Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER V

EN­EMIES FACE TO FACE

While break­fast was in progress at the chateau, Fran­cois, the head foot­man, whis­pered to Blon­det, but loud enough for the gen­er­al to over­hear him,--

“Mon­sieur, Pere Four­chon's boy is here; he says they have caught the ot­ter, and wants to know if you would like it, or whether they shall take it to the sub-​pre­fect at Ville-​aux-​Fayes.”

Emile Blon­det, though him­self a past-​mas­ter of hoax­ing, could not keep his cheeks from blush­ing like those of a vir­gin who hears an in­deco­rous sto­ry of which she knows the mean­ing.

“Ha! ha! so you have hunt­ed the ot­ter this morn­ing with Pere Four­chon?” cried the gen­er­al, with a roar of laugh­ter.

“What is it?” asked the count­ess, un­easy at her hus­band's laugh.

“When a man of wit and in­tel­li­gence is tak­en in by old Four­chon,” con­tin­ued the gen­er­al, “a re­tired cuirassier need not blush for hav­ing hunt­ed that ot­ter; which bears an enor­mous re­sem­blance to the third posthorse we are made to pay for and nev­er see.” With that he went off in­to fur­ther ex­plo­sions of laugh­ter, in the midst of which he con­trived to say: “I am not sur­prised you had to change your boots --and your trousers; I have no doubt you have been wad­ing! The joke didn't go as far as that with me,--I stayed on the bank; but then, you know, you are so much more in­tel­li­gent than I--”

“But you for­get,” in­ter­rupt­ed Madame de Mont­cor­net, “that I do not know what you are talk­ing of.”

At these words, said with some pique, the gen­er­al grew se­ri­ous, and Blon­det told the sto­ry of his fish­ing for the ot­ter.

“But if they re­al­ly have an ot­ter,” said the count­ess, “those poor peo­ple are not to blame.”

“Oh, but it is ten years since an ot­ter has been seen about here,” said the piti­less gen­er­al.

“Mon­sieur le comte,” said Fran­cois, “the boy swears by all that's sa­cred that he has got one.”

“If they have one I'll buy it,” said the gen­er­al.

“I don't sup­pose,” re­marked the Abbe Bros­sette, “that God has con­demned Les Aigues to nev­er have ot­ters.”

“Ah, Mon­sieur le cure!” cried Blon­det, “if you bring the Almighty against me--”

“But what is all this? Who is here?” said the count­ess, hasti­ly.

“Mouche, madame,--the boy who goes about with old Four­chon,” said the foot­man.

“Bring him in--that is, if Madame will al­low it?” said the gen­er­al; “he may amuse you.”

Mouche present­ly ap­peared, in his usu­al state of com­par­ative nu­di­ty. Be­hold­ing this per­son­ifi­ca­tion of pover­ty in the mid­dle of this lux­uri­ous din­ing-​room, the cost of one pan­el of which would have been a for­tune to the bare-​legged, bare-​breast­ed, and bare-​head­ed child, it was im­pos­si­ble not to be moved by an im­pulse of char­ity. The boy's eyes, like blaz­ing coals, gazed first at the lux­uries of the room, and then at those on the ta­ble.

“Have you no moth­er?” asked Madame de Mont­cor­net, un­able oth­er­wise to ex­plain the child's naked­ness.

“No, ma'am; m'ma died of grief for los­ing p'pa, who went to the army in 1812 with­out mar­ry­ing her with pa­pers, and got frozen, sav­ing your pres­ence. But I've my Grand­pa Four­chon, who is a good man,--though he does beat me bad some­times.”

“How is it, my dear, that such wretched peo­ple can be found on your es­tate?” said the count­ess, look­ing at the gen­er­al.

“Madame la comtesse,” said the abbe, “in this dis­trict we have none but vol­un­tary pau­pers. Mon­sieur le comte does all he can; but we have to do with a class of per­sons who are with­out re­li­gion and who have but one idea, that of liv­ing at your ex­pense.”

“But, my dear abbe,” said Blon­det, “you are here to im­prove their morals.”

“Mon­sieur,” replied the abbe, “my bish­op sent me here as if on a mis­sion to sav­ages; but, as I had the hon­or of telling him, the sav­ages of France can­not be reached. They make it a law un­to them­selves not to lis­ten to us; where­as the church does get some hold on the sav­ages of Amer­ica.”

“M'sieur le cure, they do help me a bit now,” re­marked Mouche; “but if I went to your church they _wouldn't_, and the oth­er folks would make game of my breech­es.”

“Re­li­gion ought to be­gin by giv­ing him trousers, my dear abbe,” said Blon­det. “In your for­eign mis­sions don't you be­gin by coax­ing the sav­ages?”

“He would soon sell them,” an­swered the abbe, in a low tone; “be­sides, my salary does not en­able me to be­gin on that line.”

“Mon­sieur le cure is right,” said the gen­er­al, look­ing at Mouche.

The pol­icy of the lit­tle scamp was to ap­pear not to hear what they were say­ing when it was against him­self.

“The boy is in­tel­li­gent enough to know good from evil,” con­tin­ued the count, “and he is old enough to work; yet he thinks of noth­ing but how to com­mit evil with­out be­ing found out. All the keep­ers know him. He is very well aware that the mas­ter of an es­tate may wit­ness a tres­pass on his prop­er­ty and yet have no right to ar­rest the tres­pass­er. I have known him keep his cows bold­ly in my mead­ows, though he knew I saw him; but now, ev­er since I have been may­or, he runs away fast enough.”

“Oh, that is very wrong,” said the count­ess; “you should not take oth­er peo­ple's things, my lit­tle man.”

“Madame, we must eat. My grand­pa gives me more slaps than food, and they don't fill my stom­ach, slaps don't. When the cows come in I milk 'em just a lit­tle and I live on that. Mon­seigneur isn't so poor but what he'll let me drink a drop o' milk the cows get from his grass?”

