
the Socquard house. Her husband owed
to her the vineyard, the house they lived
in, and Tivoli. Monsieur Lupin's father
had done many foolish things for beauti-
ful Junie Socquard.

These details, and the secret recipe
Avhich Socquard had for his special wine,
will amply explain why his name and that
of the Cafe de la Paix had become so pop-
ular ; but there were many other reasons
besides for this popularity. At Tcnsard's
and the other inns throug-hout the val-
ley wine alone could be obtained ; while
from Conches to Ville-aux-Faj-es, a cir-
cumference of six miles, Socquard 's cafe
was the only one where yo'u could play
billiards and drink the punch so admir-
ably prepared by that famous innkeeper.
Here alone were spread out to public view
the wines of strange countries, fine liq-
uors and brandied fruits.

342

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

This name was sounded almost every
day throughout tlie valley, and was united
with the voluptuous ideas of men whose
stomachs are more sensitive than their
hearts. To these causes was also joined
the privilege of being" an integral part of
the Soulang-es fete. In a superior man-
ner, the Cafe de la Paix was for the cit}''
what the inn of the Grand-I-vert was for
the country around— a warehouse of ven-
om; it served as a transmission of tittle-
tattle between Ville-aux-Fayes and the
valle3\ The Grand-I-vert furnished all
the milk and cream to the Cafe de la Paix,
and Tonsard's two sons were in daily com-
munication with this establishment.

For Socquard, the Soulang-es square
was but an appendage to his cafe. The
innkeeper went from door to door, chat-
ting with every one ; wearing in summer
but a pair of pantaloons and a shirt,
merely buttoned, according to the fash-
ion of the innkeepers in small towns.
He was notified by the people with whom
he was chatting if any one entered his
establishment, to which he would wend
his way, heavily and regretfully.

These details ought to convince those
Parisians who have never left their own
quarter the difficulty, or, better still, the
impossibility of hiding the slightest thing
in the valley of the Avonne, from Con-
ches to Ville-aux-Fayes. There exists in
country places no solution of continuity;
little distances apart are to be found
inns like the Grand-I-vert, or cafes like
La Paix, which form echoes, and where
the most simple actions, accomplished in
the gi^eatest secrecj^, are repeated as if
by magic. This social gossip takes the
place of the electric telegraph ; it is thus
that these miracles are accomplished of
news learned in the wink of an eye, of un-
expected disasters from a great distance.

After stopping his horse, Rigou de-
scended from his carriage and tied the
bridle to one of the door-posts of the
Tivoli. Then he found the most natural
pretense for listening to the discussion
without seeming to do so. Placing him-
self between two windows, b}'^ one of which
he could, by putting his head a little for-
ward, see the people and study their gest-
ures, he at the same time caught the drift
of their loud words, which rang out from
the open windows and which the great
calm of the evening made more audible.

" And if I were to say to Pere Rigou
that your brother Nicolas was running
after Pechina," cried a sharp voice, ^' that
he watches her at all hours, that she will
pass under his nose to your lord, he will
know how to upset your affairs, you pack
of knaves at the Grand-I-vert."

" If you should do anything so 81115%
Aglae," replied Marie Tonsard's shrill
voice, "3'ou do not know what a revenge
I will take upon you. Do not meddle
with Nicolas's affairs, any more than
with mine and Bonnebault's.''

Marie, stimulated b3^ her grandmother,
had, as we see, followed Bonnebault ;
spying upon him, she had seen him,
through the same window at which Ri-
gou was stationed, whispering the most
agreeable flatteries to Mademoiselle Soc-
quard, who was so tickled that she smiled
sweetly upon him. This smile had led to
the scene, in the midst of which burst
forth this revelation so precious to Rigou.

" Well, Pere Rigou, you are degrading
my property ! " said Socquard, slapping
the usurer on the shoulder.

The innkeeper had just come from a
barn, situated at the end of his garden,
from which he had been superintending
the taking out of a great inanj^ public
games; weighing machines, merr}- -go-
rounds, balancing poles, etc., etc., to
transport them to the places they would
occupy at Tivoli. He had walked noise-
lessly, as he wore his j^ellow leather slip-
pers, the low price of which caused them
to be sold in great quantities throughout
the provinces.

" If 3'ou have anj^ fresh lemons, I will
have a lemonade, as the evening is very
hot,'"' replied Rigou.

"But who is bawling thus?" asked Soc-
quard, looking through the window and
seeing his daughter quarreling with Marie.

" They are fighting over Bonnebault,"
replied Rigou with a fiendish smile.

The father's wrath was in contention
in Socquard's heart with his interest as
innkeeper. The innkeeper judged it pru-
dent to listen outside as Rigou was doing;
while the father wanted to enter and de-
clare that Bonnebault, full of estimable
qualities in the eyes of an innkeeper, had
not one single trait that would make him
acceptable as the son-in-law of one of the
notabilities of Soulanges. And all this,
notwithstanding the fact that Socquard
received very few olfers of marriage for
his daughter. At twenty-two j^ears of
age, his daughter, by her size and weight,
ran a race with Madame Vermichel ; and
yet her agility was something phenome-
nal. Her daily occupation of standing
behind the counter augmented greatly
the tendency to embonpoint which Aglae
inherited from her father.

''What the devil is the matter with
those girls?" asked Socquard of Rigou.

" Ah ! " replied the ex-Benedictine, "it
is of all the devils that which the Church
has seized the oftenest."

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

343

Socquard's sole reply was to examine,
on the pictures which separated the win-
dows, the billiard cues, whose reunion
hid the marks of time in the peeling-
plaster.

At this moment Bonnebault, coming-
out of the billiard room with a cue in
his hand, struck Marie roug-hly, saying-
to her :

•' You have made me lose my touch,
but I will not miss you, and I will con-
tinue until you have put a stop to yonv
tong-ue.'"

Socquard and Rig-ou judg-ed it time to
interfere, and entered the cafe by the
door openin,g out into the square, and in
doing- so disturbed a whole army of flies.
Their buzzing- sounded like the distant
exercise of a class of tambour plaj'^ers.
After the first shock, these larg-e flies,
with bluish bellies, accompanied by little
plag-uing- flies and some few g-reat horse
flies, returned to take their places again
on the window-panes, where on three
rows of shelves, the paint of which had
disajjpeared under their black spots, were
ranged sticky bottles with the reg-ularity
of soldiers.

Marie was crying-. To be beaten be-
fore her rival by the man one loves is a
humiliation to which no woman can sub-
mit, no matter in w^hat social position she
may be ; and the lower she is, the more
violent is the expression of her hatred.
Thus Tonsard's daug-hter saw neither
Rigou nor Socquard ; she fell on a ta-
bouret in a mournful and fierce silence,
which the ex-priest stood watching-.

"Go and g-et a fresh lemon, Ag-lae,"
said Socquard, " and rinse a glass out
yourself."

'•'You did well to send your daughter
away," said Rigou in a low voice to Soc-
quard, -'she would have been wounded
unto death perhaps."

And by a g-lance he showed Marie
with a tabouret in her hand, which she
had g-rasped to throw at Aglae's head.

" Come, Marie," said Socquard, placing-
himself in front of her, " you must not
come iiere to take tabourets, and if you
break my g-lasses it is not in cow's milk
that you will pay me."

'■'Pere Socquard, your daug'hter is a
snake and I know it ; do you understand
me ? If you do not wish Bonnebault for
a son-in-law, it is time for you to tell him
to go elsewhere for his game of billiards !
I hope he loses a hundred sous now."

As Marie finished her flow of words,
cried out rather than spoken, Socquard
took Marie b3' the waist and put her out
doors, in spite of her cries an'd resistance.
It was fortunate for her, for Bonnebault

came out from the billiard -room, his eye
flashing fire.

"This will not end like this I " cried
Marie Tonsard.

"Get out of here," screamed Bonne-
bault, whom Viollet was holding 'round
the waist to prevent him from commit-
ting some brutality. " Go to the devil,
or I will never speak or look at you
again."

" You ? " said Marie, throwing a furi-
ous glance at Bonnebault. "Give me
back my money first, and I will leave
thee to Mademoiselle Socquard, if she is
rich enough to keep you."

Then Marie, frightened at seeing Alcide
Socquard hardly able to hold Bonnebault,
Avho made a tigerish bound after her,
saved herself by running out into the
road.

Rigou put Marie in his carriage, in
order to restrain Bonnebault's anger,
whose voice could be heard as far as the
Soudry's house : then, after hiding Marie,
he returned to drink his lemonade, ex-
amining the group formed by Plissoud,
Amaurv, Viollet, and the waiter, who
were all trying to calm Bonnebault.

"Come, it is your turn to play, hus-
sar ! " said Amaury, who was a little
man, a blonde and very anxious looking.

"Besides, she has flown," said Viollet.

If any one had ever expressed sur-
prise, it would have been Plissoud, at the
moment in which he perceived the usurer
of Blangy more occupied with him, Plis-
soud. than with the dispute of the two
girls. In spite of himself, the hussar
showed in his face the astonishment a
man feels who suddenly finds that a sup-
posed enemy is inclined to be friendly.
He returned to the game.

" Adieu, Socquard," said the usurer.

"I will bring your carriage," replied
the innkeeper; " take your time."

"How am I going to find out what
those men are saying, who are playing
pool ? " Rigou asked himself, as he saw
a boy's face in the mirror.

This boN' was a boy of many occupa-
tions. He tended the vines for Socquard,
he swept the cafe, the billiard-room, he
tended the garden, he sprinkled the Tiv-
oli's sanded floor; and all for twenty
francs a year. He was always without
a vest, except on grand occasions, when
his onl}^ costume was a pair of pantaloons
in blue cloth, great shoes, a waistcoat of
striped velvet, in front of which he wore
a great white apron when he was waiting
in the billiard-room or cafe. This apron,
with its strings, was the insignia of his
functions. This boy had been hired by
the innkeeper at the last fair ; for in this

344

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

valley, as throughout Burgundy, servants
took a place hy the year, exactly as they
bought horses.

"'What is your name?" Rigou asked
him.

." Michel, at 3'our service," replied the
hoy.

'' Do 5'ou not see Pere Fourchon here
sometimes ? "

" Two or three times a week, with Mon-
sieur Vermichel, who always gives me a
few sous to warn him when his wife is
coming- down upon them."

"He is a good man, is Pere Fourchon,
well educated and possessed of good
sense," said Rigou, paying for his lemon-
ade and quitting the cafe, disgusted to see
his carriage standing before the door with
Socquard at his horse's head.

As he was getting into the carriage,
Rigou perceived the pharmacist and
hailed him with : "■ Ohe ! Monsieur Ver-
mut ! " Recognizing the rich man, Ver-
mut slackened his pace. Rigou joined him
and whispered in his ear :

" Do 3^ou think there is a reactive which
could disorganize the tissue of the skin to
the point of producing a real ilJness, such
as whitlow on the finger ? "

" If Monsieur Gourdon is willing to co-
operate, yes," replied the little savant.

" Vermut, not a word on the subject,
or we will get in trouble ; but speak to
Monsieur Gourdon on the subject, and
tell him to come and see me to-morrow ;
I will procure him the delicate operation
of cutting an index."

Then the ex-mayor, leaving the little
druggist dumfounded, stepped into his
carriage and took his place alongside of
Marie Ton sard.

''Well, little viper," he said to her,
taking her arm, after he had attached
his reins to a ring on the front of the
leather apron which shut in the front
seat, and had let the horse go his own
gait; "you think you can keep Bonne-
bault by giving way to such paroxysms
of violence ? If you were wise, you would
help on a marriage with this great tub
of foolishness, and then you could re-
venge yourself."

Marie could not prevent a smile as she
replied: "Ah ! but you are wicked ! In-
deed you are master of us all ! "

" Listen, Marie, I love the peasants;
but none of you must throw yourselves
between my teeth and m^^ game. Your
brother Nicolas, as Aglae said, is follow-
ing Pechina. This is not the thing, for I
am protecting this child ; she will inherit
from me thirty thousand francs, and I
want to marry her well. I know that
Nicolas, aided by your sister Catherine,

nearly killed the little one this morning.
You will see your brother and your sister,
and tell them this : ' If you leave Pechina
alone, Rigou will save Nicolas from the
conscription.' "

" You are the devil himself ! " cried
Marie. " They say that you have signed
a compact with him. Is it possible ? "

"Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.

"' The old people have told us this, but
I did not believe it."

" He has guaranteed me that no at-
tempt against my life shall be successful ;
that I shall never be robbed ; that I shall
live a hundred j-ears without sickness ;
that I shall succeed in everything ; and
that, until the hour of my death, I shall
be as young as a cock of two years."

"That is easily seen," said Marie.
"Well, then, it will be devilishly easy
for you to save Wiy brother."

" If he wishes it ; for he must lose a
finger," replied Rigou. " I will tell him
in what way."

" What ! 3^ou are taking the upper
road?" said Marie.

"At night I no longer pass by here,"
said the ex-monk.

" You are afraid of the cross ? "

" Perhaps I am, sly one ! " replied this
diabolical personage.

They had reached a spot in which the
district road was crossed by a slight
elevation of ground. This cut formed
two steep declivities, such as are often
seen on French roads.

At the end of this gorge, which was
about a hundred feet in length, the roads
to Ronquerolles and Cerneux formed a
cross-road in which stood a cross. From
one or the other slope, a man might
stand and kill an^^ passer-by, with the
more facility that this eminence being
covered with vines, a malefactor would
find it very easy to hide in the vines and
bushes which grew in wild profusion on
the sides. You could easily understand
why the usurer, always prudent, never
passed by there at night ; the place was
called " Les Clos de la Croix." There
was never a more favorable place in
which to wreak a vengeance or commit
a murder ; for the road to Ronquerolles
led to the bridge over the Avonne, ana
the road to Cerneux spread out toward
the royal road, so that between the four
roads, to Aigues, to Ville-aux-Fayes, to
Ronquerolles and Cerneux, a murderer
could choose a retreat and leave those
who were following him in great uncer-
tainty.

" I will put you down at the entrance
to the village," said Rigou, as he per-
ceived the first houses in Blangy.

