Tenth]
For
Manuscript, Archives,
and Rare book Library
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etc., i
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20, H
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[Issue.
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ICLE-S,
RE.
^ _ 2th, 1889.
" Dear Sir,—I am a poor hand at expressing my feelings on paper, butT should like
to thank you, for your lozenges have done wonders for me in relieving my terrible cough.
Since I had the operation of ' Tracheotomy ' (the same as the late Emperor of Germany,
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tholomew's Hospital for abduct, or paralysis of the vocal chords, no one could possibly
have had a more violent cough; indeed, it was so bad at times that it quite exhausted me.
The mucus also, which was very copious and hard, has been softened, and I have been
able to get rid of it without difficulty. " I am, Sir, yours truly,
" Mr. T. Keating. "J- Hill.'
MEDICAL NOTE.
The above speaks for itself. From strict inquiry it appears that the benefit from using
Keating's Cough Lozenges is understated. The operation was a specially severe one,
and was performed by the specialist, Dr. H. T. Butlin, of St, Bartholomew's Hospital.
Since the operation, the only means of relief is the use of these Lozenges. So successful
are they that one affords immediate benefit, although from the nature of the case the
throat irritation is intense. Mr. Hill kindly allows any reference to be made to him.
THE UTTERLY UNRIVALLED REMEDY
for
COUGHS, HOARSENESS, AND THROAT TROUBLES,
"KEATING'S COUGH LOZENGES " are sold everywhere, in Tins, 1/1\ and 2/9 each.
Free by Post, 15 Stamps.
THOMAS KEATING, Chemist, London.
Tenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser. [Issue.
Thoughts, like Somtfakes on. some far-off Mountain Side, go on Accumulating till
some great Truth is loosened, and Falls like an Avalanche on the Waiting World.
At present our lawgivers do not see that the
responsibilities of thoroughly qualified
Plumbers are frequently more important
than a Medical Practiliouer's.
IMPORTANT TO ALL LEAVING HOME.—
What Health Retort, what Watering Place,
what Climate in the World could show results of
Preventible Death like these of the power of
Sanitation? IGNORANCE OP SANITARY
SCIENCE, direct and indirect, Costs Threefold
the amount of Pcor-Rate for the Country gene¬
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where of those who came in without well, developed
disease, and not good lives either, the death-rate did
not exceed PHIIER IN 1,000. In Stafford County
Jail the death-rate had, during the last ten years,
been actually less than one in every thousand—
not a tenth of the death-rate of adult outsiders."
—Inaugural Address by E. CHAD WICK, C.B.,
on the Sanitary Condition of England.
THE KING OF PHYSICIANS, PURE AIR.
JEOPARDY OF X.IFE, THE GREAT DANGER OF VITIATED AIR.
" Former generations perished in venial ignorance of all sanitary laws. When Black Death massacred Hun¬
dreds of Thousands, neither the victims nor their rulers could be accounted responsible for their slaughier."—
Times.
After breathing impure air for two minutes and a half, every drop of blood is more or less poisoned. There
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T|RAWING AN OVERDRAFT ON TFF. BANK OF LIFF—Late hours, fagged, un-
JJ natural excitement, breathing impure air, too rich food, alcoholic drinks, etc.—ENO'S
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groundwork of disease—from the blood by natural means, allays nervous excitement, depres¬
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PALPITATION OF THE HEART, caused by Liver Derangement and Indigestion, fre¬
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bottle of your' FRUIT SALT,' not feeling very well at the time, and it had an effect that I
never anticipated when I bought it. I had suffered more or less since the year 1841 from
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after the first dose of ' FRUIT SALT,' palpitations suddenly ceased, and have not since re¬
turned. Out of gratitude for the benefit which I have received, I have recommended it to
all my friends both in London and Yarmouth ; at the same time I feel it my duty to state the
above facts, of which you can make whatever use you please.
, "I am, dear Sir, yours respectfully, TRUTH."
mHE SECRET OF SUCCESS.-STERLTNG HONESTY OF PURPOSE, WITHOUT IT
A LIFE IS A SHAM !—" A new invention is brought before the public, and commands
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CAUTION.—Examine each Bottle, and see that the Capsule is marked ENO'S "FRUIT
SALT." Without it you have been imposed on by worthless imitations. Sold by all Chemists.
Directions in Sixteen Languages how to prevent Disease. Protection in every Country.
Prepared only at Eno's " Fruit Salt" Works, London, S.E., by J. C. Eno's Patent.
Tenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser. {hsue.
MELLIN'SFOOD
FOR
INFANTS
AND
INVALIDS.
"31, Harwood Square,
"N.W.
" Mrs. Millar's little boy—
taken the day he was a year eld
—brought up on MELLXM'S
FOOD till then."
MELLIN'S FOOD~BISCOITS
(Manufactured by Carr $ Co., Carlisle, specially for O. 3fellin).
For Children after Weaning, the Aged, and Dyspeptic. Digestive, Nourishing, Sustaining.
Price 2/- and 3/6 per Tin.
MELLIN'S LACTO-GLYCOSE or MILK FOOD
Simply dissolved in warm water is recommended for use when fresh cow's milk disagrees or
c jr.not be obtained. Price 2 - and 3,'- per Bottle.
SHAKESPEARIAN WISDOM ON THE FEEDING AND REARING OF INFANTS.
A pamphlet of quotations from Shakespeare and portraits of beautiful children, together
with testimonials, which are of the highest interest to all mothers, to be had with samples
free by post, on application to—
G. MELLIN, Marlboro' Works, Peckham, S.E.
.90,000, S. & B., 21/7/92.
MASTER MILLAR, aged 12 months.
SONS OF THE SOIL
(EES PAYSANS)
BALZAC'S NOVELS
IN ENGLISH.
^ PERE GORIOT.
v THE DUCHESSE DE
LANGEAIS.
^ CESAR BIROTTEAU.
^ EUGENIE GRANDET.
u- COUSIN PONS.
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR.
is THE TWO BROTHERS.
THE ALKAHEST.
MODESTE MIGNON.
THE MAGIC SKIN.
" BUREAUCRACY
(Les Employes).
«" SONS OF THE SOIL
(Les Paysans.)
HONORE DE BALZAC
SONS OF THE SOIL
(EES PAYSANS)
london
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited
broadway, ludgate hill
Glasgow, Manchester and New York
1891
CONTENTS.
PAGE
To Monsieur P. S. B. Gavault vii
FIRST PART.
CHAPTER
I. The Chateau 1
II. A Bucolic Overlooked by Virgil .... 22
III. The Tavern 40
IV. Another Idyl 62
V. Enemies Face to Face 82
VI. A Tale oe Thieves 110
VII. Certain Lost Social Species 129
VIII. The Great Revolutions of a Little Valley . 147
IX. Concerning the Mediocracy 178
X. The Sadness of a Happy Woman 199
XI. The Oaristys, Eighteenth Eclogue of The¬
ocritus ; Little Admired on the Police
Calendar 219
XII. Showeth how the Tavern is the People's
Parliament 240
XIII. A Type of the Country Usurer 262
vi
Contents.
SECOND PART.
chapter page
I. The Leading Society of Soulanges .... 287
II. The Conspirators in the Queen's Salon . . 311
III. The Cafe de la Paix 334
IV. The Triumvirate of Ville-Aux-Eayes . . . 343
V. Victory Without a Eight 365
VI. The Eorest and the Harvest 375
VII. The Greyhound 387
VIII. Rural Virtue 400
IX. The Catastrophe 405
X. The Triumph or the Vanquished 412
TO MONSIEUR P. S. B. GAVAULT.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote these words at the
beginning of his Nouvelle Heloise: "I have seen
the morals of my time and I publish these letters."
May I not say to you, in imitation of that great writer,
" I have studied the march of my epoch and I publish
this work " ?
The object of this particular study — startling in its
truth so long as society makes philanthropy a principle
instead of regarding it as an accident — is to bring to
sight the leading characters of a class too long un¬
heeded by the pens of writers who seek novelty as their
chief object. Perhaps this forgetfulness is only pru¬
dence in these days when the people are heirs of all
the sycophants of royalty. We make criminals poetic,
we commiserate the hangman, we have all but deified
the proletary. Sects have risen, and cried by every pen,
" Arise, working-men! " just as formerly they cried,
" Arise ! " to the tiers etat. None of these Prostrates,
however, have dared to face the country solitudes and
study the unceasing conspiracy of those whom we term
viii To Monsieur P. S. B. G-avault.
weak against those others who fancy themselves strong,
—■ that of the peasant against the proprietor. It is
necessary to enlighten not only the legislator of to-day
but him of to-morrow. In the midst of the present
democratic ferment, into which so many of our writers
blindly rush, it becomes an urgent duty to exhibit the
peasant who renders Law inapplicable, and who has
made the ownership of land to be a thing that is, and
that is not.
You are now to behold that indefatigable mole, that
rodent which undermines and disintegrates the soil,
parcels it out and divides an acre into a hundred frag¬
ments, — ever spurred on to his banquet by the lower
middle classes who make him at once their auxiliary
and their prey. This essentially unsocial element,
created by the Revolution, will some day absorb the
middle classes, just as the middle classes have destroyed
the nobility. Lifted above the law by its own insignifi¬
cance, this Robespierre, with one head and twenty mil¬
lion arms, is at work perpetually; crouching in counti'y
districts, intrenched in municipal councils, under arms
in the national guard of every canton in France, —one
result of the year 1830, which failed to remember that
Napoleon preferred the chances of defeat to the danger
of arming the masses.
If during the last eight years I have again and again
given up the writing of this Look (the most important
of those I have undertaken to write), and as often re-
To Monsieur P. S. B. Cravault. is
turned to it, it was, as you and other friends can well
imagine, because my courage shrank from the many
difficulties, the many essential details of a drama so
doubly dreadful and so cruelly bloody. Among the
reasons which render me now almost, it may be thought,
foolhardy, I count the desire to finish a work long
designed to be to you a proof of my deep and lasting
gratitude for a friendship that has ever been among my
greatest consolations in misfortune.
De Balzac.
SONS OF THE SOIL.
FIRST PART.
Whoso land hath, contention hath,
I.
THE CHATEAU.
Les Aigue3, August 6, 1823.
To Monsieuk Nathan :
My dear Nathan,—You, who provide the public
with such delightful dreams through the magic of your
imagination, are now to follow me while I make you
dream a dream of truth. You shall then tell me whether
the present century is likely to bequeath such dreams
to the Nathans and the Blondets of the year 1923 ; you
shall estimate the distance at which we now are from
the days when the Florines of the eighteenth century
found, on awaking, a chateau like Les Aigues in the
terms of their bargain.
My dear fellow, if you receive this letter in the morn¬
ing, let your mind travel, as you lie in bed, fifty leagues
or thereabouts from Paris, along the great mail road
which leads to the confines of Burgundy, and behold
two small lodges built of red brick, joined, or separ¬
ated, by a rail painted green. It was there that the
diligence deposited your friend and correspondent.
1
2
Sons of the Soil.
On either side of this doable pavilion grows a quick¬
set hedge, from which the brambles straggle like stray
locks of hair. Here and there a tree shoots boldly up;
flowers bloom on the slopes of the wayside ditch, bath¬
ing their feet in its green and sluggish water. The
hedge at both ends meets and joins two strips of wood¬
land, and the double meadow thus inclosed is doubtless
the result of a clearing.
These dusty and deserted lodges give entrance to
a magnificent avenue of centennial elms, whose um¬
brageous heads lean toward each other and form a
long and most majestic arbor. The grass grows in
this avenue, and only a few wheel-tracks can be seen
along its double width of way. The great age of
the trees, the breadth of the avenue, the venerable
construction of the lodges, the brown tints of their
stone courses, all bespeak an approach to some half-
regal residence.
Before reaching this enclosure from the height of
an eminence such as we Frenchmen rather conceitedly
call a mountain, at the foot of which lies the village
of Conches (the last post-house), I had seen the long
valley of Aigues, at the farther end of which the
mail road turns to follow a straight line into the little
sub-prefecture of La Ville-aux-Fayes, over which, as
you know, the nephew of our friend des Lupeaulx
lords it. Tall forests lying on the horizon, along vast
slopes which skirt a river, command this rich vallej*,
which is framed in the far distance by the mountains of
a lesser Switzerland, called the Morvan. These forests
belong to Les Aigues, and to the Marquis cle Ron-
querolles and the Comte de Soulanges, whose castles
and parks and villages, seen in the distance from these
Sons of the Soil.
3
heights, give the scene a strong resemblance to the
imaginary landscapes of Velvet Breughel.
If these details do not remind you of all the castles
in the air you have desired to possess in France you
are not worthy to receive the present narrative of an
astounded Parisian. At last I have seen a landscape
where art is blended with nature in such a way that
neither of them spoils the other; the art is natural, and
the nature artistic. I have found the oasis that you and
I have dreamed of when reading novels, — nature luxu¬
riant and adorned, rolling lines that are not confused,
something wild withal, unkempt, mysterious, not com¬
mon. Jump that green railing and come on!
When I tried to look up the avenue, which the sun
never penetrates except when it rises or when it sets,
striping the road like a zebra with its oblique rays, my
view was obstructed by an outline of rising ground;
after that is passed, the long avenue is obstructed by a
copse, within which the roads meet at a cross-ways, in
the centre of which stands a stone obelisk, for all the
world like an eternal exclamation mark. From the
crevices between the foundation stones of this erection,
which is topped by a spiked ball (what an idea !), hang
flowering plants, blue or yellow according to the season.
Les Aigues must certainly have been built by a woman,
or for a woman; no man would have had such dainty
ideas; the architect no doubt had his cue.
Passing through the little wood placed there as sen¬
tinel, I came upon a charming declivity, at the foot
of which foamed and gurgled a little brook, which I
crossed on a culvert of mossy stones, superb in color,
the prettiest of all the mosaics which time manufactures.
The avenue continues by the brookside up a gentle rise.
4
Sons of the Soil.
In the distance, the first tableau is now seen, — a mill
and its dam, a causeway and trees, linen laid out to
dry, the thatched cottage of the miller, his fishing-nets,
and the tank where the fish are kept, — not to speak of
the miller's boy, who was alread}7 watching me. No
matter where you are in the country, however solitary
you may think yourself, you are certain to be the focus
of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a laborer rests
on his hoe, a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a
little goat-girl, or shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a
willow to stare at you.
Presently the avenue merges into an alley of acacias,
which leads to an iron railing made in the days when
iron-workers fashioned those slender filagrees which are
not unlike the copies set us by a writing-master. On
either side of the railing is a ha-ha, the edges of which
bristle with angry spikes, — regular porcupines in metal.
The railing is closed at both ends by two porter's-lodges,
like those of the palace at Versailles, and the gateway
is surmounted by colossal vases. The gold of the ara¬
besques is ruddy, for rust has added its tints, but this
entrance, called " the gate of the Avenue," which
plainly shows the hand of the Great Dauphin (to whom,
indeed, Les Aigues owes it), seems to me none the less
beautiful for that. At the end of each ha-ha the walls
of the park, built of rough-hewn stone, begin. These
stones, set in a mortar made of reddish earth, display
their variegated colors, the warm yellows of the silex,
the white of the lime carbonates, the russet browns of the
sandstone, in many a fantastic shape. As you first enter
it, the park is gloomy, the walls are hidden b}' creeping
plants and by trees that for fifty years have heard no
sound of axe. One might think it a virgin forest, made
Sons of the Soil.
5
primeval again through some phenomenon granted
exclusively to forests. The trunks of the trees are
swathed with lichen which hangs from one to another.
Mistletoe, with its viscid leaves, droops from every fork
of the branches where moisture settles. I have found
gigantic ivies, wild arabesques which flourish only
at fifty leagues from Paris, here where land does not
cost enough to make one sparing of it. The landscape
on such free lines covers a great deal of ground.
Nothing is smoothed off"; rakes are unknown, ruts
and ditches are full of water, frogs are tranquilly de¬
livered of their tadpoles, the woodland flowers bloom,
and the heather is as beautiful as that I have seen on
your mantle-shelf in January in the elegant beau-pot
sent by Florine. This mystery is intoxicating, it in¬
spires vague desires. The forest odors, beloved of
souls that are epicures Of poesy, who delight in the tiny
mosses, the noxious fungi, the moist mould, the wil¬
lows, the balsams, the wild thyme, the green waters of
a pond, the golden star of the yellow water-lily, — the
breath of all such vigorous propagations came to my
nostrils and filled me with a single thought; was it
their soul? I seemed to see a rose-tinted gown floating
along the winding alley.
The path ended abruptly in another copse, where
birches and poplars and all the quivering trees palpi¬
tated, — an intelligent family with graceful branches and
elegant bearing, the trees of a love as free! It was
from this point, my dear fellow, that I saw a pond cov¬
ered with tho white water-lily and other plants with
broad flat leaves and narrow slender ones, on which
lay a boat painted white and black, as light as a nut¬
shell and dainty as the wherry of a Seine boatman.
2
G
Sons of the Soil.
Beyond rose the chateau, built in 1560, of fine red
briek, with stone courses and copings, and window-
frames in which the sashes were of small leaded panes
(O Versailles !). The stone is hewn in diamond points,
but hollowed, as in the Ducal Palace at Venice on the
facade toward the Bridge of Sighs. There are no reg¬
ular lines about the castle except in the centre building,
from which projects a stately portico with double flights
of curving steps, and round balusters slender at their
base ancl broadening at the middle. The main building
is surrounded by clock-towers and sundry modern tur¬
rets, with galleries and vases more or less Greek. No
harmony there, my dear Nathan ! These heterogeneous
erections are wrapped, so to speak, by various ever¬
green trees whose branches shed their brown needles
upon the roofs, nourishing the lichen and giving tone
to the cracks and crevices where the eye delights to
wander. Here you see the Italian pine, the stone pine,
with its red bark and its majestic parasol; here a
cedar two hundred years old, weeping willows, a Nor¬
way spruce, and a beech which overtops them all; and
there, in front of the main tower, some very singular
shrubs, — a yew trimmed in a way that recalls some
long-decayed garden of old France, and magnolias with
hortensias at their feet. In short, the place is the
Invalides of the heroes of horticulture, once the fashion
and now forgotten, like all other heroes.
A chimney, with curious copings, which was sending
forth great volumes of smoke, assured me that this de¬
lightful scene was not an opera setting. A kitchen
reveals human beings. Now imagine me, Blondet,
who shiver as if in the polar regions at Saint-Cloud,
in the midst of this glowing Burgundian climate. The
Sons of the Soil.
T
sun sends down its warmest rays, the king-fisher
watches on the shores of the pond, the cricket chirps,
the grain-pods burst, the poppy drops its morphia in
glutinous tears, and all are clearly defined on the dark-
blue ether. Above the ruddy soil of the terraces
flames that joyous natural punch which intoxicates the
insects and the flowers and dazzles our eyes and browns
our faces. The grape is beading, its tendrils fall in a
veil of threads whose delicacy puts to shame the lace-
makers. Beside the house blue larkspur, nasturtium,
and sweet-peas are blooming. From a distance orange-
trees and tuberoses scent the air. After the poetic ex¬
halations of the woods (a gradual preparation) came
the delectable pastilles of this botanic seraglio.
Standing on the portico, like the queen of flowers,
behold a woman robed in white, with hair unpowdered,
holding a parasol lined with white silk, but herself whiter
than the silk, whiter than the lilies at her feet, whiter
than the starry jasmine that climbed the balustrade,
— a woman, a Frenchwoman born in Russia, who said as
I approached her, " I had almost given you up." She
had seen me as I left the copse. "With what perfection
do all women, even the most guileless, understand the
arrangement of a scenic effect? The movements of
the servants, who were preparing to serve breakfast,
showed me that the meal had been delaj^ed until after
the arrival of the diligence. She had not ventured to
come to meet me.
Is not this our dream,—the dream of all lovers of
the beautiful, under whatsoever form it comes; the
seraphic beauty that Luini put into his Marriage of
the Virgin, that noble fresco at Sarono; the beauty
that Rubens grasped in the tumult of his "Battle
8
Sons of the Soil.
of the Thermodon ; " the beauty that five centuries have
elaborated in the cathedrals of Seville and Milan; the
beauty of the Saracens at Granada, the beauty of
Louis XIV. at Versailles, the beauty of the Alps,
and that of this Limagne in which I stand ?
