Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER III

THE TAV­ERN

The gate of Blangy, built by Bouret, was formed of two wide pi­lasters of pro­ject­ing rough-​hewn stone; each sur­mount­ed by a dog sit­ting on his haunch­es and hold­ing an es­cutcheon be­tween his fore paws. The prox­im­ity of a small house where the stew­ard lived dis­pensed with the ne­ces­si­ty for a lodge. Be­tween the two pi­lasters, a sump­tu­ous iron gate, like those made in Buf­fon's time for the Jardin des Plantes, opened on a short paved way which led to the coun­try road (for­mer­ly kept in or­der by Les Aigues and the Soulanges fam­ily) which unites Conch­es, Cerneux, Blangy, and Soulanges to Ville-​aux-​Fayes, like a wreath, for the whole road is lined with flow­er­ing hedges and lit­tle hous­es cov­ered with ros­es and hon­ey-​suck­le and oth­er climb­ing plants.

There, along a pret­ty wall which ex­tends as far as a ter­race from which the land of Les Aigues falls rapid­ly to the val­ley till it meets that of Soulanges, are the rot­ten posts, the old wheel, and the forked stakes which con­sti­tut­ed the man­ufac­to­ry of the vil­lage rope-​mak­er.

Soon af­ter mid­day, while Blon­det was seat­ing him­self at ta­ble op­po­site the Abbe Bros­sette and re­ceiv­ing the ten­der ex­pos­tu­la­tions of the count­ess, Pere Four­chon and Mouche ar­rived at this es­tab­lish­ment. From that van­tage-​ground Pere Four­chon, un­der pre­tence of rope-​mak­ing, could watch Les Aigues and see ev­ery one who went in and out. Noth­ing es­caped him, the open­ing of the blinds, tete-​a-​tete loi­ter­ings, or the least lit­tle in­ci­dents of coun­try life, were spied up­on by the old fel­low, who had set up this busi­ness with­in the last three years,--a tri­fling cir­cum­stance which nei­ther the mas­ters, nor the ser­vants, nor the keep­ers of Les Aigues had as yet re­marked up­on.

“Go round to the house by the gate of the Avonne while I put away the tack­le,” said Pere Four­chon to his at­ten­dant, “and when you have blabbed about the thing, they'll no doubt send af­ter me to the Grand-​I-​Vert, where I am go­ing for a drop of drink,--for it makes one thirsty enough to wade in the wa­ter that way. If you do just as I tell you, you'll hook a good break­fast out of them; try to meet the count­ess, and give a slap at me, and that will put it in­to her head to come and preach moral­ity or some­thing! There's lots of good wine to get out of it.”

Af­ter these last in­struc­tions, which the sly look in Mouche's face ren­dered quite su­per­flu­ous, the old peas­ant, hug­ging the ot­ter un­der his arm, dis­ap­peared along the coun­try road.

Half-​way be­tween the gate and the vil­lage there stood, at the time when Emile Blon­det stayed at Les Aigues, one of those hous­es which are nev­er seen but in parts of France where stone is scarce. Bits of bricks picked up any­where, cob­ble­stones set like di­amonds in the clay mud, formed very sol­id walls, though worn in places; the roof was sup­port­ed by stout branch­es and cov­ered with rush­es and straw, while the clum­sy shut­ters and the bro­ken door--in short, ev­ery­thing about the cot­tage was the prod­uct of lucky finds, or of gifts ob­tained by beg­ging.

The peas­ant has an in­stinct for his habi­ta­tion like that of an an­imal for its nest or its bur­row, and this in­stinct was very marked in all the ar­range­ments of this cot­tage. In the first place, the door and the win­dow looked to the north. The house, placed on a lit­tle rise in the stoni­est an­gle of a vine­yard, was cer­tain­ly health­ful. It was reached by three steps, care­ful­ly made with stakes and planks filled in with bro­ken stone and grav­el, so that the wa­ter ran off rapid­ly; and as the rain sel­dom comes from the north­ward in Bur­gundy, no damp­ness could rot the foun­da­tions, slight as they were. Be­low the steps and along the path ran a rus­tic pal­ing, hid­den be­neath a hedge of hawthorn and sweet-​brier. An ar­bor, with a few clum­sy ta­bles and wood­en bench­es, filled the space be­tween the cot­tage and the road, and in­vit­ed the passers-​by to rest them­selves. At the up­per end of the bank by the house ros­es grew, and wall-​flow­ers, vi­olets, and oth­er flow­ers that cost noth­ing. Jes­samine and hon­ey-​suck­le had fas­tened their ten­drils on the roof, mossy al­ready, though the build­ing was far from old.

To the right of the house, the own­er had built a sta­ble for two cows. In front of this erec­tion of old boards, a sunken piece of ground served as a yard where, in a cor­ner, was a huge ma­nure-​heap. On the oth­er side of the house and the ar­bor stood a thatched shed, sup­port­ed on trunks of trees, un­der which the var­ious out­door prop­er­ties of the peas­antry were put away,--the uten­sils of the vine-​dressers, their emp­ty casks, logs of wood piled about a mound which con­tained the oven, the mouth of which opened, as was usu­al in the hous­es of the peas­antry, un­der the man­tle-​piece of the chim­ney in the kitchen.