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

345

" Because of Annette, old coward I "
cried Marie. " Are you going- to send
her away soon ? It is three years now
since you took her. The most amusing"
part of it is, that your old woman keeps
well ! God will revenge her ! "

XVII.

THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-ATJX-FAYES.

The prudent usurer had ordered his wife
and Jean to go to bed early and to rise
with the dawn, proving to thetn that the
house would never be attacked if he
watched until midnight and rose late.
Not only had he secured his tranquillity
from seven in the evening until five in the
morning, but he had also accustomed his
wife and Jean to respect his sleep and
that of the Agar's, whose chamber was
situated back of his.

Thus, the next morning, about half-
past six, Madame Rig'ou, who herself
cared for the poultry-yard, conjointly
with Jean, knocked timidly at her hus-
band's chamber door.

*' Monsieur Rigou," she said, ''you told
me to waken you."

The sound of this voice, the attitude of
the woman, her fearful and obedient air
to an order, the execution of which might
be badl}"- received, depicted the profound
abnegation in which this poor creature
lived, and the affection she still bore for
this habitual tyrant.

''All right," cried Rigou.

" Must I awaken Annette ? " she asked.

"No, let her sleep! She has been up
nearly all night ! " said he, seriously.

This man was always serious, even
when he permitted himself to joke. An-
nette had, in fact, secretly opened the
door to Sibilet, to Fourchon and to Cath-
erine Ton sard, each one coming at differ-
ent times, between eleven and one o'clock.

Ten minutes later, Rigou, dressed more
carefully than usual, descended and greet-
ed his wife with a " Good-morning, my
old woman ! " which made her happier
than if she had seen General de Montcor-
net at her feet.

"Jean," he said to the ex-lay brother,
" do not leave the house, do not let me be
robbed. You will lose more than I will."

It was in mingling kindness with re-
buffs, hopes and blows, that this knowing
egotist had succeeded in making these
three slaves as faithful, as attached as
dogs.

Rigou, as usual, taking the road, the
upper one, in order to avoid Les Clos de

la Croix, reached the Soulanges square
about eight o'clock.

Just as he was tying the reins to the
turnstile nearest to the Uttle door with
its three steps, the shutter opened. Sou-
dry showed his pock-marked face, which
the expression of two little black eyes
rendered artful.

" Let us commence by breaking a crust,
for we will not breakfast at Ville-aux-
Fayes before an hour."

He softly called a servant, as young
and pretty as Rigou 's, who came down-
stairs noiselessly, and whom he told to
serve them a slice of ham and some bread ;
then he started off to bring the wine from
the cellar himself.

Rigou gazed around this dining-room
for at least the hundredth time, with its
oaken floor, its molded ceiling, decorated
with fine coats of arms beautifully painted,
wainscoted half-way up, ornamented by
a handsome porcelain stove, and having
a magnificent clock on the mantel, all
heirlooms of Mademoiselle Laguerre. The
backs of the chairs were shaped like lyres,
the wood painted and varnished in white,
upholstered in green morocco and studded
with gold-headed nails. The parquet had
a tapestrj^ design, and attested to the
great care of the old-fashioned chamber-
maids, by its luster from, assiduous rub-
bings.

"Bah! this costs too much," Rigou
said to fiimself. " You can eat just as
well in my room as here, and I have the
income from the mone}^ which it would
cost me to furnish in this useless splendor.
Where is Madame Soudry?" he asked
of the mayor of Soulanges, who appeared
just then with a bottle of old wine in his
hands.

" She is sleeping ! "

Jeannette, still in her night-cap, with
a short skirt and bare feet thrust into
slippers, having put on a little peasant's
waist, over which she had crossed a white
kerchief, which did not entirely hide her
fresh and girlish charms, appeared not
a whit less appetizing than the ham, so
highly praised by Soudry. Small, rounded,
her bare arms hung* down and termi-
nated in small dimpled hands, with short
and well-formefd fingers denoting a rich
blood. She was a true type of a Bur-
gundy peasant girl ; rosy, but white at
the temples, neck and ears : with ruddy
hair, the corners of her eyes curving up-
ward toward the ears, open nostrils, a
sensual mouth, and a little soft down upon
the cheeks ; with a liveh' expression, tem-
pered by a modest and misleading bear-
ing, which made her a model of a frivolous
servant.

346

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" How is Madame Rigou ? Is she sleep-
ing?" said Soudry.

" She awakens with our cock," replied
Rigou; ''but she goes to bed witli the
chickens. As for me, I stay up reading
* Le Constitutionnel ' at night, and in the
morning my wife lets me sleep ; she would
not come into ray room for the world."

''Here it is just the other way," replied
Jeannette. " Madame stays up with the
city people playing ; there are sometimes
fifteen in the salon. Monsieur goes to bed
at eight o'clock, and we get up at day-
break."

"That seems to joxx. different," said
Rigou, "but in reality it is the same
thing. Well, my dear child, come to my
house ; I will send Annette here. It will
be the same thing, and yet it will be dif-
ferent."

"You old rascal," said Soudry; "you
shock me."

" How is that, gendarme ? You only
want one horse in your stable ? Well,
each one to his taste."

Jeannette, upon an order from her mas-
ter, left the room to get his out-door
clothes read3\

*' You have promised to marry her upon
the death of your wife, I suppose ? " asked
Rigou.

" At our time of life, no other means is
left to us," replied Soudry.

" With an ambitious girl, it would be
a question of becoming a wido%^er very
quickly," replied Rigou, "especially if
Madame Soudry talked very much before
Jeannette of her manner of having the
stairs washed down."

These words made both the husbands
thoughtful. When Jeannette came to
announce that "all was ready," Soudry
said : " Come and assist me ! " which
made the ex-Benedictine smile.

A quarter of an hour later, Soudry, all
in his Sunday best, stepped into the
wicker carriage, and the two friends
drove along the lake road in the direction
of Ville-aux-Fayes.

"Look at that chateau!" said Rigou
when they reached the spot from which
the chateau could be plainly seen.

The old Revolutionarj^ said this in a tone
of voice which revealed the hatred which
the middle class of country people har-
bored against the owners of great tracts
of land and beautiful chateaux.

"Bub, as long as I live, I hope to see
it standing," said the old gendarme.
"Count de Soulanges was my general.
He did me a good turn ; he managed my
pension very cleverly for me ; and then he
lets Lupin manage the estate for him, out
of which Lupin's father made his fortune.

After Lupin dies it will be another, and,
as long as there are De Soulanges, they
will respect this old custom. Those people
are good fellows ; they let each one earn
what he can and thej'^do not grumble."

" Ah ! but the general has three chil-
dren who may not agree to all this at
his death. Some da}' or another the hus-
band of the daughter, and the sons, will
sell by auction this lead and iron mine to
those speculators we know of, who are so
anxious to buy it."

The Chateau de Soulanges stood out,
as if in bold defiance of robbery.

" Ah ! yes, in those times they built
well ! " cried Monsieur Soudry. " But
Monsieur le Comte is economizing his in-
come at this moment, in order to make
the Chateau de Soulanges an entailed
estate."

"Friend," replied Rigou, "majorats
sometimes fall through."

This interesting topic once exhausted,
the two bourgeois started in to talk of the
relative merits of their respective girls.

This subject lasted until they saw be-
fore them the public building over wiiich
Gaubertin reigned, and w^hich excited
enough curiosity to force a digression.

The name of Ville-aux-Fayes, though
odd, is easily explained by the corruption
of the name (in Low Latin villa in fago,
or the manor-house in the woods). This
name tells us that formerly a forest cov-
ered the delta formed by the Avoniie as
it fiowed into the river, which unites five
leagues farther away with the Yonne. A
Frank had no doubt built a fortress on
the hill, which, at that point, turns and
slopes gradually into the long plain
where Leclercq, the deputy, had pur-
chased his land. By dividing this delta
by a long and wide ditch, the conqueror
had made a formidable position for him-
self, and an essentially seignorial estate,
handy for collecting the tolls on the
biMdges and watching over the rights of
the fees demanded from the millers.

Such is the history of the commence-
ment of Ville-aux-Fayes. Wherever a
feudal or religious domain was estab-
lished, it brought with it interests, inhabi-
tants, and later, cities, when the location
was found to be a good one for drawing,
developing and founding industries. The
process discovered by Jean Rouvet for
floating the lumber, and which necessi-
tated finding suitable points at which to
intercept it, made Ville-aux-Fayes, which,
until then, compared to De Soulanges,
was but a village. Ville-aux-Fayes be-
came the principal depot for the lumber
which, for a sti-etch of twelve miles, bor-
dered both sides of the river. The work

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

347

demanded by the g-athering- up and the
collecting- of lost piles of lumber, and the
style of rafts that the Yonne carried to
the Seine, necessitated a g"reat number of
workmen. The population were incited to
proficiency, and thus their commerce was
begun. By this means Ville-aux-Fa^'es,
which could not count six hundred in-
habitants at the end of the sixteenth
century, numbered two thousand in 1790,
and Gaubertin had carried the count to
4,000. This was how.

When the Legislative Assembly' decreed
a new conscription of the territory, Ville-
aux-Fayes, which found itself situated at
a distance, geogTaphicall}^ which neces-
sitated a sous-prefecture, w^as chosen in
preference to Soulanges for the capital of
the district. The sous-prefecture called
for a court, and all the employes required
by the work of a capital. The growth
of the Parisian population, in aug-ment-
ing the value and the quantity of wood
used for fuel, necessarily augmented the
importance of the commerce of Ville-aux-
Fayes. Gaubertin had invested his fort-
une in this new need, divining the influ-
ence of the proclamation of peace on the
Parisian population, which from 1815 to
1825 had increased by one-third.

The configuration of Ville-aux-Fayes
was indicated by that of the g-round.
The two lines of the promontory were
closed in by two harbors. The dam for
stopping the lumber was at the foot of
the hill, which was covered by the Sou-
langes forest. Between this dam and the
city there was a faubourg. The lower
town, built on the largest part of the
delta, jutted out into the Avonne lake.

Above the lower town were five hun-
dred houses, with little gardens, which
stood on an elevation. These had been
under cultivation for three hundred
years. They surrounded the promontory
on three sides, and had a magnificent
view of the multiplicity of aspects fur-
nished by the sparkling sheet of the
Avonne lake, encumbered by rafts in
com^se of construction, and. on the shores,
by great piles of lumber. The waters
of the river, filled with lumber, and the
pretty cascades of the Avonne, which
were higher than the river where it
emptied, setting- the vanes of the mills
and the wheels of some factories in mo-
tion, formed a very animated picture,
much more picturesque from the fact
that it was framed by the g-reen masses
of the forests and that the long valley
of les Aigues formed a magnificent con-
trast to the dark background which
dominated Ville-aux-Fayes.

In front of this vast panorama, the

roj-al post-road, which crossed the lake
a quarter of a mile below Ville-aux-Fayes,
was broken off at the commencement of
an avenue of poplars, where a small fau-
bourg- was located, g-rouped around a
horse mart, attached to a large farm.
The cantonal road also made a detour
to reach the bridge, where it rejoined
the hig-hway.

Gaubertin had built himself a house on
a portion of the delta, with the idea of
forming a square which would make
the lower town as beautiful as the upper
town. It was a modern stone house,
with a rounding- balcony, Venetian blinds,
prettil3^ painted windows, without any
other ornament than a Grecian border
under the cornice of a g-abled roof ; one
story surmounted bj- the garrets, a large
courtyard in front, and, behind, an En-
g-lish g-arden, lapped by the waters of
the Avonne. The elegance of this house
forced the sous-prefect, lodged tran-
siently in a kennel, to come to the front
in a hotel which the department was
forced to build upon the insistance of
the deputies Leclercq and RonqueroUes.
The city hall had just been built, also a
nevv court house, so that the city of Ville-
aux-Fayes owed to the energetic g-enius
of its mayor a line of very imposing-
modern building-s. The militia had built
an armory, to complete the four sides
of the square.

These changes, over which the inhabi-
tants expressed great pride, were due to
Gaubertin's influence, who, a few days
before, had received the cross of the Le-
g-ion of Honor, on the occasion of the
approaching- feast of the king-. In a city
thus constituted, and of such modern
creation, there was neither aristocracy
nor nobility. Hence, the bourgeois of
Ville-aux-Fayes, proud of their inde-
pendence, espoused the quarrel Avhich
had broken out between the peasants
and a count of the Empire, who took
sides with the Restoration. For them
the oppressors were the oppressed. The
spirit of this commercial city was so well
known to the Government that they had
appointed as sous-prefect a man of a very
conciliating- spirit, a pupil of his uncle,
the famous Lupeaulx, a man used to
transactions, familiar with the needs of
all governments, and whom the puritan
politicians, who are worse themselves,
called men of corruption.

The interior of the house had been dec-
orated in the insipid taste of modern lux-
ury. The paper was in rich tints with
gilded borders, bronze lusters, mahogany
furniture, asti:al lamps, round marble-
topped tables, white china with a thin

343

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

thread-like golden border for dinner,
chairs with red morocco seats, and
water-colored pictures in the dining--
room, blue satin furniture in the salon,
all excessively cold and flat, but which
seemed to the good people of Ville-aux-
Fayes the last efforts of an extravagant
luxury. Madame Gaubertin played an
elegant role with great effect. She put
on little mincing airs. At forty-five she
took upon herself the prim carriage of a
mayoress sure of herself and who held
her own court,

Rigou's house, that of Soudry and that
of Gaubertin, were they not, for those
who are acquainted with France, the
perfect represenlation of a village, a
little town, and a sous-prefecture ?

Without being by any means a great
man or a man of talent, Gaubertin had
the appearance of one ; he owed tlie just-
ness of his views as well as his malice
to a greedy avarice. He did not desire
fortune for his wife, nor his two daugh-
ters, nor his son, nor for himself, nor for
the consideration which money gives ;
outside of his vengeance, which forced
him to live, he loved the game of money
like Nucingen, who handled, as they tell
us, gold in both pockets at once. Busi-
ness was this man's life ; and though he
had a full stomach, he displayed the ac-
tivity of a man with an empty stomach.
He resembled a valet on the stage. His
intrigues, his tricks, his coups to organize,
his deceits, his commercial financiering,
bills to make out, mone^'^ to receive,
scenes, interested disagreements, stimu-
lated him, sometimes putting his blood
in circulation, and sometimes spreading
the bile throughout his system. And
he went and he came, on horseback, in
a carriage, by water, in the wind and
rain, to the auction sales, to Paris, al-
ways thinking, holding a thousand
strings in his hands at once and never
getting them tangled.