“Per­haps he hasn't eat­en any­thing to-​day,” said the count­ess, touched by his mis­ery. “Give him some bread and the rest of that chick­en; let him have his break­fast,” she added, look­ing at the foot­man. “Where do you sleep, my child?”

“Any­where, madame; un­der the stars in sum­mer, and wher­ev­er they'll let us in win­ter.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“There is still time to bring him up to bet­ter ways,” said the count­ess to her hus­band.

“He will make a good sol­dier,” said the gen­er­al, gruffly; “he is well tough­ened. I went through that kind of thing my­self, and here I am.”

“Ex­cuse me, gen­er­al, I don't be­long to no­body,” said the boy. “I can't be draft­ed. My poor moth­er wasn't mar­ried, and I was born in a field. I'm a son of the 'airth,' as grand­pa says. M'ma saved me from the army, that she did! My name ain't no more Mouche than noth­ing at all. Grand­pa keeps telling me all my ad­van­tages. I'm not on the reg­is­ter, and when I'm old enough to be draft­ed I can go all over France and they can't take me.”

“Are you fond of your grand­fa­ther?” said the count­ess, try­ing to look in­to the child's heart.

“My! doesn't he box my ears when he feels like it! but then, af­ter all, he's such fun; he's such good com­pa­ny! He says he pays him­self that way for hav­ing taught me to read and write.”

“Can you read?” asked the count.

“Yah, I should think so, Mon­sieur le comte, and fine writ­ing too--just as true as we've got that ot­ter.”

“Read that,” said the count, giv­ing him a news­pa­per.

“The Qu-​o-​ti-​di­enne,” read Mouche, hes­itat­ing on­ly three times.

Ev­ery one, even the abbe, laughed.

“Why do you make me read that news­pa­per?” cried Mouche, an­gri­ly. “My grand­pa says it is made up to please the rich, and ev­ery­body knows lat­er just what's in it.”

“The child is right, gen­er­al,” said Blon­det; “and he makes me long to see my hoax­ing friend again.”

Mouche un­der­stood per­fect­ly that he was pos­ing for the amuse­ment of the com­pa­ny; the pupil of Pere Four­chon was wor­thy of his mas­ter, and he forth­with be­gan to cry.

“How can you tease a child with bare feet?” said the count­ess.

“And who thinks it quite nat­ural that his grand­fa­ther should re­coup him­self for his ed­uca­tion by box­ing his ears,” said Blon­det.

“Tell me, my poor lit­tle fel­low, have you re­al­ly caught an ot­ter?”

“Yes, madame; as true as that you are the pret­ti­est la­dy I have seen, or ev­er shall see,” said the child, wip­ing his eyes.

“Then show me the ot­ter,” said the gen­er­al.

“Oh M'sieur le comte, my grand­pa has hid­den it; but it was kick­ing still when we were at work at the rope-​walk. Send for my grand­pa, please; he wants to sell it to you him­self.”

“Take him in­to the kitchen,” said the count­ess to Fran­cois, “and give him his break­fast, and send Charles to fetch Pere Four­chon. Find some shoes, and a pair of trousers and a waist­coat for the poor child; those who come here naked must go away clothed.”

“May God bless you, my beau­ti­ful la­dy,” said Mouche, de­part­ing. “M'sieur le cure may feel quite sure that I'll keep the things and wear 'em fete-​days, be­cause you give 'em to me.”

Emile and Madame Mont­cor­net looked at each oth­er with some sur­prise, and seemed to say to the abbe, “The boy is not a fool!”

“It is quite true, madame,” said the abbe af­ter the child had gone, “that we can­not reck­on with Pover­ty. I be­lieve it has hid­den ex­cus­es of which God alone can judge,--phys­ical ex­cus­es, of­ten con­gen­ital; moral ex­cus­es, born in the char­ac­ter, pro­duced by an or­der of things that are of­ten the re­sult of qual­ities which, un­hap­pi­ly for so­ci­ety, have no vent. Deeds of hero­ism per­formed up­on the bat­tle-​field ought to teach us that the worst scoundrels may be­come heroes. But here in this place you are liv­ing un­der ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances; and if your benev­olence is not con­trolled by re­flec­tion and judg­ment you run the risk of sup­port­ing your en­emies.”

“Our en­emies?” ex­claimed the count­ess.

“Cru­el en­emies,” said the gen­er­al, grave­ly.

“Pere Four­chon and his son-​in-​law Ton­sard,” said the abbe, “are the strength and the in­tel­li­gence of the low­er class­es of this val­ley, who con­sult them on all oc­ca­sions. The Machi­avelism of these peo­ple is be­yond be­lief. Ten peas­ants meet­ing in a tav­ern are the small change of great po­lit­ical ques­tions.”

Just then Fran­cois an­nounced Mon­sieur Sibilet.

“He is my min­is­ter of fi­nance,” said the gen­er­al, smil­ing; “ask him in. He will ex­plain to you the grav­ity of the sit­ua­tion,” he added, look­ing at his wife and Blon­det.

“Be­cause he has rea­sons of his own for not con­ceal­ing it,” said the cure, in a low tone.

Blon­det then be­held a per­son­age of whom he had heard much ev­er since his ar­rival, and whom he de­sired to know, the land-​stew­ard of Les Aigues. He saw a man of medi­um height, about thir­ty years of age, with a sulky look and a dis­con­tent­ed face, on which a smile sat ill. Be­neath an anx­ious brow a pair of green­ish eyes evad­ed the eyes of oth­ers, and so dis­guised their thought. Sibilet was dressed in a brown surtout coat, black trousers and waist­coat, and wore his hair long and flat to the head, which gave him a cler­ical look. His trousers bare­ly con­cealed that he was knock-​kneed. Though his pal­lid com­plex­ion and flab­by flesh gave the im­pres­sion of an un­healthy con­sti­tu­tion, Sibilet was re­al­ly ro­bust. The tones of his voice, which were a lit­tle thick, har­mo­nized with this un­flat­ter­ing ex­te­ri­or.