About an acre of land ad­joined the house, in­closed by an ev­er­green hedge and plant­ed with grape-​vines; tend­ed as peas­ants tend them, --that is to say, well-​ma­nured, and dug round, and lay­ered so that they usu­al­ly set their fruit be­fore the vines of the large pro­pri­etors in a cir­cuit of ten miles round. A few trees, al­mond, plum, and apri­cot, showed their slim heads here and there in this en­clo­sure. Be­tween the rows of vines pota­toes and beans were plant­ed. In ad­di­tion to all this, on the side to­wards the vil­lage and be­yond the yard was a bit of damp low ground, fa­vor­able for the growth of cab­bages and onions (fa­vorite veg­eta­bles of the work­ing-​class­es), which was closed by a wood­en gate, through which the cows were driv­en, tram­pling the path in­to mud and cov­er­ing it with dung.

The house, which had two rooms on the ground-​floor, opened up­on the vine­yard. On this side an out­er stair­way, roofed with thatch and rest­ing against the wall of the house, led up to the gar­ret, which was light­ed by one round win­dow. Un­der this rus­tic stair­way opened a cel­lar built of Bur­gundy brick, con­tain­ing sev­er­al casks of wine.

Though the kitchen uten­sils of the peas­antry are usu­al­ly on­ly two, name­ly, a fry­ing-​pan and an iron pot, with which they man­age to do all their cook­ing, ex­cep­tions to this rule, in the shape of two enor­mous saucepans hang­ing be­neath the man­tle-​shelf and above a small portable stove, were to be seen in this cot­tage. In spite, how­ev­er, of this in­di­ca­tion of lux­ury, the fur­ni­ture was in keep­ing with the ex­ter­nal ap­pear­ance of the place. A jar held wa­ter, the spoons were of wood or pewter, the dish­es, of red clay with­out and white with­in, were scal­ing off and had been mend­ed with pewter riv­ets; the heavy ta­ble and chairs were of pine wood, and for floor­ing there was noth­ing bet­ter than the hard­ened earth. Ev­ery fifth year the walls re­ceived a coat of white-​wash and so did the nar­row beams of the ceil­ing, from which hung ba­con, strings of onions, bun­dles of tal­low can­dles, and the bags in which a peas­ant keeps his seeds; near the bread-​box stood an old-​fash­ioned wardrobe in wal­nut, where the scanty house­hold linen, and the one change of gar­ments to­geth­er with the hol­iday at­tire of the en­tire fam­ily were kept.

Above the man­tel of the chim­ney gleamed a poach­er's old gun, not worth five francs,--the wood scorched, the bar­rel to all ap­pear­ances nev­er cleaned. An ob­serv­er might re­flect that the pro­tec­tion of a hov­el with on­ly a latch, and an out­er gate that was on­ly a pal­ing and nev­er closed, need­ed no bet­ter weapon; but still the won­der was to what use it was put. In the first place, though the wood was of the com­mon­est kind, the bar­rel was care­ful­ly se­lect­ed, and came from a valu­able gun, giv­en in all prob­abil­ity to a game-​keep­er. More­over, the own­er of this weapon nev­er missed his aim; there was be­tween him and his gun the same in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance that there is be­tween a work­man and his tool. If the muz­zle must be raised or low­ered the mer­est frac­tion in its aim, be­cause it car­ries just an atom above or be­low the range, the poach­er knows it; he obeys the rule and nev­er miss­es. An of­fi­cer of ar­tillery would have found the es­sen­tial parts of this weapon in good con­di­tion notwith­stand­ing its un­clean­ly ap­pear­ance. In all that the peas­ant ap­pro­pri­ates to his use, in all that serves him, he dis­plays just the amount of force that is need­ed, nei­ther more nor less; he at­tends to the es­sen­tial and to noth­ing be­yond. Ex­ter­nal per­fec­tion he has no con­cep­tion of. An unerring judge of the nec­es­sary in all things, he thor­ough­ly un­der­stands de­grees of strength, and knows very well when work­ing for an em­ploy­er how to give the least pos­si­ble for the most he can get. This con­temptible-​look­ing gun will be found to play a se­ri­ous part in the life of the fam­ily in­hab­it­ing this cot­tage, and you will present­ly learn how and why.

Have you now tak­en in all the many de­tails of this hov­el, plant­ed about five hun­dred feet away from the pret­ty gate of Les Aigues? Do you see it crouch­ing there, like a beg­gar be­side a palace? Well, its roof cov­ered with vel­vet moss­es, its clack­ing hens, its grunt­ing pig, its stray­ing heifer, all its ru­ral graces have a hor­ri­ble mean­ing.