Quick, decided in his movements as in
his ideas, small, short, thick set, his nose
thin, his eye bright, his ear erect, he
looked like a hunting dog. His face was
tawny, brown and round, from which shot
out two red ears. He always wore a little
cap. His nose was retrousse, his pinched
lips never seemed to open to utter a wel-
come word. His tufted whiskers formed
two black shining bushes below two red
cheek bones and were lost in his cravat ;
curly hair, streaked black and white,
like the wig of an old magistrate, was
twisted as if by the violence of the fire
which burned in his brain, and which
sparkled in his gray eyes, enveloped by
circular wrinkles which doubtless came

from his habit of always winkmg. Dry,
lean and nervous,he had the hairy, hooked,
rough hands of men who pay m their own
person. This tout-ensemble pleased those
with whom he had dealings, for he always
enveloped himself in a deceiving gayety.
He knew how to say a great deal without
telling anything he wished to conceal. He
wrote little, to be able to deny what was
unfavorable to him in what he let escape
him. His writings were kept by a cashier,
an honest man, whom people of Gauber-
tin's character know how to get rid of,
and of whom, in their own interests, they
make the first dupes.

When the little wicker carriage showed
itself, about eight o'clock, in the avenue
which ran along the river, Gaubertin, in
his cap, boots and coat, hurried to the
door. He suddenW quickened his pace as
he knew very well that Rigou did not put
himself out, except for something very
important,

" Good - day ! good - morning ! good
paunch full of meal and wisdom," said
he, giving them, in turn, a little tap on
their stomachs, "We are going to talk
business, and we will talk it, glass in hand,
by my faith ! That is the true way ! "

" In this way you should become fat,"
said Rigou,

" I give myself a great deal of trouble.
I am not, like you, confined to the house,
made captive there, like an old rascal.
Ah ! you are well fixed, by m^'- faith I
You can sit, with your back to the fire,
in an armchair; business comes to 3'ou.
But come in ! You are welcome for the
time you will remain."

A domestic in blue livery, trimmed in
red embroidery, came and took the horse
by the bridle to lead him to the courtj^ard
in which were situated the kitchens and
stables,

Gaubertin left his two guests alone for
a few moments while he went to give
the necessary orders for breakfast. They
walked up and down the garden, where
Gaubertin soon rejoined them.

" Well, my little wolves," he said, rub-
bing his hands together, ''the soldiers
were seen setting out at daybreak in the
direction of Conches. They were doubt-
less going to arrest the condemned poach-
ers who were caught in the act. In the
name ' of the Little Man ! ' it is commenc-
ing to get warm ! It is getting warm !
By this time the boys must be safe under
arrest," he said, taking his watch out
and looking at it.

" Probably," said Rigou.

" Well, what do they say in the village ?
What have they made up their minds to
do?"

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

349

"But what is there for them to de-
cide ? " asked Rigou. " We count for
nothing- in this matter/' he added, look-
ing- at Soudry.

" How for nothing ? And if les Aigues
is sold, on account of our combination,
who will g-ain five or six hundred thou-
sand francs by it ? Is it me alone ? I am
not rich enough to lose two millions, with
three children to start out in life and a
wife who has no limit to her extrava-
g-ance. I must have some partners. Fa-
ther ' Empoigneur,' has he not a supply'
of funds ready ? He has not a mortg-age
which has not a limit. He only lends on
sig'ht, to which I must respond. I put
myself down for eight hundred thousand
francs ; my son, the judge, two hundred
thousand; we count on ' I'Empoig-neur '
for two hundred thousand. How much
can we put you down for, Pere la Ca-
lotte ? "

" For the rest," said Rig-ou, coldly.

" 'By Jove ! I would like to have my
hand where you have your heart ! " said
Gaubertin, " And what will you do ? "

" I will do as you sa3'. What is your
plan?"

" My plan is to take at double what I
will sell at half, to those who will buj'- in
Conches, Cerneux and Blang-y. Soudrj-^
will have his customers in Soulanges ; and
you yours here. That is not much trouble.
But how do we stand between ourselves ?
How will we divide the g-reat lots ? "

" Mon Dieu ! Nothing can be simpler,"
said Rigou. "Each one will take what
suits him best. In the first place, I will
press no one ; I will take the woods with
my son-in-law and Soudry. These woods
are bare enough not to be a very g-reat
temptation to you. We will leave you 3'^our
share in the rest. That is well worth your
money, by, my faith ! "

"Will you sign that for us?" asked
Soudr^'.

"The sig-nature would be worth noth-
ing," replied Gaubertin. "Besides, you
see that I am playing" a fair game; I
trust entirely to Rigou. He is the one
who will be the purchaser."

" That suits me," said Rig-ou.

"I only put one condition, and that is
that I can have the little pavilion, its
dependencies, and the fifty acres surround-
ing- it. I will pay you for the acres. I
will make the pavilion my country house ;
it will be near my woods. Madame Gau-
bertin— Madame Isaure, as she wants to
be called — will make it her villa, as she
calls it."

"I am willing," said Rigou.

"And between us," replied Gaubertin,
in a low voice, after looking- around on all

sides, to be assured that nobody could
hear them, " do you think them capable
of making some bad stroke ? "

" Like what ? " asked Rigou, who never
would consent to understand any half
word.

"Well, if the most daring' of the band,
with an adroit hand, should send a ball
whistling by the comte's ears, simply to
try him ? "

" He is a man to dash upon him and
throttle him."

" Then Michaud— "

" Michaud would not boast much, he
would spy around and finish by discover-
ing- the man, and the one who armed
him."

"You are rig-ht," replied Gaubertin.
" They must rebel, about thirty alto-
gether. Some will be thrown into the
galleys. Finally, they will take the scoun-
drels of whom we wish to rid ourselves
after they have served us. You have two
or three blackguards, like Tonsard and
Bonnebault? "

" Tonsard will put his foot in it. I know
him," said Soudry; "and we will rile him
up with Vaudoyer and Courtecuisse."

"I have Courtecuisse," said Rigou.

" And I hold Vaudoyer in my hand."

" Be prudent ! " cried Rigou. " Be pru-
dent before all else ! "

" Hold, * Papa la Calotte,' do you think
by chance that there would be any harm
in talking over things as they happen ?
Is it we who make many words, who seize,
who concoct idle stories, who glean ? If
Monsieur le Comte takes it into his head,
if he subscribed with a farmer-general for
the conveyance of les Aigues, in that case,
good-by baskets, profits are draAvn, you
will lose perhaps more than I will. What
we are saying- is between us and for us,
for I would not say a word to Vaudoyer
that I could not repeat before God and
man. But it is -not forbidden to foresee
events and to profit by them when they
happen. The peasants in this canton are
ready to rebel. The exactions of the gen-
eral, the severities and the persecutions of
Michaud and his inferiors have pushed
them to the wall. To-day their business
is ruined, and I wager you that there
has been a skirmish with the soldiers.
Upon this, let us go to breakfast."

Madame Gaubertin had just joined the
g-uests in the garden. She was a paJe
woman, with long English curls falling
on her cheeks, who played the virtuous-
passionate role, who pretended to have
never known love, who assailed her dev-
otees with the platonic question, and
wiiose most attentive admirer was the
king's deputy, her "patito," as she called

350

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

him. She danced, she had youthful raan-
iiers at forty-five ; but she had larg-e feet
and frig-htful hands. She wished to be
called Isaure, for in the midst of her
crankiness and ridiculous notions she had
the g-ood taste to find the name of Gauber-
tin vulgar. Her e3'es were pale, her hair
of an undecided color — a kind of clayey
yellow. She was taken as a model by a
great many young" people, who attacked
the heavens with their g-lances in posing"
as ang-els.

'• Well, messieurs," she said, saluting"
them, '•' I have strange tidings to tell you.
The soldiers have returned."

" Have they taken any prisoners ? "

'' None. The general asked pardon for
them in advance. It was granted as a
favor, in commemoration of the happy
anniversary of the king's return among
us."

The three associates looked at one an-
other.

" He is smarter than I thought he was,
this great fat cuirassier ! " said Gauber-
tin. " Come, let us to the table, we must
console ourselves. After all, our side has
not lost, it is only put back a little ; this
touches you now', Rigou."

Soudr}^ and Rigou returned home dis-
appointed, not being able to imagine
anything likely to lead up to a catas-
trophe that would benefit them, and
trusting, as Gaubertin had said to them,
to chance. Like those Jacobins in the
first da^'s of the Revolution, furious, scat-
tered hy the bountj^ of Louis XVI., and
provoking the harshness of the court
in the wild hope of leading anarchy on,
which meant for them fortune and power,
the redoubtable adversaries of the Comte
de Montcornet put their last tope in the
rigor which Michaud and his guards would
employ against new depredations. Gau-
bertin promised them his alliance Avith-
out explaining to his co-operators, as he
did not w^ant them to know of his relations
with Sibilet. Nothing can equal the dis-
cretion of a man of Gaubertin's charac-
ter, if it is not that of an ex-gendarme
and an unfrocked priest. This plot could
lead up to nothing good, or better speak-
ing, to nothing bad, except when con-
cocted by three men of this kind, filled
with hatred and interest.

XVIII.

THE VICTORY WITHOUT FIGHTING.

Madame Michaud's fears were the ef-
fect of that second sight with which real

passion endows us. Our thoughts being
occupied exclusively with the image of
one person, the soul ends b}^ becoming
imbued with the moral world which sur-
rounds this beloved being, and we see all
things clearly. In her love, the woman
experiences the presentiments which agi-
tate her later in her maternity.

While the poor woman was listening to
the confused voices which came to her
across the unknown space, a scene was
passing in the tap-room of the Grand-I-
vert tavern which threatened her hus-
band's life.

The early country risers had seen the
soldiers from Soulanges passing by, about
five o'clock in the morning, their steps
directed toward Conches. This news cir-
culated rapidly, and those who were in-
terested in the question were surprised to
learn, from those who lived farther up
in the hills, that a detachment of soldiers,
commanded by the lieutenant of Ville-
aux-Fa,yes, had passed by in the direction
of les Aigues forest. As it was Monday,
there was a still greater reason for the
laborers going to the tavern ; but it was
also the anniversary of the return of the
Bourbons, and although the usual cus-
tomers at Tonsard's had really no need
for this " auguste cause " (as they then
called it) as a justification of their pres-
ence at the Grand-I-vert, they took ad-
vantage of the date to excuse their early
presence.

They found Vaudoyer, Tonsard and his
family, Godain, who was a half-partner,
and an old laborer in the vineyards named
Laroche. This man lived from hand to
mouth. He was one of the oftenders fur-
nished by Blang}-, in the kind of conscrip-
tion which the}' had invented in order to
disgust the general with his mania for
verbal process. Blang^^ had sent in the
names of three other men, eight boys and
five girls, and of twelve women, wh«se
husbands and fathers should respond.
These were entirely destitute ; but they
were also the onh* ones in this condition
of abject poverty.

The year 1823 had made the "wine grow-
ers very rich, and 1826, should, by its
promise of a rich harvest, put a dealof
money in their pockets ; the work which
had been ordered done by the general had
also circulated a goodly sum of money
in the three districts which surrounded
his property, and it had been a difficult
matter to find, in Blangj^, Conches or Cei"-
neux, one hundred and twenty paupers.
They had compromised by taking the, old
women, the mothers and grandmothers
of those who possessed something, but
who had nothing themselves — hke Ton-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

351

sard's mother. This old laborer, Laroche,
was worth absolutely nothing-. He did not
have, like Tonsard, hot, vicious blood ; lie
was animated by a bitter and cold hatred ;
he worked in silence, his looks were al-
ways fierce ; labor was insupportable to
him, and yet he could only live b\^ work-
ing* ; his features were harsh, their ex-
pression repulsive. Notwithstanding- his
sixt}^ years, he was not lacking- in
streng-th, but his back had become weak,
he was stooped, and he was envious of
those who owned an}" land. For this rea-
son, he was looked upon without pity in
the forests of les Aig-ues ; and he g-loried
in useless devastations.

'•Let them try to take us," said La-
roche. ''After Conches, they will come
to Blang-y. I have repeated my offense,
and I am in for three months in prison."

•'And what will you do against the
soldiers, you old toper ? " Vaudoyer asked
him.

" Well, can we not cut their horses
legs ? They would soon fall to the earth ;
their guns would not be loaded, and when
they see ten stout fellows against them,
they would have to yield. If the three
villages should rise up, or if they killed
two or three soldiers, would everybody
need to be guillotined ? We must beat
the soldiers back, as they did in Bur-
gundy, or, for an affair like this, they will
send a whole regiment against us. Ah !
bah ! the regiment will go away, the
' pesans ' will continue to go to the for-
ests, as they have done for years, do you

see

t "

"To kill in order to kill," said Vau-
doyer. " It would be better to kill but one ;
but that in a wa}" that would not be dan-
gerous, and which would disgust all the
' Arminacs ' of the country'."

"Which one of the brigands ? " asked
Laroche.

' ' Michaud , ' ' said C ourtecuisse . ' ' Vau-
doyer is right, his reasoning is great.
You will see that when a guard has been
put in the shadow, others will not easily
be found who will remain out in the broad
sun-light on sentry dut3^ They are there
in the daytime, but they must also be
there in the night time. They are de-
mons ! "

"No matter where you go," said the
old woman, Tonsard's mother, who was
seventy years old, and who showed her
old parchment - like face, riddled with
pockmarks, and out of which peered two
«-reen eyes ; her dirtj' white hair, hanging
around her face from under a red hand-
kerchief that was knotted around her
head ; " wherever you go, they will find
you and stop you. They will look at your

bundle of fagots. If there is one branch
cut off, a single switch of that naughty
filbert tree, they will take away your
bundle, and serve you with the process :
they have said they would do it. Ah!
the rascals ! There is no way of catching
them, and they defy you ; they will soon
relieve you of your wood. There are
three dogs there, who are not worth two
liards ; let them be killed. That will not
ruin France ! "

" Vatel is not so very wicked yet ! "
said Madame Tonsard, the daughter-in-
law.