Blon­det gave a hasty look at the abbe, and the glance with which the young priest an­swered it showed the jour­nal­ist that his own sus­pi­cions about the stew­ard were cer­tain­ties to the cu­rate.

“Did you not tell me, my dear Sibilet,” said the gen­er­al, “that you es­ti­mate the val­ue of what the peas­ants steal from us at a quar­ter of the whole rev­enue?”

“Much more than that, Mon­sieur le comte,” replied the stew­ard. “The poor about here get more from your prop­er­ty than the State ex­acts in tax­es. A lit­tle scamp like Mouche can glean his two bushels a day. Old wom­en, whom you would re­al­ly think at their last gasp, be­come at the har­vest and vin­tage times as ac­tive and healthy as girls. You can wit­ness that phe­nomenon very soon,” said Sibilet, ad­dress­ing Blon­det, “for the har­vest, which was put back by the rains in Ju­ly will be­gin next week, when they cut the rye. The glean­ers must have a cer­tifi­cate of pau­perism from the may­or of the dis­trict, and no dis­trict should al­low any one to glean ex­cept the pau­pers; but the dis­tricts of one can­ton do glean in those of an­oth­er with­out cer­tifi­cate. If we have six­ty re­al pau­pers in our dis­trict, there are at least forty oth­ers who could sup­port them­selves if they were not so idle. Even per­sons who have a busi­ness leave it to glean in the fields and in the vine­yards. All these peo­ple, tak­en to­geth­er, gath­er in this neigh­bor­hood some­thing like three hun­dred bushels a day; the har­vest lasts two weeks, and that makes four thou­sand five hun­dred bushels in this dis­trict alone. The glean­ing takes more from an es­tate than the tax­es. As to the abuse of pas­turage, it robs us of ful­ly one-​sixth the pro­duce of the mead­ows; and as to that of the woods, it is in­cal­cu­la­ble,--they have ac­tu­al­ly come to cut­ting down six-​year-​old trees. The loss to you, Mon­sieur le comte, amounts to ful­ly twen­ty-​odd thou­sand francs a year.”

“Do you hear that, madame?” said the gen­er­al to his wife.

“Is it not ex­ag­ger­at­ed?” asked Madame de Mont­cor­net.

“No, madame, un­for­tu­nate­ly not,” said the abbe. “Poor Nis­eron, that old fel­low with the white head, who com­bines the func­tions of bell-​ringer, bea­dle, grave-​dig­ger, sex­ton, and clerk, in de­fi­ance of his re­pub­li­can opin­ions,--I mean the grand­fa­ther of the lit­tle Genevieve whom you placed with Madame Michaud--”

“La Pechi­na,” said Sibilet, in­ter­rupt­ing the abbe.

“Pechi­na!” said the count­ess, “whom do you mean?”

“Madame la comtesse, when you met lit­tle Genevieve on the road in a mis­er­able con­di­tion, you cried out in Ital­ian, 'Pic­ci­na!' The word be­came a nick­name, and is now cor­rupt­ed all through the dis­trict in­to Pechi­na,” said the abbe. “The poor girl comes to church with Madame Michaud and Madame Sibilet.”

“And she is none the bet­ter for it,” said Sibilet, “for the oth­ers ill-​treat her on ac­count of her re­li­gion.”

“Well, that poor old man of sev­en­ty gleans, hon­est­ly, about a bushel and a half a day,” con­tin­ued the priest; “but his nat­ural up­right­ness pre­vents him from sell­ing his glean­ings as oth­ers do,--he keeps them for his own con­sump­tion. Mon­sieur Lan­glume, your miller, grinds his flour gratis at my re­quest, and my ser­vant bakes his bread with mine.”

“I had quite for­got­ten my lit­tle pro­tegee,” said the count­ess, trou­bled at Sibilet's re­mark. “Your ar­rival,” she added to Blon­det, “has quite turned my head. But af­ter break­fast I will take you to the gate of the Avonne and show you the liv­ing im­age of those wom­en whom the painters of the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry de­light­ed to per­pet­uate.”

The sound of Pere Four­chon's bro­ken sabots was now heard; af­ter de­posit­ing them in the an­techam­ber, he was brought to the door of the din­ing-​room by Fran­cois. At a sign from the count­ess, Fran­cois al­lowed him to pass in, fol­lowed by Mouche with his mouth full and car­ry­ing the ot­ter, hang­ing by a string tied to its yel­low paws, webbed like those of a palmiped. He cast up­on his four su­pe­ri­ors sit­ting at ta­ble, and al­so up­on Sibilet, that look of min­gled dis­trust and ser­vil­ity which serves as a veil to the thoughts of the peas­antry; then he bran­dished his am­phib­ian with a tri­umphant air.

“Here it is!” he cried, ad­dress­ing Blon­det.

“My ot­ter!” re­turned the Parisian, “and well paid for.”

“Oh, my dear gen­tle­man,” replied Pere Four­chon, “yours got away; she is now in her bur­row, and she won't come out, for she's a fe­male, --this is a male; Mouche saw him com­ing just as you went away. As true as you live, as true as that Mon­sieur le comte cov­ered him­self and his cuirassiers with glo­ry at Wa­ter­loo, the ot­ter is mine, just as much as Les Aigues be­longs to Mon­seigneur the gen­er­al. But the ot­ter is _yours_ for twen­ty francs; if not I'll take it to the sub-​pre­fect. If Mon­sieur Gour­don thinks it too dear, then I'll give you the pref­er­ence; that's on­ly fair, as we hunt­ed to­geth­er this morn­ing!”

“Twen­ty francs!” said Blon­det. “In good French you can't call that _giv­ing_ the pref­er­ence.”