Fas­tened to a pole, which was stuck in the ground be­side the en­trance through the fence, was a with­ered bunch of three pine branch­es and some old oak-​leaves tied to­geth­er with a rag. Above the door of the house a rov­ing artist had paint­ed, prob­ably in re­turn for his break­fast, a huge cap­ital “I” in green on a white ground two feet square; and for the ben­efit of those who could read, this wit­ty joke in twelve let­ters: “Au Grand-​I-​Vert” (hiv­er). On the left of the door was a vul­gar sign bear­ing, in col­ored let­ters, “Good March beer,” and the pic­ture of a foam­ing pot of the same, with a wom­an, in a dress ex­ces­sive­ly low-​necked, on one side, and an hus­sar on the oth­er,--both coarse­ly col­ored. Con­se­quent­ly, in spite of the bloom­ing flow­ers and the fresh coun­try air, this cot­tage ex­haled the same strong and nau­seous odor of wine and food which as­sails you in Paris as you pass the door of the cheap cook-​shops of the faubourg.

Now you know the sur­round­ings. Be­hold the in­hab­itants and hear their his­to­ry, which con­tains more than one les­son for phi­lan­thropists.

The pro­pri­etor of the Grand-​I-​Vert, named Fran­cois Ton­sard, com­mends him­self to the at­ten­tion of philoso­phers by the man­ner in which he had solved the prob­lem of an idle life and a busy life, so as to make the idle­ness prof­itable, and oc­cu­pa­tion nil.

A jack-​of-​all-​trades, he knew how to cul­ti­vate the ground, but for him­self on­ly. For oth­ers, he dug ditch­es, gath­ered fagots, barked the trees, or cut them down. In all such work the em­ploy­er is at the mer­cy of the work­man. Ton­sard owned his plot of ground to the gen­eros­ity of Made­moi­selle La­guerre. In his ear­ly youth he had worked by the day for the gar­den­er at Les Aigues; and he re­al­ly had not his equal in trim­ming the shrub­bery-​trees, the hedges, the horn-​beams, and the horse-​chest­nuts. His very name shows hered­itary tal­ent. In re­mote coun­try-​places priv­ileges ex­ist which are ob­tained and pre­served with as much care as the mer­chants of a city dis­play in get­ting theirs. Made­moi­selle La­guerre was one day walk­ing in the gar­den, when she over­heard Ton­sard, then a strap­ping fel­low, say, “All I need to live on, and live hap­pi­ly, is an acre of land.” The kind crea­ture, ac­cus­tomed to make oth­ers hap­py, gave him the acre of vine­yard near the gate of Blangy, in re­turn for one hun­dred days' work (a del­icate re­gard for his feel­ings which was lit­tle un­der­stood), and al­lowed him to stay at Les Aigues, where he lived with her ser­vants, who thought him one of the best fel­lows in Bur­gundy.

Poor Ton­sard (that is what ev­ery­body called him) worked about thir­ty days out of the hun­dred that he owed; the rest of the time he idled about, talk­ing and laugh­ing with Made­moi­selle's wom­en, par­tic­ular­ly with Made­moi­selle Co­chet, the la­dy's maid, though she was ug­ly, like all con­fi­den­tial maids of hand­some ac­tress­es. Laugh­ing with Made­moi­selle Co­chet sig­ni­fied so many things that Soudry, the for­tu­nate gen­darme men­tioned in Blon­det's let­ter, still looked askance at Ton­sard af­ter the lapse of near­ly twen­ty-​five years. The wal­nut wardrobe, the bed­stead with the tester and cur­tains, and the or­na­ments about the bed­room were doubt­less the re­sult of the said laugh­ter.

Once in pos­ses­sion of his care, Ton­sard replied to the first per­son who hap­pened to men­tion that Made­moi­selle La­guerre had giv­en it to him, “I've bought it deuced hard, and paid well for it. Do rich folks ev­er give us any­thing? Are one hun­dred days' work noth­ing? It has cost me three hun­dred francs, and the land is all stones.” But that speech nev­er got be­yond the re­gions of his own class.

Ton­sard built his house him­self, pick­ing up the ma­te­ri­als here and there as he could,--get­ting a day's work out of this one and that one, glean­ing in the rub­bish that was thrown away, of­ten ask­ing for things and al­ways ob­tain­ing them. A dis­card­ed door cut in two for con­ve­nience in car­ry­ing away be­came the door of the sta­ble; the win­dow was the sash of a green-​house. In short, the rub­bish of the chateau, served to build the fa­tal cot­tage.

Saved from the draft by Gaubertin, the stew­ard of Les Aigues, whose fa­ther was pros­ecut­ing-​at­tor­ney of the de­part­ment, and who, more­over, could refuse noth­ing to Made­moi­selle Co­chet, Ton­sard mar­ried as soon as his house was fin­ished and his vines had be­gun to bear. A well-​grown fel­low of twen­ty-​three, in ev­ery­body's good graces at Les Aigues, on whom Made­moi­selle had be­stowed an acre of her land, and who ap­peared to be a good work­er, he had the art to ring the prais­es of his neg­ative mer­its, and so ob­tained the daugh­ter of a farmer on the Ron­querolles es­tate, which lies be­yond the for­est of Les Aigues.