"He ! " cried Laroche. "He does his
work as well as the others. Laughing is
always good. He laughs with you ; you
are no better with him for that. He is
the most malicious of the three. He has
no heart for the poor people, like Mon-
sieur Michaud — "

" Yes, he has a pretty wife, all the
same, has this Monsieur Michaud," said
Nicolas Tonsard.

"She is enceinte," said the old mother;
"but if this thing continues, the poor
little one will have a strange baptism
when it comes."

" Oh ! it is impossible to laugh with all
these Parisian 'Arminacs,'" said Marie
Tonsard, " and if it so pleases them they
will serve you with a process, without
thinking any more about it than if they
had not laughed."

"You have tried to entangle some of
them then ? " said Courtecuisse.

" Pardi ! "

"Well," said Tonsard, with a deter-
mined air, "they are men, like any others;
you can make them come to you."

"B3'' my faith, no," replied Marie, con-
tinuing her train of thought. "They do
not laugh. I do not know what is the
matter with them ; for, after all, the bully
who lives in the pavilion is married ; but
Vatel, Gaillard and Steingel are not.
They have no one in the country, and
there is not a woman who wants to have
anything to do with them."

"We will see what will happen during
the harvest and the vintage," said Ton-
sard.

" They will not prevent us from glean-
ing? " said the old woman.

"I don't know about that," replied
Tonsard. "Groison sa^'S that Monsieur
le Ma3-or is going to publish a ban, in
which he says no one can glean without
a certificate of indigence ; and who is to
give it to us? If it is he, he will not
give us much of a one ! He is also going
to publish a paper, forbidding us to enter
into the fields before the last bundle of
sheaves is in the carts."

352

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

" This cuirassier is a thunder-olap ! "
cried Tonsard, enraged beyond all con-
trol.

'•' I only knew it yesterda.y, when I of-
fered Groison a "iass of wine to start his
tong'ue wagging/' said his wife.

"Ah! there is a lucky man!" said
Vaudoyer. ''' The^' built him a house, they
gave him a good wife, he has a good in-
come, he is lodged like a king. As for
me, I was king's forester for twenty
years, and all I got were colds and rheu-
matism."

"Yes, he is lucky," said Godain; "he
has money."

"Here we stay like fools that we are.
Let us at least go and see what is happen-
ing at Conches ; the^^ will not hold out
longer than we did," exclaimed Vau-
doyer.

"Let us go," cried Laroche, who was
not very steady on his legs ; " if I do not
put one or two out of the way, I will lose
my name."

" You ! " said Tonsard. " You will let
them take the whole district, for all you
care ! But, as for me, if they touch the
old woman, here is my gun, and it will not
miss its aim."

" Well," said Laroche, turning to Vau-
doj'er, "if they take one away from Con-
ches, there will be a dead gendarme."

"' He has said it, Laroche has ! " cried
Courtecuisse.

"He has said it," replied Vaudoyer;
*'he has not done it, nor will he do it.
What good will it do you to get licked ?
Life for a life. It is better to kill Mi-
chaud."

During this scene, Catherine Tonsard
had stood sentinel at the tavern door, in
order to be able to warn the drinkers to
be quiet if any one passed by. Notwith-
standing their wine-weakened legs, fhey
started off as soon as they got outside of
the tavern, and their fighting ardor di-
rected their steps toward Conches, fol-
lowing the road which, for more than a
quarter of a mile, ran along the walls of
les Aigues.

Conches was a true Burgundy village,
boasting of only one street, through which
ran the highwaj'. The houses were built,
some of bricks and some of clay, but they
were all wretched-looking places. On en-
tering by the county road from Ville-
aux-Fayes, yQU came upon the rear part
of the village, and then it did not look so
wretched. Between the high-road and the
Ronquerolles forests, which were a contin-
uation of those of les Aigues and crowned
the hillsides, ran a little river ; and sev-
eral prettily grouped cottages lent life
and animation to the scene. The church

and the parsonage stood apart and per-
mitted a glimpse through the lattice;
fence of les Aigues park, which extended
to this point. Before the church was an
open space, surrounded by trees, where
the conspirators from the Grand-I-vert
perceived the soldiers. Thereupon they
redoubled their hast^'^ steps. At this mo-
ment three men on horseback were seen
coming out of the gateway toward Con-
ches, and the peasants recognized the
general, his servant, and Michaud the
head guard, who dashed forward at a
gallop toward the square. Tonsard and
his companions reached there a few mo-
ments after them. The delinquents, men
and women, had made no resistance ; they
stood between the five gendarmes from
Soulanges and the fifteen others from
Ville-aux-Fayes. All the village was
gathered there. The children, the fa-
thers and mothers of the prisoners, came
and went, bringing them the things
which they had need of to enable them
to pass their time in prison. It w^as a
curious enough sig'ht, this exasperated
lot of countrymen, as silent as though
they had taken no part in it. The old
and young women were the onl}' ones
who were talking. The children and the
young girls had perched themselves upon
the piles of lumber in order to see better.

" They chose their time well, these guil-
lotine hussars ! They have come on a
feast day ! "

" Are you going to let them take your
man away like that ? What are you go-
ing to do for three months ; the best part
of the year too, when day's work pays
the best ? "

"They are the robbers!" replied the
woman, gazing at the gendarmes in a
menacing manner.

"What is the matter with you, old
woman ? What are you bawling like that
for ? " said the quartermaster. " Let me
tell yon that it will not take long to put
you under lock and key, if j^ou attempt
to injure us."

"I said nothing," the woman hastened
to reply with a humble pitiful look.

" I heard you make a proposal a lit-
tle while ago for which I can make you
sweat."

" Come, come, nay children, be calm ! "
said the mayor of Conches, who was also
the postmaster. "What can you do?
These men are in command ; you must
obey them,"

" That is true, it is the bourgeois of
les Aigues who are to blame. But
patience ! "

At that moment the general reached
the square, and his arrival excited some

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

353

murmurs, which did not worry him much.
He went at once to the lieutenant who
was in command of the soldiers from
Ville-aux-Fayes., and after liaviAg- spoken
a few words to him he took a paper from
liis pocket and handed it to him. The offi-
cer turned toward the men and said to
them :

'•' Free your prisoners. The general has
obtained the king's pardon for them."

Just then General de Montcornet was
conversing with the mayor of Conches ;
but after a few moments of conversation
iu a low voice, the latter turned and ad-
dressed himself to the delinquents, who
had expected to sleep that night in prison,
and who found themselves filled with
astouishuient at their liberation. He said
them :

" My friends, thank Monsieur le Comte;
it is to hiui that you owe the remission of
your sentence. He has asked 3''our par-
don at Paris and obtained it for the anni-
versary of the return of the king. I hope
that in future you will conduct your-
selves better toward a man who conducts
himself so generously toward you, and
that you will, moreover, respect his prop-
erty. Vive le roi."

And the peasants cried out, " Vive le
roi I " with great enthusiasm, so as not
to cry out : " Vive le Comte de Mont-
cornet ! "

This scene had been shrewdly- decided
upon by the general, in accord with the
prefect and the king's deputy ; for their
idea had been to show firmness in order
to stunulate the local authorities and to
subdue the spirit of the country people,
and at the same time to show kindness
when the question became delicate. In
truth, resistance at this time threw the
Government into a very embarrassing
position. As Laroche had said, " The}'^
could not guillotine a whole district."

The general had invited the maj^or of
Conches, the lieutenant and the quarter-
master to breakfast. The conspirators
from Blangy remained behind in the
Conches tavern, where the freed delin-
quents were employed drinking up the
money which had been given them to live
in prison upon.

Going out by the Conches gateway,
the comte conducted his three guests by
the forest road, in order to show them
the traces of the havoc, and that they
could form their own judgment on the
importance of the question.

At the same moment that Rigou was
returning to Blangy, the comte, the com-
tesse, Emile Blondet, the lieutenant, the
quartermaster, and the mayor of Conches
had just finished dining in the grand and
Balzac — l

luxurious room, where Bouret's splendor
was surpassed, and which had been de-
scribed by Blondet in his letter to Nathan.

'*It would be a great pity to abandon
such a home as this," said the lieutenant,
who had never visited Aigues before, and
to whom everything had been shown, and
who, in looking through a glass of cliam-
pagne, had remarked the admiral)le grace
of the nude n^'mphs who were holding up
the frescoes on the ceiling.

" Indeed, we will defend ourselves here
until death," said Blondet.

" If I may say so," replied the lieuten-
ant, glancing at the quartermaster as
though binding him to silence, 'Hhe gen-
eral's enemies are not all in the country."

The brave lieutenant was softened by
the splendor of the breakfast, by this
magnificent service, by this imperial lux-
ury, which surpassed that of the opera
singer, and Blondet had spoken some en-
trancing words which had stimulated him
as much as the chivalric toasts to which
he had responded.

" How can I have any enemies ? " said
the general, astonished.

"He, who is so good!" added the
comtesse.

" He is in the black books of our
mayor. Monsieur Gaubertin, and in or-
der to live in peace, he should become
reconciled to him."

" With him ! " cried the comte. " Do
you not know that he was formerly'- my
steward? He is a rascal!"

" He is no longer a rascal," replied the
lieutenant; "he is the mayor of Ville-
aux-Fayes ! "

" Our lieutenant is witty," said Bion-
det. "It is clear that a mayor is es-
sentially an honest man."

The lieutenant, seeing that after what
the comte had said it would be impos-
sible to enlighten him, dropped the con-
versation on the subject.

XIX.

THE FOREST AND THE HARVEST.

The scene at Conches was productive
of much good, and on their side the faith-
ful guards of the comte watched careful-
ly that only dead wood was carried from
the Aigues forests ; but, for more than
twenty years, this forest had been so
well worked b\^ the inhabitants that
there only reinained green wood : which
the\' made it their business to kill, for
their winter use, by a very simple proc-
ess, and which could onl}' be discovered

354

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

when too late. Tonsard would send his
mother into the forest. The forester
would see her enter ; he knew just where
she must come out, and he watched to
see her fag-ot. He found it onlj^ composed
of dry twigs, fallen branches, dried and
broken palms ; and she g-rumbled, and
complained of having- to go so far, at her
ag-e, to obtain a miserable pile of twig-s.
But what she did not saj^ was, that she
had g-one into the thickest underbrush ;
that she had loosened the stalk of a
young- tree, and had lifted the bark just
at the spot where it joins the trunk, cut-
ting- around like a ring- ; then she had
put the moss and the leaves back as she
had found them, making- it impossible to
discover tliis annular incision made, not
by the hedg-ing- bill, but by a rupture
which resembled that made by those
gnawing- and destructive animals named,
according- to the country, tunnies, wood-
worms and white-worms, and which are
the first stage of the May-bug".

This worm is very dainty about the
bark of trees ; it lodg-es between the bark
and sap-wood, and gnaws, g-oing round
and round the trunk. If the tree is thick
enough so that the worm will have passed
into its second stag-e, that of the larvae —
in which condition it will sleep until its
second resurrection — before making- the
circle of the tree complete, the tree will
be saved ; for as long- as there is a spot
in the tree CQvered by which the sap can
be retained, the tree will g-row. To know
how intimately entomolog-y is connected
with agriculture, with horticulture and all
the products of the earth, it is sufficient
to explain that all the g-reat naturalists,
like Latreille, the Count Deg-rau, Klug-g-
of Berlin, Gene of Turin, etc., etc., have
all discovered that the g-reater part of
known insects are nourislied at the ex-
pense of vegetation ; that the Coleoptera,
the catalogue of which was published by
Monsieur Dejean, accounts for twenty-
seven thousand species, and, notwithstand-
ing- the most ardent researches of the
entomolog-ists of all countries, there is
an enormous quantity of species of which
the triple transformations which distin-
guish all insects are not known ; and that
not onh^ has each plant its own particu-
lar insect, but that each terrestrial prod-
uct, no matter how twisted by human in-
dustry, has its own also. Thus the hemp
and the flax, after having served, either
as a covering, or for hanging men, be-
comes writing paper, and those who write
or read a great deal are familiar with the
ways of an insect called "pou du papier,"
of a marvelous gait and form. It under-
goes its unknown transformations in a

ream of paper, no matter how carefully
cared for, and you can see it running and
jumping in its shining- dress like talc or
spar : it is an ablette which steals.

Thus, while waiting for the harvest and
the gleaning, about fifty old women were
delegated to imitate the work of the wood
worm at the base of five or six trees, which
would doubtless be dead b}^ spring and no
longer covered with leaves : and they were
chosen m the most inaccessible spots.
Who gave them this secret ? No one.
Courtecuisse had complained one day in
the tavern, expressing great surprise
that an oak tree had died in his gar-
den. This oak had commenced by droop-
ing, and he had suspected the wood-
worm ; for he, Courtecuisse, knew the
habits of these worms well, and when a
worm was at the base of a tree the tree
was lost. And he initiated his listeners
into the mysteries of the workings of
this worm. The old women set them-
selves to this work of destruction with
the mj'stery and skillfulness of fairies,
and they were urged on by the desperate
measures which the mayor of Blangy had
taken, and which ho had recommended to
the mayors in the adjoining districts. The
foresters issued a proclamation, where it
was said that no one would be allowed to
reap or to glean, except with a certificate
of indigence given him by the mayor
of the district in which he lived. The
landed proprietors greath^ admired Gen-
eral de Montcornet's and the prefect's
conduct ; and they said that if all the
social celebrities, instead of passing their
time iif Paris, would come and live on
their estates and listen to the wants of
their tenants, the results would be most
advantageous.

In fact, the general and his wife,
assisted b3^ Abbe Brossette, did en-
deavor to be charitable. They tried to
reason and to demonstrate by incontest-
able results that if their people would
only apply themselves to legitimate labor
they would gain more than by their pil-
fering. They gave out flax to be spun
and paid well for it ; then the comtesse
had it manufactured into cloth, to make
aprons and table-cloths and chemises for
the needj^ The comte vmdertook to
ameliorate the condition of the labor-
ers, and he only employed such men
as lived in the neighboring districts.
Sibilet had charge of these details, while
Abbe Brossette pointed out the trul3'
needy to the comtesse and often brought
them to her. Madame de Montcornet
held her charitable audiences in the large
anteroom which opened out on the ter-
race, paved in white and red marble, with

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY,

355

a i^reat porcelain stove, and furnished
with long' benches covered with red
velvet.