“Hey, my dear gen­tle­man,” cried the old fel­low. “Per­haps I don't know French, and I'll ask it in good Bur­gun­di­an; as long as I get the mon­ey, I don't care, I'll talk Latin: 'lat­inus, lati­na, lat­inum'! Be­sides, twen­ty francs is what you promised me this morn­ing. My chil­dren have al­ready stolen the sil­ver you gave me; I wept about it, com­ing along,--ask Charles if I didn't. Not that I'd ar­rest 'em for the val­ue of ten francs and have 'em up be­fore the judge, no! But just as soon as I earn a few pen­nies, they make me drink and get 'em out of me. Ah! it is hard, hard to be re­duced to go and get my wine else­where. But just see what chil­dren are these days! That's what we got by the Rev­olu­tion; it is all for the chil­dren now-​a-​days, and par­ents are sup­pressed. I'm bring­ing up Mouche on an­oth­er tack; he loves me, the lit­tle scamp,”--giv­ing his grand­son a poke.

“It seems to me you are mak­ing him a lit­tle thief, like all the rest,” said Sibilet; “he nev­er lies down at night with­out some sin on his con­science.”

“Ha! Mon­sieur Sibilet, his con­science is as clean as yours any day! Poor child! what can he steal? A lit­tle grass! that's bet­ter than throt­tling a man! He don't know math­emat­ics like you, nor sub­trac­tion, nor ad­di­tion, nor mul­ti­pli­ca­tion,--you are very un­just to us, that you are! You call us a nest of brig­ands, but you are the cause of the mis­un­der­stand­ings be­tween our good land­lord here, who is a wor­thy man, and the rest of us, who are all wor­thy men,--there ain't an hon­ester part of the coun­try than this. Come, what do you mean? do I own prop­er­ty? don't I go half-​naked, and Mouche too? Fine sheets we slept in, washed by the dew ev­ery morn­ing! and un­less you want the air we breathe and the sun­shine we drink, I should like to know what we have that you can take away from us! The rich folks rob as they sit in their chim­ney-​cor­ners,--and more prof­itably, too, than by pick­ing up a few sticks in the woods. I don't see no game-​keep­ers or pa­trols af­ter Mon­sieur Gaubertin, who came here as naked as a worm and is now worth his mil­lions. It's easy said, 'Rob­bers!' Here's fif­teen years that old Guer­bet, the tax-​gath­er­er at Soulanges, car­ries his mon­ey along the roads by the dead of night, and no­body ev­er took a far­thing from him; is that like a land of rob­bers? has rob­bery made us rich? Show me which of us two, your class or mine, live the idlest lives and have the most to live on with­out earn­ing it.”

“If you were to work,” said the abbe, “you would have prop­er­ty. God bless­es la­bor.”

“I don't want to con­tra­dict you, M'sieur l'abbe, for you are wis­er than I, and per­haps you'll know how to ex­plain some­thing that puz­zles me. Now see, here I am, ain't I?--that drunk­en, lazy, idle, good-​for-​noth­ing old Four­chon, who had an ed­uca­tion and was a farmer, and got down in the mud and nev­er got up again,--well, what dif­fer­ence is there be­tween me and that hon­est and wor­thy old Nis­eron, sev­en­ty years old (and that's my age) who has dug the soil for six­ty years and got up ev­ery day be­fore it was light to go to his work, and has made him­self an iron body and a fine soul? Well, isn't he as bad off as I am? His lit­tle grand­daugh­ter, Pechi­na, is at ser­vice with Madame Michaud, where­as my lit­tle Mouche is as free as air. So that poor good man gets re­ward­ed for his virtues in ex­act­ly the same way that I get pun­ished for my vices. He don't know what a glass of good wine is, he's as sober as an apos­tle, he buries the dead, and I--I play for the liv­ing to dance. He is al­ways in a peck o' trou­bles, while I slip along in a dev­il-​may-​care way. We have come along about even in life; we've got the same snow on our heads, the same funds in our pock­ets, and I sup­ply him with rope to ring his bell. He's a re­pub­li­can and I'm not even a pub­li­can,--that's all the dif­fer­ence as far as I can see. A peas­ant may do good or do evil (ac­cord­ing to your ideas) and he'll go out of the world just as he came in­to it, in rags; while you wear the fine clothes.”

No one in­ter­rupt­ed Pere Four­chon, who seemed to owe his elo­quence to his pota­tions. At first Sibilet tried to cut him short, but de­sist­ed at a sign from Blon­det. The abbe, the gen­er­al, and the count­ess, all un­der­stood from the ex­pres­sion of the writ­er's eye that he want­ed to study the ques­tion of pau­perism from life, and per­haps take his re­venge on Pere Four­chon.

“What sort of ed­uca­tion are you giv­ing Mouche?” asked Blon­det. “Do you ex­pect to make him any bet­ter than your daugh­ters?”

“Does he ev­er speak to him of God?” said the priest.

“Oh, no, no! Mon­sieur le cure, I don't tell him to fear God, but men. God is good; he has promised us poor folks, so you say, the king­dom of heav­en, be­cause the rich peo­ple keep the earth to them­selves. I tell him: 'Mouche! fear the prison, and keep out of it,--for that's the way to the scaf­fold. Don't steal any­thing, make peo­ple give it to you. Theft leads to mur­der, and mur­der brings down the jus­tice of men. The ra­zor of jus­tice,--_that's_ what you've got to fear; it lets the rich sleep easy and keeps the poor awake. Learn to read. Ed­uca­tion will teach you ways to grab mon­ey un­der cov­er of the law, like that fine Mon­sieur Gaubertin; why, you can even be a land-​stew­ard like Mon­sieur Sibilet here, who gets his ra­tions out of Mon­sieur le comte. The thing to do is to keep well with the rich, and pick up the crumbs that fall from their ta­bles.' That's what I call giv­ing him a good, sol­id ed­uca­tion; and you'll al­ways find the lit­tle ras­cal on the side of the law,--he'll be a good cit­izen and take care of me.”

“What do you mean to make of him?” asked Blon­det.