Belonging to the estate, about which there is nothing
too princely, nor yet too financial, where prince and
farmer-general have both lived (which fact serves to ex¬
plain it), are four thousand acres of woodland, a park
of some nine hundred acres, the mill, three leased
farms, another immense farm at Conches, and vine¬
yards, — the whole producing a revenue of about seventy
thousand francs a year. Now you know Les Aigues,
my dear fellow; where I have been expected for the
last two weeks, and where I am at this moment, in
the chintz-lined chamber assigned to dearest friends.
Above the park, toward Conches, a dozen little
brooks, clear, limpid streams coming from the Morvan,
fall into the pond, after adorning with their silvery
ribbons the valleys of the park and the magnificent
gardens around the chateau. The name of the place,
Les Aigues, comes from these charming streams of
water; the estate was originally called in the old title-
deeds "Les Aigues-Vives" to distinguish it from
" Aigues-Mortes;" but the word "Vives" has now
been dropped. The pond empties into the stream,
which follows the course of the avenue, through a wide
and straight canal bordered on both sides "and along
its whole length by weeping willows. This canal, thus
arched, produces a delightful effect. Gliding through
it, seated on a thwart of the little boat, one could fancy
one's self in the nave of some great cathedral, the choir
being formed of the main building of the house seen at
Sons of the Soil.
9
the end of it. When the setting sun casts its orange
tones mingled with amber upon the casements of the
chateau, the effect is that of painted windows. At the
other end of the canal we see Blangy, the county-town,
containing about sixty houses, and the village church,
which is nothing more than a tumbledown building with
a wooden clock-tower which appears to hold up a roof
of broken tiles. One comfortable house and the par¬
sonage are distinguishable ; but the township is a large
one, — about two hundred scattered houses in all, those
of the village forming as it were the capital. The roads
are lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens
are strewn here and there, — true country gardens with
everything in them ; flowers, onions, cabbages and grape¬
vines, currants, and a great deal of manure. The village
has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative
simplicity which we artists are forever seeking. In the
far distance is the little town of Soulanges overhanging
a vast sheet of water, like the buildings on the lake of
Thun.
When 3*ou stroll in the park, which has four gates,
each superb in style, you feel that our mythological
Arcadias are flat and stale. Arcadia is in Burgundy,
not in Greece ; Arcadia is at Les Aigues and nowhere
else. A river, made by scores of brooklets, crosses
the park at its lower level with a serpentine movement;
giving a dewy freshness and tranquillity to the scene,
— an air of solitude, which reminds one of a convent
of Carthusians, and all the more because, on an arti¬
ficial island in the river, is a hermitage in ruins, the
interior elegance of which is worthy of the luxurious
financier who constructed it. Les Aigues, my dear
Nathan, once belonged to that Bouret who spent two
10
Sons of the Soil.
millions to receive Louis XV. on a single occasion
under his roof. How many ardent passions, how many
distinguished minds, how many fortunate circumstances
have contributed to make this beautiful place what it
is ! A mistress of Henri IV. rebuilt the chateau where
it now stands. The favorite of the Great Dauphin,
Mademoiselle Clioin (to whom Les Aigues was given),
added a number of farms to it. Bouret furnished the
house with all the elegancies of Parisian homes for
an Opera celebrity ; and to him Les Aigues owes the
restoration of its ground floor in the style Louis XV.
I have often stood rapt in admiration at the beauty of
the dining-room. The eye is first attracted to the ceil¬
ing, painted in fresco in the Italian manner, where light¬
some arabesques are frolicking. Female forms, in stucco
ending in foliage, support at regular distances corbeils
of fruit, from which spring the garlands of the ceiling.
Charming paintings, the work of unknown artists, fill
the panels between the female figures, representing the
luxuries of the table, — boar's-heads, salmon, rare shell¬
fish, and all edible things,—which fantastically suggest
men and women and children, and rival the whimsical
imagination of the Chinese, — the people who best
understand, to my thinking at least, the art of deco¬
ration. The mistress of the house finds a bell-wire be¬
neath her feet to summon servants, who enter only when
required, disturbing no interviews and overhearing no
secrets. The panels above the doorways represent
gay scenes; all the embrasures, both of doors and
windows, are in marble mosaics. The room is heated
from below. Every window looks forth on some
delightful view.
This room communicates with a bath-room on one
/Sons of the Soil.
11
side and on the other with a boudoir which opens into
the salon. The bath-room is lined with Sevres tiles,
painted in monochrome, the floor is mosaic, and the
bath marble. An alcove, hidden by a picture painted
on copper, which turns on a pivot, contains a couch in
gilt wood of the truest Pompadour. The ceiling is
lapis-lazuli starred with gold. The tiles are painted
from designs by Boucher. Bath, table and love are
therefore closely united.
After the salon, which, I should tell you, my dear
fellow, exhibits the magnificence of the Louis XXV.
manner, you enter a fine billiard-room unrivalled so
far as I know in Paris itself. The entrance to this
suite of ground-floor apartments is through a semi¬
circular antechamber, at the lower end of which is a
fairy-like staircase, lighted from above, which leads
to other parts of the house, all built at various epochs
— and to think that they chopped off the heads of the
wealthy in 1793! Good heavens! why can't people
understand that the marvels of art are impossible in
a land where there are no great fortunes, no secure,
luxurious lives? If the Left insists on killing kings
why not leave us a few little princelings with money
in their pockets ?
At the present moment these accumulated treasures
belong to a charming woman with an artistic soul, who is
not content with merely restoring them magnificently,
but who keeps the place up with loving care. Sham
philosophers, studying themselves while they profess to
be studjung homanity, call these glorious things ex¬
travagance. They grovel before cotton prints and the
tasteless designs of modern industry, as if we were
greater and happier in these days than in those of
12
Sons of the Soil.
Henri IV., Louis XIV., and Louis XVI., monarchs
who have all left the stamp of their reigns upon Les
Aigues. What palace, what royal castle, what man¬
sions, what noble works of art, what gold brocaded
stuffs are sacred now? The petticoats of our grand-
mothers go to cover the chairs in these degenerate
days. Selfish and thieving interlopers that we are,
we pull down everything and plant cabbages where
marvels once were rife. Onty yesterday the plough
levelled Persan, that magnificent domain which gave
a title to one of the most opulent families of the old
parliament; hammers have demolished Montmorency,
which cost an Italian follower of Napoleon unheard of
sums; Val, the creation of Reguault de Saiilt-Jean
d'Angely, Cassan, built by a mistress of .the Prince de
Conti; in all, four royal houses have disappeared in the
valley of the Oisc alone. We are getting a Roman
campagna around Paris in advance of the days when
a tempest shall blow from the north and overturn
our plaster palaces and our pasteboard decorations.
Now see, my dear fellow, to what the habit of bom-
basticising in newspapers brings you to. Here am I
writing a downright article. Does the mind have its
ruts, like a road ? I stop ; for I rob the mail,' and I rob
myself, and you may be yawning — to be continued
in our next; I hear the second bell, which summons
me to one of those abundant breakfasts the fashion of
which has long passed away, in the dining-rooms of
Paris, be it understood.
Here's the history of my Arcadia. In 1815, there
died at Les Aigues one of the famous wantons of the
last century, — a singer, forgotten of the guillotine and
the nobility, after preying upon exchequers, upon
Sons of the Soil.
13
literature, upon aristocracy, and all but reaching the
scaffold ; forgotten, like so many fascinating old women
who expiate their golden youth in country solitudes,
and replace their lost loves by another, — man by
Nature. Such women live with the flowers, with the
woodland scents, with the sky, with the sunshine, with
all that sings and skips and shines and sprouts, — the
birds, the squirrels, the flowers, the grass; they know
nothing about these things, they cannot explain them,
but they love them ; they love them so well that they
forget dukesi, marshals, rivalries, financiers, follies,
luxuries, their paste jewels and their real diamonds,
their heeled slippers and their rouge, — all, for the
sweetness of country life.
I have gathered, my dear fellow, much precious in¬
formation about the old age of Mademoiselle Laguerre ;
for, to tell you the truth, the after life of such women
as Florine, Mariette, Suzanne de Val Noble, and Tullia
has made me, every now and then, extremely inquisi¬
tive, as though I were a child inquiring what had
become of the old moons.
In 1790 Mademoiselle Laguerre, alarmed at the
turn of public affairs, came to settle at Les Aigues,
bought and given to her by Bouret, who passed several
summers with her at the chateau. Terrified at the fate
of Madame du Barry, she buried her diamonds. At
that time she was only fifty-three years of age, and
according to her lady's-maid, afterwards married to a
gendarme named Soudry, " Madame was more beauti¬
ful than ever." My dear Nathan, Nature has no doubt
her private reasons for treating women of this sort
like spoiled children ; excesses, instead of killing them,
fatten them, preserve them, renew their youth. Under
14
Sons of the Soil.
a lymphatic appearance they have nerves which main¬
tain their marvellous physique ; they actually preserve
their beauty for reasons whicli would make a virtuous
woman haggard. No, upon my word, Nature is not
moral!
Mademoiselle Laguerre lived an irreproachable life at
Les Aigues, one might even call it a saintly one, after
her famous adventure, — you remember it? One even¬
ing in a paroxysm of despairing love, she fled from the
opera-house in her stage dress, rushed into the country,
and passed the night weeping by the wa}Tside. (Ah!
how they have calumniated the love of Louis XV.'s
time !) She was so unused to see the sunrise, that she
hailed it with one of her finest songs. Her attitude,
quite as much as her tinsel, drew the peasants about
her ; amazed at her gestures, her voice, her beauty, they
took her for an angel, and dropped on their knees
around her. If Voltaire had not existed we might
have thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God
gave her much credit for her tardy virtue, for love after
all must be a sickening thing to a woman as weary of it
as a wanton of the old Opera. Mademoiselle Laguerre
was born in 1740, and her hey-day was in 1760, when
Monsieur (I forget his name) was called the ministre
de la guerre, on account of his liaison with her. She
abandoned that name, which was quite unknown down
here, and called herself Madame des Aigues, as if to
merge her identity in the estate, which she delighted
to improve with a taste that was profoundly artistic.
When Bonaparte became First Consul, she increased
her property by the purchase of church lands, for which
she used the proceeds of her diamonds. As an Opera
divinity never knows how to take care of her monej*,
Sons of the Soil.
15
she intrusted the management of the estate to a steward,
occupying herself with her flowers and fruits and with
the beautifying of the park.
After Mademoiselle was dead and buried at Blangy,
the notary of Soulanges — that little town which lies
between Ville-aux-Fayes and Blangy, the capital of the
township — made an elaborate inventory, and sought
out the heirs of the singer, who never knew she had
any. Eleven families of poor laborers living near
Amiens, and sleeping in qotton sheets, awoke one fine
morning in golden ones. The property was sold at
auction. Les Aigues was bought by Montcornet, who
had laid by enough during his campaigns in Spain
and Pomerania to make the purchase, which cost about
eleven hundred thousand francs, including the furniture.
The general, no doubt, felt the influence of these luxu¬
rious apartments ; and I was arguing with the countess
only yesterday that her marriage was a direct result of
the purchase of Les Aigues.
To rightly understand the countess, my dear Nathan,
you must know that the general is a violent man, red
as fire, five feet nine inches tall, round as a tower, with
a thick neck and the shoulders of a blacksmith, which
must have amply filled his cuirass. Montcornet com¬
manded the cuirassiers at the battle of Essling (called
by the Austrians Gross-Aspern), and came near perish¬
ing when that noble corps was driven back on the Dan¬
ube. He managed to cross the river astride of a log of
wood. The cuirassiers, finding the bridge down, took
the glorious resolution, at Montcornet's command, to
turn and resist the entire Austrian army, which carried
off on the morrow over thirty wagon-loads of cuirasses.
The Germans invented a name for their enemies on
16
Sons of (he Soil.
this occasion which means " men of iron."1 Montcor-
net has the outer man of a hero of antiquity. His arms
1 I do not, on principle, like foot-notes, and this is the
first I have ever allowed myself. Its historical interest must
be my excuse; it will prove, moreover, that descriptions of
battles should be something more than the dry particulars of
technical writers, who for the last three thousand years have
told us about left and right wings and centres being broken
or driven in, but never a word about the soldier himself,
his sufferings, and his heroism. The conscientious care with
which I prepared myself to write the " Scenes from Military
Life," led me to many a battle-field once wet with the blood of
France and her enemies. Among them I went to Wagram.
When I reached the shores of the Danube, opposite Lobau, I
noticed on the bank, which is covered with turf, certain un¬
dulations that reminded me of the furrows in a field of lucern.
I asked the reason of it, thinking I should hear of some new
method of agriculture: " There sleep the cavalry of the impe¬
rial guard," said the peasant who served us as a guide;
"those are their graves you see there." The words made
me shudder. Prince Frederic Schwartzenburg, who translated
them, added that the man had himself driven one of the
wagons laden with cuirasses. By one of the strange chances
of war our guide had served a breakfast to Napoleon on the
morning of the battle of Wagram. Though poor, he had
kept the double napoleon which the Emperor gave him for
his milk and his eggs. The curate of Gross-Aspern took us
to the famous cemetery where French and Austrians strug¬
gled together knee-deep in blood, with a courage and obsti¬
nacy glorious to each. There, while explaining that a marble
tablet (to which our attention had been attracted, and on
which were inscribed the names of the owner of Gross-
Aspern, who had been killed on the third day) was the sole
compensation ever given to the family, he said, in a tone of
deep sadness : "It was a time of great misery, and of great
hopes ; but now are the days of forgetfulness." The saying
Sons of the Soil.
17
are stout and vigorous, his chest deep and broad; his
head has a leonine aspect, his voice is of those that
can order a charge in the thick of the battle; but he
has nothing more than the courage of a daring man ; he
lacks mind and breadth of view. Like other generals to
whom military common-sense, the natural boldness of
those who spend their lives in danger, and the habit of
command gives an appearance of superiority, Mont-
cornet has an imposing effect when you first meet him ;
he seems a Titan, but he contains a dwarf, like the
pasteboard giant who saluted Queen Elizabeth at the
gates of Kenilworth. Choleric though kind, and full of
imperial hauteur, he has the caustic tongue of a soldier,
seemed to me sublime in its simplicity; but when I came
to reflect upon the matter, I felt there was some justifica¬
tion for the apparent ingratitude of the House of Austria.
Neither nations nor kings are wealthy enough to reward all
the devotions to which these great struggles give rise. Let
those who serve a cause with a secret expectation of recom¬
pense, set a price upon their blood and become mercenaries.
Those who wield either sword or pen for their country's good
ought to think of nothing but of doing their best, as our
fathers used to say, and expect nothing, not even glory, ex¬
cept as a happy accident.
It was in rushing to retake this famous cemetery for the
third time that Massena, wounded and carried in the box of
a cabriolet, made this splendid harangue to his soldiers:
" What! you rascally curs, who have only five sous a day
while I have forty thousand, do you let me go ahead of
you ? " All the world knows the order which the Emperor
sent to his lieutenant by M. de Sainte-Croix, who swam the
Danube three times : " Die or retake the village; it is a ques¬
tion of saving the army; the bridges are destroyed."
The Authok.
18
Sons of the Soil.
and is quick at repartee, but quicker still with a blow.
He may have been superb on a battle-field; in a
household he is simply intolerable. He knows no love
but barrack love, —the love which those clever myth-
makers, the ancients, placed under the patronage of Eros,
son of Mars and Venus. Those delightful chroniclers
of the old religions provided themselves with a dozen
different Loves. Study the fathers and the attributes
of these Loves, and you will discover a complete social
nomenclature, — and yet we fancy that we originate
things! When the world turns upside down like an
hour-glass, when the seas become continents, French¬
men will find cannons, steamboats, newspapers, and
maps wrapped up in seaweed at the bottom of what is
now our ocean.
Now, I must tell you that the Comtesse de Montcor-
net is a fragile, timid, delicate little woman. What do
you think of such a marriage as that? To those ,who
know society such things are common enough; a well-
assorted marriage is the exception. Nevertheless, I
have come to see how it is that this slender little
creature handles her bobbins in a way to lead this heavy,
solid, stolid general precisely as he himself used to lead
his cuirassiers.
If Montcornet begins to bluster before his Virginie,
Madame lays a finger on her lips and he is silent. He
smokes his pipes and his cigars in a kiosk fifty feet
from the chateau, and airs himself before he returns to
the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns to her,
like a bear drunk on grapes, and says, when anything
is proposed, " If Madame approves." When he comes
to his wife's room, with that heavy step which makes
the tiles creak as though they were boards, and she, not
Sons of the Soil.
19
wanting him, calls out: " Don't come in!" he performs
a military volte-face and says humbly: "You will let
me know when I can see you? " — in the very tones with
which he shouted to his cuirassiers on the banks of the
Danube : " Men, we must die, and die well, since there's
nothing else we can do !" I have heard him say, speak¬
ing of his wife, " Not only do I love her, but I venerate
her." When he flies into a passion which defies all re¬
straint and bursts all bonds, the little woman retires
into her own room and leaves him to shout. But four
or five hours later she will say: " Don't get into a pas¬
sion, my dear, you might break a blood-vessel; and
besides, you hurt me." Then the lion of Essling re¬
treats out of sight to wipe his eyes. Sometimes he
comes into the salon when she and I are talking, and
if she says: "Don't disturb us, he is reading to me,"
he leaves us without a word.
It is only strong men, choleric and powerful, thunder¬
bolts of war, diplomats with olympian heads, or men of
genius, who can show this utter confidence, this gener¬
ous devotion to weakness, this constant protection, this
love without jealousy, this easy good humor with a
woman. Good heavens! I place the science of the
countess's management of her husband as far above
the peevish, arid virtues as the satin of a causeuse is
superior to the Utrecht velvet of a dirty bourgeois sofa.
My dear fellow, I have spent six days in this delight¬
ful country-house, and I never tire of admiring the
beauties of the park, surrounded by forests where pretty
wood-paths lead beside the brooks. Nature and its si¬
lence, these tranquil pleasures, this placid life to which
she woos me,—all attract. Ah! here is true litera¬
ture ; no fault of style among the meadows. Happiness
20
Sons of the Soil.
forgets all things here, — even the Debats! It has
rained all the morning; while the countess slept and
Montcornet tramped over his domain, I have compelled
myself to keep my rash, imprudent promise to write to
you.
Until now, though I was born at Alengon, of an old
judge and a prefect, so they sa}r, and though I know
something of agriculture, I supposed the tale of estates
bringing in four or five thousand francs a month to be
a fable. Money, to me, meant a couple of dreadful
things, — work and a publisher, journalism and politics.
When shall we poor fellows come upon a land where
gold springs up with the grass ? That is what I desire
for you and for me and the rest of us in the name
of the theatre, and of the press, and of book-making!
Amen!
Will Florine be jealous of the late Mademoiselle
Laguerre? Our modern Bourets have no French no¬
bles now to show them how to live; they hire one
opera-box among three of them; they subscribe for
their pleasures ; they no longer cut down magnificently
bound quartos to match the octavos in their library ; in
fact, they scarcely bu}' even stitched paper books.
What is to become of us?
Adieu ; continue to care for
Your Blondet.
If this letter, dashed off by the idlest pen of the cen¬
tury, had not by some luck}'' chance been preserved, it
Would have been almost impossible to describe Les
Aigues; and without this description the history of the
horrible events that occurred there would certainly be
less interesting.
Sons of the Soil.
21
After that remark some persons will expect to sec
the flashing of the cuirass of the former colonel of the
imperial guard, and the raging of his anger as he falls
like a waterspout on his little wife ; so that the end of
this present history may be like the end of all modern
dramas, — a tragedy of the bed-chamber. Perhaps the
fatal scene will take place in that charming room with
the blue monochromes, where beautiful ideal birds are
painted on the ceilings and the shutters, where Chinese
monsters laugh with open jaws on the mantle-shelf, and
dragons, green and gold, twist their tails in curious con¬
volutions around rich vases, and Japanese fantasy em¬
broiders its designs of many colors; where sofas and
reclining-chairs and consoles and what-nots invite to
that contemplative idleness which forbids all action.
No; the drama here to be developed is not one of
private life; it concerns things higher, or lower. Ex¬
pect no scenes of passion; the truth of this history is
only too dramatic. And remember, the historian should
never forget that his mission is to do justice to all; the
poor and the prosperous are equals before his pen; to
him the peasant appears in the grandeur of his misery,
and the rich in the pettiness of his folly. Moreover,
the rich man has passions, the peasant only wants.