This farmer held the lease of half a farm, which was go­ing to ru­in in his hands for want of a help­mate. A wid­ow­er, and in­con­solable for the loss of his wife, he tried to drown his trou­bles, like the En­glish, in wine, and then, when he had put the poor de­ceased out of his mind, he found him­self mar­ried, so the vil­lage ma­li­cious­ly de­clared, to a wom­an named Bois­son. From be­ing a farmer he be­came once more a la­bor­er, but an idle and drunk­en la­bor­er, quar­rel­some and vin­dic­tive, ca­pa­ble of any ill-​deed, like most of his class when they fall from a well-​to-​do state of life in­to pover­ty. This man, whose prac­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion and knowl­edge of read­ing and writ­ing placed him far above his fel­low-​work­men, while his vices kept him at the lev­el of pau­perism, you have al­ready seen on the banks of the Avonne, mea­sur­ing his clev­er­ness with that of one of the clever­est men in Paris, in a bu­col­ic over­looked by Vir­gil.

Pere Four­chon, for­mer­ly a school­mas­ter at Blangy, lost that place through mis­con­duct and his sin­gu­lar ideas as to pub­lic ed­uca­tion. He helped the chil­dren to make pa­per boats with their al­pha­bets much of­ten­er than he taught them how to spell; he scold­ed them in so re­mark­able a man­ner for pil­fer­ing fruit that his lec­tures might re­al­ly have passed for lessons on the best way of scal­ing the walls. From teach­er he be­came a post­man. In this ca­pac­ity, which serves as a refuge to many an old sol­dier, Pere Four­chon was dai­ly rep­ri­mand­ed. Some­times he for­got the let­ters in a tav­ern, at oth­er times he kept them in his pock­et. When he was drunk he left those for one vil­lage in an­oth­er vil­lage; when he was sober he read them. Con­se­quent­ly, he was soon dis­missed. No longer able to serve the State, Pere Four­chon end­ed by be­com­ing a man­ufac­tur­er. In the coun­try a poor man can al­ways get some­thing to do, and make at least a pre­tence of gain­ing an hon­est liveli­hood. At six­ty-​eight years of age the old man start­ed his rope-​walk, a man­ufac­to­ry which re­quires the very small­est cap­ital. The work­shop is, as we have seen, any con­ve­nient wall; the ma­chin­ery costs about ten francs. The ap­pren­tice slept, like his mas­ter, in a hay-​loft, and lived on what­ev­er he could pick up. The ra­pac­ity of the law in the mat­ter of doors and win­dows ex­pires “sub dio.” The tow to make the first rope can be bor­rowed. But the prin­ci­pal rev­enue of Pere Four­chon and his satel­lite Mouche, the nat­ural son of one of his nat­ural daugh­ters, came from the ot­ters; and then there were break­fasts and din­ners giv­en them by peas­ants who could nei­ther read nor write, and were glad to use the old fel­low's tal­ents when they had a bill to make out, or a let­ter to dis­patch. Be­sides all this, he knew how to play the clar­ionet, and he went about with his friend Ver­michel, the miller of Soulanges, to vil­lage wed­dings and the grand balls giv­en at the Tivoli of Soulanges.

Ver­michel's name was Michel Vert, but the trans­po­si­tion was so gen­er­al­ly used that Brunet, the clerk of the mu­nic­ipal court of Soulanges, was in the habit of writ­ing Michel-​Jean-​Jerome Vert, called Ver­michel, prac­ti­tion­er. Ver­michel, a fa­mous vi­olin in the Bur­gun­di­an reg­iment of for­mer days, had pro­cured for Pere Four­chon, in recog­ni­tion of cer­tain ser­vices, a sit­ua­tion as prac­ti­tion­er, which in re­mote coun­try-​places usu­al­ly de­volves on those who are able to sign their name. Pere Four­chon there­fore added to his oth­er av­oca­tions that of wit­ness, or prac­ti­tion­er of le­gal pa­pers, when­ev­er the Sieur Brunet came to draw them in the dis­tricts of Cerneux, Conch­es, and Blangy. Ver­michel and Four­chon, al­lied by a friend­ship of twen­ty years' tip­pling, might re­al­ly be con­sid­ered a busi­ness firm.

Mouche and Four­chon, bound to­geth­er by vice as Men­tor and Telemachus by virtue, trav­elled like the lat­ter, in search of their fa­ther, “pa­nis an­gelo­rum,”--the on­ly Latin words which the old fel­low's mem­ory had re­tained. They went about scrap­ing up the pick­ings of the Grand-​I-​Vert, and those of the ad­ja­cent chateaux; for be­tween them, in their bus­iest and most pros­per­ous years, they had nev­er con­trived to make as much as three hun­dred and six­ty fath­oms of rope. In the first place, no deal­er with­in a ra­dius of fifty miles would have trust­ed his tow to ei­ther Mouche or Four­chon. The old man, sur­pass­ing the mir­acles of mod­ern chem­istry, knew too well how to re­solve the tow in­to the all-​be­nig­nant juice of the grape. More­over, his triple func­tions of pub­lic writ­er for three town­ships, le­gal prac­ti­tion­er for one, and clar­ionet-​play­er at large, hin­dered, so he said, the de­vel­op­ment of his busi­ness.