“A ser­vant, to be­gin with,” re­turned Four­chon, “be­cause then he'll see his mas­ters close by, and learn some­thing; he'll com­plete his ed­uca­tion, I'll war­rant you. Good ex­am­ple will be a for­tune to him, with the law on his side like the rest of you. If M'sieur le comte would on­ly take him in his sta­bles and let him learn to groom the hors­es, the boy will be mighty pleased, for though I've taught him to fear men, he don't fear an­imals.”

“You are a clever fel­low, Pere Four­chon,” said Blon­det; “you know what you are talk­ing about, and there's sense in what you say.”

“Oh, sense? no; I left my sense at the Grand-​I-​Vert when I lost those sil­ver pieces.”

“How is it that a man of your ca­pac­ity should have dropped so low? As things are now, a peas­ant can on­ly blame him­self for his pover­ty; he is a free man, and he can be­come a rich one. It is not as it used to be. If a peas­ant lays by his mon­ey, he can al­ways buy a bit of land and be­come his own mas­ter.”

“I've seen the old­en time and I've seen the new, my dear wise gen­tle­man,” said Four­chon; “the sign over the door has changed, that's true, but the wine is the same,--to-​day is the younger broth­er of yes­ter­day, that's all. Put that in your news­pa­per! Are we poor folks free? We still be­long to the same parish, and its lord is al­ways there,--I call him Toil. The hoe, our sole prop­er­ty, has nev­er left our hands. Let it be the old lords or the present tax­es which take the best of our earn­ings, the fact re­mains that we sweat our lives out in toil.”

“But you could un­der­take a busi­ness, and try to make your for­tune,” said Blon­det.

“Try to make my for­tune! And where shall I try? If I wish to leave my own province, I must get a pass­port, and that costs forty sous. Here's forty years that I've nev­er had a slut of a forty-​sous piece jin­gling against an­oth­er in my pock­et. If you want to trav­el you need as many crowns as there are vil­lages, and there are mighty few Four­chons who have enough to get to six of 'em. It is on­ly the draft that gives us a chance to get away. And what good does the army do us? The colonels live by the solid­er, just as the rich folks live by the peas­ant; and out of ev­ery hun­dred of 'em you won't find more than one of our breed. It is just as it is the world over, one rolling in rich­es, for a hun­dred down in the mud. Why are we in the mud? Ask God and the usurers. The best we can do is to stay in our own parts, where we are penned like sheep by the force of cir­cum­stances, as our fa­thers were by the rule of the lords. As for me, what do I care what shack­les they are that keep me here? let it be the law of pub­lic ne­ces­si­ty or the tyran­ny of the old lords, it is all the same; we are con­demned to dig the soil for­ev­er. There, where we are born, there we dig it, that earth! and spade it, and ma­nure it, and delve in it, for you who are born rich just as we are born poor. The mass­es will al­ways be what they are, and stay what they are. The num­ber of us who man­age to rise is noth­ing like the num­ber of you who top­ple down! We know that well enough, if we have no ed­uca­tion! You mustn't be af­ter us with your sher­iff all the time,--not if you're wise. We let you alone, and you must let us alone. If not, and things get worse, you'll have to feed us in your pris­ons, where we'd be much bet­ter off than in our homes. You want to re­main our mas­ters, and we shall al­ways be en­emies, just as we were thir­ty years ago. You have ev­ery­thing, we have noth­ing; you can't ex­pect we should ev­er be friends.”

“That's what I call a dec­la­ra­tion of war,” said the gen­er­al.

“Mon­seigneur,” re­tort­ed Four­chon, “when Les Aigues be­longed to that poor Madame (God keep her soul and for­give her the sins of her youth!) we were hap­py. _She_ let us get our food from the fields and our fu­el from the for­est; and was she any the poor­er for it? And you, who are at least as rich as she, you hunt us like wild beasts, nei­ther more nor less, and drag the poor be­fore the courts. Well, evil will come of it! you'll be the cause of some great calami­ty. Haven't I just seen your keep­er, that shuf­fling Va­tel, half kill a poor old wom­an for a stick of wood? It is such fel­lows as that who make you an en­emy to the poor; and the talk is very bit­ter against you. They curse you ev­ery bit as hard as they used to bless the late Madame. The curse of the poor, mon­seigneur, is a seed that grows,--grows taller than your tall oaks, and oak-​wood builds the scaf­fold. No­body here tells you the truth; and here it is, yes, the truth! I ex­pect to die be­fore long, and I risk very lit­tle in telling it to you, the _truth_! I, who play for the peas­ants to dance at the great fetes at Soulanges, I heed what the peo­ple say. Well, they're all against you; and they'll make it im­pos­si­ble for you to stay here. If that damned Michaud of yours doesn't change, they'll force you to change him. There! that in­for­ma­tion _and_ the ot­ter are worth twen­ty francs, and more too.”

As the old fel­low ut­tered the last words a man's step was heard, and the in­di­vid­ual just threat­ened by Four­chon en­tered unan­nounced. It was easy to see from the glance he threw at the old man that the threat had reached his ears, and all Four­chon's in­so­lence sank in a mo­ment. The look pro­duced pre­cise­ly the same ef­fect up­on him that the eye of a po­lice­man pro­duces on a thief. Four­chon knew he was wrong, and that Michaud might very well ac­cuse him of say­ing these things mere­ly to ter­ri­fy the in­hab­itants of Les Aigues.

“This is the min­is­ter of war,” said the gen­er­al to Blon­det, nod­ding at Michaud.

“Par­don me, madame, for hav­ing en­tered with­out ask­ing if you were will­ing to re­ceive me,” said the new­com­er to the count­ess; “but I have ur­gent rea­sons for speak­ing to the gen­er­al at once.”

Michaud, as he said this, took no­tice of Sibilet, whose ex­pres­sion of keen de­light in Four­chon's dar­ing words was not seen by the four per­sons seat­ed at the ta­ble, be­cause they were so pre­oc­cu­pied by the old man; where­as Michaud, who for se­cret rea­sons watched Sibilet con­stant­ly, was struck with his air and man­ner.