The peasant is therefore doubly poor; and if, politi¬
cally, his aggressions must be pitilessly repressed, to
the eyes of humanity and religion he is sacred.
22
Sons of the Soil.
II.
A BUCOLIC OVERLOOKED BY VIRGIL.
When a Parisian drops into the country he is cut off
from all his usual habits, and soon feels the dragging
hours, no matter how attentive his friends may be to
him. Therefore, because it is so impossible to prolong
iu a tete-a-tete conversations that are soon exhausted,
the master and mistress of a country-house are apt to
say, calmly, " You will be terribly bored here." It is
true that to understand the delights of country life one
must have something to do, some interests in it; one
must know the nature of the work to be done, and
the alternating harmony of toil and pleasure, — eternal
symbol of human life.
When a Parisian has recovered his powers of sleep¬
ing, shaken off the fatigues of the journey, and accus¬
tomed himself to country habits, the hardest period
of the day (if he wears thin boots and is neither a
sportsman nor an agriculturalist) is the early morning.
Between the hours of waking and breakfasting, the
women of the family are sleeping or dressing, and
therefore unapproachable; the master of the house is
out and about his own affairs ; a Parisian is therefore
compelled to be alone from eight to eleven o'clock,
the hour chosen in all country-houses for breakfast.
Now, having got what amusement he can out of care¬
fully dressing himself, he has soon exhausted that
Sons of the Soil.
23
resource. Then, perhaps, he has brought with him
some work, which he finds it impossible to do, and
which goes back untouched, after he sees the difficul¬
ties of doing it, into his valise ; a writer is then obliged
to wander about the park and gape at nothing or count
the big trees. The easier the life, the more irksome
such occupations are, — unless, indeed, one belongs to
the sect of shaking quakers or to the honorable guild
of carpenters or taxidermists. If one really had, like
the owners of estates, to live in the countiy, it would
be well to supply one's self with a geological, mineralog-
ical, entomological, or botanical hobby; but a sensible
man does n't give himself a vice merely to kill time
for a fortnight. The noblest estate, and the finest
chateaux soon pall on those who possess nothing but
the sight of them. The beauties of nature seem rather
squalid compared to the representation of them at the
opera. Paris, by retrospection, shines from all its
facets. Unless some particular interest attaches us, as
it did in Blondet's case, to scenes honored by the steps
and lighted by the eyes of a certain pei'son, one would
envy the birds their wings and long to get back to
the endless, exciting scenes of Paris and its harrowing
strifes.
The long letter of the young journalist must make
most intelligent minds suppose that he had reached,
morally and physically, that particular phase of satis¬
fied passions and comfortable happiness which cer¬
tain winged creatures fed in Strasbourg so perfectly
represent when, with their heads sunk behind their
protruding gizzards, they neither see nor wish to see
the most appetizing food. So, when the formidable
letter was finished, the writer felt the need of getting
24
Sons of the Soil.
away from the gardens of Armida and doing something
to enliven the deadly void of the morning hours; for
the hours between breakfast and dinner belonged to
the mistress of the house, who knew very well how to
make them pass quickly. To keep, as Madame de
Montcornet did, a man of talent in the country without
ever seeing on his face the false smile of satiety, or
detecting the yawn of a weariness that cannot be con¬
cealed, is a great triumph for a woman. The affection
which is equal to such a test certainly ought to be
eternal. It is to be wondered at that women do not
oftener employ it to judge of their lovers; a fool, an
egoist, Or a petty nature could never stand it. Philip
the Second himself, the Alexander of dissimulation,
would have told his secrets if condemned to a month's
tete-a-tete in the country. Perhaps this is why kings
seek to live in perpetual motion, and allow no one to
see them more than fifteen minutes at a time.
Notwithstanding that he had received the delicate
attentions of one of the most charming women in
Paris, Emile Blondet was able to feel once more the
long forgotten delights of a truant schoolboy; and on
the morning of the day after his letter was written he
had himself called by Francois, the head valet, who
was specially appointed to wait on him, for the purpose
of exploring the valley of the Avonne.
The Avonne is a little river which, being swollen
above Conches by numerous rivulets, some of which rise
in Les Aigues, falls at Ville-aux-Faves into one of the
large affluents of the Seine. The geographical position
of the Avonne, navigable for over twelve miles, had,
ever since Jean Rouvet invented rafts, given full
money value to the forests of Les Aigues, Soulanges,
Sons of the Soil.
25
and Ronquerolles, standing on the crest of the hills
between which this charming river flows. The park
of Les Aigues covers the greater part of the valley,
between the river (bordered on both sides by the forest
called des Aigues) and the royal mail road, defined by a
line of old elms in the distance along the slopes of the
Avonne mountains, which are in fact the foot-hills of
that magnificent amphitheatre called the Morvan.
However vulgar the comparison may be, the park,
lying thus at the bottom of the valley, is like an
enormous fish with its head at Conches and its tail in
the village of Blang}- ; for it widens in the middle to
nearly three hundred acres, while towards Conches it
counts less than fifty, and sixty at Blangy. The posi¬
tion of this estate, between three villages, and only
three miles from the little town of Soulanges, from
which the descent is rapid, may perhaps have led to the
strife and caused the excesses which are the chief inter¬
est attaching to the place. If, when seen from the mail
road or from the uplands beyond Ville-aux-Fayes, the
paradise of Les Aigues induces mere passing travellers
to commit the mortal sin of envy, why should the rich
burghers of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes who had it
before their eyes and admired it every day of their
lives, have been more virtuous?
This last topographical detail was needed to explain
the site, also the use of the four gates by which alone the
park of Les Aigues was entered ; for it was completely
surrounded by walls, except where nature had provided
a fine view, and at such points sunk fences or ha-has
had been placed. The four gates, called the gate of
Conches, the gate of the Avonne, the gate of Blangy,
and the gate of the Avenue, showed the styles of the
26
Sons of the Soil.
different periods at which thejr were constructed so ad-
mirably that a brief description, in the interest of archae¬
ologists, will presently be given, as brief as the one
Blondet has already written about the gate of the
Avenue-
After eight days of strolling about with the countess,
the illustrous editor of the " Journal des Ddbats " knew
by heart the Chinese kiosk, the bridges, the isles, the
hermitage, the dairy, the ruined temple, the Babylo¬
nian ice-house, and all the other delusions invented by
landscape architects which some nine hundred acres of
land can be made to serve. He now wished to find the
sources of the Avonne, which the general and the
countess daily extolled in the evening, making plans to
visit them which were daily forgotten the next morning.
Above Les Aigues the Avonne really had the appear¬
ance of an alpine torrent. Sometimes it hollowed a bed
among the rocks, sometimes it went underground; on
this side the brooks came down in cascades, there they
flowed like the Loire on sandy shallows where rafts
could not pass on account of the shifting channels.
Blondet took a short cut through the labyrinths of the
park to reach the gate of Conches. This gate demands
a few words, which give, moreover, certain historical
details about the property.
The original founder of Les Aigues was a younger
son of the Soulanges family, enriched by marriage,
whose chief ambition was to make his elder brother
jealous, — a sentiment, by the bye, to which we owe the
fairy-land of Isola Bella in the Lago Maggiore. In the
middle ages the castle of Les Aigues stood on the banks
of the Avonne. Of this old building nothing remains
but the gateway, which has a porch like the entrance to
Sons of the Soil.
27
a fortified town, flanked by two round towers with con¬
ical roofs. Above the arch of the porch are heavy
stone courses, now draped with vegetation, showing-
three large windows with cross-bar sashes. A winding-
stairway in one of the towers leads to two chambers,
and a kitchen occupies the other tower. The roof of
the porch, of pointed shape like all old timber-work, is
noticeable for two weathercocks perched at each end
of a ridge-pole ornamented with fantastic iron-work.
Many an important place cannot boast of so fine a
town hall. On the outside of this gateway, the key¬
stone of the arch still bears the arms of Soulanges, pre¬
served by the hardness of the stone on which the chisel
of the artist carved them, as follows : Azure, on a pale,
argent, three pilgrim's staffs sable ; a fess bronehant,
gules, charged with four crossespatee,fitched, or ; with'
the heraldic form of shield awarded to younger sons.
Blondet deciphered the motto, Je soule agir, — one of
those puns that crusaders delighted to make upon their
names, and which brings to mind a fine political maxim,
which, as we shall see later, was unfortunately forgot¬
ten by Montcornet. The gate, which was opened for
Blondet by a very pretty girl, was of time-worn wood
clamped with iron. The keeper, wakened by the creak¬
ing of the hinges, put his nose out of the window and
showed himself in his night-shirt.
" So our keepers sleep till this time of day ! " thought
the Parisian, who fancied himself very knowing in rural
customs.
After a walk of about quarter of an hour, he reached
the sources of the river above Conches, where his rav¬
ished eyes beheld one of those landscapes that ought to
be described, like the history of France, in a thousand
23
Sons of the Soil.
volumes or in onty one. We must here content our¬
selves with two paragraphs.
A projecting rock, covered with dwarf trees and
abraded at its base by the Avonne, to which circum¬
stance it owes a slight resemblance to an enormous
turtle lying across the river, forms an arch through
which the eye takes in a little sheet of water, clear as a
mirror, where the stream seems to sleep until it reaches
in the distance a series of cascades falling among huge
rocks, where little weeping willows with elastic motion
sway back and forth to the flow of waters.
Beyond these cascades is the hillside, rising sheer,
like a Rhine rock clothed with moss and heather, gul¬
lied like it, again, by sharp ridges of schist and mica
sending down, here and there, white foaming rivulets
to which a little meadow, always watered and always
green, serves as a cup ; farther on, bej-ond the pictur¬
esque chaos and in contrast to this wild, solitary na¬
ture, the gardens of Conches are seen, with the village
roofs and the clock-tower and the outlying fields.
There are the two paragraphs, but the rising sun, the
purity of the air, the dewy sheen, the melod}' of woods
and waters — imagine them !
" Almost as charming as at the Opera," thought Blon-
det, making his way along the banks of the unnavigable
portion of the Avonne, whose caprices contrast with the
straight and deep and silent stream of the lower river,
flowing between the tall trees of the forest of Les
Aigues.
Blondet did not proceed far on his morning walk, for
he was presently brought to a stand-still by the sight of
a peasant, —one of those who, in this drama, are su¬
pernumeraries so essential to its action that it may
Sons of the Soil.
29
be doubted whether they are not in fact its leading
actors.
When the clever journalist reached a group of rocks
where the main stream is imprisoned, as it were, be¬
tween two portals, he saw a man standing so mo¬
tionless as to excite his curiosity, while the clothes
and general air of this living statue greatly puzzled
him.
The humble personage before him was a living pre¬
sentment of the old men dear to Charlet's pencil ;
resembling the troopers of that Homer of soldiery in a
strong frame able to endure hardship, and his immor¬
tal skirmishers in a fier}r, crimson, knotted face, show¬
ing small capacity for submission. A coarse felt hat,
the brim of which was held to the crown by stitches,
protected a nearly bald head from the weather ; below
it fell a quantity of white hair which a painter would
gladly have paid four francs an hour to copy, — a daz¬
zling mass of snow, worn like that in all the classical
representations of Deity. It was easy to guess from the
way in which the cheeks sank in, continuing the lines
of the mouth, that the toothless old fellow was more
given to the bottle than the trencher. His thin white
beard gave a threatening expression to his profile by
the stiffness of its short bristles. The ej-es, too small
for his enormous face, and sloping like those of a pig,
betrayed cunning and also laziness; but at this par¬
ticular moment they were gleaming with the intent
look he cast upon the river. The sole garments of
this curious figure were an old blouse, formerly blue,
and trousers of the coarse burlap used in Paris to
wrap bales. All city people would have shuddered
at the sight of his broken sabots, without even a wisp
30
Sons of the Soil.
of straw to stop the cracks ; and it is very certain that
the blouse and the trousers had no money value at all
except to a paper-maker.
As Blondet examined this rural Diogenes, he ad¬
mitted the possibility of a type of peasantry he had
seen in old tapestries, old pictures, old sculptures, and
which, up to this time, had seemed to him imaginary.
He resolved for the future not to utterly condemn the
school of ugliness, perceiving a possibility that in man
beauty may be but the flattering exception, a chimera
in which the race struggles to believe.
" What can be the ideas, the morals, the habits, of
such a being ? What is he thinking of ?" thought
Blondet, seized with curiosity. "Is he my fellow-
creature? We have nothing in common but shape,
and even that! — "
He noticed in the old man's limbs the peculiar ri¬
gidity of the tissues of persons who live in the open
air, accustomed to the inclemencies of the weather
and to the endurance of heat and cold, — hardened to
everything, in short, — which makes their leathern skin
almost a hide, and their nerves an apparatus against
physical pain as powerful as that of the Russians or
the Arabs.
"Here's one of Cooper's Red-skins," thought Blon¬
det ; " one need n't go to America to study savages."
Though the Parisian was less than ten paces off,
the old man did not turn his head, but kept looking at
the opposite bank with a fixity which the fakirs of India
give to their vitrified eyes and their stiffened joints.
Compelled by the power of a species of magnetism,
more contagious than people have any idea of, Blondet
ended by gazing at the water himself.
Sons of the Soil.
31
"Well, my good man, what do you see there?"
he asked, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour,
during which time he saw nothing to justify this
intent contemplation.
"Hush!" whispered the old man, with a sign to
Blondet not to ruffle the air with his voice; "You
will frighten it — "
" What? "
" An otter, my good gentleman. If it hears us it '11
go quick under water. I'm certain it jumped there ;
see! see! there, where the water bubbles! Ha! it
sees a fish, it is after that! But my boy will grab
it as it comes back. The otter, don't you know, is
very rare ; it is scientific game, and good eating,
too. I get ten francs for every one I carry to Les
Aigues, for the lady fasts Fridays, and to-morrow is
Friday. Years agone the deceased madame used to
pay me twenty francs, and gave me the skin to boot!
Mouche," he called, in a low voice, " watch it!"
Blondet now perceived on the other side of the
river two bright eyes, like those of a cat, beneath a
tuft of alders; then he saw the tanned forehead and
tangled hair of a boy about ten 3-ears of age, who was
lying 011 his stomach and making signs towards the
otter to let his master know he kept it well in sight.
Blondet, completely mastered by the eagerness of the
old man and boy, allowed the demon of the chase to get
the better of him, — that demon with the double claws
of hope and, curiosity, who carries you whithersoever
he will.
"The hatmakers buy the skin," continued the old
man; "it's so soft, so handsome! They cover caps
with it."
32
Sons of the Soil.
'' Do you really think so, my old man ?" said
Blondet, smiling.
" Well truly, my good gentleman, you ought to
know more than I, though I am seventy years old,"
replied the old fellow, very humbly and respectfully,
falling into the attitude of a giver of holy water; '' per¬
haps you can tell me why conductors and wine-mer¬
chants are so fond of it?"
Blondet, a master of irony, already on his guard
from the word scientific, recollected the Marechal de
Richelieu and began to suspect some jest on the part
of the old man; but he was reassured by his artless
attitude and the perfectly stupid expression of his face.
" In my young days we had lots of otters," whispered
the old fellow; "but they've hunted'em so that if
we see the tail of one in seven years it is as much as
ever we do. And the sub-prefect at Ville-aux-Fayes, —
does n't monsieur know him? though he be a Parisian,
he's a fine young man like you, and he loves curiosities,
— so, as I was saying, hearing of my talent for catch¬
ing otters, for I know 'em as you know your alpha¬
bet, he says to me like this: ' Pere Fourchon,' sa}'s
he, ' when you find an otter bring it to me, and I '11
pay you well; and if it's spotted white on the back,'
says he, 'I '11 give you thirty francs.' That's just
what he did say to me as true as I believe in God the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And there's a learned
man at Soulanges, Monsieur Gourdon, our doctor, who
is making, so they tell me, a collection of natural
history which has n't its mate at Dijon even; indeed
he is first among the learned men in these parts, and
he '11 pay me a fine price, too; he stuffs men and
beasts. Now my boy there stands me out that that
Sons of the Soil.
33
otter has got the white spots. 'If that's so,' says
I to him, ' then the good God wishes well to us this
morning!' Ha! did n't you see the water bubble ?
yes, there it is ! there it is ! Though it lives in a kind
of a burrow, it sometimes stays whole days under
water. Ha, there ! it heard you, my good gentleman ;
it's on its guard now; for there's not a more suspicious
animal on earth ; it's worse than a woman."
"So you call women suspicious, do you?" said
Blondet.
" Faith, monsieur, if you come from Paris you ought
to know about that better than I. But you 'd have
done better for me if you had stayed in your bed and
slept all the morning; don't you see that wake there ?
that's where she's gone under. Get up, Mouche! the
otter heard monsieur talking, and now she's scary
enough to keep us at her heels till midnight. Come,
let's be off! and good-bye to our thirty francs!"
Mouche got up reluctantly; he looked at the spot
Where the water bubbled, pointed to it with his finger
and seemed unable to give up all hope. The child,
with curly hair and a brown face, like the angels in a
fifteenth-century picture, seemed to be in breeches, for
his trousers ended at the knee in a ragged fringe of
brambles and dead leaves. This necessary garment was
fastened upon him by cords of tarred oakum in guise
of braces. A shirt of the same burlap which made
the old man's trousers, thickened, however, by many
darns, open in front showed a sun-burnt little breast.
In short, the attire of the being called Mouche was even
more startlingly simple than that of Pere Fourchon.
" What a good-natured set of people they are here,"
thought Blondet; " if a man frightened away the game
34
Sons of the Soil.
of the people of the suburbs of Paris, how their tongues
would maul him ! "
As he had never seen an otter, even in a museum,
he was delighted with this episode of his early walk.
" Come," said he, quite touched when the old man
walked away without asking him for a compensation,
'' you say you are a famous otter catcher. If you are
sure there is an otter clown there —"
From the other side the water Mouche pointed his
finger to certain air-bubbles coming up from the bottom
of the Avonne and bursting on its surface.
" It has come back ! " said Pere Fourchon; " don't
you see it breathe, the beggar? How do you suppose
they manage to breathe at the bottom of the water?
Ah, the creature's so clever it laughs at science."
"Well," said Blondet, who supposed the last word
was a jest of the peasantry in general rather than of
this peasant in particular, " wait and catch the otter."
'' And what are we to do about our day's work,
Mouche and I ? "
" What is your day worth? "
" For the pair of us, my apprentice and me? — Five
francs," said the old man, looking Blondet in the eye
with a hesitation that betrayed an enormous over¬
charge.
The journalist took ten francs from his pocket,say¬
ing, " There's ten, and I '11 give you ten more for the
otter."
" And it won't cost j'ou dear if there's white on its
back; for the sub-prefect told me there was n't one o'
them museums that had the like ; but he knows every¬
thing, our sub-prefect, — no fool he ! If I hunt the
otter, he, M'sieur des Lupeaulx, hunts Mademoiselle
iSons of the Soil.
85
Gaubertin, who has a fine white dot on her ba,ck. Come
now, my good gentleman, if I may make so bold, plunge
into the middle of the Avonne and get to that stone
down there. If we head the otter off, it will come
down stream; for just see their slyness, the beggars!
they always go above their burrow to feed, for, once
full of fish, they know they can easily drift down, the
sly tilings! Ha! if I'd been trained in their school
I should be living now on an income ; but I was a long
time finding out that you must go up stream very early
in the morning if you want to bag the game before
others. Well, somebody threw a spell over me when
I was born. However, we three together ought to be
slyer than the otter."
" How so, my old necromancer?"
"Why, bless you! we are as stupid as the beasts,
and so we come to understand the beasts. Now, see,
this is what we'll do. When the otter wants to get
home Mouche and I'll frighten it here, and you'll
frighten it over there; frightened by us and frightened
by you it will jump on the bank, and when it takes to
earth, it is lost! It can't run ; it has web feet for swim¬
ming. Ho, ho! it will make you laugh, such floun¬
dering! you don't know whether you are fishing or
hunting! The general up at Les Aigues, I have known
him to stay here three days running, he was so bent
on getting an otter."
Blondet, armed with a branch cut for him by the old
mau, who requested him to whip the water with it when
lie called to him, planted himself in the middle of the
river by jumping from stone to stone.