Here it was that one morning- old
Tonsard's mother led her grandchild
Catherine, "who had to make," she
said, "a confession which was friglitful
for the honor of a poor, but honest
family." While she spoke, Catherine held
aloof, her head hanging- and her ej'es red
from weeping. She related, when ques-
tioned, the terrible fix in whicl) she found
herself, and which she had confided to her
g-randmother. Her mother would chase
her out of the house ; her father, a man
of honor, w^ould kill her. If slie only had
a thousand francs, a poor laborer named
Godain would marry her ; he knew all,
and he loved her like a brother; he would
buy some ground and build a cottage.
Her story w-as very touching-. The com-
tesse promised the sum required upon the
consummation of the marriage. Michaud's
and Groison's happy tnarriag-es had been
brought about by encourag-ement. Then
this wedding would be a good example
for the country people, and would stimu-
late them to better behavior. The mar-
riage between Catherine Tonsard and
Godain was arranged by means of the
thousand francs promised by the com-
tesse.

The country was quiet. Groison made
very satisfactory reports. The crimes
seemed to have ceased ; and, perhaps,
in fact, the condition of the countrj^ and
its inhabitants would have changed com-
pletely, had it not been for Ganbertin's
bitter avidity, for the bourgeois's plots
of the first society of Soulanges, and
Rigou's intrigues, who blew upon the
hearts of the peasants like a bellows
on a forge, inciting them to hatred and
crime.

The foresters complained of finding
constantly cut branches at the foot of
the slope, put there with the evident
intention of preparing- the wood for winter,
and they watched for the authors of these
crimes, without being able to apprehend
them. The comte, assisted by Groison,
had given certificates of indigence to but
thirty or forty worthy poor of the district ;
but the mayors of the surrounding dis-
tricts had been less difficult to deal with.
The more forgiving the comte had shown
himself to be in the affair at Conches, the
more severe he had resolved to be in the
time of the gleaning, which had really de-
generated into wholesale robbery. He
had given out that under pain of being
served with a ver-bal process and the pen-
alties which the court had pronounced as
following such disobedience, it was forbid-

den to enter the fields before the sheaves
had been carried away. His ordonnance,
he said, only concerned his land in the
district, Rigou knew the country. He
had i-ented his ground in portions, to peo-
ple who knew how to take care of their
own harvest ; and he made them pay him
in grain. The other proprietors being
peasants, there was no trouble anticipated
there. The comte had ordered Sibiiet to
so arrange with his farmers as to cut the
grain on each farm one after another, and
making all the harvesters go back over
the farms, instead of dismissing them, the
latter method preventing any watching.
The comte himself, accompanied by Mi-
dland, went to see how things were pro-
gressing-. City people cannot iniag-ine
what this gleaning means to the inhabi-
tants of the country. Their passion is un-
explainable. For there are women who
will abandon well paid w^ork to go and
glean. The grain which they g-ather in
this w^ay seems better to them, and gives
to this most substantial nourishment a
great attraction. Mothers bring their
little children, their girls and their boys;
the most brokendown of the old people
drag themselves there, and naturally those
who are fairly well-to-do affect poverty.
They put on rags, in which to glean. The
comte and Michaud, on horseback, w-ere
present at the first entry of this ragged
crowd into the first fields of the first farm.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning.
The month of August was very hot, the
sky w^as without a cloud, as blue as a peri-
winkle ; the ground was burning, the
grain singeing. The harvesters worked,
their faces broiling under the reflected
rays, upon a hard and flinty ground, in a
complete silence, their shirts dripping with
perspiration, drinking the water contained
in stone bottles which hung at their sides.
At the end of the field which was being
harvested, and in which stood the carts
ready to be filled wath sheaves, stood
about a hundred poor creatures, who cer-
tainly \\fir\t far ahead of the most hideous
conceptions of Murillo, de Teniers, and
painters of their style ; and even Callot's
figures, that painter of misery, had never
realized such misery as theirs. Their legs
were broAvn, their heads bald, their rags
filthy — the colors of which w^ere curiously
blended. At the same time, their expres-
sions were uneasy, idiotic and savage.
These figures enjoyed, over the immor-
tal color - compositions of Callot, the
eternal advantage which nature holds
over art. There were among them old
women, children as silent as soldiers un-
der arms, grandchildren who quivered
like animals in expectation of their food.

356

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

The characteristics of childhood and old
ag-e were obliterated by a covetous feroc-
ity— keen for others' g'oods, which be-
came theirs by waste. All their eyes
were eag-er, their g-estures menacing ;
but they kept silent in the presence of
tiie corate, the forester and head forester.
The landed proprietor, the farmers, the
laborers and the poor were all here rep-
resented ; the social question presented
itself clearly, for hunger had called forth
these challenging- figures. The sun
brought out, in bold relief, all their
hardened features and the wrinkled
faces; it burned the bare feet soiled
with dust. There were among them chil-
dren without shirts, hardl^^ covered by a
torn blouse ; blonde hair full of straws,
hay, and pine-needles.

This sad picture was distressing- to an
old soldier, whose heart was very kind.
The general said to Michaud :

"That makes me very sad. You must
know the great importance of these meas-
ures, in order to be able to persist in
them."

"■ If each landowner would imitate you,
would live on his estate and do the good
that you are doing on yours, my dear gen-
eral, there would be no more, I will not
say poor people, for they Avill alwa^'s be ;
but there would not live one being- who
could not live by the work of his hands."

•' The mayors of Conches, Cerneux and
Soulanges have sent us their poor people,"
said Groison, who had veritied the certifi-
cates ; "and that should not be."

"No, but our poor will go into those
districts later on," said the comte ; "it
is enough, for the present, that we pre-
vent them from carrying- away the
sheaves. We must go step by step," he
added, as he turned away.

"Did you hear that ? " cried old Mother
Tonsard to the old Bonnebault woman :
for the last words of the comte had been
pronounced m a louder tone than the rest
of his sentence, and it had fallen to the
ears of one of the old women, who were
posted in the road which ran along- the
fields.

"Yes, but that is not all; to-day a
tooth, to-morrow an ear. If they could
find a sauce, they would eat our livers as
they do veal's," cried Bonnebault, Avho
turned to the comte, as he was passing
by, a menacing profile, but to which, in
the wink of an eye, she had given a
hypocritical expression by a mellow look
and a sweet grimace ; she hastened, at
the same time, to make a low reverence.

" You are gleaning, too ; you to whom
vaj wife gives work, by which you can
earn good money ? "

"Ah, my dear lord, that God may-
grant you good health ; but .you see vay
boy eats everything- up on me, and I am
forced to hide the little bit of grain for
bread in the winter. I v/ill only pick up a
little more — it will be a help ! "

Accustomed to find in their g-leaning a
certain amount of grain, for which they
searched in vain this time, the false as well
as the true indigents, who had forgotten
the pardon at Conches, expressed a deep
discontent, which was urged on hy Ton-
sard, Courtecuisse, Bonnebault, Laroche,
Yaudoyer, Godain and their adherents
in the tavern scene. It was worse still
after the vintage ; for the flow of Bill-
ingsgate did not commence until after
the stripped vines had been examined
by Sibilet with a remarkable rigor. This
exasperated them to the last point ; but
when there exists so great a difterence
between the class which revolts and be-
comes incensed, and that which is men-
aced, words die and the discontented ones
g-ive themselves up to an underground
labor, after the fashion of moles.

The Soulanges fair had passed in a
very quiet manner, with the exception of
a little bickering between the first and
second society of the city, stirred up by
the uneasy despotism of the queen, who
could not tolerate the empire which had
been established and founded by beauti-
ful Euphemie Plissoud over the heart of
the brilliant Lupin, w'hose fickle fancy she
seemed to have fixed at last.

Neither the comte nor the comtesse
had g-one to the Soulanges fair or to the
Tivoli fete, and this was laid up against
them as a crime by the Soudiws, the
Gaubertins and their adherents. It was
pride, it was disdain, they exclaimed at
Madame Soudry's. In the meantime the
comtesse was trying- to fill the void
caused by Emile's absence by the great
interest which pure souls take in 'the good
the^^ are doing, or think they are doing- ;
and the comte, on his side, applied himself
with no less zeal to material ameliora-
tions ki his territory; which should, ac-
cording- to him, modify in a favorable
manner the position, and, equally, the
character, of the inhabitants of that part
of the country. Aided \>y the advice and
the experience of Abbe Brossette, Ma-
dame de Montcornet learned little by
little the exact statistics of the poor fam-
ilies in the district, their respective posi-
tions, their wants, their ways of living"
and the kind of self-help which it was
best to bring to their aid in their labor,
without making- them careless or lazy.
The comtesse had placed Genevieve
Niseron, called la Pechina, in a convent

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

357

at Auxerre, under the pretext of having-
her taught sewing" so that she could em-
ploy her, but in reality to save her from
the infamous temptations of Nicolas
Tonsard, whom Rig"ou had succeeded in
saving- from the conscription. The com-
tesse thoug-ht that a religious education,
the cloister and a monastic watchfulness
might subdue the ardent passions of this
precocious little girl, whose mountain
blood sometimes showed itself like a
menacing flame, lending itself from afar
to setting fire to the domestic happiness
of her faithful Olympe Michaud.

Thus everything was quiet in theChateau
des Aigues. The comte, quieted by Sibi-
let, reassured by Michaud, congratulated
himself on his firmness, thanking his wife
for contributing by her benevolence to the
general tranquillity. The question of the
sale of the forest the general reserved for
Paris, in a consultation with the lumber
merchants. He had no idea of the man-
ner in which the bargain should be made,
and he was entirely ignorant of Gau-
bertin's influence on the court at Yonne,
which supplied Paris very extensively.

XX.

THE GREYHOUND.

About the middle of the month of
September, Emile Blondet, who had gone
to Paris to publish a book, tired of Pari-
sian life, returned to les Aigues, his mind
full of the work which he had projected
for the winter. At les Aigues, the friend-
ly and candid young man of better days
reappeared in this wornout journalist.

" What a beautiful soul ! "

Tliese were the comtTi and comtesse's
words.

Men accustomed to rolling in the depths
of a social nature, in understanding every-
thing' and suppressing nothing, make for
themselves an oasis in their hearts ; they
forget their perversities and those of
others ; they become, in a narrow and
reserved circle, little saints ; they take
u|>on themselves feminine delicacies ;
they give themselves up to a momen-
tary realization of their ideal ; they be-
come angelic for the one person whom
the.y adore, and t\\ej do not play at
comedy ; they make their hearts green
again, as you might say ; they need to
brush the splashes of mud off them, to
heal their wounds, to soothe their
achings. To les Aigues Emile Blondet

had come, without motive and almost
without spirit. He pronounced no epi-
grams, he was as docile as a lamb, he
took upon himself a suave platonism.

'' He is such a good young man that
I miss him when he is not here," said
the general. "I wish that he had a for-
tune, and that he need not pass his life
at Paris."

Never had the magnificent landscape
and the park of les Aigues been so volup-
tuously beautiful as the,y were just then.
In the first autumn days, at the moment
when the earth, tired of its deliveries,
relieved of its productions, exhales deli-
cious vegetable perfumes, the forests are
beyond all beautiful ; they commence to
take upon themselves those tints of sun-
burned green, the warm colors of Sienna
clay, which composed the beautiful tapes-
try under which they hide, as if to defy
the intense cold of winter.

Nature, after having shown herself
gaudy and happy in spring, like a bru-
nette who has hopes, becomes then mel-
ancholy and sw^eet like a blonde who has
memories ; the grass becomes golden, the
autumn flowers show their pale petals,
the marguerites pierce the lawns with
their A\'hite eyes. Only violet flower-cups
are seen. Yellow abounds ; the shadows
reflect fewer leaves and deeper tints ;
the sun, more oblique already, introduces
into the orange and furtive lights long
luminous traces, which disappear quickly,
like the trailing robes of women wlio say
" adieu."

The second day after his arrival,
Emile stood at the window of his bed-
room in the morning. This window
opened on one of the terraces b^^ a
modern balcony, and before him spread
a magnificent view of the surrounding
country. The balcony extended the whole
length of the comtesse's apartments, on
that side which looked upon the forests
and the country of Blang3^ The pond,
which Avould have been called a lake had
les Aigues been a little nearer to Paris,
could be seen slightly, as also the long
canal.

Outside the park could be seen the vil-
lages and walls and vineyards of Blang^^;
some fields in which cattle were grazing;
farms surrounded by hedges, with their
fruit trees, walnut trees, and apple trees ;
and then, as a frame, the heights on
which spread out by stages the beautiful
forest ti-ees. The comtesse had come out
in her slippered feet to look after the
flowers in her balcony, which were pour-
ing forth their morning perfume. She
had on a \vhite morning wrapper, under
which could be seen the ros}' tints of her

358

THE HITMAN COMEDY.

pretty shoulders ; a little coquettish cap ]
was perched in mutinous fashion on her
hair, which was blown around her face by
the morning- air ; her wrapper fell around
her, ung-irdled, and opened to show an
embroidered skirt.

'•' Ah ! you are there ? " she asked.

"Yes."

" What are you looking- at ? "

" What a question ! You have torn
me away from Nature. Tell me, comtesse,
will voLi take a walk in the forests this

mornmg-

? -

■'What an idea ! When you know that
I look upon walking- with horror."

''We will walk but very little. I will
drive you in the tilbur3^ We will bring
Joseph along, to watch it for us. You
never set foot in your forests, and I re-
marked a singular phenomenon there ;
there are in some places a certain num-
ber of trees whose tops are the color of
Florentine bronze, the leaves are dried."

'•' Well, I will go and dress myself."

"No, we will not get off in two hours
then ! Take a shawl, put a hat on, shoes ;
that is all that is necessary. I will go
and tell them to harness."

" One must alwa3-s do as you wish. I
will return in a moment."

" General, we are going to take a walk ;
will you come ?" said Blondet, going to
waken the count, who grumbled like a
man who is still enchained b^^ sleep.