“He has earned his twen­ty francs, Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet; “the ot­ter is ful­ly worth it.”

“Give him twen­ty francs,” said the gen­er­al to the foot­man.

“Do you mean to take my ot­ter away from me?” said Blon­det to the gen­er­al.

“I shall have it stuffed,” replied the lat­ter.

“Ah! but that good gen­tle­man said I might keep the skin,” cried Four­chon.

“Well, then,” ex­claimed the count­ess, hasti­ly, “you shall have five francs more for the skin; but go away now.”

The pow­er­ful odor emit­ted by the pair made the din­ing-​room so hor­ri­bly of­fen­sive that Madame de Mont­cor­net, whose sens­es were very del­icate, would have been forced to leave the room if Four­chon and Mouche had re­mained. To this cir­cum­stance the old man was in­debt­ed for his twen­ty-​five francs. He left the room with a timid glance at Michaud, mak­ing him an in­ter­minable se­ries of bows.

“What I was say­ing to mon­seigneur, Mon­sieur Michaud,” he added, “was re­al­ly for your good.”

“Or for that of those who pay you,” replied Michaud, with a search­ing look.

“When you have served the cof­fee, leave the room,” said the gen­er­al to the ser­vants, “and see that the doors are shut.”

Blon­det, who had not yet seen the bailiff of Les Aigues, was con­scious, as he now saw him, of a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent im­pres­sion from that con­veyed by Sibilet. Just as the stew­ard in­spired dis­trust and re­pul­sion, so Michaud com­mand­ed re­spect and con­fi­dence. The first at­trac­tion of his pres­ence was a hap­py face, of a fine oval, pure in out­line, in which the nose bore part,--a reg­ular­ity which is lack­ing in the ma­jor­ity of French faces. Though the fea­tures were cor­rect in draw­ing, they were not with­out ex­pres­sion, due, per­haps, to the har­mo­nious col­or­ing of the warm brown and ochre tints, in­dica­tive of phys­ical health and strength. The clear brown eyes, which were bright and pierc­ing, kept no re­serves in the ex­pres­sion of his thought; they looked straight in­to the eyes of oth­ers. The broad white fore­head was thrown still fur­ther in­to re­lief by his abun­dant black hair. Hon­esty, de­ci­sion, and a saint­ly seren­ity were the an­imat­ing points of this no­ble face, where a few deep lines up­on the brow were the re­sult of the man's mil­itary ca­reer. Doubt and sus­pi­cion could there be read the mo­ment they had en­tered his mind. His fig­ure, like that of all men se­lect­ed for the elite of the cav­al­ry ser­vice, though shape­ly and el­egant, was vig­or­ous­ly built. Michaud, who wore mous­ta­chios, whiskers, and a chin beard, re­called that mar­tial type of face which a del­uge of pa­tri­ot­ic paint­ings and en­grav­ings came very near to mak­ing ridicu­lous. This type had the de­fect of be­ing com­mon in the French army; per­haps the con­tin­uance of the same emo­tions, the same camp suf­fer­ings from which none were ex­empt, nei­ther high nor low, and more es­pe­cial­ly the same ef­forts of of­fi­cers and men up­on the bat­tle-​fields, may have con­tribut­ed to pro­duce this uni­for­mi­ty of coun­te­nance. Michaud, who was dressed in dark blue cloth, still wore the black satin stock and high boots of a sol­dier, which in­creased the slight stiff­ness and rigid­ity of his bear­ing. The shoul­ders sloped, the chest ex­pand­ed, as though the man were still un­der arms. The red rib­bon of the Le­gion of hon­or was in his but­ton­hole. In short, to give a last touch in one word about the moral qual­ities be­neath this pure­ly phys­ical pre­sent­ment, it may be said that while the stew­ard, from the time he first en­tered up­on his func­tions, nev­er failed to call his mas­ter “Mon­sieur le comte,” Michaud nev­er ad­dressed him oth­er­wise than as “Gen­er­al.”

Blon­det ex­changed an­oth­er look with the Abbe Bros­sette, which meant, “What a con­trast!” as he signed to him to ob­serve the two men. Then, as if to know whether the char­ac­ter and mind and speech of the bailiff har­mo­nized with his form and coun­te­nance, he turned to Michaud and said:--

“I was out ear­ly this morn­ing, and found your un­der-​keep­ers still sleep­ing.”

“At what hour?” said the late sol­dier, anx­ious­ly.

“Half-​past sev­en.”

Michaud gave a half-​rogu­ish glance at the gen­er­al.

“By what gate did mon­sieur leave the park?” he asked.

“By the gate of Conch­es. The keep­er, in his night-​shirt, looked at me through the win­dow,” replied Blon­det.

“Gail­lard had prob­ably just gone to bed,” an­swered Michaud. “You said you were out ear­ly, and I thought you meant day-​break. If my man were at home at that time, he must have been ill; but at half-​past sev­en he was sure to be in bed. We are up all night,” added Michaud, af­ter a slight pause, re­ply­ing to a sur­prised look on the count­ess's face, “but our watch­ful­ness is of­ten wast­ed. You have just giv­en twen­ty-​five francs to a man who, not an hour ago, was qui­et­ly help­ing to hide the traces of a rob­bery com­mit­ted up­on you this very morn­ing. I came to speak to you about it, gen­er­al, when you have fin­ished break­fast; for some­thing will have to be done.”

“You are al­ways for main­tain­ing the right, my dear Michaud, and 'sum­mum jus, sum­mum in­juria.' If you are not more tol­er­ant, you will get in­to trou­ble, so Sibilet here tells me. I wish you could have heard Pere Four­chon just now; the wine he had been drink­ing made him speak out.”

“He fright­ened me,” said the count­ess.

“He said noth­ing I did not know long ago,” replied the gen­er­al.