" There, that will do, my good gentleman."
Blondet stood where he was told without remark-
36
Sons of the Soil.
ing the lapse of time, for every now and then the old
fellow made him a sign as much as to say that all was
going well; and Tbesides, nothing makes time go so fast
as the expectation that quick action is to succeed the
perfect stillness of watching.
" Pere Fourchon," whispered the boy, finding him¬
self alone with the old man, " there's really an otter! "
" Do you see it? "
" There, see there ! "
The old fellow was dumfounded at beholding under
water the reddish-brown fur of an actual otter.
"It's coming my way ! " said the child.
" Hit him a sharp blow on the head and jump into
the water and hold him fast down, but don't let him
go!"
Mouche dove into the river like a frightened frog.
" Come, come, my good gentleman," cried Pere
Fourchon to Blondet, jumping into the water, and leav¬
ing his sabots on the bank, "frighten him! frighten
him! Don't you see him ? he is swimming fast your
way!"
The old man dashed toward Blondet through the
water, calling out with the gravit}r that country people
retain in the midst of their greatest excitements: —
" Don't you see him there, there, along the rocks?"
Blondet, placed by direction of the old fellow in such
a way that the sun was in his eyes, thrashed the water
with much satisfaction to himself.
"Go on, go on!" cried Pere Fourchon; "on the
rock side; the burrow is there, to your left! "
Carried away by excitement and by his long waiting,
Blondet slipped from the stones into the water.
" Ha! brave you are, my good gentleman ! Twenty
Sons of the Soil.
87
good Gods ! I see him between.your legs! you '11 have
him ! — Ah! there ! he's gone — he's gone ! " cried
the old man, in despair.
Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fellow plunged
into the deepest part of the stream in front of Blondet.
"It's your fault we've lost him!" he cried, as
Blondet gave him a hand to pull him out, dripping like
a triton, and a vanquished triton. " The rascal, I see
him, under those rocks ! He has let go his fish," con¬
tinued Fourchon, pointing to something that floated on
the surface. "We'll have that at any rate; it's a
tench, a real tench."
Just then a groom in livery on horseback and leading
another horse by the bridle galloped up the road toward
Conches.
" See ! there's the chateau people sending after you,"
said the old man. " If you want to cross back again
I '11 give you a hand. I don't mind about getting wet;
it saves washing ! "
" How about rheumatism?"
" Rheumatism ! don't you see the sun has browned our
legs, Mouclie and me, like tobacco-pipes. Here, lean
on me, my good gentleman — you're from Paris; you
don't know, though you do know so much, how to walk
on our rocks. If you stay here long enough, you '11
learn a deal that's written in the book o' nature, —you
who write, so they tell me, in the newspapers."
Blondet had reached the bank before Charles, the
groom, perceived him.
"Ah, monsieur!" he cried; "you don't know how
anxious Madame has been since she heard you had
gone through the gate of Conches; she was afraid
vou were drowned. They have rung the great bell
4
88
Sons of the Soil.
three times, and Monsieur le cure is hunting for you
in the park."
" What time is it, Charles? "
" A quarter to twelve."
" Help me to mount."
" Ha! " exclaimed the groom, noticing the water that
dripped from Blondet's boots and trousers, " has mon¬
sieur been taken in by Pere Fourchon's otter ?"
The words enlightened the journalist.
" Don't sa}' a word about it, Charles," he cried, " and
I '11 make it all right with you."
" Oh, as for that! " answered the man, " Monsieur
le comte himself has been taken in by that otter.
Whenever a visitor comes to Les Aigues, Pere Four-
chon sets himself on the watch, and if the gentleman
goes to see the sources of the Avonne he sells him the
otter; he plays the trick so well that Monsieur le
comte has been here three times and paid him for six
days' work, just to stare at the water! "
" Heavens ! " thought Blondet. " And I imagined
I had seen the greatest comedians of the present day !
— Potier, the younger Baptiste, Michot, and Monrose.
What are they compared to that old beggar?"
" He is very knowing at the business, Pere Fourchon
is," continued Charles ; " and he has another string to
his how, besides. He calls himself a rope-maker, and
has a walk under the park wall by the gate of Blangy.
If you merely touch his rope he '11 entangle you so
cleverly that you will want to turn the wheel and make
a bit of it j'ourself; and for that you would have to
pay a _ fee for apprenticeship. Madame herself was
taken in, and gave him twent}- francs. Ah! he is the
king of tricks, that old fellow!"
Sons of the Soil.
39
The groom's gossip set Blondet thinking of the ex¬
treme craftiness and wiliness of the French peasant, of
which he had heard a great deal from his father, a judge
at AlenQon. Then the satirical meaning hidden beneath
Pere Fourchon's apparent guilelessness came back to
him, and he owned himself '' gulled " by the Burgun-
dian beggar.
" You would never believe, monsieur," said Charles,
as they reached the portico at Les Aigues, " how much
one is forced to distrust everybody and everything in
the country, — especially here, where the general is not
much liked — "
"Why not?"
" That's more than I know," said Charles, with the
stupid air servants assume to shield themselves when
they wish not to answer their superiors, which never¬
theless gave Blondet a good deal to think of.
" Here you are, truant! " cried the general, coming
out on the terrace when he heard the horses. " Here
he is; don't be uneasy!" he called back to his wife,
whose little footfalls were heard behind him. "Now
the Abbe Brossette is missing. Go and find him,
Charles," he said to the groom.
40
Sons of the Soil.
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 dis¬
pensed with the necessity for a lodge. Between the
two pilasters, a sumptuous iron gate, like those made
in Button's time for the Jardin des Plantes, opened
on a short paved way which led to the county road
(formerly kept in careful 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
Sons of the Soil.
41
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 inci¬
dents of country life, were spied upon by the old fellow,
who had set up this business only within the last three
years, — a trifling circumstance which neither the mas¬
ters, 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 '11 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 peas¬
ant, hugging the otter under his arm, disappeared
along the county 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 shut¬
ters and the broken door—in short, everything about
42
Sons of the Soil.
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 in¬
stinct was veiy 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, sup¬
ported on trunks of trees, under which the various out¬
door 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
Sons of the Soil.
43
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 pro¬
prietors 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
stairwajr, 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, ex¬
ceptions 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
44
Sons of the Soil.
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. Ever}1- 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 to¬
gether with the holiday attire of the 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 appearance never cleaned. An ob¬
server 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 ac¬
quaintance 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
Sons of the Soil.
45
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 thor¬
oughly 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 con¬
temptible-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
46
Sons of the Soil.
in Paris as you pass the door of the cheap cook-shops
of the faubourg.
Now you know the surroundings. Behold the in¬
habitants and hear their his tor}', which contains more
than one lesson for philanthropists.
The proprietor of the Grand-I-Vert, named Francois
■ Tonsard, commends himself to the attention of phi¬
losophers b}' the manner in which he had solved the
problem of an idle life and a busy life, so as to make
idleness profitable, and occupation nil.
A jack-at-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 mere}' of the workman. Tonsard owed 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), arid allowed him to stay at Les
Aigues, where he lived with her servants, who thought
him one of the best fellows in Burgundy.
Sons of the Soil.
47
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 ward¬
robe, 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 acre, Tonsard replied to
the first person who happened to mention that Made¬
moiselle 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 noth¬
ing ? 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
48
Sons of the Soil.
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 vil¬
lage 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 vin¬
dictive, 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 pau¬
perism, 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 to spell; he scolded them in so
remarkable a manner for pilfering fruit that his lec¬
tures might really have passed for lessons on the best
Sons of the Soil.
49
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 repri¬
manded. 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. Conse¬
quently, 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 alwajrs
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 work¬
shop 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 rev¬
enue 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 Sou-
langes, to village weddings and the grand balls given at
the Tivoli of Soulanges.
Vermichel's name was Michel Vert, but the transpo¬
sition was so generally used that Brunet, the clerk of the
municipal court of Soulanges, was in the habit of writ-
50
Sons of the Soil¬
ing Michel-Jean-Jerome Vert, called Vermichel, practi¬
tioner. Vermichel, a famous violin in the Burgundian
regiment of former days, had procured for Pere Four-
chon, 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, oir practitioner of legal papers, when¬
ever the Sieur Brunet came to draw them in the dis¬
tricts 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 re¬
tained. 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 fathom 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 chem¬
istry, 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, hin¬
dered, 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 increas¬
ing his comfort by an increase of property in marriage.
The idle son-in-law had chanced, by a very common
Sons of the Soil.
51
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 heav}r, the woman lightened
them. She used Tonsard's vices to get the better of
him. Loving comfort and good eating herself, she en¬
couraged 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 man}r a house¬
hold. Madame Tonsard established the wine-shop of
the Grand-I-Vert, her first customers being the ser¬
vants of Les Aigues and the keepers and huntsmen.
Gaubertin, formerly steward to Mademoiselle La-
guerre, 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 woman 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 county, jugged
liare, game sauce, stewed fish and omelets, she was
considered in all the countiy round to be an admirable
cook of the sort of food which is eaten at a counter and
52
Sons of the Soil.
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 noth¬
ing 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 im¬
punity. 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, Cath¬
erine and Marie, went into the woods at certain sea¬
sons 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 the 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 con¬
stantly 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
Sons of the Soil.
53
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 toaps. 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 natu¬
ral 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
5
54
Sons of the Soil.
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. Ton-
sard 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 hun¬
dred 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 Ton¬
sard 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
Sons of the Soil.
55
being, as we have seen, sheltered and protected by the
keepers, they showed no conscience in their proceed¬
ings,— 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 pro¬
ceeds the G-rand-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 com¬
mon people. From Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, work¬
men 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 drink-
56
Sons of the Soil.
ing with his guests. Soulanges, according to a sajdng
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 vallej7. 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 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, ob¬
tained, 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 ladj7'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, bohe-
mians of the valley, received not one penny in money
from their parents, who gave them their 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.
Sons of the Soil.
57
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 prin¬
ciples and no scruples, nothing was ever said against
the morals of the Grand-I-Vert. At the begiuning
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 do¬
mestic 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 be¬
come, 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
58
Sons of the Soil.
of their social functions, the peasants live a purel}' ma¬
terial 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 any¬
thing 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 work-
ingmen 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 for¬
est ; 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 Cer-
neux, 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."
Sons of the Soil.
59
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 im¬
munity (necessary to plans which this history will un¬
fold), 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 amount¬
ing 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 stu¬
pidity, 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
60
Sons of the Soil.
for a certain lawless and slothful good humor, and the
free-and-easy wa}Ts of a rustic tippler, the man would
have alarmed the least observing of spectators.
If the portraits of Ton sard, 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, parthT on
account of the fear he inspired throughout the valle}7 —
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
' O
in the country as in a city. Moreover, there was no
other inn along the country-road for over twelve miles,
a distance which convej-ances (even when laden) could
easily do in three hours ; so that those who went from
Conches to Yille-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 catne there. The grooms and valets of the gen-
Sons of the Soil.
61
eral were not averse to Tonsard's wine, rendered at¬
tractive 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 perpet¬
ual 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.
62
Sons of the Soil.
IV.
ANOTHER IDYL.
" Ha ! by my pipe, papa!" exclaimed Tonsard, seeing
his father-in-law as the old man entered and supposing
him in quest of food, u your stomach is lively this morn¬
ing! We haven't anything to give you. How about
that rope, — the rope, you know, you were to make for
us? It is amazing how much you make over night and
how little there is made in the morning! You ought
long ago to have twisted the one that is to twist you out
of existence ; you are getting too costly for us."
The wit of a peasant or laborer is very Attic; it
consists in speaking out his mind and giving it a
grotesque expression. We find the same thing in a
drawing-room. Delicacy of wit takes the place of
picturesque vulgarity, and that is really all the differ¬
ence there is.
" That's enough for the father-in-law!" said the old
man. " Talk business ; I want a bottle of the best."
So saying, Fourchon rapped a five-franc piece that
gleamed in his hand on the old table at which he was
seated, — which, with its coating of grease, its scorched
black marks, its wine stains, and its gashes, was singu¬
lar to behold. At the sound of coin Marie Tonsard,
as trig as a sloop about to start on a cruise, glanced
at her grandfather with a covetous look that shot from
her eyes like a spark. La Tonsard came out of her
bedroom, attracted by the music of metal.
Sons of the Soil.
68
" You are always rough to my poor father," she said
to her husband, "and yet he has earned a deal of
money this year; God grant he came by it honestly.
Let me see that," she added, springing at the coin and
snatching it from Fourchon's fingers.
" Marie," said Tonsard, gravely, " above the board
you '11 find some bottled wine. Go and get a bottle."
Wine is of only one quality in the country, but it is
sold as of two kinds, —cask wine and bottled wine.
"Where did you get this, papa?" demanded La
Tonsard, slipping the coin into her pocket.
" Philippine ! you '11 come to a bad end," said the old
man, shaking his head but not attempting to recover
his money. Doubtless he had long realized the futility
of a struggle between his daughter, his terrible son-in-
law, and himself.
" Another bottle of wine for which you get five francs
out of me," he added, in a peevish tone. " But it shall
be the last. I shall give my custom to the Cafe de la
Paix."
"Hold your tongue, papa!" remarked his fair and
fat daughter, who bore some resemblance to a Koman
matron. "You need a shirt, and a pair of clean
trousers, and a hat; and I want to see you with a
waistcoat. That's what I take the mone3r for."
" I have told 3'ou again and again that such things
would ruin me," said the old man. " People would
think me rich and stop giving me anything."
The bottle brought by Marie put an end to the lo¬
quacity of the old man, who was not without that trait,
characteristic of those whose tongues are ready to tell
out everything, and who shrink from no expression of
their thought, no matter how atrocious it may be.
64
Sons of the Soil,
" Then you don't want to tell where you filched that
money?" said Tonsard. " We might go and get more
where that came from, — the rest of us."
He was making a snare, and as he finished it the fero¬
cious innkeeper happened to glance at his father-in-law's
trousers, and there he spied a raised round spot which
clearly defined a second five-franc piece.
" Having become a capitalist I drink your health,"
said Pere Fourchon.
" If you choose to be a capitalist you can be," said
Tonsard; " you have the means, you have! But the
devil has bored a hole in the back of your head through
which everything runs out."
'' Hey ! I only played the otter trick on that young
fellow they have got at Les Aigues. He's from Paris.
That's all there is to it."
" If crowds of people would come to see the sources
of the Avonne, you'd be rich, Grandpa Fourchon,"
said Marie.
"Yes," he said, drinking the last glassful the bottle
contained, " and I've played the sham otter so long,
the live otters have got angry, and one of them came
right between my legs to-day; Mouche caught it, and
I am to get twenty francs for it."
" I '11 bet your otter is made of tow," said Tonsard,
looking slyly* at his father-in-law.
'' If }*ou will give me a pair of trousers, a waistcoat,
and some list braces, so as not to disgrace Vermichel
on the music stand at Tivoli (for old Socquard is alwa}rs
scolding about my clothes), I '11 let you keep that money,
my daughter; your idea is a good one. I can squeeze
that rich 3*oung fellow at Les Aigues; may be he '11
take to otters."
Sons of the Soil.
65
' " Go and get another bottle," said Tonsard to his
daughter. "If your father really had an otter, he
would show it to us," he added, speaking to his wife
and trying to touch up Fourchon.
"I'm too much afraid it would get into your frying-
pan," said the old man, winking one of his little green
eyes at his daughter. " Philippine has already hooked
my five-franc piece ; and how many more have n't you
bagged under pretence of clothing me and feeding me ?
and now you say that my stomach is too lively, and that
I go half-naked."
"You sold your last clothes to drink boiled wine at
the Cafe de la Paix, papa," said his daughter, " though
Vermichel tried to prevent it."
" Vermichel! the man I treated ! Vermichel is inca¬
pable of betraying my friendship. ' It must have been
that lump of old lard on two legs that he is not ashamed
to call his wife ! "
" He or she," replied Tonsard, " or Bonnebault."
"If it was Bonnebault," cried Fourchon, "he
who is one of the pillars of the place, I'll — I'll —
Enough!"
" You old sot, what has all that got to do with hav¬
ing sold 3'our clothes? You sold them because you did
sell them ; you 're of age ! " said Tonsard, slapping the
old man's knee. "Come, do honor to my drink and
redden up your throat! The father of Mam Tonsard has
a right to do so ; and is n't that better than spending
your silver at Socquard's? "
"What a shame it is that 3Tou have been fifteen years
playing for people to dance at Tivoli and you have never
yet found out how Socquard cooks his wine, — 3-011 who
arc so shrewd !" said his daughter; '4 and yet 3-ou know
66
/Sons of the Soil.
very well that if we had the secret we should soon get
as rich as Rigou."
Throughout the Morvan, and in that region of Bur¬
gundy which lies at its feet on the side toward Paris,
this boiled wine with which Mam Tonsard reproached
her father is a rather costly beverage which plays a
great part in the life of the peasantry, and is made b}*
all grocers and wine-dealers, and wherever a drinking-
shop exists. This precious liquor, made of choice
wine, sugar, and cinnamon and other spices, is preferable
to all those disguises or mixtures of brandy called ratafia,
one-hundred-and-seven, brave man's cordial, black cur¬
rant wine, vespetro, spirit-of-sun, etc. Boiled wine is
found throughout France and Switzerland. Among the
Jura, and in the wild districts trodden only by a few
special tourists, the innkeepers call it, on the word of
commercial travellers, the wine of Syracuse. Excellent
it is, however, and their guests, hungry as hounds after
ascending the surrounding peaks, very gladly pay three
and four francs a bottle for it. In the homes of the
Morvan and in Burgundy the least illness or the slight¬
est agitation of the nerves is an excuse for boiled wine.
Before and after childbirth the women take it with
the addition of burnt sugar. Boiled wine has soaked
up the property of many a peasant, and more than
once the seductive liquid has been the cause of marital
chastisement.
"Ha! there's no chance of grabbing that secret,"
replied Fourchon, " Socquard always locks himself
in when he boils his wine; he never told how he
does it to his late wife. He sends to Paris for his
materials."
" Don't plague your father," cried Tonsard ; " does n't
/Sons of the Soil.
G7
he know ? well, then, he does n't know! People can't
know everything!"
Fourchon grew very uneasy on seeing how his son-in-
law's countenance softened as well as his words.
" What do you want to rob me of now?" he asked,
candidly.
"I?" said Tonsard, "I take none but m}" legitimate
dues; if I get anything from you it is in payment of
your daughter's portion, which you promised me and
have never paid."
Fourchon, reassured by the harshness of this remark,
dropped his head on his breast as though vanquished
and convinced.
" Look at that pretty snare," resumed Tonsard, com¬
ing up to his father-in-law and laying the trap upon his
knee. " Some of these days they '11 want game at Les
Aigues, and we shall sell them their own, or there will
be no good God for the poor folks."
" A fine piece of work," said the old man. examin¬
ing the mischievous machine.
"It is very well to pick up the sous now, papa,"
said Mam Tonsard, "but you know we are to have
our share in the cake of Les Aigues."
"Oh, what chatterers women are!" cried Tonsard.
" If I am hanged it won't be for a shot from my gun,
but for the gabble of your tongue."
" And do you really suppose that Les Aigues will be
cut up and sold in lots for your pitiful benefit ? " asked
Fourchon. " Pshaw ! have n't you discovered in the last
thirty years that old Rigou has been sucking the marrow
out of your bones that the middle-class folks are worse
than the lords? Mark my words, when that affair hap¬
pens, my children, the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, the
G8
Sons of the Soil.
Rigous, will make you kick your heels in the air. ' I 've
the good tobacco, it never shall be thine,' that's the
national air of the rich man, hey? The peasant will
always be the peasant. Don't you see (but you never
did understand anything of politics!) that government
puts such heavy taxes on wine only to hinder our profits
and keep us poor ? The middle classes and the govern¬
ment, they are all one. What would become of them if
everybody was rich? ' Could they till their fields?
Would they gather the harvest? No, the}' want the
poor! I was rich for ten years and I know what I
thought of paupers."
"Must hunt with them, though," replied Tonsard,
" because they mean to cut up the great estates ; after
that's done, we can turn against them. If I'd been
Courtecuisse, whom that scoundrel Rigou is ruining,
I'd have long ago paid his bill with other balls than the
poor fellow gives him."