Thus it hap­pened that Ton­sard was dis­ap­point­ed from the start in the hope he had in­dulged of in­creas­ing his com­fort by an in­crease of prop­er­ty in mar­riage. The idle son-​in-​law had chanced, by a very com­mon ac­ci­dent, on an idler fa­ther-​in-​law. Mat­ters went all the worse be­cause Ton­sard's wife, gift­ed with a sort of rus­tic beau­ty, be­ing tall and well-​made, was not fond of work in the open air. Ton­sard blamed his wife for her fa­ther's short-​com­ings, and ill-​treat­ed her, with the cus­tom­ary re­venge of the com­mon peo­ple, whose minds take in on­ly an ef­fect and rarely look back to caus­es.

Find­ing her fet­ters heavy, the wom­an light­ened them. She used Ton­sard's vices to get the bet­ter of him. Lov­ing com­fort and good eat­ing her­self, she en­cour­aged his idle­ness and glut­tony. In the first place, she man­aged to pro­cure the good-​will of the ser­vants of the chateau, and Ton­sard, in view of the re­sults, made no com­plaint as to the means. He cared very lit­tle what his wife did, so long as she did all he want­ed of her. That is the se­cret agree­ment of many a house­hold. Madame Ton­sard es­tab­lished the wine-​shop of the Grand-​I-​Vert, her first cus­tomers be­ing the ser­vants of Les Aigues and the keep­ers and hunts­men.

Gaubertin, for­mer­ly stew­ard to Made­moi­selle La­guerre, one of La Ton­sard's chief pa­trons, gave her sev­er­al pun­cheons of ex­cel­lent wine to at­tract cus­tom. The ef­fect of these gifts (con­tin­ued as long as Gaubertin re­mained a bach­elor) and the fame of her rather law­less beau­ty com­mend­ed this beau­ty to the Don Juans of the val­ley, and filled the wine-​shop of the Grand-​I-​Vert. Be­ing a lover of good eat­ing, La Ton­sard was nat­ural­ly an ex­cel­lent cook; and though her tal­ents were on­ly ex­er­cised on the com­mon dish­es of the coun­try, jugged hare, game sauce, stewed fish and omelets, she was con­sid­ered in all the coun­try round to be an ad­mirable cook of the sort of food which is eat­en at a counter and spiced in a way to ex­cite a de­sire for drink. By the end of two years, she had man­aged to rule Ton­sard, and turn him to evil cours­es, which, in­deed, he asked no bet­ter than to in­dulge in.

The ras­cal was con­tin­ual­ly poach­ing, and with noth­ing to fear from it. The in­ti­ma­cies of his wife with Gaubertin and the keep­ers and the ru­ral au­thor­ities, to­geth­er with the lax­ity of the times, se­cured him im­puni­ty. As soon as his chil­dren were large enough he made them ser­vice­able to his com­fort, car­ing no more for their moral­ity than for that of his wife. He had two sons and two daugh­ters. Ton­sard, who lived, as did his wife, from hand to mouth, might have come to an end of this easy life if he had not main­tained a sort of mar­tial law over his fam­ily, which com­pelled them to work for the preser­va­tion of it. When he had brought up his chil­dren, at the cost of those from whom his wife was able to ex­tort gifts, the fol­low­ing char­ter and bud­get were the law at the Grand-​I-​Vert.

Ton­sard's old moth­er and his two daugh­ters, Cather­ine and Marie, went in­to the woods at cer­tain sea­sons twice a-​day, and came back laden with fagots which over­hung the crutch of their poles at least two feet be­yond their heads. Though dried sticks were placed on the out­side of the heap, the in­side was made of live wood cut from young trees. In plain words, Ton­sard helped him­self to his win­ter's fu­el in the woods of Les Aigues. Be­sides this, fa­ther and sons were con­stant­ly poach­ing. From Septem­ber to March, hares, rab­bits, par­tridges, deer, in short, all the game that was not eat­en at the chateau, was sold at Blangy and at Soulanges, where Ton­sard's two daugh­ters ped­dled milk in the ear­ly morn­ings,--com­ing back with the news of the day, in re­turn for the gos­sip they car­ried about Les Aigues, and Cerneux, and Conch­es. In the months when the three Ton­sards were un­able to hunt with a gun, they set traps. If the traps caught more game than they could eat, La Ton­sard made pies of it and sent them to Ville-​aux-​Fayes. In har­vest-​time sev­en Ton­sards--the old moth­er, the two sons (un­til they were sev­en­teen years of age), the two daugh­ters, to­geth­er with old Four­chon and Mouche--gleaned, and gen­er­al­ly brought in about six­teen bushels a day of all grains, rye, bar­ley, wheat, all good to grind.