A quarter of an hour later, the tilbury
rolled slowly over the park roadwaj's,
followed at a distance by a tall domestic
in livery.

The morning was a typical September
morning. The deep blue of the sky burst
forth in spots in the midst of dappled
clouds. The earth under cover was loath
as a woman to rise ; it exhaled suave and
warm odors, but for all that wild ones ;
the odor of cultivation was mingled with
the odor of the forests. The Angelus was
ringing out from Blangj^, and the sounds
of the clock, mingling with the odd con-
cert of the woods, gave harmon}^ to the
silence. Here and there were some rising
vapors, white and diaphanous. Olympe
had taken a notion to accompany her hus-
band, who was going to give an order to
one of the foresters whose house was not
far awa3^ The doctor of Soulanges had
recommended her to walk, but not enough
to fatigue her. She feared the heat of
mid-day and did not care to go out in
the evening. Michaud led his wife ten-
derly, and was followed by the dog he
loved more than any other — a pretty
greyhound, as gray as a mouse, marked
with white spots, a gourmand, as are all
greyhounds, full of faults like an animal

who knew he was loved and could do as
he pleased.

Thus, when the tilbury reached the gate,
the comtesse, who asked how Madame
Michaud was, knew that she had gone
into the forest with her husband.

" This day seems to inspire everybod3',"
said Blondet, as he drove his horse into
one of the six avenues of the forest.

" By the way, Joseph, do you know the
forests ? ' '

"Yes, sir."

"Then go ahead."

Now for the forest-drive ! This avenue
was one of the most delightful in the for-
est. It soon turned, and, becoming nar-
rower, wound in and out among the trees.
The sun shone down among- the openings
in the leafy roof, and the breeze brought
upon its breath the perfume of thyme,
lavender and wild mint, withered palm
branches and leaves that sighed as they
fell; the dew-drops, sown on the grass
and the leaves, spattered all around them,
as the light carriage sent them up in a
spray. Indeed, it is a delightful thing to
conduct a woman who, in the ups and
downs of the gliding alleys, where the
earth is thick with moss, pretends to be
afraid or is reall^^ afraid, and cuddles up
to you, and makes you feel an involuntary
pressure, and who smiles so sweetlj^ if
you tell her that she prevents you from
driving. The horse seemed to be in the
secret of these interruptions ; he looked
to right and to left.

This new spectacle, this nature so vig-
orous in its effects, so little known and so
grand, plunged her into a sweet reverie.
She sank down in the tilbury and let her-
self drift into the pleasurable feeling- of
being near Emile. Her c^^es were occu-
pied; her heart spoke. She replied to
this interior voice in harmony with her
own. He also gazed at her by stealth,
and he enjoyed this dreamy meditation,
during which the ribbons of her bonnet
Avere untied and freed to the morning
wind the carefully curled golden tresses
with a voluptuous abandonment. As they
were going with no preconceived end,
they suddenly came to a closed barrier.
They had no key. They called to Joseph,
but he had no key either.

" Well, let us walk, then. Joseph will
take care of the tilbury. We v/ill easily
find him again."

Emile and the comtesse plunged into
the forest, and they soon came upon a
little clearing, such as are often met with
in the forests. Twenty years before, the
charcoal-burners had made their charcoal
there, and the place had remained down-
trodden ; everything was burned away for

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

359

a considerable circumference. In twent}'-
years. Nature had been able to make a
flower-g-arden of it, a parterre for itself,
as a painter one day gives himself the
pleasure of painting- a picture for him-
self.

This delightful flower basket was sur-
rounded by fine old trees, whose tops fell
down in vast fringes ; they formed an im-
mense canopy to this couch on which the
g-oddess reposed. The charcoal burners
had worn a path down to a running
spring, in which the water was always
pure. This path was still visible. It in-
vited you to descend by a coquettish turn-
ing, and all at once it stopped abruptly ;
it showed you a close piece of variegated
^vork from which a thousand roots hung in
the air shaped into ta pestry . This hidden
pool is bordered by a grass plot. There
were a few poplars, some willows, which
protected by their light shade the grassy
seat, evidently the work of some medita-
tive or lazy charcoal burner. The frogrs
leaped around fearlessly, the teal bathed,
the water-birds came and went, and a
hare ran away, and 3^ou remained mas-
ter of this charming" bath, ornamented
with wild rushes in glorious profu-
sion. Over your head the trees g-rew in
strang"e shapes ; here, trunks branched
down like boa-constrictors ; there, beech-
trees straight as Grecian columns rose.
A tench showed 3'ou his snout, the squir-
rel gazed at you. At last, when the com-
tesse and Eniile had seated themselves,
as they were fatigued, a bird, I do not
know which, sent forth an autumn song,
a song of adieu, that all the birds listened
to — one of those songs filled with love,
and which is heard by all our senses at
the same time.

" What a silence ! " said the comtesse,
in an agitated low tone of voice, as though
not to disturb this peace.

They looked at the green spots on the
surface of the water, which are the worlds
in which life is begotten ; Wvey showed
each other the lizard, lazily enjoying- the
warm stm rays, and flying away at their
approach, by which conduct it has merited
the name of man's friend. "It proves
thusliow well it knows man ! " Emile had
said. They pointed out the frogs, who,
more confident, returned betwixt earth
and water on the beds of water cresses,
and winked their carbuncle eyes. The
simple and sweet poetr^^ of Nature filtered
through these blase hearts and filled them
with a contemplative emotion : when, all
at once, Blondet trembled, and leaning- to-
ward the comtesse, said :

••'Listen."

"To what?"

" To that strang-e noise."

" This is indeed a specimen of a literary
man, who knows nothing of the country.
It is a woodpecker who is wo iking it at
his hole. I wag-er that you do not even
know the most curious trait of this bird's
story. As soon as he has given a blow
w'ith his beak— and he gives thousands
to pierce an oak twice as thick as your
body — he goes back to see if he has
pierced the tree, and he g-oes back ev-
ery minute."

" This noise, dear teacher of natural his-
tory, is not a noise made by an animal ;
there is in it I know not what note of in-
telligence, which speaks of man."

The comtesse was seized with a panic
of fear. She flew from her flower-basket
in retaking- her road, and wanted to leave
the forest.

" What is the matter with you ? " cried
Blondet, uneasily, running- after her.

" It seemed to me that I saw eyes,"
she said, when she had regained one of
the paths by which they had come to the
charcoal-pit.

At that moment they heard the dull
agonizing- cry of a creature suddenly
throttled, and the comtesse, wliose fear
was redoubled, fled so quickly that Blon-
det could hardly follow her. She ran,
she ran like a will-o'-the-wisp. She did
not hear Emile, who cried out after her :
"You are mistaken." She ran all the
faster. Blondet succeeded in catching up
to her, and they continued running fur-
ther and further. At last the^^ came
upon Michaud and his wife, who were
w^alking along arm in arm. Emile was
panting, the comtesse breathless, and it
was some time before they could speak
and explain their strange behavior. Mi-
chaud joined Emile in making light of
the comtesse 's terror, and the forester
put the two strollers in the right road
to regain the tilbury. On reaching the
g-ate, Madame Michaud called out :

" Prince ! "

" Prince ! Prince ! " cried the forester.

And he whistled and whistled ; but no
greyhound answered.

Emile spoke of the strange noise which
had been the commencement of their ad-
venture.

" My wife heard that noise," said Mi-
chaud, " and I made fun of her."

" They have killed Prince," cried the
comtesse; "T am sure of it now: and they
killed him by cutting his throat with one
stroke, for what I heurd was the last sig-h
of a dying beast."

" The devil ! " said Michaud; " the thing
is worth looking into."

Emile and the forester left the two

360

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

ladies with Joseph, and took their way to
the natural urove formed on the old char-
coal pit. Thej' descended to the pond;
they climbed the declivity, but found no
indications of anything- out of the way.
Blondet had gone up first. He saw
among- a clump of trees the high top of
one of those trees with dried leaves. He
showed it to Michaud, and he proposed
to go and find it. Both started out in a
straight line across the forest, avoiding-
the trunks, turning- back the bushes and
briars, and at last finding- the tree.

"It is a fine oak!" said Michaud;
"but it is the work of a worm. A worm
has made a circuit of the bark at its
base."

And he stopped, took hold of the bark
and raised it.

" Look, what an immense labor."

"You have a great many worms in
your forest," said Blondet.

At that moment Michaud saw some red
spots not far from him, and a little fur-
ther on the head of his greyhound. He
heaved a sigh : " The blackguards. Ma-
dame was right."

Blondet and Michaud went to look at
the body, and found that, as Madame la
Comtesse had said, they had cut Prince's
throat, and to prevent him from barking
they had baited him with a piece of salt
pork, which he still held between his
tongue and the roof of his mouth.

'• Poor beast, his thieving has been the
cause of his death."

"Exactly like a prince," replied Blon-
det.

" Some one has flea from here, not
wanting to be surprised by us," said Mi-
chaud, *'and wiio was consequently do-
ing- a wicked act ; but I see no signs of
branches nor cut trees."

Blondet and the forester commenced
searching- tlie place carefully, closely ex-
amining every track. A few steps away,
Blondet pointed out a tree before which
the grass had been piled, trampled upon,
and two hollows were seen.

"' Some one has been kneeling here, and
it was a woman ; because a man's legs
would not leave so g-reat a quantity of
g-rass between the two knees, and here is
the print of the slcirt."

The forester, after carefully examining-
the foot of the tree, came across the
marks of the commenced hole, but he
failed to find this worm, with thick, shin-
ing, rough skins, bristling with little
brown points, ending in a tail which al-
ready resembled that of a May-bug, and
whose head was armed with horns and
two hooks with which it pierced through
the roots.

" My dear fellow, I now understand the
reason for the large number of dead trees
which I remarked upon this morning as
I stood on the terrace in front of the
chateau, and which made, me come here
hunting for the cause. The worms w^ork
well, but it is your peasants who come
out of the woods."

The forester let a great oath escape
him, and he ran, followed bj^ Blondet, to
rejoin the comtesse, and beg-ged of her to
take his wife home with her. He took
Joseph's horse, the latter returning on
foot to the chateau, and he disappeared
rapidly to intercept the w^oman who had
killed his dog, and to surprise her with
the blood-stained hedging bill and the
instrument with which she had made the
incisions in the trunk, Blondet seated
himself between the comtesse and Ma-
dame Michaud, and related Prince's sad
end to them and the discovery which had
come from it.

"Mon Dieu ! let us tell the general be-
fore he has breakfasted, otherwise he will
die of ang-er," cried the comtesse.

"I will prepare him," said Blondet.

" They have killed the dog," exclaimed
Olympe, wiping- aw^ay her tears.

" You must have loved the poor g-re^'-
hound, my dear," said the comtesse, " to.
make you cry like that."

" I can only think of Prince wath sad
foreboding. I tremble for my husband's
safety."

" How the}'- have spoiled this morning
for us," said the comtesse with an adora-
ble pout.

"How" they are ruining- the country,"
replied the young wife sadly.

They found the g-eneral waiting for
them at the g-ate.

" From whence do you come ? " he
asked.

" You will know," replied Blondet with
a mysterious air, as he helped Madame
Michaud to descend, whose sad looks
struck the comte.

An instant later, the general and Blon-
det were walking- up and down the ter-
race.

"You have sufficient moral courage to
listen to what I have to sa}' without giv-
ing- way to passion, have you not ? "

"I cannot tell," replied the g-eneral;
" but g-o on, finish wiiat you have to say,
or I will begin to think that you are mak-
ing- fun of me."

"Do you see those dead trees? "

"Yes."

" And those which look so faded ? "

"Yes."

" Well, then, as many dead trees as
you see, so many are killed hy the peas-

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

361

ants, whom you thought you had won
over by your kmdness."

And then Blondet related the advent-
ures of the morning-.

The g-eneral became so pale that he
frig-litened Blondet.

" Swsar ! Get angry ! Your repression
will do you more -harm than an outburst
of ang"er."

••'I am g-oing- to smoke!" said the
comte, as he turned toward his kiosk.

During breakfast, Michaud returned ;
he had not met any one. Sibilet, sent
for by the comte, arrived at the same
time.

'"Monsieur Sibilet, and you also. Mon-
sieur Michaud, let it be known throughout
the count ly that I will give one thousand
francs to any one who seizes in ' flagrante
delicto ' those who are thus killing my
trees. You must find out what kind of
tools they use, where they are bought —
and I have a plan.''

•'These people never sell each other,'"
said Sibilet, '• when there are crimes com-
mitted which profit them and are pre-
meditated ; for all they need do, is to
dem' this diabolical invention and say
that it was no plan or work of theirs."

"Yes," said the general, "but a
thousand francs means two or three
acres of ground to them."

" We will tr3%" remarked Sibilet.
" For fifteen hundred I will answer
to find a traitor, especially if we keep
his secret."

"But we must act as though we knew
nothing : I especially. It Avould be better
that 3^ou pretend to have found this out
unknown to me. We must mistrust these
people as we would the enemy in time of
war."

"But thev are the enemy ! " said Blon-
det.

Sibilet cast a look upon the young man
which spoke louder than words ; then he
went out.

"I do not like that Sibilet," said Blon-
det, when he had heard him leaving the
house ; " he is not honest."

" Up to the present time I can find
nothing against him," replied the gen-
eral.

Blondet retired to winte some letters.
He had lost the thoughtless gayety of his
first visit ; he vras uneasy and preoccupied.
He did not have the same presentiments
Madame Micliaud had; it was more a fore-
seen and certain feeling of unhappiness.
He said to himself :

"All this will end badly; and if the
general does not take a decisive step and
give up the battle in which he is crushed
by superior numbers, there will be many

victims. Who knows if he will come out of
it whole and safe, he and his wife ? Mon
Dieu, this adorable, this devoted, this per-
fect woman, thus exposed ! And he thinks
he loves her ! Well, I shall share their
perils, and if I cannot save them, I shall
perish with them."

XXI.

COUNTRY VIRTUES.

That night Marie Tonsard was on the
road leading to Soulanges. Seated on the
edge of a culvert, she was waiting for
Bonnebault, who had, as usual, passed the
day at the cafe. She heard him coming
in the distance, and his steps indicated
that he was drunk. She knew that he
had lost at cards, for he always sang
when he had won.