“Oh! the ras­cal wasn't drunk; he was play­ing a part; for whose ben­efit I leave you to guess. Per­haps you know?” re­turned Michaud, fix­ing an eye on Sibilet which caused the lat­ter to turn red.

“O rus!” cried Blon­det, with an­oth­er look at the abbe.

“But these poor crea­tures suf­fer,” said the count­ess, “and there is a great deal of truth in what old Four­chon has just screamed at us,--for I can­not call it speak­ing.”

“Madame,” replied Michaud, “do you sup­pose that for four­teen years the sol­diers of the Em­per­or slept on a bed of ros­es? My gen­er­al is a count, he is a grand of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of hon­or, he has had perquisites and en­dow­ments giv­en to him; am I jeal­ous of him, I who fought as he did? Do I wish to cheat him of his glo­ry, to steal his perquisites, to de­ny him the hon­or due to his rank? The peas­ant should obey as the sol­dier obeys; he should feel the loy­al­ty of a sol­dier, his re­spect for ac­quired rights, and strive to be­come an of­fi­cer him­self, hon­or­ably, by la­bor and not by theft. The sabre and the plough are twins; though the sol­dier has some­thing more than the peas­ant,--he has death hang­ing over him at any minute.”

“I want to say that from the pul­pit,” cried the abbe.

“Tol­er­ant!” con­tin­ued the keep­er, re­ply­ing to the gen­er­al's re­mark about Sibilet, “I would tol­er­ate a loss of ten per cent up­on the gross re­turns of Les Aigues; but as things are now thir­ty per cent is what you lose, gen­er­al; and, if Mon­sieur Sibilet's ac­counts show it, I don't un­der­stand his tol­er­ance, for he benev­olent­ly gives up a thou­sand or twelve hun­dred francs a year.”

“My dear Mon­sieur Michaud,” replied Sibilet, in a snap­pish tone, “I have told Mon­sieur le comte that I would rather lose twelve hun­dred francs a year than my life. Think of it se­ri­ous­ly; I have warned you of­ten enough.”

“Life!” ex­claimed the count­ess; “you can't mean that any­body's life is in dan­ger?”

“Don't let us ar­gue about state af­fairs here,” said the gen­er­al, laugh­ing. “All this, my dear, mere­ly means that Sibilet, in his ca­pac­ity of fi­nancier, is timid and cow­ard­ly, while the min­is­ter of war is brave and, like his gen­er­al, fears noth­ing.”

“Call me pru­dent, Mon­sieur le comte,” in­ter­posed Sibilet.

“Well, well!” cried Blon­det, laugh­ing, “so here we are, like Coop­er's heroes in the forests of Amer­ica, in the midst of sieges and sav­ages.”

“Come, gen­tle­men, it is your busi­ness to gov­ern with­out let­ting me hear the wheels of the ad­min­is­tra­tion,” said Madame de Mont­cor­net.

“Ah! madame,” said the cure, “but it may be right that you should know the toil from which those pret­ty caps you wear are de­rived.”

“Well, then, I can go with­out them,” replied the count­ess, laugh­ing. “I will be very re­spect­ful to a twen­ty-​franc piece, and grow as miser­ly as the coun­try peo­ple them­selves. Come, my dear abbe, give me your arm. Leave the gen­er­al with his two min­is­ters, and let us go to the gate of the Avonne to see Madame Michaud, for I have not had time since my ar­rival to pay her a vis­it, and I want to in­quire about my lit­tle pro­tegee.”

And the pret­ty wom­an, al­ready for­get­ting the rags and tat­ters of Mouche and Four­chon, and their eyes full of ha­tred, and Sibilet's warn­ings, went to have her­self made ready for the walk.

The abbe and Blon­det obeyed the be­hest of the mis­tress of the house and fol­lowed her from the din­ing-​room, wait­ing till she was ready on the ter­race be­fore the chateau.

“What do you think of all this?” said Blon­det to the abbe.

“I am a pari­ah; they dog me as they would a com­mon en­emy. I am forced to keep my eyes and ears per­pet­ual­ly open to es­cape the traps they are con­stant­ly lay­ing to get me out of the place,” replied the abbe. “I am even doubt­ful, be­tween our­selves, as to whether they will not shoot me.”

“Why do you stay?” said Blon­det.

“We can't desert God's cause any more than that of an em­per­or,” replied the priest, with a sim­plic­ity that af­fect­ed Blon­det. He took the abbe's hand and shook it cor­dial­ly.

“You see how it is, there­fore, that I know very lit­tle of the plots that are go­ing on,” con­tin­ued the abbe. “Still, I know enough to feel sure that the gen­er­al is un­der what in Ar­tois and in Bel­gium is called an 'evil grudge.'”

A few words are here nec­es­sary about the cu­rate of Blangy.

This priest, the fourth son of a wor­thy mid­dle-​class fam­ily of Au­tun, was an in­tel­li­gent man car­ry­ing his head high in his col­lar. Small and slight, he re­deemed his rather puny ap­pear­ance by the pre­cise and care­ful­ly dressed air that be­longs to Bur­gun­di­ans. He ac­cept­ed the sec­ond-​rate post of Blangy out of pure de­vo­tion, for his re­li­gious con­vic­tions were joined to po­lit­ical opin­ions that were equal­ly strong. There was some­thing of the priest of the old­en time about him; he held to the Church and to the cler­gy pas­sion­ate­ly; saw the bear­ings of things, and no self­ish­ness marred his one am­bi­tion, which was _to serve_. That was his mot­to,--to serve the Church and the monar­chy wher­ev­er it was most threat­ened; to serve in the low­est rank like a sol­dier who feels that he is des­tined, soon­er or lat­er, to at­tain com­mand through courage and the re­solve to do his du­ty. He made no com­pro­mis­es with his vows of chasti­ty, and pover­ty, and obe­di­ence; he ful­filled them, as he did the oth­er du­ties of his po­si­tion, with that sim­plic­ity and cheer­ful good-​hu­mor which are the sure in­di­ca­tions of an hon­est heart, con­strained to do right by nat­ural im­puls­es as much as by the pow­er and con­sis­ten­cy of re­li­gious con­vic­tions.