The two cows, led to the road­side by the youngest girl, al­ways man­aged to stray in­to the mead­ows of Les Aigues; but as, if it ev­er chanced that some too fla­grant tres­pass com­pelled the keep­ers to take no­tice of it, the chil­dren were ei­ther whipped or de­prived of a cov­et­ed dain­ty, they had ac­quired such ex­traor­di­nary ap­ti­tude in hear­ing the en­emy's foot­fall that the bailiff or the park-​keep­er of Les Aigues was very sel­dom able to de­tect them. Be­sides, the re­la­tions of those es­timable func­tionar­ies with Ton­sard and his wife tied a ban­dage over their eyes. The cows, held by long ropes, obeyed a mere twitch or a spe­cial low call back to the road­side, know­ing very well that, the dan­ger once past, they could fin­ish their brows­ing in the next field. Old moth­er Ton­sard, who was get­ting more and more in­firm, suc­ceed­ed Mouche in his du­ties, af­ter Four­chon, un­der pre­tence of car­ing for his nat­ural grand­son's ed­uca­tion, kept him to him­self; while Marie and Cather­ine made hay in the woods. These girls knew the ex­act spots where the fine for­est-​grass abound­ed, and there they cut and spread and cocked and gar­nered it, sup­ply­ing two thirds, at least, of the win­ter fod­der, and lead­ing the cows on all fine days to shel­tered nooks where they could still find pas­ture. In cer­tain parts of the val­ley of Les Aigues, as in all places pro­tect­ed by a chain of moun­tains, in Pied­mont and in Lom­bardy for in­stance, there are spots where the grass keeps green all the year. Such fields, called in Italy “marci­ti,” are of great val­ue; though in France they are of­ten in dan­ger of be­ing in­jured by snow and ice. This phe­nomenon is due, no doubt, to some fa­vor­able ex­po­sure, and to the in­fil­tra­tion of wa­ter which keeps the ground at a warmer tem­per­ature.

The calves were sold for about eighty francs. The milk, de­duct­ing the time when the cows calved or went dry, brought in about one hun­dred and six­ty francs a year be­sides sup­ply­ing the wants of the fam­ily. Ton­sard him­self man­aged to earn an­oth­er hun­dred and six­ty by do­ing odd jobs of one kind or an­oth­er.

The sale of food and wine in the tav­ern, af­ter all costs were paid, re­turned a prof­it of about three hun­dred francs, for the great drink­ing-​bouts hap­pened on­ly at cer­tain times and in cer­tain sea­sons; and as the top­ers who in­dulged in them gave Ton­sard and his wife due no­tice, the lat­ter bought in the neigh­bor­ing town the ex­act quan­ti­ty of pro­vi­sions need­ed and no more. The wine pro­duced by Ton­sard's vine­yard was sold in or­di­nary years for twen­ty francs a cask to a wine-​deal­er at Soulanges with whom Ton­sard was in­ti­mate. In very pro­lif­ic years he got as much as twelve casks from his vines; but eight was the av­er­age; and Ton­sard kept half for his own traf­fic. In all wine-​grow­ing dis­tricts the glean­ing of the large vine­yards gives a good perquisite, and out of it the Ton­sard fam­ily usu­al­ly man­aged to ob­tain three casks more. But be­ing, as we have seen, shel­tered and pro­tect­ed by the keep­ers, they showed no con­science in their pro­ceed­ings,--en­ter­ing vine­yards be­fore the har­vesters were out of them, just as they swarmed in­to the wheat-​fields be­fore the sheaves were made. So, the sev­en or eight casks of wine, as much gleaned as har­vest­ed, were sold for a good price. How­ev­er, out of these var­ious pro­ceeds the Grand-​I-​Vert was mulct­ed in a good sum for the per­son­al con­sump­tion of Ton­sard and his wife, who want­ed the best of ev­ery­thing to eat, and bet­ter wine than they sold,--which they ob­tained from their friend at Soulanges in pay­ment for their own. In short, the mon­ey scraped to­geth­er by this fam­ily amount­ed to about nine hun­dred francs, for they fat­tened two pigs a year, one for them­selves and the oth­er to sell.

The idlers and scape­graces and al­so the la­bor­ers took a fan­cy to the tav­ern of the Grand-​I-​Vert, part­ly be­cause of La Ton­sard's mer­its, and part­ly on ac­count of the hail-​fel­low-​well-​met re­la­tion ex­ist­ing be­tween this fam­ily and the low­er class­es of the val­ley. The two daugh­ters, both re­mark­ably hand­some, fol­lowed the ex­am­ple of their moth­er as to morals. More­over, the long es­tab­lished fame of the Grand-​I-​Vert, dat­ing from 1795, made it a ven­er­able spot in the eyes of the com­mon peo­ple. From Conch­es to Ville-​aux-​Fayes, work­men came there to meet and make their bar­gains and hear the news col­lect­ed by the Ton­sard wom­en and by Mouche and old Four­chon, or sup­plied by Ver­michel and Brunet, that renowned of­fi­cial, when he came to the tav­ern in search of his prac­ti­tion­er. There the price of hay and of wine was set­tled; al­so that of a day's work and of piece-​work. Ton­sard, a sovereign judge in such mat­ters, gave his ad­vice and opin­ion while drink­ing with his guests. Soulanges, ac­cord­ing to a say­ing in these parts, was a town for so­ci­ety and amuse­ment on­ly, while Blangy was a busi­ness bor­ough; crushed, how­ev­er, by the great com­mer­cial cen­tre of Ville-​aux-​Fayes, which had be­come in the last twen­ty-​five years the cap­ital of this flour­ish­ing val­ley. The cat­tle and grain mar­ket was held at Blangy, in the pub­lic square, and the prices there ob­tained served as a tar­iff for the whole ar­rondisse­ment.