" Is that you, Bonnebault ? "

"Yes, little one."

" What is the matter with you ? "

"I owe twenty-five francs, and they
can wring my neck twenty-five times
before I can find the money."

"' Well, we can have five hundred,"
she whispered in his ear.

'•Oh! it is a question of killing some-
body, but I had rather live."

"Keep quiet ! Vaudoyer will give them
to us if 3^ou will put him in the way of
catching your mother working at one
of the trees."

" I would rather kill a man than sell
my mother. You have your grandmother,
old woman Tonsard ; wh^^ do 3-ou not de-
liver her up ? "

"If I were to attempt it, my father
would get angry ; and then he would
prevent the little comedy from being
played."

" That is true. But it matters not: my
mother shall not go to prison. Poor ofd
woman I She bakes my bread, she finds
me my clothes, I do not know how. Go
to prison ! And through me ! I would
have neither heart nor bowels ! No, no.
And for fear that she may be sold, I Avill
tell her to-night not to circle any more
trees."

" Yery well, then, my father will do as
he pleases, I will tell him there are five
hundred francs to be gained, and he can
ask my grandmother if she is willing.
They would never put an old woman of
seventy in prison. Besides, she will be
a great deal better placed there than in
her s-arret,"

362

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

'' Five hundred francs ! I will speak
to my mother," said Bonnebault, "In-
deed, if she will arrang-e to give them
to me, I will leave her something- upon
which to live in prison. She will spin,
she will amuse herself ; she will be well
fed, well sheltered, and she will have
much less care than at Conches. To-
morrow, little one — I have no time to
talk with you now."

The next day, at five in the morning-,
just at daybreak, Bonnebault and his
mother knocked on the door of the Grand-
I-vert. Old Mother Tonsard was the only
one up.

"Marie," cried Bonnebault, "the busi-
ness is done."

" Is it about the trees yesterda.y ?" said
Tonsard's mother. " Everything- is ar-
rang-ed. I am to be taken."

" Par exemple ! my boy has the prom-
ise of an acre of g-round for that price,
from Monsieur Rig-ou."

The two old. women commenced to dis-
pute as to who should be sold for the
benefit of their children. The noise of
the quarrel awakened the rest of the
household.

Tonsard. and Bonnebault each took sides
with their respective mothers.

"Let us draw straws," said Madame
Tonsard, the son's wife.

The short straw decided in favor of the
tavern. Three days afterward, at daj^-
break, the g-endarmes led from out the
depths of the forest at Ville-aux-Fayes old
woman Tonsard, taken, b}'' the head for-
ester and his assistants, in the act of de-
stroying the trees, with a wicked-looking-
file, which served the purpose of tearing-
the tree, and a hammer, with which the
delinquent stretched the circular cross-
line, as the insect stretched his pathway.
They stated, in ,the verbal process, the
existence of this perfidious operation upon
sixty trees within a radius of five him-
dred feet. The old woman Tonsard was
transferred to Auxerre, and the case
was turned over to the jurisdiction of
the court of assizes.

When Michaud saw the old woman at
the foot of the tree, he could not help
saying- :

" Here are the kind of people upon
whom Monsieur le Comte and Madame
la Oomtesse expend their benefits ! B^''
mj'^ faith, if ma dame will listen to me,
she will not give a dot to the little
Tonsard ; she is less worthy of it than
her grandmother even."

The old woman raised her gray eyes to
Michaud, and cast a venomous look at him.
And truly, in learning who was the au-
tlior of the crime, the comte forbade his

wife to give anything to Catherine Ton-
sard,

. "Monsieur le Comte w^ould do much
better," said Sibilet, "had he known, as
I knew, that Godain had bought that
field three days before Catherine came
to speak to madame. Thus these two
people had counted upon the effect that
this scene would have upon madame's
compassion. Catherine is entirely capable
of having herself put in the condition in
which she is to have a motive in asking
for that sum of money; for Godain counts
for nothing in the affair."

" What people ! " said Blondet. " The
wicked ones of Paris are saints com-
pared to them — "

" Ah, monsieur," said Sibilet, inter-
rupting him, "interest will make peo-
ple commit crimes everywhere. Do
vou know who betrayed old woman
Tonsard ? "

"No!"

" Her granddaughter, Marie. She was
jealous of her sister's marriage, and in
order to establish herself — "

" This is frightful ! " exclaimed the
comte. "But will they not kill her for
it?"

" Oh ! " replied Sibilet, "that is noth-
ing to fear ; they hold life so lightly,
these people ! They are so tired of al-
ways working. Ah ! monsieur, such
dreadful things do not happen in the
country as in Paris; but then you will
not believe it ? "

"Let us try to be good and chari-
table ! " said the comtesse.

The evening following the arrest, Bon-
nebault came to the Grand-I-vert tavern,
where the whole Tonsard family were
holding high revelry.

" Yes, yes, rejoice ! I have just learned
from Vaudoyer that, to punish you, the
comtesse has withdrawn the thousand
francs she had promised to Godain ;
her husband will not allow her to give
the money."

" It was Michaud, the blackguard, who
advised him," said Tonsard. "My mo-
ther heard him. She told me so at Ville-
aux-Fayes, when I went to take her some
money and some clothes. Well, let them
keep their money; our five hundred francs
will help toward paying for Godain's
ground, and we will be revenged, Godain
and I. Ah ! Michaud has meddled in
our affair's. That will do him more evil
than good. What harm would that
money to Godain do him, I apk you ?
It is he, however, who is the author
of all this rumpus. It is true that he
discovered the spot the day on which
my mother cut his dog's throat. And if

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

363

I were to meddle in the business of the
chateau ! If I were to tell the comte
that his wife was walking* in the forests
with a young- man, with no fear of the
dew. You must have warm feet for
that.-'

'•The general! the g-eneral!" cried
Courtecuisse ; " they can do as they please
with him. But it is Michaud who shows
him the way. He is a mischief maker
wlio knows nothing- of his trade. In ray
time everything was different."

•'Oh!" said Tonsard, "that was a
good time for all of us ; was it not, Vau-
doyer ? "

'• The fact of the matter is," replied the
latter, " that if Michaud was out of the
way we would be unmolested."

'•' Enough said," cried Tonsard. ''We
will talk of this later, b^' the light of the
moon, in the open fields."

Near the end of October the comtesse
had gone away and left the general at les
Aigues. He was not to join her until
much later. She did not want to lose the
first play at the Theatre Italien. She,
nevertheless, found herself alone and
wearied. She no longer had Emile's
society, which had helped her to while
away the moments which the general
gave to his business or in riding about
the coimtry.

November was a true winter month,
somber and gray, half frost and half
thaw, intermingled with snow and rain.
The old Tonsard woman's case had neces-
sitated a journey to the witnesses, and
Michaud had gone to testify. Monsieur
Rigou was seized with a great pity for
this old woman. He had provided her
with a lawyer, who was to argue her case
for her on the sole testimony of inter-
ested witnesses and the absence of all
non-interested witnesses. But the testi-
mony of Monsieur Michaud and his assist-
ants, corroborated by that of the two
gendarmes, had decided the question.
Tonsard 's mother was sentenced to five
years in prison, and the lawyer, turning
to her son, said :

" She owes that to Michaud's testi-
mony 1 "

XXII.

THE CATASTROPHE.

One Saturdaj"- evening Courtecuisse,
Bonnebault, Godain, Tonsard, his daugh-
ters, his wife, Father Fourchon, Vau-

doyer, and several of the other conspira-
tors were taking supper in the tavern.
The moon was half full, and there had
been a hard frost, which had dried up the
ground ; the first snow of the season had
melted.

Thus the footsteps of a man left no
traces behind them by means of which he
could be tracked. They were eating a
ragout made of rabbits. They laughed
and they drank. It was the day after
Godain's marriage, and they were going
to escort him to his new home. His
house was not far from that of Courte-
cuisse. When Rigou sold an acre of
ground it was isolated and near the for-
est. Courtecuisse and Vaudoyer had
their guns with them. The whole coun-
tr3^-side was sleeping ; not a light was to
be seen. Just then Bonnebault's mother
came in.

"The wife," she said, whispering to
Tonsard and her son, "is about to be con-
fined. He has just harnessed his horse,
and is g'oing to fetch Dr. Gourd on from
Soulanges."

"Sit you down there, mother," said
Tonsard to her, giving up his place at
the table to her and going to lie down on
a bench himself.

At that moment the noise of a horse
in full gallop was heard passing rapidly
down the road.

Tonsard, Courtecuisse and "Vaudoyer
went out quickly and saw Michaud go-
ing through the village.

'• How well he knows his business,"
said Courtecuisse. " He lias gone down
the street, turned toward Blangy, and
taken the high-road ; that is the saf-
est."

"Yes," remarked Tonsard, "but he
will bring Monsieur Gourdon back with
him."

"He will not find him, perhaps," ob-
jected Courtecuisse. " They are expecting
the new postmaster at Conches. Every-
thing is upset by him."

' ' But then he will take the road from
Soulanges to Conches, and that is much
shorter."

"And it is the safest for us," said
Courtecuisse. " There is bright moon-
light on the high-road just now. There
are no guards, as 'there are in the forests,
they can hear so far away ; and there are
no guard - houses ; and there behind the
hedges, just at the commencement of the
small forest, you can draw on your man
from behind, as upon a rabbit, at five
hundred feet."

"It Avill be half past eleven when he
passes by there," said Tonsard. " It will
take him half an hour to get to Soulanges

364

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

and as much more to come back. Oh !
if Monsieur Gourd on is only away from
home.'"'

"Do not worry yourself," said Courte-
cuisse. •'! shall be ten minutes away
from you, on the road to the right of
Blangy, facing Soulanges : Vaudoyer
shall be ten minutes from you, facing
Conches, and if any one comes, a post
carriage, the mail, the soldiers, or who-
ever it maj' be, we will fire into the earth
a smothered shot."

"And if I miss? "

"He is right," replied Courtecuisse.
" I am a better shot than you are. Vau-
doyer, I will go with you ; Bonnebault
will replace me. He will utter a shrill
cr3^ ; because that will be heard better
and be less suspicious."

All three re-entered the tavern. The
wedding continued. At eleven o'clock,
Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard and
Bonnebault went out, taking their guns
with them, and not one of the w^omen
paid any attention to them. They re-
turned, however, three quarters of an
hour later and commenced to drink,
which they kept up until one o'clock in
the morning. Tonsard 's two daughters,
their mother and Bonnebault had given
the miller, the mowers and the two peas-
ants, as well as Fourchon, so much to
drink that they had fallen to the floor,
when the four conspirators had set out.
On their return, they shook the sleep-
ers, wiiom they found still in the same
places.

While this orgie was being enacted,
Michaud's household was in the greatest
disorder. Ol^'mpe's sickness iiad been
premature, and her husband, thinking
that she was about to be confined, had
set out in great haste. But the poor
woman's pains became quiet almost as
soon as Michaud had started ; for her
mind was so preoccupied with the dan-
gers which surrounded her husband at
this late hour, in a countr\^ at enmity
with him, and overrun with such deter-
mined rascals, that this agony of mind
was powerful enough to kill and dominate
for the moment her ph^^sical sufferings.
Her servant tried to reassure her, by tell-
ing her that her fears Avere imaginary.
She did not seem to understand what she
was saying, and remained crouched over
the fire in her own room, listening in-
tently to every sound out doors ; and in
her ten -or, which became greater every
moment, she had roused the man ser-
vant, v/ith the intention of giving him
an order which she did not give after
all.

The poor woman came and went in a

feverish agitation. She opened her win-
dows and looked out of them, in spite of
the cold; she descended the stairs and
opened the door leading to the court-
yard ; she looked out into the niglit
and listened :

"Nothing — always nothing ! " she said.

She climbed up the stairs again, in
despair.

At about a quarter past twelve she
cried :

" Here he is, I hear his horse ! "

She went downstairs, followed by the
servant, who started to open the gate.

" It is singular," she said ; " he is com-
ing back by way of the forest — from Con-
ches ! "

Then she stopped as if struck Avith
horror, motionless, voiceless. The do-
mestic shared this friglit ; for there was
something in the furious gallop of the
horse and in the clanking of his empty
stirrups which rang* out, I cannot explain
what premonition of evil, accompanied by
those significant neighings which horses
give utterance to when they are alone.
Soon — too soon for the unhappy woman
— the horse reached the gate, breathless
and covered with sweat, but alone ; he
had broken his bridle, by which he had
evidently been fastened.

With haggard e^^es Ol.ympe watched
the servant opening the gate; she saw
the horse come in, and without saying a
word she started like a crazy woman to
run to the chateau. She reached it, and,
falling under the general's windows, she
cried out :

"Monsieur, they have assassinated
him ! "

This cry was so terrible that it awak-
ened the comte. He rang and roused all
the household. The groans of poor Ma-
dame Michaud, who had given birth to
a dead child, drew the general and his
servants to the spot. They lifted the
unhappy Avoman, Avho was dying. She
expired, saying to the general :

" They have killed him ! "

" Joseph," called the comte to his valet,
"go find a doctor ! Perhaps there is still
some hope. No, rather ask Monsieur le
Cure to come ; for this poor woman is
really dead, and her child also. Mon Dieu I
mon Dieu ! how luckj^ it is that my \\ ife
is not here ! And you," he said, turning
to the gardener, "go and see what has
happened."

"What has happened," said Michaud's
servant, " is that Monsieur Michaud's
horse has come home alone, the harness
broken and his limbs bleeding. There is
blood upon the saddle."

"What has been done this night?"