The priest had seen at first sight Blon­det's at­tach­ment to the count­ess; he saw that be­tween a Troisville and a monar­chi­cal jour­nal­ist he could safe­ly show him­self to be a man of broad in­tel­li­gence, be­cause his call­ing was cer­tain to be re­spect­ed. He usu­al­ly came to the chateau very evening to make the fourth at a game of whist. The jour­nal­ist, able to rec­og­nize the abbe's re­al mer­its, showed him so much def­er­ence that the pair grew in­to sym­pa­thy with each oth­er; as usu­al­ly hap­pens when men of in­tel­li­gence meet their equals, or, if you pre­fer it, the ears that are able to hear them. Swords are fond of their scab­bards.

“But to what do you at­tribute this state of things, Mon­sieur l'abbe, you who are able, through your dis­in­ter­est­ed­ness, to look over the heads of things?”

“I shall not talk plat­itudes af­ter such a flat­ter­ing speech as that,” said the abbe, smil­ing. “What is go­ing on in this val­ley is spread­ing more or less through­out France; it is the out­come of the hopes which the up­heaval of 1789 caused to in­fil­trate, if I may use that ex­pres­sion, the minds of the peas­antry, the sons of the soil. The Rev­olu­tion af­fect­ed cer­tain lo­cal­ities more than oth­ers. This side of Bur­gundy, near­est to Paris, is one of those places where the rev­olu­tion­ary ideas spread like the over­run­ning of the Franks by the Gauls. His­tor­ical­ly, the peas­ants are still on the mor­row of the Jacquerie; that de­feat is burnt in up­on their brain. They have long for­got­ten the facts which have now passed in­to the con­di­tion of an in­stinc­tive idea. That idea is bred in the peas­ant blood, just as the idea of su­pe­ri­or­ity was once bred in no­ble blood. The rev­olu­tion of 1789 was the re­tal­ia­tion of the van­quished. The peas­ants then set foot in pos­ses­sion of the soil which the feu­dal law had de­nied them for over twelve hun­dred years. Hence their de­sire for land, which they now cut up among them­selves un­til ac­tu­al­ly they di­vide a fur­row in­to two parts; which, by the bye, of­ten hin­ders or pre­vents the col­lec­tion of tax­es, for the val­ue of such frac­tions of prop­er­ty is not suf­fi­cient to pay the le­gal costs of re­cov­er­ing them.”

“Very true, for the ob­sti­na­cy of the small own­ers--their ag­gres­sive­ness, if you choose--on this point is so great that in at least one thou­sand can­tons of the three thou­sand of French ter­ri­to­ry, it is im­pos­si­ble for a rich man to buy an inch of land from a peas­ant,” said Blon­det, in­ter­rupt­ing the abbe. “The peas­ants who are will­ing to di­vide up their scraps of land among them­selves would not sell a frac­tion on any con­di­tion or at any price to the mid­dle class­es. The more mon­ey the rich man of­fers, the more the vague un­easi­ness of the peas­ant in­creas­es. Le­gal dis­pos­ses­sion alone is able to bring the land­ed prop­er­ty of the peas­ant in­to the mar­ket. Many per­sons have no­ticed this fact with­out be­ing able to find a rea­son for it.”

“This is the rea­son,” said the abbe, right­ly be­liev­ing that a pause with Blon­det was equiv­alent to a ques­tion: “twelve cen­turies have done noth­ing for a caste whom the his­toric spec­ta­cle of civ­iliza­tion has nev­er yet di­vert­ed from its one pre­dom­inat­ing thought,--a caste which still wears proud­ly the broad-​brimmed hat of its mas­ters, ev­er since an aban­doned fash­ion placed it up­on their heads. That all-​per­vad­ing thought, the roots of which are in the bow­els of the peo­ple, and which at­tached them so ve­he­ment­ly to Napoleon (who was per­son­al­ly less to them than he thought he was) and which ex­plains the mir­acle of his re­turn in 1815,--that de­sire for land is the sole mo­tive pow­er of the peas­ant's be­ing. In the eyes of the mass­es Napoleon, ev­er one with them through his mil­lion of sol­diers, is still the king born of the Rev­olu­tion; the man who gave them pos­ses­sion of the soil and sold to them the na­tion­al do­mains. His anoint­ing was sat­urat­ed with that idea.”

“An idea to which 1814 dealt a blow, an idea which monar­chy should hold sa­cred,” said Blon­det, quick­ly; “for the peo­ple may some day find on the steps of the throne a prince whose fa­ther be­queathed to him the head of Louis XVI. as an heir­loom.”

“Here is madame; don't say any more,” said the abbe, in a low voice. “Four­chon has fright­ened her; and it is very de­sir­able to keep her here in the in­ter­ests of re­li­gion and of the throne, and, in­deed, in those of the peo­ple them­selves.”

Michaud, the bailiff of Les Aigues, had come to the chateau in con­se­quence of the as­sault on Va­tel's eyes. But be­fore we re­late the con­sul­ta­tion which then and there took place, the chain of events re­quires a suc­cinct ac­count of the cir­cum­stances un­der which the gen­er­al pur­chased Les Aigues, the se­ri­ous caus­es which led to the ap­point­ment of Sibilet as stew­ard of that mag­nif­icent prop­er­ty, and the rea­sons why Michaud was made bailiff, with all the oth­er an­tecedents to which were due the ten­sion of the minds of all, and the fears ex­pressed by Sibilet.

This rapid sum­ma­ry will have the mer­it of in­tro­duc­ing some of the prin­ci­pal ac­tors in this dra­ma, and of ex­hibit­ing their in­di­vid­ual in­ter­ests; we shall thus be en­abled to show the dan­gers which sur­round­ed the Gen­er­al comte de Mont­cor­net at the mo­ment when this his­to­ry opens.