" Right enough, too," replied Fourchon. "As Pere
Niseron says (and he stayed republican long after
everybody else), ' The people are tough; they don't
die ; they have time before them.'"
Fourchon fell into a sort of re very; Tonsard profited
by his inattention to take back the trap, and as he took
it up he cut a slip below the coin in his father-in-law's
pocket at a moment when the old man raised his glass
to his lips; then he set his foot on the five-franc piece
as it dropped on the earthen floor just where it was
always kept damp by the heel-taps which the customers
flung from their glasses. Though quickly and lightly
done, the old man might, perhaps, have felt the theft,
if Vermichel had not happened to appear at that
moment.
Sons of the Soil.
69
" Tonsard, do you know where your father is?"
called that functionary from the foot of the steps.
Vermichel's shout, the theft of the money, and the
emptjdng of old Fourchon's glass, were simultaneous.
"Present, captain!" cried Fourchon, holding out a
hand to Vermichel to help him up the steps.
Of all Burgundian figures, Yermichel would fjive
seemed to jtou the most Burgundian. The practitioner
was not red, he was scarlet. His face, like certain
tropical portions of the globe, was fissured, here and
there, with small extinct volcanoes, defined by flat and
greenish patches which Fourchon called, not unpoeti-
cally, the "flowers of wine." This fiery face, the feat¬
ures of which were swelled out of shape by continual
drunkenness, looked cyclopic; for it was lighted on the
right side by a gleaming eye, and darkened on the other
by a yellow patch over the left orb. Red hair, always
tousled, and a beard like that of Judas, made Yer¬
michel as formidable in appearance as he was meek in
reality. His prominent nose looked like an interroga¬
tion-mark, to which the wide-slit mouth seemed to be
always answering, even when it did not open. Yer¬
michel, a short man, wore hob-nail shoes, bottle-green
velveteen trousers, an old waistcoat patched with di¬
verse stuffs which seemed to have been original^ made
of a counterpane, a jacket of coarse blue cloth and a
gray hat with a broad brim. All this luxury, required
by the town of Soulanges where Vermichel fulfilled the
combined functions of porter at the town-hall, drummer,
jailer, musician, and practitioner, was taken care of by
Madame Yermichel, an alarming antagonist of Rabelai¬
sian philosophy. This virago with moustachios, about
one yard in width and one hundred and twenty kilo-
70 Sons of the Soil.
grams in weight (but very active), ruled Vermichel
with a rod of iron. Thrashed by her when drunk, he
allowed her to thrash him still when sober; which
caused Pere Fourchon to say, with a sniff at Vermichel's
clothes, "It is the liveiy of a slave."
"Talk of the sun and you'll see its beams," cried
Fctirchon, repeating a well-worn allusion to the rutilant
face of Vermichel, which really did resemble those
copper suns painted on tavern signs in the provinces.
" Has Mam Vermichel spied too much dust on your
back, that you're running away from your four-fifths,
— for I can't call her your better half, that woman!
What brings you here at this hour, drum-major ? "
"Politics, always politics," replied Vermichel, who
seemed accustomed to such pleasantries.
"Ah! business is bad in Blangy, and there'll be
notes to protest, and writs to issue," remarked Pere
Fourchon, filling a glass for his friend.
" That ape of ours is right behind me," replied Ver¬
michel, with a backward gesture.
In workmen's slang " ape " meant master. The word
belonged to the dictionary of the worthy pair.
'' What's Monsieur Brunet coming bothering about
here ?" asked Tonsard.
"Hey, by the powers, you folks!" said Vermichel,
"you've brought him in for the last three years more
than you are worth. Ha! that master at Les Aigues,
he has his eye upon you; he '11 punch jmu in the ribs ;
he's after you, the Shopman! Brunet says, if there
were three such landlords in the valley his fortune would
be made."
" What new harm are they going to do to the poor?"
asked Marie.
Sons of the Soil.
71
"A pretty wise thing for themselves," replied Ver-
michel. "Faith! 3*011 '11 have to give in, in the end.
How can you help it ? They've got the power. For the
last two }Tears have n't the}7 had three foresters and a
liorse-patrol, all as active as ants, and a field-keeper
who is a terror? Besides, the gendarmerie is read3T to
do their dirty work at any time. They '11 crush you — "
"Bah!" said Tonsard, "we are too flat. That
which can't be crushed isn't the trees, it's ground."
" Don't 3*ou trust to that," said Fourchon to his son-
in-law ; " you own propei^*."
"Those rich folks must love }rou," continued Ver-
michel, "for they think of nothing else from morning
till night! They are saying to themselves now like
this: ' Their cattle eat up our pastures ; we '11 seize
their cattle; they can't eat grass themselves.' You've
all been condemned, the warrants are out, and they have
told our ape to take }"our cows. We are to begin this
morning at Conches by seizing old mother Bonnebault's
cow and Godin's cow and Mitant's cow.
The moment the name of Bonnebault was mentioned,
Marie, who was in love with the old woman's grandson,
sprang into the vine}'ard with a nod to her father and
mother. She slipped like an eel through a break in the
hedge, and was off on the wa}T to Conches with the
speed of a hunted hare.
"The3T'll do so much," remarked Tonsard, tranquil^*,
" that the3T '11 get their bones broken ; and that will be a
pity, for their mothers can't make them any new ones."
" Well, perhaps so," said old Fourchon, " but see
here, Vermichel, I can't go with }rou for an hour or
more, for I have important business at the chateau."
" More important than serving three warrants at
72 /Sons of the Soil.
five sous each? ' You should n't spit into the vintage/
as Father Noah says."
"I tell you, Vermichel, that my business requires
me to go to the chateau des Aigues," repeated the old
man, with an air of laughable self-importance.
" And anyhow," said Mam Tonsard, " my father had
better keep out of the wa}\ Do you really mean to
find the cows?"
" Monsieur Brunet, who is a very good fellow, would
much rather find nothing but their dung," answered
Vermichel. "A man who is obliged to be out and
about day and night had better be careful."
" If he is, he has good reason to be," said Tonsard,
sententiously.
"So," continued Vermichel, "he said to Monsieur
Michaud, ' I '11 go as soon as the court is up.' If
he had wanted to find the cows he'd have gone at
seven o'clock in the morning. But that did n't suit
Michaud, and Brunet has had to be off". You can't
take in Michaud, he's a trained hound! Ha, the
brigand!"
"Ought to have stayed in the army, a swaggerer
like that," said Tonsard; " he is only fit to deal with
enemies. I wish he would come and ask me my name.
He may call himself a veteran of the young guard, but
I know very well that if I measured spurs with him,
I'd keep my feathers up longest."
"Look here!" said Mam Tonsard to Vermichel,
" when are the notices for the ball at Soulanges com¬
ing out? Here it is the eighth of August."
" I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at
Ville-aux-Fayes, to be printed," replied Vermichel;
"they do talk of fireworks on the lake."
Sons of the Soil.
73
'"Whatj: crowds;of people we shall have!" cried
Fourdhonf
" Profits for Socquard! " said Tonsard, spitefully.
"If it; does n't rain," said his wife, by way of
comfort.
At this moment the trot of a horse coming from the
direction of Soulanges was heard, and five minutes
later the sheriff's officer fastened his horse to a post
placed for the purpose near the wicket gate through
which the cows were driven. Then he showed his head
at the door of the Grand-1-Vert.
1 " Come, my boys, let's lose no time," he said, pre¬
tending to be in a hurry.
"Hey!" said Vermichel. "Here's a refractory,
Monsieur Brunet; Pere Fourchon wants to drop off."
"He has had too many drops already," said the
sheriff; '' but the law in this case does not require that
he shall be sober."
"Please excuse me, Monsieur Brunet," said Four¬
chon, "I am expected at Les Aigues on business ; they
are in treaty for an otter."
Brunet, a withered little man dressed from head to
foot in black cloth, with a bilious skin, a furtive e}re,
curly hair, lips tight-drawn, pinched nose, anxious
expression, and gruff in speech, exhibited the phenom¬
enon of a character and bearing in perfect harmony
with his profession. He was so well-informed as to
the law, or, to speak more correctly, the quibbles of
the law, that he had come to be both the terror and the
counsellor of the whole canton. He was not without a
certain popularity among the peasantry, from whom he
usually took his pay in kind. The compound of his
active and negative qualities and his knowledge of how
74
Sons of the Soil.
to manage matters got him the custom of the canton, to
the exclusion of his coadjutor Plissoud, about whom
we shall have something to say later. This chance
combination of a sheriffs officer who does everything
and a sheriffs officer who does nothing is not at all
uncommon in the country justice courts.
"So matters are getting warm, are they?" said
Tonsard to little Brunet.
"What can you expect? you pilfer the man too
much, and he's going to protect himself," replied the
officer. 44 It will be a bad business for you in the end ;
government will interfere."
44 Then we, poor unfortunates, must give up the
ghost!" said Mam Tonsard, offering him a glass of
brandy on a saucer.
"The unfortunate may all die, yet they'll never be
lacking in the land," said Fourchon, sententiousl}-."
"You do great damage to the woods," retorted the
sheriff.
"Now don't believe that, Monsieur Brunet," said
Mam Tonsard; 44 they make such a fuss about a few
miserable fagots!"
"We didn't crush the rich low enough during the
Revolution, that's what's the trouble," said Tonsard.
Just then a horrible, and quite incomprehensible
noise was heai'd. It seemed to be a rush of hurried
feet, accompanied with a rattle of arms, half-drowned
by the rustling of leaves, the dragging of branches,
and the sound of still more hasty feet. Two voices, as
different as the two footsteps, were venting noisy ex¬
clamations. Everybody inside the inn guessed at once
that a man was pursuing a woman; but why ? The
uncertainty did not last long.
Sons of the Soil.
75
"It is mother!" said Tonsard, jumping up; "I
know her shriek."
Then suddenly, rushing up the broken steps of the
Grand-I-Vert by a last effort that can be made only
by the sinews of smugglers, old Mother Tonsard fell
flat on the floor in the middle of the room. The im¬
mense mass of wood she carried on her head made a
terrible noise as it crashed against the top of the
door and then upon the ground. Every one had
jumped out of the way. The table, the bottles, the
chairs were knocked over and scattered. The noise
was as great as if the cottage itself had come tum¬
bling down.
" I'm dead! The scoundrel has killed me ! "
The words and the flight of the old woman were
explained by the apparition on the threshold of a
keeper, dressed in green livery, wearing a hat edged
with silver cord, a sabre at his side, a leathern shoul¬
der-belt bearing the arms of Montcornet charged with
those of the Troisvilles, the regulation red waistcoat,
and buckskin gaiters which came above the knee.
After a moment's hesitation the keeper said, looking
at Brunet and Vermichel, "Here are witnesses."
" Witnesses of what? " said Tonsard.
" That woman has a ten year-old oak, cut into logs,
inside those fagots ; it is a regular crime ! "
The moment the word "witness" was uttered Ver¬
michel thought best to breathe the fresh air of the
vineyard.
" Of what? witnesses of what?" cried Tonsard, stand¬
ing in front of the keeper while his wife helped up the
old woman. "Do you mean to show your claw^ Vatel?
Accuse persons and arrest them on the highway, brig-
76
Sons of the Soil.
and, — that's your domain ; but get out of here ! A
man's house is his castle."
"I caught her in the act, and your mother must
come with me."
"Arrest my mother in my house? You have no
right to do it. My house is inviolable, — all the world
knows that, at least. Have you got a warrant from
Monsieur Guerbet, the magistrate? Ha! you must
have the law behind you before you come in here.
You are not the law, though you have sworn an oath to
starve us to death, you miserable forest-gauger, you!"
The fury of the keeper waxed so hot that he was on
the point of seizing hold of the wood, when the old
woman, a frightful bit of black parchment endowed
with motion, the like of which can be seen only in
David's picture of " The Sabines," screamed at him,
" Don't touch it, or I '11 fly at your eyes! "
" Well, then, undo that pile in presence of Monsieur
Brunet," said the keeper.
Though the sheriff's officer had assumed the indiffer¬
ence that the routine of business does really give to
officials of his class, he threw a glance at Tonsard and
his wife which said plainly, '' A bad business! " Old
Fourchon looked at his daughter, and slyly pointed at a
pile of ashes in the chimney. Mam Tonsard, who un¬
derstood in a moment from that significant gesture both
the danger of her mother-in-law and the advice of her
father, seized a handful of ashes and flung them in the
keeper's eyes. Yatel roared with pain; Tonsard pushed
him roughty upon the broken door-steps where the
blinded man stumbled and fell, and then rolled nearly
down to the gate, dropping his gun on the way. In an
instant the load of sticks, was unfastened, and the oak
Sons of the Soil.
77
logs pulled out and hidden with a rapidity no words
can describe. Brunet, anxious not to witness this
manoeuvre, which he readily foresaw, rushed after the
keeper to help him up ; then he placed him on the bank
and wet his handkerchief in water to wash the eyes of
the poor fellow, who, in spite of his agony, was trying to
reach the brook.
" You are in the wrong, Vatel," said Brunet; " you
have no right to enter houses, don't you see ? "
The old woman, a little hump-backed creature, stood
on the sill of the door, with her hands on her hips,
darting flashes from her eyes and curses from her
foaming lips shrill enough to be heard at Blangy.
"Ha! the villain, 'twas well done! May hell get
you! To suspect me of cutting trees ! — me, the
most honest woman in the village. To hunt me like
vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes,
for then we'd have peace. You are birds of ill-omen,
the whole of you; you invent shameful stories to stir
up strife between }rour master and us."
The keeper allowed the sheriff to bathe his eyes and
all the while the latter kept telling him that he was
legally wrong.
"The old thief! she has tired us out," said Yatel
at last. '' She has been at work in the woods all night."
As the whole family had taken an active hand in hiding
the live wood and putting things straight in the cottage,
Tonsard presently appeared at the door with an insolent
air. " Yatel, my man, if you ever again dare to force
3Tour way into my domicile, my gun shall answer you,"
he said. "To-day you have had the ashes; the next
time you shall have the fire. You don't know your
own business. That's enough. Now if you feel hot
78
Sons of the Soil.
after this affair take some wine, I offer it to you; and
you may come in and see that my old mother's bundle
of fagots had n't a scrap of live wood in it; it is every
bit brushwood."
"Scoundrel!" said The keeper to the sheriff, in a
low voice, more enraged by this speech than by the
smart of his eyes.
Just then Charles, the groom, appeared at the gate
of the Grand-I-Vert.
" What is the matter, Vatel? " he said.
" Ah! " said the keeper, wiping his eyes, which he
had plunged wide open into the rivulet to give them
a final cleansing. " I have some debtors in there that
I '11 cause to rue the day they saw the light."
" If you take it that way, Monsieur Vatel," said
Tonsard, coldly, "you will find we don't want for
courage in Burgundy."
Vatel departed. Not feeling much curiosity to know
what the trouble was, Charles went up the steps and
looked into the house.
" Come to the chateau, you and your otter, — if you
really have one," he said to Pere Fourchon.
The old man rose hurriedly and followed him.
"Well, where is it, — that otter of yours?" said
Charles, smiling doubtfully.
" This way," said the old fellow, going toward the
Thune.
The name is that of a brook formed by the overflow
of the mill-race and of certain springs in the park of
Les Aigues. It runs by the side of the county road
as far as the lakelet of Soulanges, which it crosses,
and then falls into the Avonne, after feeding the mills
and ponds on the Soulanges estate.
/Sons of the Soil.
79
" Here it is ; I Hid it in the brook, with a stone round
its neck."
As he stooped and rose again the old man missed
the coin out of his pocket, where metal was so un¬
common that he was likely to notice its presence or
its absence immediately.
"Ah, the sharks!" he cried. "If I hunt otters
they hunt fathers-in-law! They get out of me all I
earn, and tell me it is for my good! If it were not for
my poor Mouche, who is the comfort of my old age,
I'd drown myself. Children! they are the ruin of their
fathers. You have n't married, have you, Monsieur
Charles? Then don't; never get married, and then
you can't reproach yourself for spreading bad blood.
I, who expected to buy my tow with that money, and
there it is filched, stolen! That monsieur up at Les
Aigues, a fine young fellow, gave me ten francs; ha!
well! it '11 put up the price of my otter now."
Charles distrusted the old man so profoundly that
he took his grievances (this time very sincere) for the
preliminary of what he called, in servant's slang, " var¬
nish," and he made the great mistake of letting his
opinion appear in a satirical grin, which the spiteful
old fellow detected.
"Come, come! Pere Fourchon, now behave your¬
self; you are going to see Madame," said Charles,
noticing how the rubies flashed on the nose and cheeks
of the old drunkard.'
"I know how to attend to business, Charles; and
the proof is that if you will get me out of the kitchen
the remains of the breakfast and a bottle or two of
Spanish wine, I '11 tell you something which will save
you from a ' foul.' "
80
Sons of the Soil.
" Tell me, and Frangois shall get Monsieur's own
order to give you a glass of wine," said the groom.
'' Promise ? "
" I promise."
"Well then, I know you meet my granddaughter
Catherine under the bridge of the Avonne. Godain is
in love with her; he saw you, and he is fool enough
to be jealous, — I say fool, for a peasant oughtn't to
have feelings which belong only to rich folks. If you
go to the ball of Soulanges at Tivoli and dance with
her, you '11 dance higher than you '11 like. Godain is
rich and dangerous; he is capable of breaking your
arm without your getting a chance to arrest him."
" That would be too dear; Catherine is a fine girl,
but she is not worth all that," replied Charles. " Why
should Godain be so angry? others are not."
" He loves her enough to marry her."
" If he does, he '11 beat her," said Charles.
" I don't know about that," said the old man. " She
takes after her mother, against whom Tonsard never
raised a finger, — he's too afraid she'd be off, hot foot.
A woman who knows how to hold her own is mighty
useful. Besides, if it came to fisticuffs with Catherine,
Godain, though he's pretty strong, would n't give the
last blow."
" Well, thank you, Pere Fourclion; here's forty
sous to drink my health in case I can't get you the
sherry."
Pere Fourchon turned his head aside as he pocketed
the money lest Charles should see the expression of
amusement and sarcasm which he was unable to
repress.
"Catherine," he resumed, "is a proud minx; she
Sons of the Soil.
81
likes sherry. You had better tell her to go and get it
at Les Aigues."
Charles looked at Pere Fourchon with naive admira¬
tion, not suspecting the eager interest the general's ene¬
mies took in slipping one mcfre spy into the chateau.
"The general ought to feel happy now," continued
Fourchon; " the peasants are all quiet. What does he
say? Is he satisfied with Sibilet?"
•'' It is only Monsieur Michaud who finds fault with
Sibilet. They say he '11 get him sent away."
" Professional jealousy!" exclaimed Fourchon. " I '11
bet you would like to get rid of Francois and take his
place."
"Hang it! he has twelve hundred francs wages,"
said Charles ; '' but they can't send him off, — he knows
the general's secrets."
"Just as Madame Michaud knows the countess's,"
remarked Fourchon, watching the other carefully.
" Look here, my boy, do you know whether Monsieur
and Madame have separate rooms ? "
" Of course; if they didn't, Monsieur wouldn't be
so fond of Madame."
'' Is that all you know ?" said Fourchon.
As they were now before the kitchen windows noth¬
ing more was said.
82
Sons of the Soil.
V.
ENEMIES FACE TO FACE.
While breakfast was in progress at the chateau,
Frangois, 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 }'ou
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 hoax¬
ing, 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 morn¬
ing 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 his 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 post-
horse 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 I
Sons of the Soil.
83
The joke didn't go so 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 Mont-
cornet, " 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."
44 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 '11 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.
4 4 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 com¬
parative nudity. Beholding this personification of pov¬
erty in the middle of this luxurious dining-room, the
cost of one panel of wliich 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
84
Sons of the Soil.
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 Montcor-
net, 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 dis¬
trict 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 011 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," re¬
marked Mouche ; " but if I went to your church they
would n'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 ? "
Sons of the Soil.
85
" 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.
1 The policy of the little scamp was to appear not to
hear what they were saying when it was against him¬
self.
'' 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 the}* 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 is n't so poor
but what he '11 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."
86
Sons of the Soil.
" 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
was n'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 coun¬
tess, trying to look into the child's heart.
" My ! does n'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 news¬
paper."
"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
Sons of the Soil.
87
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 grand¬
father should recoup himself for his education by box¬
ing 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 '11 keep the things and wear 'em fete-days,
because you give 'em to me."