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

365

said the comte. "Go and waken Groi-
son, call the guards, and have the horses
saddled. We will g-o and search the coun-
try-side,"

At daybreak, eight persons — the cotnte,
Groison, the three guards, the marshal,
and two gendarmes who had come from
Soulanges with him — set out to explore
the country. They found, about the
middle of the day, the body of the head
lorester, in a clump of trees between
the high-road and the road to Ville-
aux-Fayes, at the end of the park of
les Aigues, and five hundred feet from
"the Conches gate. Two gendarmes set
out, one for Ville-aux-Fayes, to bring the
king's deputy, the other for Soulanges, to
get the justice of the peace. Awaiting
their arrival, the general made a survey
of the ground, assisted by the marshal.
They found on the road the prints made
b\' the horse's pawing, and the heavy
marks of the gallop of a frightened horse
as far as the first forest path beyond the
hedge. The horse, unguided, had taken
his own way from there, Michaud's hat
was found in this path. To return to liis
stable, the horse had taken the shortest
road, Michaud was shot in the back.
The vertebral column was broken,

Groison and the marshal examined,
with a remarkable sagacity, the ground
around the traces of the pawing, which
indicated what they call in judicial style
"the theater of the crime"; but thej^
could discover no clew. The earth was
too frozen to retain the prints of the feet
of those who had killed Michaud ; they
only found the paper of a cartridge.
When the king's deputy, the judge and
Monsieur Gourdon arrived to take away
the body and make an autopsy, it was
decided that the ball, which coincided
witli the debris of the wadding, was a
ball from an ammunition gun, fired from
an ammunition gun, and that there was
not one of those guns in existence in the
district of Blangy. The judge, and Mon-
sieur Soudray, the king's deputy, that
evening at the chateau, agreed to gather
together all the evidence and then wait.
This was also the advice of the marshal
and the lieutenant of the Ville-aux-Fayes
gendarmerie.

'' It is impossible that this could be a
blow agreed upon by all the country peo-
ple," said the marshal; " but there are two
districts, Blangy and Conches, and there
are in each five or six people capable of
having struck the blow. The one I sus-
pect the most, Tonsard, passed the night
guzzling ; but your deputj^, my dear gen-
eral, was at the wedding feast ; Lan-
glume, 3'^our miller, never left them. ,

They were so drunk they could not stand
up ; and they escorted the newh'-married
couple to their home about half-past one;
and the horse's arrival proclaims the
fact that Michaud was assassinated be-
tween eleven o'clock and midnight. At
a quarter past ten, Groison had seen the
entire Avedding party seated at the table,
and Monsieur Michaud had passed by
there to go to Soulanges, from whence
he had returned at eleven o'clock. His
horse had become refractory between the
guardhouses and the road ; but he might
have been shot at Blangy, and have kept
his seat for some time longer. You must
swear out warrants against twenty peo-
ple at least ; arrest all the suspects. But
these gentlemen know the peasants as I
know them. You will keep them in prison
for a year, and will get nothing but de-
nials. What are you going to do with
all those who were at Tonsard's ? "

The}'^ called Langlume, the miller, and
the deput}' of the General de Mont-
cornet, who told briefly his story of the
evening.

They were all in the tavern. None had
gone out except for a few moments in
the courtyard. That was in companj^
with Tonsard about eleven o'clock. They
had talked about the moonlight and the
Aveather; but had heard no sounds. They
named all the guests : not one of them
had left the tavern. About two o'clock
the companj^ conducted the newly-married
couple to their house.

The general agreed with the marshal,
the lieutenant and the king's deputy to
send to Paris for a skillful detective, who
would come'' to the chateau as a work-
man, and who would conduct himself in
such a manner as to be dismissed. He
would drink and become a constant vis-
itor at the Grand-I-vert, and would re-
main in the country, grumbling against
the general. It was the best plan to fol-
low by which to watch an indiscretion
and to catch a robber,

" If it costs me twentj- thousand francs,
I will end by discovering the murderer of
my dear Michaud," the general was never
tired of repeating.

He set out with this idea and returned
from Paris, in the month of January,
with one of the most skillful detectives of
the secret service, who installed himself,
so to say, to direct the work, and who
took to poaching. They served a verbal
process against him ; the general put him
out doors, and returned to Paris in the
month of February.

366

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

XXIII.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE VANQUISHED.

In the month of May, when the good
weather had come, and the Parisians had
returned to les Aigues, one evening- Mon-
sieur de Troisville, whom his daug-hter
had brought liome witli lier, Blondet, the
Abbe Brossette, tlie general, the sous-
prefect of Vilie-aux-Fayes, who was visit-
ing at the chateau, were placing, some of
them whist, the others checkers. It was
about half past eleven o'cloclv. Joseph
came in to say to his master that the
drunken workman whom he had dis-
charged wished to speak to him ; he pre-
tended that the general still owed him
some mone3\ He was, the valet said,
very tipsy.

"Well, I will go and see him."

And the general went out on the terrace
some distance from the chateau.

"Monsieur le Comte," said the detec-
tive, " you will never get anything out of
these people ; all that I can find out is,
that if you continue to remain in the
country and try to make the inhabitants
give up the customs which Mademoiselle
Laguerre allowed them to fall into, they
will shoot you too. Besides, there is
nothing more for me to do here ; they
mistrust me more than they do your
guards."

The count paid the spy, who left, and
whose departure justified the suspicions
of the accomplices of Michaud's death.
When the general entered the salon to
rejoin his family and his guests, there re-
mained on his face traces of so vivid and
deep an emotion that his wife, becoming
uneasy, came to him to ask him what he
had just heard.

" Chere Annie, I do not wish to frighten
thee, and yet it is right that thou shouldst
learn that Michaud's death was an in-
direct advice which was given to us to
leave the country. ' '

"As for me," said Monsieur de Trois-
ville, "I would not leave it. I had the
same difficulties in Normandy, but under
another form, and I persisted in re-
maining. Now everything goes along
smoothly."

" Monsieur le Marquis," said the sous-
prefect, "Normand}' and Burgund}^ are
two very different countries. The f I'uit of
the vine makes hotter blood than that
of the apple trees. We do not know the
laws and their consequences so well, and
we are surrounded by forests. Industrj^
has not tamed us 3=^et; we are still savages.
If I dare give the comte any advice, it
would be to sell his ground and to put his

money out at interest. He would so double
his income, and would not have the slight-
est care with it all. If he loves the coun-
try, he could have, in the neighborhood
of Paris, a chateau with a park, inclosed
by a wall, as beautiful as this one of les
Aigues, where nobody would ever disturb
him ; and which would only have farms
attached to it rented to people who would
come in their carriages, and pay their
rent in bank notes, and who would not
necessitate us serving' a single verbal
process during the year. He could go
and return inside of four hours. And
Monsieur Blondet and Monsieur le Mar-
quis would not miss Madame la Comtesse
so often."

" I retreat before the peasants, when I
did not even retreat before the Danube ! "

" Yes, but where are your cuirassiers ?"
asked Blondet.

"Such a beautiful country ! "

" It must be worth more than two mill-
ions to-day ! "

"The chateau alone must have cost
that," said Monsieur de Troisville.

" One of the finest estates within a
radius of twenty miles ! " said the sous-
prefect ; "but you will find better ones
in the neighborhood of Paris!"

" What is the income from two mill-
ions?" asked the comtesse.

"To-day, about eighty thousand francs,"
replied Blondet.

"The les Aigues does not bring in
more than thirty thousand francs in-
come," said the comtesse; "and then
you have been under great expense these
last few years ; you have surrounded the
forests with ditches."

"There is," said Blondet, "a roj-al
chateau, that can be bought for four
hundred thousand francs to-da3^ in the
neighborhood of Paris. You can buy the
follies of others."

" I thought that you wanted to live
at les Aigues?" said the comte to his
wife.

" Do you not think that I am a thou-
sand times more anxious about your life ?"
she said. "Besides, since the death of my
poorOlympe and Michaud's assassination
this country has become odious to me.
All the faces which I meet seem sinister
and menacing to me."

The next evening, in Monsieur Gauber-
tin's salon, at Ville-aux-Fayes, the sous-
prefect was greeted by this phrase, which
the mayor called out to hiui :

" W^ell, Monsieur des Lupeaulx, do you
come from les Aigues ? "

"Yes," replied the sous-prefect, with
a little air of triumph, and casting a
tender glance upon Mademoiselle Elise,

A TRAGEDY OF THE PEASANTRY.

367

" I am very much afraid that we shall
lose the general. He i^ going- to sell his
property."

" Monsieur Gaubertin, I leave my pa-
vilion in 3'our care. I cannot stand this
noise an}^ long'er, nor the dust of Ville-
aux-Fayes. I am like an imprisoned bird :
I long- for the air of the fields, the breath of
the forests," said Madame Isaure, in a
languorous voice, her eyes half closed, her
head leaning* toward her left shoulder,
and nonchalantly twisting- her long blonde
curls.

''Be quiet, madame," said Gaubertin
to her in a whisper; 'Mt is not by your
indiscretions that I will buy the pavil-
ion."

Then, turning toward the sous-prefect :

" They have never discovered the per-
sonality of the assassins of the forester ? "
he asked him.

'•' It seems not," replied the sous-prefect.

'• That will do much harm to the sale
of les Aigues," said Gaubertin in a loud
voice, so as to be heard by his guests.
" I know very well that I will not buy
any of it. The country people are too
wicked. Even in Mademoiselle Laguerre's
time I quarreled Avith them, and God only
know^s how she let them have their own
way."

Nothing indicated, toward the end of
May, that the general had any intention
of selling les Aigues. He was still unde-
cided. One evening, about sLk o'clock, he
entered the forest by one of the six ave-
nues which led to the pavilion. He had
dismissed his guard, as ho found himself
so near the chateau. At a turn in the
pathway a man, armed with a gun, came
out from the bushes.

'•General," he said, "this is the third
time that you have been in front of my
fowling-piece, and this is the third time
that I have given you jowy life."

" Why do you w'ish to kill me, Bonne-
bault ? " said the comte, without betray-
ing the slig'htest emotion.

" B3^ my faith, if it was not b}' me, it
would be by another; and as for me, I
like the men who served under the Em-
peror, and I could not make up m}^ mind
to kill you like a partridge. Do not
question me, I don't want to say any-
thing. But you have some very power-
ful enemies, much more tricky than you
are, and who will finish by crushing you.
I will receive a thousand francs if l"^ kill
you, and I will marry Marie Tonsard.
Give me a few acres of ground and a small
hut. I will continue to say, what I have
said all along, that I have not 3'et found
the occasion. You will have time to sell
your ground and go away from here ; but

hurry up. I am still an honest fellow,
bad subject and all that I am ; another
might do you some harm."

"And if I give you what you ask, will
you tell me the name of the person who
promised you the thousand francs ? "
asked the general.

" I do not know it ; and the person who
is urging me on to that point I love too
much to name to you. And after all,
when you know it is Marie Tonsard, that
will not do you much good ; Marie Ton-
sard will be as mute as a wall, and as for
me, I should deny having told you."

""Come and see me to-morrow," said
the general.

"This is sufficient," said Bonnebault;
"but if they find me awkward, I will
warn 3'ou."

Eight days after this strange conversa-
tion, the whole district, the department
and Paris was posted with enormous pos-
ters, announcing the sale of les Aigues in
lots, in the office of Master Corbineau,
notary of Soulanges. All the lots were
bid in by Rigou, and rose to the sum of
two million five hundred thousand francs.
The next day Rigou changed the names :
Monsieur Gaubertin had the forests, Ri-
gou and the Soudrys the vineyards and
the other lots. The chateau and the park
were sold again, with the exception of the
pavilion and its surroundings, which Mon-
sieur Gaubertin reserved, in honor of his
practical and sentimental spouse.

Several years after these events, dur-
ing the winter of 1837, one of the most
remarkable political writers of the day,
Emile Blondet, reached the last stage of
poverty, which he had hidden until then
under the outside show of a life of reck-
less opulence. He hesitated in taking a
desperate step, seeing that his work, his
mind, his learning, his knowledge of af-
fairs, had led to nothing better than to
slave like a mechanic to the profit of
others, in seeing all the good places
taken, in feeling himself arrived at a
mature age, without position and with-
out fortune ; in perceiving sots and silly
bourgeois replacing- the court people and
the incapables of the Restoration, and
the Government being reconstructed as
it was in 1830. One evening, when he
was on the verge of suicide, throwing
a backward glance over his deplorable
existence, calumniated and overburdened
with work, more than with the orgies
with which thej reproached him, he
saw the figure of a 'noble and beauti-

368

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

ful woman, as one often sees a statue
standing- whole and pure in the midst
of the saddest ruins. As this imag-e filled
his brain, his porter knocked at his door
and handed him a letter, sealed in black,
in which the Comtesse de Montcornet
announced the death of the g'eneral, who
had g-one back to active service and
commanded a division. She was his
heir ; she had no children. The letter,
though dig-nified, indicated to Blondet
that the woman of forty A-ears, whom he
had loved when young-, offered him a
fraternal hand and a considerable fort-
une. Some days after the marriage,
the Comtesse de Montcornet and Mon-
sieur Blondet— who had been made pre-
fect — in order to reach the prefec-
ture, had taken the route which passed
through what was formerly les Aigues,
and stopped at the spot where the two
pavilions had formerh^ stood, wishing to
visit the village and country of Blang-y,
peopled with such sweet remembrances
to both the travelers.

The mj'sterious forests, the avenues
leading- to the park, had all been done
away with ; the country resembled a
tailor's sample board. The peasants had
taken possession of the earth, as con-
quered and conqueror. They had already
subdivided it into more than a thousand
lots, and the population had tripled be-

tween Conches and Blang-y. The cultiva-
tion of this beautiful park, so cared-for,
so luxuriant formerh', had released the
pretty pavilion, which had become the
villain Buen Retiro " of Lady Isaure
Gaubertin. This was the onh^ building-
left standing, and which dominated the
landscape, or, better still, the trivial,
petty cultivation replacing- the landscape.
This construction looked like a chateau,
so miserable were the little houses built
all around it, in the fashion of peasants'
dwelling-s.

" This is progress ! " cried Emile. " It
is a pag-e taken from the ' Contract
Social ' of Jean-Jacques ! And I, I am
harnessed to the social machine which
works thus ! Mon Dieu ! what will be-
come of the kings in a little while ? But
what will become, in this condition of
things, of the nations themselves in fifty
years ? "

" You love me, you are beside me, I
find the present very beautiful, and I care
not for a future so far distant," replied
his wife.

"Near thee, long- live the present!"
g-ayly cried the enamored Blondet, "and
to the devil with the future I "

Then he signed to the coachman to
drive on, and as the horses set forth in a
g-alop, the newly-married couple retook
the course of their honeymoon.

END OF VOLUME THREE.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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