By stay­ing in the house and do­ing no out-​door work, La Ton­sard con­tin­ued fresh and fair and dim­pled, in com­par­ison with the wom­en who worked in the fields and fad­ed as rapid­ly as the flow­ers, be­com­ing old and hag­gard be­fore they were thir­ty. She liked to be well-​dressed. In point of fact, she was on­ly clean, but in a vil­lage clean­li­ness is a lux­ury. The daugh­ters, bet­ter dressed than their means war­rant­ed, fol­lowed their moth­er's ex­am­ple. Be­neath their out­er gar­ment, which was rel­ative­ly hand­some, they wore linen much fin­er than that of the rich­est peas­ant wom­en. On fete-​days they ap­peared in dress­es that were re­al­ly pret­ty, ob­tained, Heav­en knows how! For one thing, the men-​ser­vants at Les Aigues sold to them, at prices that were eas­ily paid, the cast-​off cloth­ing of the la­dy's-​maids, which, af­ter sweep­ing the streets of Paris and be­ing made over to fit Marie and Cather­ine, ap­peared tri­umphant­ly in the precincts of the Grand-​I-​Vert. These girls, bo­hemi­ans of the val­ley, re­ceived not one pen­ny in mon­ey from their par­ents, who gave them food on­ly, and the wretched pal­lets on which they slept with their grand­moth­er in the barn, where their broth­ers al­so slept, curled up in the hay like an­imals. Nei­ther fa­ther nor moth­er paid any heed to this propin­quity.

The iron age and the age of gold are more alike than we think for. In the one noth­ing aroused vig­ilance; in the oth­er, ev­ery­thing rous­es it; the re­sult to so­ci­ety is, per­haps, very much the same. The pres­ence of old Moth­er Ton­sard, which was more a ne­ces­si­ty than a pre­cau­tion, was sim­ply one im­moral­ity the more. And thus it was that the Abbe Bros­sette, af­ter study­ing the morals of his parish­ioners, made this preg­nant re­mark to his bish­op:--

“Mon­seigneur, when I ob­serve the stress that the peas­antry lay on their pover­ty, I re­al­ize how they fear to lose that ex­cuse for their im­moral­ity.”

Though ev­ery­body knew that the fam­ily had no prin­ci­ples and no scru­ples, noth­ing was ev­er said against the morals of the Grand-​I-​Vert. At the be­gin­ning of this book it is nec­es­sary to ex­plain, once for all, to per­sons ac­cus­tomed to the de­cen­cies of mid­dle-​class life, that the peas­ants have no de­cen­cy in their do­mes­tic habits and cus­toms. They make no ap­peal to moral­ity when their daugh­ters are se­duced, un­less the se­duc­er is rich and timid. Chil­dren, un­til the State takes pos­ses­sion of them, are used ei­ther as cap­ital or as in­stru­ments of con­ve­nience. Self-​in­ter­est has be­come, spe­cial­ly since 1789, the sole mo­tive of the mass­es; they nev­er ask if an ac­tion is le­gal or im­moral, but on­ly if it is prof­itable. Moral­ity, which is not to be con­found­ed with re­li­gion, be­gins on­ly at a cer­tain com­pe­tence,--just as one sees, in a high­er sphere, how del­ica­cy blos­soms in the soul when for­tune dec­orates the fur­ni­ture. A pos­itive­ly moral and up­right man is rare among the peas­antry. Do you ask why? Among the many rea­sons that may be giv­en for this state of things, the prin­ci­pal one is this: Through the na­ture of their so­cial func­tions, the peas­ants live a pure­ly ma­te­ri­al life which ap­prox­imates to that of sav­ages, and their con­stant union with na­ture tends to fos­ter it. When toil ex­hausts the body it takes from the mind its pu­ri­fy­ing ac­tion, es­pe­cial­ly among the ig­no­rant. The Abbe Bros­sette was right in say­ing that the state pol­icy of the peas­ant is his pover­ty.

Med­dling in ev­ery­body's in­ter­ests, Ton­sard heard ev­ery­body's com­plaints, and of­ten in­sti­gat­ed frauds to ben­efit the needy. His wife, a kind­ly ap­pear­ing wom­an, had a good word for evil-​do­ers, and nev­er with­held ei­ther ap­proval or per­son­al help from her cus­tomers in any­thing they un­der­took against the rich. This inn, a nest of vipers, brisk and ven­omous, seething and ac­tive, was a hot-​bed for the ha­tred of the peas­ants and the work­ing­men against the mas­ters and the wealthy.