88
Sons of the Soil.
Simile and Madame Montcornet looked at each other
with some surprise, and seemed to say to the abb£,
" 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 ex¬
cuses, born in the character, produced by an order of
things that are often the result of qualities which, un¬
happily 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 circum¬
stances ; 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 Fran<jois 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 conceal¬
ing 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
Sons of the Soil,
89
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 lit¬
tle 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 not you tell me, my dear Sibilet," said the gen¬
eral, " 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 phenome¬
non 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
90
Sons of the Soil.
one canton do glean in those of another without certifi¬
cate. If we have sixty real paupers in our district,
there are at least forty others who could support them¬
selves if they were not so idle. Even persons who have
a business leave it to glean in the fields and in the vine¬
yards. 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 of 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 thou¬
sand francs a year."
" Do you hear that, madame? " said the general to his
wife.
"Is it not exaggerated?" asked Madame de Mont-
cornet.
" 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 Gene¬
vieve 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
Sons of the Soil.
91
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 arri¬
val," 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 Fran¬
cis. 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
3'ellow 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,
92
Sons of the Soil.
"your's got away; she is now in her barrow, 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 yo'u live, as true as that Monsieur le comte cov¬
ered 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 '11 take it to the sub-prefect.
If Monsieur Gourdon thinks it too clear, then I '11 give
3*ou the preference ; that's only fair, as we hunted to¬
gether this morning."
" Twenty francs !" said Blondet. " In good French
you can't call that giving the preference."
"Hey, my dear gentlemen," cried the old fellow.
"Perhaps I don't know French, and I'11 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 hai'd, hard to be re¬
duced to go and get my wine elsewhere. But just see
what children are in 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 3*ou are making him a little thief,
like all the rest," said Sibilet; "he never lies down at
night without some sin on his conscience."
Sons of the Soil.
93
" 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 3Tou 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 sleep in, washed by the
dew evety morning! and unless you want the air we
breathe and the sunshine we drink, I should like to
know what we have that 37ou can take away from us !
The rich folks rob as they sit in their chimney-corners,
— and more profitabl3r, 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 yTears that old
Guerbet, the tax-gatherer at Soulanges, carries his
money along the roads by the dead of night, and no¬
body ever took a farthing from him ; is that like a land
of robbers? Has robbeiy made us rich? Show me
which of us two, 3'our class or mine, live the idlest lives
and have the most to live on without earning it."
"If you were to work," said the abb£, " 3rou 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 3rou '11 know how to
explain something that puzzles me. Now see, here I
am, ain't I? — that drunken, lazy, idle, good-for-nothing
94
Sons of the Soil.
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 hon¬
est 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 grand¬
daughter, 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 repub¬
lican and I'm not even a publican, —that's all the dif¬
ference as far as I can see. A peasant may do good or
do evil (according to your ideas) and he '11 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 pauper¬
ism from life, and perhaps take his revenge on Pere
Fourchon.
44 What sort of education are you giving Mouche ?"
/Sons of the Soil.
95
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 wa}< to the scaffold. Don't steal any¬
thing, 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 Mon¬
sieur 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 jTou mean to make of him ?" asked
Blondet.
"A servant, to begin with," returned Fourchon,
" because then he '11 see his masters close by, and learn
something; he '11 complete his education, I '11 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
96 /Soiie of the Soil.
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 povert}T; 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 mone}-, 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,
m}r dear wise gentleman," said Fourchon; "the sign
over the door has been 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 pass¬
port, 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 3Tou want to travel
you need as many crowns as there are villages, and
there are mighty few Fourchons who have enough to
Sons of the Soil.
97
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 soldier, 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 must n'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 '11 have to feed us in your pris¬
ons, where we'd be much better off than in our homes.
You want to remain our masters, and we shall always
be enemies, as much 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
98
Sons of the Soil.
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 j-our 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 Soblanges, I head 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 does n't change, they '11 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 Four-
chon 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
Sons of the Soil.
99
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 new¬
comer 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 dar¬
ing 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, hastil}', "you
shall have five francs more for the skin; but go away
now."
The powerful odor emitted by the pair made the din¬
ing-room so horribly offensive that Madame de Mont-
cornet, 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
100
Sons of the Soil.
with a timid glance at Michaud, making him an inter¬
minable series of bows.
" What I was saying to monseigneur, Monsieur Mi¬
chaud," he added, " was really for }Tour 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, per¬
haps, to the harmonious coloring of the warm brown
and ochre tints, indicative of plrysical 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. Hon¬
esty, decision, and a saintly serenity were the animat¬
ing 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
Sons of the Soil.
101
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 making ridiculous. This type had the defect of
being common in the French army; perhaps the con¬
tinuance of the same emotions, the same camp suffer¬
ings 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 Bros-
sette, 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 bail¬
iff 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 late soldier, anxiously.
" Half-past seven."
Michaud gave a half-roguish glance at the general.
8
102
Sons of the Soil
"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, gen¬
eral, 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 Sibi-
let 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 was n't drunk; he was playing a
part; for whose benefit I leave you to guess. Perhaps
you know?" returned Michaud, fixing an eye on Sibi-
let which caused the latter to turn red.
" Orus!" cried Blondet, with another look at the
abbe.
" But these poor creatures suffer," said the countess,
Sons of the Soil.
103
" 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 him¬
self, honorably, by labor and not by theft. The sabre
and the plough are twins ; though the soldier has some¬
thing 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
104
Sons of the Soil.
means that Sibilet, in his capacity of financier, is timid
and cowardty, 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 j7our business to govern
without letting me hear the wheels of the administra¬
tion," 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, alread}7 forgetting the rags
and tatters of Mouche and Fourchon, and their eyes
full of hatred, and Sibilet's warnings, went to have her¬
self made ready for the walk.
The abbe and Blondet obe37ed 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.
Sons of the Soil.
105
" I am a pariah; they dog me as they would a com¬
mon enemy. I am forced to keep my eyes and ears
perpetually open to escape the traps they are con¬
stantly 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 some¬
thing of the priest of the olden time about him; he
held to the Church and to the clerg}' 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
106
Sons of the Soil.
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 con¬
sistency of religious convictions.
The priest had seen at first sight Blondet's attach¬
ment to the countess ; he saw that between a Troisville
and a monarchical journalist he could safety show him¬
self to be a man of broad intelligence, because his call¬
ing was certain to be respected. He usually came to
the chateau every 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 s}Tmpathy with each other; as usually
happens when men of intelligence meet their equals, or,
if 3'on prefer it, the ears that are able to hear them.
Swords are fond of their scabbards.
"But to what do 3'ou attribute this state of things,
Monsieur l'abbe, you who are able, through 3rour dis¬
interestedness, 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 local¬
ities more than others. This side of Burgund}', nearest
to Paris, is one of those places where the revolutionary
ideas spread like the overrunning of the Franks b3r the
Sons of the Soil.
10'
Gauls. Historically, the peasants are still on the mor¬
row 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 van¬
quished. The peasants then set foot in possession of
the soil which the feudal law had denied them for over
twelve htindred years. Hence their desire for land,
which they now cut up among themselves until actually
they divide a furrow in 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 them¬
selves 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 mar¬
ket. 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 ques¬
tion: "twelve centuries have done nothing for a caste
whom the historic spectacle of civilization has never
108
Sons of the Soil.
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 personalty 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
abbd, 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 Yatel's eyes.
But before we relate the consultation which then and
there took place, the chain of events requires a suc¬
cinct 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
Sons of the Soil.
109
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 introduc¬
ing 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.
110
Sons of the Soil.
VI.
A TALE OF THIEVES.
When Mademoiselle Laguerre first visited her estate,
in 1791, she took as steward the son of the ex-bailiff
of Soulanges, named Gaubertin. The little town of
Soulanges, at present nothing more than the chief
town of a canton, was once the capital of a consider¬
able county, in the days when the House of Burgundy
made war upon France. Ville-aux-Fayes, now the
seat of the sub-prefecture, then a mere fief, was a de¬
pendency of Soulanges, like Les Aigues, Ronquerolles,
Cerneux, Conches, and a score of other parishes.
The Soulanges have remained counts, whereas the
Ronquerolles are now marquises by the will of that
power, called the Court, which made the son of Captain
du Plessis duke over the heads of the first families of
the Conquest. All of which serves to prove that towns,
like families, are variable in their destiny.
Gaubertin, a young man without property of any
kind, succeeded a steward enriched by a management
of thirty years, who preferred to become a partner in
the famous firm of Minoret rather than continue to
administer Les Aigues. In his own interests he intro¬
duced into his place as land-steward Frangois Gauber¬
tin, his accountant for five years, whom he now relied
on to cover his retreat, and who, out of gratitude for
his instructions, promised to obtain for him a release
in full of all claims from Mademoiselle Laguerre, who
Sons of the Soil.
Ill
by this time was terrified at the Revolution. Gauber-
tin's father, the attorney-general of the department,
henceforth protected the timid woman. This provin¬
cial Fouquier-Tinville raised a false alarm of danger in
the mind of the opera-divinity on the ground of her
former relations to the aristocracy, so as to give his
son the equally false credit of saving her life; on the
strength of which Gaubertin the younger obtained very
easily the release of his predecessor. Mademoiselle
Laguerre then made Frangois Gaubertin her prime
minister, as much through policy as from gratitude.
The late steward had not spoiled her. He sent her,
every year, about thirty thousand francs, though Les
Aigues brought in at that time at least forty thousand.
The unsuspecting opera-singer was therefore much
delighted when the new stewarcj Gaubertin promised
her thirty-six thousand.
To explain the present fortune of the land-steward
of Les Aigues before the judgment-seat of probability,
it is necessary to state its beginnings. Pushed b}' his
father's influence, he became mayor of Blangy. Thus
he was able, contrary to law, to make the debtors pay
in coin, by "terrorizing" (a phrase of the da}') such
of them as might, in his opinion, be subjected to the
crushing demands of the Republic. He himself paid
the citizens in assignats so long as the system of paper
money lasted, — a system which, if it did not make the
nation prosperous, at least made the fortunes of private
individuals. From 1793 to 1795, that is, for three
years, Francois Gaubertin wrung one hundred and
fifty thousand francs out of Les Aigues, with which
he speculated on the stock-market in Paris. With
her purse full of assignats Mademoiselle was actually
112
Sons of the Soil.
obliged to obtain ready money from her diamonds, now
useless to her. She gave them to Gaubertin, who
sold them, and faithfully returned her their full price.
This proof of honesty touched her heart; henceforth
she believed in Gaube'rtin as she did in Piccini.
In 1796, at the time of his marriage with the citoy-
enne Isaure Mouchon, daughter of an old " conven¬
tional," a friend of his father, Gaubertin possessed
about three hundred and fifty thousand francs in
money. As the Directoiy seemed to him likely to last,
he determined, before marrying, to have the accounts
of his five years' stewardship ratified by Mademoiselle,
under pretext of a new departure.
"Iam to be the head of a family," he said to her;
" you know the reputation of land-stewards ; my father-
in-law is a republican of Roman austerity, and a man
of influence as well; I want to prove to him that I am
as upright as he."
Mademoiselle Laguerre accepted his accounts at once
in very flattering terms.
In those earlier days the steward had endeavored, in
order to win the confidence of Madame des Aigues (as
Mademoiselle was then called) to repress the depreda¬
tions of the peasantry ; fearing, and not without reason,
that the revenues would suffer too severely, and that
his private bonus from the buyers of the timber would
sensibly diminish. But in those days the sovereign
people felt the soil was their own everywhere ; Madame
was afraid of the surrounding kings and told her Riche¬
lieu that the first desire of her soul was to die in peace.
The revenues of the late singer were so far in excess
of her expenses that she allowed all the worst and, as
it proved, fatal precedents to be established. To avoid
Sons of the Soil.
113
a lawsuit, slie allowed the neighbors to encroach upon
her land. Knowing that the park walls were sufficient
protection, she did not fear any interruption of her per¬
sonal comfort, and cared for nothing but her peaceful
existence, true philosopher that she was! A few
thousands a year more or less, the indemnities exacted
by the wood-merchants for the damages committed by
the peasants, — what were they to a careless and ex¬
travagant Opera-girl, who had gained her hundred
thousand francs a year at the cost of pleasure only, and
who had just submitted, without a word of remon¬
strance, to a reduction of two thirds of an income of
sixty thousand francs?
" Dear me!" she said, in the easy tone of the
wantons of the old time, " people must live, even if
they are republicans."
The terrible Mademoiselle Cochet, her maid and
female vizier, had tried to enlighten her mistress when
she saw the ascendency Gaubertin was obtaining over
one whom he began by calling "Madame" in defiance
of the revolutionary laws about equality ; but Gauber¬
tin, in his turn, enlightened Mademoiselle Cochet by
showing her a so-called denunciation sent to his father,
the prosecuting attorney, in which she was vehemently
accused of corresponding with Pitt and Coburg. From
that time forward the two powers went on shares —
shares a la Montgomery. Cochet praised Gaubertin
to Madame, and Gaubertin praised Cochet. The wait¬
ing-maid had already made her own bed, and knew she
was down for sixty thousand francs in the will. Madame
could not do without Cochet, to whom she was accus¬
tomed. The woman knew the secrets of dear mistress's
toilet; she alone could put dear mistress to sleep at
114
Sons of the Soil.
night with her gossip, and get her up in the morning
with her flattery; to the day of dear mistress's death
the maid never could see the slightest change in her,
and when dear mistress lay in her coffin, she doubtless
thought she had never seen her looking so well.
The annual pickings of Gaubertin and Mademoiselle
Cochet, their wages and perquisites, became so large
that the most affectionate relatives could not possibly
have been more devoted than they to their kindly
mistress. There is really no describing how a swindler
cossets his dupe. A mother is not so tender nor so
solicitous for a beloved daughter as the practitioner
of tartuferie for his milch cow. What brilliant success
attends the performance of Tartufe behind the closed
doors of a home! It is worth more than friendship.
Moliere died too soon ; he would otherwise have shown
us the misery of Orgon, wearied by his family, harassed
by his children, regretting the blandishments of Tartufe,
and thinking to himself, "Ah, those were the good
times!"
During the last eight years of her life the mistress
of Les Aigues received only thirty thousand francs of
the fifty thousand really yielded by the estate. Gauber¬
tin had reached the same administrative results as his
predecessor, though farm rents and territorial products
were notably increased between 1791 and 1815, — not
to speak of Madame's continual purchases. But
Gaubertin's fixed idea of acquiring Les Aigues at the
old lady's death led him to depreciate the value of the
magnificent estate in the matter of its ostensible reve¬
nues. Mademoiselle Cochet, a sharer in the scheme,
was also to share the profits. As the ex-divinity in her
declining years received an income of twenty thousand
Sons of the Soil.
115
francs from tlie Funds called consolidated (how readily
the tongue of politics can jest!), and with difficulty
spent the said sum yearly, she was much surprised at
the annual purchases made by the steward to use up
the accumulating revenues, remembering how in former
times she had always drawn them in advance. The
result of having few wants in her old age seemed, to
her mind, a proof of the honesty and uprightness of
Gaubertin and Mademoiselle Cochet.
"Two pearls!" she said to the persons who came
to see her.
Gaubertin kept his accounts with apparent honesty.
He entered all rentals duly. Everything that could
strike the feeble mind of the late singer, so far as
arithmetic went, was clear and precise. The steward
took his commission on all disbursements, — on the
costs of working the estate, on rentals made, on suits
brought, on work done, on repairs of every kind, —
details which Madame never dreamed of verifying, and
for which he sometimes charged twice over by collusion
with the contractors, whose silence was bought by
permission to charge the highest prices. These
methods of dealing conciliated public opinion in favor
of Gaubertin, while Madame's praise was on every lip ;
for besides the payments she disbursed for work, she
gave away large sums of money in alms.
'' May God preserve her, the dear lady ! " was heard
on all sides.
The truth was, everybody got something out of her,
either indirectly or as a downright gift. In reprisals,
as it were, of her youth the old actress was pillaged;
so discreetly pillaged, however, that those who throve
upon her kept their depredations within certain limits
116
Sons of the Soil.
lest even her eyes might be opened and she should sell
Les Aigues and return to Paris.
This system of " pickings " was, alas! the cause of
Paul-Louis Courier's assassination; he committed the
mistake of advertising the sale of his estate and
allowing it to he known that he should take away his
wife, on whom a number of the Tonsards of Lorraine
were battening. Fearing to lose Madame des Aigues, the
marauders on the estate forbore to cut the young trees,
unless pushed to extremities by finding no branches
within reach of shears fastened to long poles. In the
interests of robbery, they did as little harm as they
could; although, during the last years of Madame's
life, the habit of cutting wood became more and more
barefaced. On certain clear nights not less than two
hundred bundles were taken. As to the gleaning of
fields and vine3^ards, Les Aigues lost, as Sibilet had
pointed out, not less than one quarter of its products.
Madame des Aigues had forbidden Cochet to marry
during her lifetime, with the selfishness often shown in
all countries by a mistress to a maid; which is not
more irrational than the mania for keeping possession,
until our last gasp, of property that is utterly useless
to our material comfort, at the risk of being poisoned
by impatient heirs. Twenty daj^s after the old lady's
burial Mademoiselle Cochet married the brigadier of
the gendarmerie of Soulanges, named Soudry, a hand¬
some man, forty-two years of age, who, ever since
1800 (in which year the gendarmerie was formed) had
come every day to Les Aigues to see the waiting-maid,
and dined with her at least three times a week at the
Gaubertins'.
During Madame's lifetime dinner was served to her
Sons of the Soil.
117
and to her company by themselves. Neither Cochet
nor Gaubertin, in spite of their great familiarity with
the mistress, was ever admitted to her table; the lead¬
ing lady of the Academie Koyale retained, to her last
hour, her sense of etiquette, her style of dress, her rouge
and her heeled slippers, her carriage, her servants, and
the majesty of her deportment. A divinity at the
Opera, a divinity within her range of Parisian social
life, she continued a divinity in the country solitudes,
where her memory is still worshipped, and still holds
its own against that of the old monarchy in the minds
of the "best society" of Soulanges.
Souclry, who had paid his addresses to Mademoiselle
Cochet from the time he first came into the neighbor¬
hood, owned the finest house in Soulanges, an income
of six thousand francs, and the prospect of a retiring
pension whenever he should quit the service. As soon
as Cochet became Madame Soudry she was treated
with great consideration in the town. Though she
kept the strictest secrecy as to the amount of her
savings, —which were intrusted, like those of Gauber¬
tin, to the commissary of wine-merchants of the de¬
partment in Paris, a certain Leclercq, a native of Sou¬
langes, to whom Gaubertin supplied funds as sleeping
partner in his business, — public opinion credited the
former waiting-maid with one of the largest fortunes in
the little town of twelve hundred inhabitants.
To the great astonishment of every one, Monsieur
and Madame Soudry acknowledged as legitimate, in
their marriage contract, a natural son of the gendarme,
to whom, in future, Madame Soudry's fortune was to
descend. At the time when this son was legally sup¬
plied with a mother, he had just ended his law studies
9
118
Sons of the Soil.
in Paris and was about to enter into practice, with the
intention of fitting himself for the magistracj'.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a mutual un¬
derstanding of twenty years had produced the closest
intimacy between the families of Gaubertin and Soudry.
Both reciprocally declared themselves, to the end of
their days, tirhi et orbi, to be the most upright and
honorable persons in all France. Such community of
interests, based on mutual knowledge of the secret
spots on the white garment of conscience, is one of
the ties least recognized and hardest to untie in this
low world. You who read this social drama, have you
never felt a conviction as to two persons which has led
you to say to yourself, in order to explain the continu¬
ance of a certain faithful devotion which made your
own egotism blush, " They must surely have committed
some crime together " ?
After an administration of twenty-five years, Gauber¬
tin, the land-steward, found himself in possession of
six hundred thousand francs in money, and Cochet had
accumulated nearly two hundred and fifty thousand.
The rapid and constant turning over and over of their
funds in the hands of Leclercq and Company (on the
quai Bethune, lie Saint Louis, rivals of the famous
house of Grandet) was a great assistance to the for¬
tunes of all parties. On the death of Mademoiselle
Laguerre, Jem^, the steward's eldest daughter was
asked in marriage by Leclercq. Gaubertin expected
at that time to become owner of Les Aigues by means
of a plot laid in the private office of Lupin, the notar}7,
whom the steward had set up and maintained in busi¬
ness within the last twelve years.
Lupin, a son of the former steward of the estate of
Sons of the Soil,
119
Soulanges, had lent himself to various slight pecula¬
tions, — investments at fifty per cent below par, notices
published surreptitiously, and all the other manoeuvres,
unhappily common in the provinces, to wrap a mantle,
as the saying is, over clandestine manipulations of
property. Lately a company has been formed in Paris,
so they say, to levy contributions upon such plot¬
ters under a threat of outbidding them. But in 1816
France was not, as it is now, lighted by a flaming pub¬
licity ; the accomplices might safely count on dividing
Les Aigues among them, that is, between Cochet, the
notary, and Gaubertin, the latter of whom reserved to
himself, in petto, the intention of buying the others out
for a sum down, as soon as the property fairly stood in
his own name. The lawyer employed by the notary to
manage the sale of the estate by auction was under
personal obligations to Gaubertin, so that he favored
the spoliation of the heirs, unless any of the eleven
farmers of Picardy should take it into their heads to
think they were cheated, and inquire into the real value
of the property.
Just as those interested expected to find their for¬
tunes made, a lawyer came from Paris on the evening
before the final settlement, and employed a notary at
Yille-aux-Fayes, who happened to be one of his former
clerks, to buy the estate of Les Aigues, which he did
for eleven hundred thousand francs. None of the con¬
spirators dared outbid an offer of eleven hundred thou¬
sand francs. Gaubertin suspected some treachery on
Soudry's part, and Soudry and Lupin thought they
were tricked by Gaubertin. But a statement on the
part of the purchasing agent, the notary of Yille-aux-
Fayes, disabused them of these suspicions. The latter,
120
Sons of the Soil.
though suspecting the plan formed by Gaubertin, Lupin,
and Soudiy, refrained from informing the lawyer in
Paris, for the reason that if the new owners indiscreetly
repeated his words, he would have too many enemies
at his heels to be able to stay where he was. This
reticence, peculiar to provincials, was in this particular
case amply justified by succeeding events. If the
dwellers in the provinces are dissemblers, they are
forced to be so ; their excuse lies in the danger ex¬
pressed in the old proverb, "We must howl with the
wolves," a meaning which underlies the character of
Philinte.
When General Montcornet took possession of Les
Aigues, Gaubertin was no longer rich enough to give
up his place. In order to marry his daughter to a rich
banker he was obliged to give her a dowry of two hun¬
dred thousand francs; he had to pay thirty thousand
for his son's practice; and all that remained of his
accumulations was three hundred and seventy thousand,
out of which he would be forced, sooner or later, to
pay the dowry of his remaining daughter, Elise, for
whom he hoped to arrange a marriage at least as good
as that of her sister. The steward determined to study
the general, in order to find out if he could disgust
him with the place, — hoping still to be able to carry out
his defeated plan in his own interests.
With the peculiar instinct which characterizes those
who make their fortunes by craft, Gaubertin believed
in a resemblance of nature (which was not improbable)
between an old soldier and an old Opera-singer. An
actress, and a general of the Empire, — surely they
would have the same extravagant habits, the same
careless prodigality? To the one as to the other,
Sons of the Soil,
121
riches came capriciously and by lucky chances. If some
soldiers are wily and astute and clever politicians, they
are exceptions; a soldier is, usually, especially an ac¬
complished cavalry officer like Montcornet, guileless,
confident, a novice in business, and little fitted to un¬
derstand details in the management of an estate.
Gaubertin flattered himself that he could catch and
hold the general with the same net in which Made¬
moiselle Laguerre had finished her days. But it so
happened that the Emperor had once, intentional^,
allowed Montcornet to play the same game in Pomer-
ania that Gaubertin was playing at Les Aigues; con¬
sequently, the general fully understood a system of
plundering.
In planting cabbages, to use the expression of the
first Due de Biron, the old cuirassier sought to divert
his mind, by occupation, from dwelling on his fall.
Though he had yielded his corps cVarmee to the Bour¬
bons, that duty (performed by other generals and
termed the disbanding of the army of the Loire) could
not atone for the crime of having followed the man of
the Hundred-Days to his last battle-field. In presence
of the allied army it was impossible for the peer of
1815 to remain in the service, still less at the Luxem¬
bourg. Accordingly, Montcornet betook himself to the
country by advice of a dismissed marshal, to plunder
Nature herself. The general was not deficient in the
special cunning of an old military fox; and after he
had spent a few days in examining his new property,
he saw that Gaubertin was a steward of the old sys¬
tem,— a swindler, such as the dukes and marshals of
the Empire, those mushrooms bred from the common
earth, were well acquainted with.
122
Sons of the Soil.
The wily general, soon aware of Gaubertin's great
experience in rural administration, felt it was politic to
keep well with him until he had himself learned the
secrets of it; accordingly, he passed himself off as
another Mademoiselle Laguerre, a course which lulled
the steward into false security. This apparent simple-
mindedness lasted all the time that it took the general
to learn the strength and weakness of Les Aigues, to
master the details of its revenues and the manner of
collecting them, and to ascertain how and where the
robberies occurred, together with the betterments and
economies which ought to be undertaken. Then, one
fine morning, having caught Gaubertin with his hand
in the bag, as the saying is, the general flew into one
of those rages peculiar to the imperial conquerors of
many lands. In doing so he committed a capital
blunder, — one that would have ruined the whole life of
a man of less wealth and less consistency than himself,
and from which came the evils, both small and great,
with which the present history teems. Brought up in
the imperial school, accustomed to deal with men as a
dictator, and full of contempt for " civilians," Montcor-
net did not trouble himself to wear gloves when it came
to putting a rascal of a land-steward out of doors.
Civil life and its precautions were things unknown to
the soldier already embittered by his loss of rank. He
humiliated Gaubertin ruthlessly, though the latter drew
the harsh treatment upon himself by a cynical reply
which roused Montcornet's anger.
"You are living off my land," said the general, with
jesting severity.
"Do you think I can live off the sky?" returned
Gaubertin, with a sneer.
Sons of the Soil.
123
" Out of my sight, blackguard ! I dismiss you! " cried
the general, striking him with his whip, — blows which
the steward always denied having received, for they
were given behind closed doors.
" I shall not go without my release in full," said
Gaubertin, coldly, keeping at a distance from the en-
raged soldier.
"We will see what is thought of j'ou in a police
court," replied Montcornet, shrugging his shoulders.
Hearing the threat, Gaubertin looked at the general
and smiled. The smile had the effect of relaxing
Montcornet's arms as though the sinews had been cut.
We must explain that smile.
For the last two years Gaubertin's brother-in-law,
a man named Gendrin, long a justice of the municipal
court of Ville-aux-Fayes, had become the president of
. that court through the influence of the Comte de Sou-
langes. The latter was made peer of France in 1814,
and remained faithful to the Bourbons during the Hun¬
dred-Days, therefore the Keeper of the Seals readily
granted an appointment at his request. This relation¬
ship gave Gaubertin a certain importance in the coun¬
try. The president of the court of a little town is,
relatively, a greater personage than the president of
one of the royal courts of a great city, who has various
equals, such as generals, bishops, and prefects ; whereas
the judge of the court of a small town has none,—
the attorney-general and the sub-prefect being remov¬
able at will. Young Soudry, a companion of Gauber¬
tin's son in Paris as well as at Les Aigues, had just
been appointed assistant attorney in the capital of the
department. Before the elder Soudry, a quartermaster
in the artillery, became a brigadier of gendarmes, he
124
Sons of the Soil.
had been wounded in a skirmish while defending Mon¬
sieur de Soulanges, then adjutant-general. At the time
of the creation of the gendarmerie, the Comte de Sou¬
langes, who by that time had become a colonel, asked
for a brigade for his former protector, and later still
he solicited the post we have named for the younger
Soudry. Besides all these influences, the marriage of
Mademoiselle Gaubertin with a wealthy banker of the
quai Bethune made the unjust steward feel that he
was far stronger in the community than a lieutenant-
general driven into retirement.
If this history provided no other instruction than
that offered by the quarrel between the general and his
steward, it would still be useful to many persons as a
lesson for their conduct in life. He who reads Machia-
velli profitably knows that human prudence consists
in never threatening ; in doing but not saying; in pro¬
moting the retreat of an enemy and never stepping, as
the saying is, on the tail of the serpent; and in avoid¬
ing, as one would murder, the infliction of a blow to
the self-love of any one lower than one's self. An injury
done to a person's interest, no matter how great it may
be at the time, is forgiven or explained in the long run;
but self-love, vanity, never ceases to bleed from a wound
given, and never forgives it. The moral being is actually
more sensitive, more living as it were, than the physi¬
cal being. The heart and the blood are less impressible
than the nerves. In short, our inward being rules us,
no matter what we do. You may reconcile two fami¬
lies who have half-killed each other, as in Brittany and
in La Vendee during the civil wars, but you can no
more reconcile the calumniators and the calumniated
than 3'ou can the spoilers and the despoiled. It is only
Sons of the Soil.
125
in epic poems that men curse each other before they
kill. The savage, and the peasant who is much like a
savage, seldom speak unless to deceive an enemy.
Ever since 1789 France has been trying to make men
believe, against all evidence, that they are equal. To
say to a man, " You are a swindler," may be taken as a
joke; but to catch him in the act and prove it to him
with a cane on his back, to threaten him with a police-
court and not follow up the threat, is to remind him of
the inequality of cpnditions. If the masses will not
brook any species of superiority, is it likely that a
swindler will forgive that of an honest man?
Montcornet might have dismissed his steward under
pretext of paying off a military obligation by putting
some old soldier in his place; Gaubertin and the gen¬
eral would have understood the matter, and the latter,
by sparing the steward's self-love would have given
him a chance to withdraw quifetly. Gaubertin, in that
case, would have left his late employer in peace, and
forgotten his overthrow in other land speculations;
possibly he might have taken himself and his savings
to Paris for investment. But being, as he was, igno-
miniously dismissed, the man conceived against his
late master one of those bitter hatreds which are liter¬
ally a part of existence in provincial life, the persist¬
ency, duration, and plots of which would astonish
diplomatists who are trained to let nothing astonish
them. A burning desire for vengeance led him to set¬
tle at Ville-aux-Fayes, and to take a position where he
could injure Montcornet and stir up sufficient enmity
against to force him to sell Les Aigues.
The general was deceived by appearances ; for Gau-
bertin's external behavior was not of a nature to warn
126
Sons of the Soil.
or to alarm him. The late steward followed his old
custom of pretending, not exactly poverty, but limited
means. For years he had talked of his wife and three
children, and the heavy expenses of a large family.
Mademoiselle Laguerre, to whom he declared himself
too poor to educate his son in Paris, paid the costs her¬
self, and allowed her dear godson (for she was Claude
Gaubertin's sponsor) two thousand francs a year.
The day after the quarrel, Gaubertin came, with a
keeper named Courtecuisse, and demanded with much
insolence his release in full of all claims, showing the
general the one he had obtained from his late mistress
in such flattering terms, and asking, ironically, that a
search should be made for the property, real and other¬
wise, which he was supposed to have stolen. If he had
received fees from the wood-merchants on their pur¬
chases and from the farmers on their leases, Mademoi¬
selle Laguerre, he said, had alwaj's allowed it; not only
did she gain by the bargains he made, but everything
went on smoothly without troubling her. The country-
people would have died, he remarked, for Mademoiselle,
whereas the general was laying up for himself a store
of difficulties.
Gaubertin — and this trait is frequently to be seen
in the majority of those professions in which the prop¬
erty of others can be taken by means not foreseen by
the Code — considered himself a perfectly honest man.
In the first place, he had so long had possession of the
money extorted from Mademoiselle Laguerre's farmers
through fear, and paid in assignats, that he regarded
it as legitimately acquired. It was a mere matter of
exchange. He thought that in the end he should run
quite as much risk with coin as with paper. Besides,
Sons of the Soil.
127
legalty, Mademoiselle had no right to receive any pay¬
ment except in assignats. " Legally " is a fine, robust
adverb, which bolsters up many a fortune ! Moreover,
he reflected that ever since great estates and land-
agents had existed, that is, ever since the origin of
society, the said agents had set up, for their own use,
an argument such as we find our cooks using in the
present day. Here it is in its simplicity: —
" If my mistress," says the cook, " went to market
herself, she would have to pay more for her provisions
than I charge her; she is the gainer, and the profits I
make do more good in my hands than in those of the
dealers."
" If Mademoiselle," thought Gaubertin, " were to
manage Les Aigues herself, she would never get thirty
thousand francs a year out of it; the peasants, the
dealers, the workmen would rob her of the rest. It is
much better that I should have it, and so enable her to
live in peace."
The Catholic religion, and it alone, is able to prevent
these capitulations of conscience. But, ever since 1789
religion has no influence on two thirds of the French
people. The peasants, whose minds are keen and whose
poverty drives them to imitation, had reached, specialty
in the valley of Les Aigues, a frightful state of demor¬
alization. They went to mass on Sundays, but only
at the outside of the church, where it was their custom
to meet and transact business and make their weekly
bargains.
We can now estimate the extent of the evil done by
the careless indifference of the great singer to the
management of her property. Mademoiselle Laguerre
betrayed, through mere selfishness, the interests of
128
Sons of the Soil.
those who owned property, who are held in perpetual
hatred by those who own none. Since 1792 the land¬
owners of Paris have become of necessity a combined
body. If, alas, the feudal families, less numerous than
the middle-class families, did not perceive the neces-
sityT of combining in 1400 under Louis XI., nor in 1600
under Richelieu, can we expect that in this nineteenth
century of progress the middle classes will prove to be
more permanently and solidly combined than the old
nobility? An oligarchy of a hundred thousand rich
men presents all the dangers of a democracy with none
of its advantages. The principle of "every man for
himself and for his own," the selfishness of individual
interests, will kill the oligarchical selfishness so neces¬
sary to the existence of modern society, and which
England has practised with such success for the last
three centuries. Whatever may be said or done, land¬
owners will never understand the necessity of the sort
of internal discipline which made the Church such an
admirable model of government, until, too late, they
find themselves in danger from one another. The au¬
dacity with which communism, that living and acting
logic of democracy, attacks society from the moral .side,
shows plainly that the Samson of to-day, grown pru¬
dent, is undermining the foundations of the cellar, in¬
stead of shaking the pillars of the hall.
Sons of the Soil.
129
vn.
CERTAIN LOST SOCIAL SPECIES.
The estate of Les Aigues could not do without a
steward ; for the general had no intention of renouncing
his winter pleasures in Paris, where he owned a fine
house in the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins. He therefore
looked about for a successor to Gaubertin; but it is
very certain that his search was not as eager as that of
Gaubertin himself, who was seeking for the right per¬
son to put in his way.
Of all confidential positions there is none that requires
more trained knowledge of its kind, or more activity,
than that of land-steward to a great estate. The diffi¬
culty of finding the right man is only fully known to
those wealthy landlords whose property lies beyond a
certain circle around Paris, beginning at a distance
of about one hundred and fifty miles. At that point
agricultural productions for the markets of Paris, which
warrant rentals on long leases (collected often by other
tenants who are rich themselves), cease to be cultivated.
The farmers who raise them drive to the city in their
own cabriolets to pay their rents in good bank-bills,
unless they send the money through their agents in the
markets. For this reason, the farms of the Seine-et-
Oise, Seine-et-Marne, the Oise, the Eure-et-Loir, the
Lower Seine, and the Loiret are so desirable that capi¬
tal cannot always be invested there at one and a half per
cent. Compared to the returns on estates in Holland,
130
Sons of the Soil.
England, and Belgium, this result is enormous. But
at one hundred miles from Paris an estate requires such
variety of working, its products are so different in kind,
that it becomes a business, with all the risks attendant
on manufacturing. The wealthy owner is really a
merchant, forced to look for a market for his products,
like the owner of ironworks or cotton factories. He
does not even escape competition; the peasant, the
small proprietor, is at his heels with an avidity which
leads to transactions to which well-bred persons cannot
condescend.
A land-steward must understand surveying, the cus¬
toms of the locality, the methods of sale and of labor,
together with a little quibbling in the interests of those
he serves; he must also understand book-keeping and
commercial matters, and be in perfect health, with a
liking for active life and horse exercise. His duty
being to represent his master and to be always in com¬
munication with him, the steward ought not to be a
man of the people. As the salary of his office seldom
exceeds three thousand francs, the problem seems in¬
soluble. How is it possible to obtain so many qualifi¬
cations for such a very moderate price, — in a region,
moreover, where the men who are provided with
them are admissible to all other employments ? Bring
down a stranger to fill the place, and you will pay dear
for the experience he must acquire. Train a young
man on the spot, and you are more than likely to
get a thorn of ingratitude in your side. It therefore
becomes necessary to choose between incompetent hon¬
esty, which injures your property through its blindness
and inertia, and the cleverness which looks out for
itself. Hence the social nomenclature and natural his-
Sons of the Soil.
131
tory of land-stewards as defined by a great Polish
noble.
"There are," he said, "two kinds of stewards: he
who thinks only of himself, and he who thinks of him¬
self and of us; happy the land-owner who lays his
hands on the latter! As for the steward who would
think onl\7 of us, he is not to be met with."
Elsewhere can be found a steward who thought of his
master's interests as well as of his own. (" Un Debut
dans la vie," " Scenes de la vie privee.") Gaubertin
is the steward who thinks of himself only. To repre¬
sent the third figure of the problem would be to hold
up to public admiration a very unlikely personage, yet
one that was not unknown to the old nobility, though
he has, alas! disappeared with them. (See " Le Cab¬
inet des Antiques," " Scenes de la vie de province.")
Through the endless subdivision of fortunes aristocratic
habits and customs are inevitably changed. If there be
not now in France twenty great fortunes managed by
intendants, in fifty years from now there will not be a
hundred estates in the hands of stewards, unless a
great change is made in the law. Every land-owner
will be brought by that time to look after his own
interests.
This transformation, already begun, suggested the
following answer of a clever woman when asked why,
since 1830, she stayed in Paris during the summer.
"Because," she said, "I do not care to visit chateaux
which are now turned into farms." What is to be
the future of this question, getting daily more and
more imperative, — that of man to man, the poor
man and the rich man? This book is written to throw
some light upon that terrible social question.
132
iSons of the Soil.
It is easy to understand tlie perplexities which
assailed the general after he had dismissed Gaubertin.
While saying to himself, vaguely, like other persons
free to do or not to do a thing, "I'll dismiss that
scamp ; " he had overlooked the risk and forgotten the
explosion of his boiling anger, — the anger of a choleric
fire-eater at the moment when a flagrant imposition
forced him to raise the lids of his wilfully blind eyes.
Montcornet, a land-owner for the first time and a den¬
izen of Paris, had not provided himself with a steward
before coming to Les Aigues; but after studying the
neighborhood carefully he saw it was indispensable to
a man like himself to have an intermediary to manage
so many persons of low degree.
Gaubertin, who discovered during the excitement of
the scene (which lasted more than two hours) the diffi¬
culties in which the general would soon be involved,
jumped on his pony after leaving the room where the
quarrel took place, and galloped to Soulanges to con¬
sult the Soudrys. At his first words, " The general
and I have parted; whom can we put in my place
without his suspecting it?" the Soudrys understood
their friend's wishes. Do not forget that Soudry, for
the last seventeen years chief of police of the can¬
ton, was doubly shrewd through his wife, an adept in
the particular wiliness of a waiting-maid of an Opera
divinity.
"We may go far," said Madame Soudry, "before
we find any one to suit the place as well as our poor
Sibilet."
" Made to order!" exclaimed Gaubertin, still scarlet
with mortification. " Lupin," he added, turning to the
notaiy who was present, "go to Ville-aux-Fayes and
Sons of the Soil.
133
whisper it to Marechal, in case that big fire-eater asks
his advice."
Marechal was the lawyer whom his former patron,
when buying Les Aigues for the general, had recom¬
mended to Monsieur de Montcornet as legal adviser.