The pros­per­ous life of the Ton­sards was, there­fore, an evil ex­am­ple. Oth­ers asked them­selves why they should not take their wood, as the Ton­sards did, from the for­est; why not pas­ture their cows and have game to eat and to sell as well as they; why not har­vest with­out sow­ing the grapes and the grain. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the pil­fer­ing thefts which thin the woods and tithe the ploughed lands and mead­ows and vine­yards be­came ha­bit­ual in this val­ley, and soon ex­ist­ed as a right through­out the dis­tricts of Blangy, Conch­es, and Cerneux, all ad­ja­cent to the do­main of Les Aigues. This sore, for cer­tain rea­sons which will be giv­en in due time, did far greater in­jury to Les Aigues than to the es­tates of Ron­querolles or Soulanges. You must not, how­ev­er, fan­cy that Ton­sard, his wife and chil­dren, and his old moth­er ev­er de­lib­er­ate­ly said to them­selves, “We will live by theft, and com­mit it as clev­er­ly as we can.” Such habits grow slow­ly. To the dried sticks they added, in the first in­stance, a sin­gle bit of good wood; then, em­bold­ened by habit and a care­ful­ly pre­pared im­mu­ni­ty (nec­es­sary to plans which this his­to­ry will un­fold), they end­ed at last in cut­ting “their wood,” and steal­ing al­most their en­tire liveli­hood. Pas­turage for the cows and the abus­es of glean­ing were es­tab­lished as cus­toms lit­tle by lit­tle. When the Ton­sards and the do-​noth­ings of the val­ley had tast­ed the sweets of these four rights (thus cap­tured by ru­ral pau­pers, and amount­ing to ac­tu­al rob­bery) we can eas­ily imag­ine they would nev­er give them up un­less com­pelled by a pow­er greater than their own au­dac­ity.

At the time when this his­to­ry be­gins Ton­sard, then about fifty years of age, tall and strong, rather stout than thin, with curly black hair, skin high­ly col­ored and mar­bled like a brick with pur­ple blotch­es, yel­low whites to the eyes, large ears with broad flaps, a mus­cu­lar frame, en­cased, how­ev­er, in flab­by flesh, a re­treat­ing fore­head, and a hang­ing lip,--Ton­sard, such as you see him, hid his re­al char­ac­ter un­der an ex­ter­nal stu­pid­ity, light­ened at times by a show of ex­pe­ri­ence, which seemed all the more in­tel­li­gent be­cause he had ac­quired in the com­pa­ny of his fa­ther-​in-​law a sort of ban­ter­ing talk, much af­fect­ed by old Four­chon and Ver­michel. His nose, flat­tened at the end as if the fin­ger of God in­tend­ed to mark him, gave him a voice which came from his palate, like that of all per­sons dis­fig­ured by a dis­ease which thick­ens the nasal pas­sages, through which the air then pass­es with dif­fi­cul­ty. His up­per teeth over­lapped each oth­er, and this de­fect (which Lavater calls ter­ri­ble) was all the more ap­par­ent be­cause they were as white as those of a dog. But for a cer­tain law­less and sloth­ful good hu­mor, and the free-​and-​easy ways of a rus­tic tip­pler, the man would have alarmed the least ob­serv­ing of spec­ta­tors.

If the por­traits of Ton­sard, his inn, and his fa­ther-​in-​law take a promi­nent place in this his­to­ry, it is be­cause that place be­longs to him and to the inn and to the fam­ily. In the first place, their ex­is­tence, so minute­ly de­scribed, is the type of a hun­dred oth­er house­holds in the val­ley of Les Aigues. Sec­ond­ly, Ton­sard, with­out be­ing oth­er than the in­stru­ment of deep and ac­tive ha­treds, had an im­mense in­flu­ence on the strug­gle that was about to take place, be­ing the friend and coun­sel­lor of all the com­plainants of the low­er class­es. His inn, as we shall present­ly see, was the ren­dezvous for the ag­gres­sors; in fact, he be­came their chief, part­ly on ac­count of the fear he in­spired through­out the val­ley--less, how­ev­er, by his ac­tu­al deeds than by those that were con­stant­ly ex­pect­ed of him. The threat of this man was as much dread­ed as the thing threat­ened, so that he nev­er had oc­ca­sion to ex­ecute it.

Ev­ery re­volt, open or con­cealed, has its ban­ner. The ban­ner of the ma­raud­ers, the drunk­ards, the idlers, the slug­gards of the val­ley des Aigues was the ter­ri­ble tav­ern of the Grand-​I-​Vert. Its fre­quenters found amuse­ment there,--as rare and much-​de­sired a thing in the coun­try as in a city. More­over, there was no oth­er inn along the coun­try-​road for over twelve miles, a dis­tance which con­veyances (even when laden) could eas­ily do in three hours; so that those who went from Conch­es to Ville-​aux-​Fayes al­ways stopped at the Grand-​I-​Vert, if on­ly to re­fresh them­selves. The miller of Les Aigues, who was al­so as­sis­tant-​may­or, and his men came there. The grooms and valets of the gen­er­al were not averse to Ton­sard's wine, ren­dered at­trac­tive by Ton­sard's daugh­ters; so the Grand-​I-​Vert held sub­ter­ra­ne­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the chateau through the ser­vants, and knew im­me­di­ate­ly ev­ery­thing that they knew. It is im­pos­si­ble ei­ther by ben­efits or through their own self-​in­ter­ests, to break up the per­pet­ual un­der­stand­ing that ex­ists be­tween the ser­vants of a house­hold and the peo­ple from whom they come. Do­mes­tic ser­vice is of the mass­es, and to the mass­es it will ev­er re­main at­tached. This fa­tal com­rade­ship ex­plains the ret­icence of the last words of Charles the groom, as he and Blon­det reached the por­ti­co of the chateau.