Sibilet, eldest son of the clerk of the court at Ville-
aux-Fayes, a notary's clerk, without a penny of his own,
and twenty-five years old, had fallen in love with the
daughter of the chief magistrate of Soulanges. The
latter, named Sarcus, had a salary of fifteen hundred
francs, and was married to a woman without fortune,
the eldest sister of Monsieur Vermut, the apothecary of
Soulanges. Though an only daughter, Mademoiselle
Sarcus, whose beauty was her only dowry, could
scarcely have lived on the salary paid to a notary's
clerk in the provinces. Young Sibilet, a relative of
Gaubertin, by a connection rather difficult to trace
through family ramifications which make members of the
middle classes in all the smaller towns cousins to each
other, owed a modest position in a government office to
the assistance of his father and Gaubertin. The unlucky
fellow had the terrible happiness of being the father
of two children in three years. His own father, blessed
with five, was unable to assist him. His wife's father
owned nothing beside his house at Soulanges and an in¬
come of two thousand francs. Madame Sibilet the
younger spent most of her time at her father's home
with her two children, where Adolphe Sibilet, whose
official duty obliged him to travel through the depart¬
ment, came to see her from time to time.
Gaubertin's exclamation, though easy to understand
from this summary of young Sibilet's life, needs a few
more explanatory details.
134
Sons of the Soil.
Adolphe Sibilet, supremely unlucky, as we have
shown by the foregoing sketch of him, was one of those
men who cannot reach the heart of a woman except
by way of the altar and the mayor's office. Endowed
with the suppleness of a steel-spring, he yielded to
pressure, certain to revert to his first thought. This
treacherous habit is prompted by cowardice; but the
business training which Sibilet underwent in the office
of a provincial notary had taught him the art of con¬
cealing this defect under a gruff manner which sim¬
ulated a strength he did not possess. Many false
natures mask their hollowness in this way; be rough
with them in return and the effect produced is that of a
balloon collapsed by a prick. Such was Sibilet. But
as most men are not observers, and as among ob¬
servers three fourths observe only after a thing ha3
taken place, Adolphe Sibilet's grumbling manner was
considered the result of an honest frankness, of a capa¬
city much praised by his master, and of a stubborn up¬
rightness which no temptation could shake. Some
men are as much benefited by their defects as others
by their good qualities.
Adeline Sarcus, a pretty young wQman, brought up
by a mother (who died three years before her marriage)
as well as a mother can educate an only daughter in a
remote country town, was in love with the handsome
son of Lupin, the Soulanges notary. At the first signs
of this romance, old Lupin, who intended to many his
son to Mademoiselle Elise Gaubertin, lost no time in
sending young Amaury Lupin to Paris, to the care of
his friend and correspondent Crottat, the notary, where,
under pretext of drawing deeds and contracts, Amaury
committed a variety of foolish acts, and made debts,
Sons of the Soil.
135
being led thereto by a certain Georges Marest, a clerk
in the same office, but a rich young man, who revealed
to him the mysteries of Parisian life. By this time
Lupin the elder went to Paris to bring back his son,
Adeline Sarcus had become Madame Sibilet. In fact,
when the adoring Adolphe offered himself, her father,
the old magistrate, prompted by young Lupin's father,
hastened the marriage, to which Adeline yielded in
sheer despair.
The situation of clerk in a government registration
office is not a career. It is, like other such places
which admit of no rise, one of the many holes of the
government sieve. Those who start in life in these
holes (the topographical, the professorial, the highway-
and-canal departments) are apt to discover, invariably
too late, that cleverer men than they, seated beside
them, are fed, as the Opposition writers say, on the
sweat of the people, every time the sieve dips down
into the taxation-pot by means of a machine called the
budget. Adolphe, working early and late and earning
little, soon found out the barren depths of his hole ; and
his thoughts busied themselves, as he trotted from town¬
ship to township, spending his salary in shoe-leather
and costs of travelling, with how to find a permanent
and more profitable place. .
No one can imagine, unless he happens to squint and
to have two legitimate children, what ambitions three
years of misery and love had developed in this young
man, who squinted both in mind and vision, and whose
happiness halted, as it were, on one leg. The chief
cause of secret evil deeds and hidden meanness is,
perhaps, an incompleted happiness. Man can better
bear a state of hopeless misery than those terrible
136
Sons of the Soil.
alternations of love and sunshine with continual rain.
If the body contracts disease, the mind contracts the
leprosy of envy. In petty minds that leprosy becomes
a base and brutal cupidity, both insolent and shrinking;
in cultivated minds it fosters anti-social doctrines,
which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above
his superiors. Ma}r we not dignify with the title of
proverb the pregnant saying, " Tell me what thou hast,
and I will tell thee of what thou art thinking ? "
Though Adolphe loved his wife, his hourly thought
was : " I have made a mistake ; I have three balls and
chains, but I have only two legs. I ought to have
made my fortune before I married. I could have found
an Adeline any day ; but Adeline stands in the way of
my getting a fortune now."
Adolphe had been to see his relation Gaubertin three
times in three years. A few words exchanged between
them let Gaubertin see the muck of a soul ready to
ferment under the hot temptations of legal robbery.
He warily sounded a nature that could be warped to
the exigencies of any plan, provided it was profitable.
At each of the three visits Sibilet grumbled at his
fate.
" Employ me, cousin," he said ; " take me as a clerk
and make me your successor. You shall see how I
work. I am capable of overthrowing mountains to
give my Adeline, I won't say luxury, but a modest
competence. You made Monsieur Leclercq's fortune;
why won't you put me in a bank in Paris ? "
"Some day, later on, I'll find you a place," Gau¬
bertin would say; "meantime make friends and ac¬
quaintance ; such things help."
Under these circumstances the letter which Madame
Sons of the Soil.
13T
Soudry hastily dispatched brought Sibilet to Soulanges
through a region of castles in the air. His father-in-
law, Sarcus, whom the Soudrys advised to take steps
in the interest of his daughter, had gone in the morning
to see the general and to propose Adolphe for the
vacant post. By advice of Madame Soudry, who was
the oracle of the little town, the worthy man had taken
his daughter with him; and the sight of her had had a
favorable effect upon the Comte de Montcornet.
"I shall not decide," he answered, " without thor¬
oughly informing myself about all applicants; but I
will not look elsewhere until I have examined whether
or not your son-in-law possesses the requirements for
the place." Then, turning to Madame Sibilet he
added, " The satisfaction of settling so charming a per¬
son at Les Aigues — "
" The mother of two children, general," said Adeline,
adroitly, to evade the gallantry of the old cuirassier.
All the general's inquiries were cleverty anticipated
by the Soudrys, Gaubertin, and Lupin, who quietly
obtained for their candidate the influence of the leading
lawyers in the capital of the department, where a royal
court held sessions, — such as Counsellor Gendrin, a
distant relative of the judge at Ville-aux-Fayes ; Baron
Bourlac, attorney-general; and another counsellor
named Sarcus, a cousin thrice removed of the candi¬
date. The verdict of ever}r one to whom the general
applied was favorable to the poor clerk, — "so inter¬
esting," as they called him. His marriage had made
Sibilet as irreproachable as a novel of Miss Edge-
worth's, and presented him, moreover, in the light of a
disinterested man.
The time which the dismissed steward remained at
133
Sons of the Soil.
Les Aigues until his successor could be appointed was
employed in creating troubles and annoyances for his
late master; one of the little scenes which he thus
played off will give an idea of several others.
The morning of his final departure he contrived to
meet, as it were accidentally, Courtecuisse, the only
keeper then employed at Les Aigues, the great extent
of which really needed at least three.
"Well, Monsieur Gaubertin," said Courtecuisse, "so
you have had trouble with the count ? "
"Who told you that?" answered Gaubertin. "Well,
yes; the general expected to order us about as he did
his cavalry ; he did n't know Burgundians. The count
is not satisfied with im* services, and as I am not sat¬
isfied with his ways, we have dismissed each other,
almost with fisticuffs, for he raged like a whirlwind.
Take care of yourself, Courtecuisse! Ah! my dear
fellow, I expected to give you a better master."
"I know that," said the keeper, "and I'd have
served you well. Hang it, when friends have known
each other for twenty years, you know! You put me
here in the da}vs of the poor dear sainted Madame. Ah,
what a good woman she was ! none like her now ! The
place has lost a mother."
" Look here, Courtecuisse, if you are willing,, you
might help us to a fine stroke."
" Then you are going to stay here? I heard you were
off to Paris."
" No ; I shall wait to see how things turn out; mean¬
time I shall do business .at Ville-aux-Fayes. The gen¬
eral does n't know what he is dealing with in these
parts; he '11 make himself hated, don't you see ? I
shall wait for what turns up. Do your work here
Sons of the Soil.
139
gently; he '11 tell you to manage the people with a
high hand, for he begins to see where his crops and his
woods are running to ; but you '11 not be such a fool
as to let the country-folk maul you, and perhaps worse,
for the sake of his timber."
"But he would send me away, dear Monsieur Gau-
bertin, he would get rid of me! and you know how
happy I am living there at the gate of the Avonne."
" The general will soon get sick of the whole place,"
replied Gaubertin ; " you wouldn't be long out even if
he did happen to send you away. Besides, you know
those woods," he added, waving his hand at the land¬
scape ; "I am stronger there than the masters."
This conversation took place in an open field.
" Those Arminac Parisian fellows ought to stay in
their own mud," said the keeper.
Ever since the quarrels of the fifteenth century the
word Arminac (Armagnacs, Parisians, enemies of the
Dukes of Burgundy) has continued to be an insulting
term along the borders of Upper Burgundy, where it is
differently corrupted according to locality.
" He'll go back to it when beaten," said Gaubertin,
'' and we '11 plough up the park ; for it is robbing the
people to allow a man to keep nine hundred acres of
the best land in the valley for his own pleasure."
"Four hundred families could get their living from
it," said Courtecuisse.
'' If 37ou want two acres for yourself you must help
us to drive that cur out," remarked Gaubertin.
At the very moment that Gaubertin was fulminating
this sentence of excommunication, the worthy Sarcus
was presenting his son-in-law Sibilet to the Comte de
Montcornet. They had come with Adeline and the
140
Sons of the Soil.
children in a wicker carryall, lent by Sarcus's clerk, a
Monsieur Gourdon, brother of the Soulanges doctor,
who was richer than the magistrate himself. The gen¬
eral, pleased with the candor and dignity of the justice
of the peace, and with the graceful bearing of Adeline
(both giving pledges in good faith, for they were totally
ignorant of the plans of Gaubertin), at once granted all
requests and gave such advantages to the family of the
new land-steward as to make the position equal to that
of a sub-prefect of the first class.
A lodge, built by Bouret as an object in the land¬
scape and also for a home for the steward, an elegant
little building, the architecture of which was sufficiently
shown in the description of the gate of Blang}r, was
promised to the Sibilets for their residence. The gen¬
eral also conceded the horse which Mademoiselle La-
guerre had provided for Gaubertin, in consideration of
the size of the estate and the distance he had to go to
the markets where the business of the property was
transacted. He allowed two hundred bushels of wheat,
three hogsheads of wine, wood in sufficient quantity,
oats and barley in abundance, and three per cent on
all receipts of income. Where the latter in Mademoi¬
selle Laguerre's time had amounted to forty thousand
francs, the general now, in 1818, in view of the pur¬
chases of land which Gaubertin had made for her,
expected to receive at least sixty thousand. The new
land-steward might therefore receive before long some
two thousand francs in money. Lodged, fed, warmed,
relieved of taxes, the costs of a horse and a poultry-yard
defrayed for him, and allowed to plant a kitchen-garden,
with no questions asked as to the day's work of the
gardener, certainly such advantages represented much
/Sons of the Soil.
141
more than another two thousand francs ; and for a man
who was earning a miserable salary of twelve hundred
francs in a government office to step into the steward¬
ship of Les Aigues was a change from poverty to
opulence.
"Be faithful to my interests," said the general, " and
I shall have more to say to \Tou. Doubtless I could
get the collection of the rents of Conches, Blangy, and
Cerneux taken away from the collection of those of
Soulanges and given to you. In short, when you bring
me in a clear sixty thousand a year from Les Aigues
you shall be still further rewarded."
Unfortunately, the worthy justice and his daughter, in
the flush of their joy, told Madame Soudry the promise
the general had made about these collections, without
reflecting that the present collector of Soulanges, a man
named Guerbet, brother of the postmaster of Conches,
was closely allied, as we shall see later, with Gaubertin
and the Gendrins.
" It won't be so easy to do it, my dear," said
Madame Soudrjr; " but don't prevent the general from
making the attempt; it is wonderful how easily difficult
things are done in Paris. I have seen the Chevalier
Gliick at dear Madame's feet to get her to sing his
music, and she did, — she who adored Piccini, one of
the finest men of his day; never did he come into Ma¬
dame's room without catching me round the waist and
calling me a dear rogue."
" Ha! " cried Soudry, when his wife reported this
news, " does he think he is going to lead the country
by the nose, and upset everything to please himself
and make the whole valley march in line, as he did his
cuirassiers ? These militarv fellows have a habit of
142
Sons of the Soil.
command ! — but let's have patience ; Monsieur de
Soulanges and Monsieur de Ronquerolles will be on our
side. Poor Guerbet! he little suspects who is trying
to pluck the best roses out of his garland! "
Pere Guerbet, the collector of Soulanges, was the
wit, that is to say, the jovial companion of the little
town, and a hero in Madame Soudry's salon. Sou-
dry's speech gives a fair idea of the opinion which now
grew up against the master of Les Aigues from Conches
to Ville-aux-Fayes, and wherever else the public mind
could be reached and poisoned by Gaubertin.
The installation of Sibilet took place in the autumn
of 1817. The year 1818 went by without the general
being able to set foot at Les Aigues, for his approach¬
ing marriage with Mademoiselle de Troisville, which
was celebrated in January, 1819, kept him the greater
part of the summer near Alen§on, in the country-house
of his prospective father-in-law. General Montcornet
possessed, besides Les Aigues and a magnificent house
in Paris, some sixty thousand francs a year in the Funds
and the salary of a retired lieutenant-general. Though
Napoleon had made him a count of the Empire and
given him the following arms, afield quarterly, the first,
azure,, bordure or, three pyramids argent / the second,
vert, three hunting horns argent; the third, gules, a
cannon or on a gun-carriage sable, and, in chief, a cres¬
cent or; the fourth, or, a crown vert, with the motto
(eminently of the middle ages !), '' Sound the charge," —
Montcornet knew very well that he was the son of a
cabinet-maker in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, though
he was quite ready to forget it. He was eaten up with
the desire to be a peer of France, and dreamed of his
grand cordon of the Legion of honor, his Saint-Louis
Sons of the Soil.
148
cross, and his income of one hundred and forty thousand
francs. Bitten by the demon of aristocracy, the sight
of the blue ribbon put him beside himself. The gallant
cuirassier of Essling would have licked up the mud on
the Pont-Royal to be invited to the house of a Navar-
reins, a Lenoncourt, a Grandlieu, a Maufrigneuse, a
d'Espard, a Vandenesse, a Verneuil, a Herouville, or
a Chaulieu.
From 1818, when the impossibility of a change in
favor of the Bonaparte family was made clear to him,
Montcornet had himself trumpeted in the faubourg
Saint-Germain by the wives of some of his friends,
who offered his hand and heart, his mansion and his
fortune in return for an alliance with some great
famil}'.
After several attempts, the Duchesse de Carigliano
found a match for the general in one of the three
branches of the Troisville family, — that of the viscount
in the service of Russia ever since 1789, who had
returned to France in 1815. The viscount, poor as a
younger son, had married a Princess Scherbellof,
worth about a million, but the arrival of two sons and
three daughters kept him poor. His famil}-, ancient
and formerly powerful, now consisted of the Marquis
de Troisville, peer of France, head of the house and
scutcheon, and two deputies, with numerous offspring,
who were busy, for their part, with the budget and the
ministries and the court, like fishes round bits of
bread. Therefore, when Montcornet was presented by
Madame de Carigliano, —the Napoleonic duchess, who
was now a most devoted adherent of the Bourbons, he
was favorabty received. The general asked, in return
for his fortune and tender indulgence to his wife, to
144
Sons of the Soil.
be appointed to the Royal Guard, with the rank of
marquis and peer of France ; but the branches of the
Troisville family would do no more than promise him
their support.
" You know what that means," said the duchess to
her old friend, who complained of the vagueness of the
promise. " They cannot oblige the king to do as they
wish ; they can only influence him."
Montcornet made Virginie de Troisville his heir in
the marriage settlements. Completely under the con¬
trol of his wife, as Blondet's letter has already shown,
he was still without children, but Louis XVIII. had
received him, and given him the cordon of Saint-Louis,
allowing him to quarter his ridiculous arms with those
of the Troisvilles, and promising him the title of
marquis as soon as he had deserved the peerage b}* his
services.
A few days after the audience at which this promise
had been given, the Due de Barry was assassinated;
the Marsan clique carried the day; the Villele ministry
came into power, and all the wires laid by the Trois¬
villes were snapped; it became necessary to find new
ways of fastening them upon the ministry.
"We must bide our time," said the Troisvilles to
Montcornet, who was always overwhelmed with polite¬
ness in the faubourg Saint-Germain.
This will explain how it was that the general did not
return to Les Aigues until May, 1820.
The ineffable happiness for the son of a shop-keeper
of the faubourg Saint-Antoine in possessing a 3roung,
elegant, intelligent, and gentle wife, a Troisville, who
had given him an entrance to all the salons of the
faubourg Saint-Germain, and the delight of making her
Sons of the Soil.
145
enjoy the pleasures of Paris, had kept him from Les
Aigues and made him forget about Gaubertin, even to
his very name. In 1820 he took the countess to
Burgundy to show her the estate, and he accepted
Sibilet's accounts and leases and deeds without looking
closely into them ; happiness never cavils. The count¬
ess, well pleased to find the steward's wife a charming
young woman, made presents to her and to the children,
with whom she occasionally amused herself. She or¬
dered a few changes at Les Aigues, having sent to Paris
for an architect; proposing, to the general's great de¬
light, to spend six months of every year on this mag¬
nificent estate. Montcornet's savings were soon spent
on the architectural work and the exquisite new furni¬
ture sent from Paris. Les Aigues thus received the
last touch which made it a choice example of all the
diverse elegancies of four centuries.
In 1821 the general was almost peremptorily urged
by Sibilet to be at Les Aigues before the month of May.
Important matters had to be decided. A lease of nine
years, to the amount of thirty thousand francs, granted
by Gaubertin in 1812 to a wood-merchant, fell in on
the 15th of May of the current year. Sibilet, anxious
to prove his rectitude, was unwilling to be responsible
for the renewal of the lease. " You know, Monsieur
le comte," he wrote, " that I do not choose to profit by
such matters." The wood-merchant claimed an in¬
demnity, extorted from Mademoiselle Laguerre, through
her hatred of litigation, and shared by him with Gau¬
bertin. This indemnity was based on the injury done
to the woods by the peasants, who treated the forest
of Les Aigues as if they had a right to cut the timber.
Messrs. Gravelot Brothers, wood-merchants in Paris,
146
Sons of the Soil,
refused to pay their last quarter dues, offering to prove
by an expert that the woods were reduced one-fifth in.
value, through, they said, the injurious precedent es¬
tablished by Mademoiselle Laguerre.
" I have already," wrote Sibilet, " sued these men
in the courts at Ville-aux-Fayes, for they have taken
legal residence there, on account of this lease, with my
old employer, Maitre Corbinet. I fear we shall lose the
suit."
"It is a question of income, my dear," said the
general, showing the letter to his wife. " Will you go
down to Les Aigues a little earlier this year than
last? "
'' Go yourself, and I will follow you when the
weather is warmer," said the countess, not sorry to
remain in Paris alone.
The general, who knew very well the canker that
was eating into his revenues, departed without his wife,
resolved to take vigorous measures. In so doing he
reckoned, as we shall see, without his Gaubertin.
Sons of the Soil.
147
VIII.
THE GREAT REVOLUTIONS OF A LITTLE VALLEY.
"Well, Maltre Sibilet," said the general to his
steward, the morning after his arrival, giving him a
familiar title which showed how much he appreciated
his services, "so we are, to use a ministerial phrase,
at a crisis ? "
" Yes, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, following
the general.
The fortunate possessor of Les Aigues was walking
up and down in front of the steward's house, along a
little terrace where Madame Sibilet grew flowers, at
the end of which was a wide stretch of meadow-land
watered by the canal which Blondet has described.
From this point the chateau of Les Aigues was seen in
the distance, and in like manner the profile, as it were,
of the steward's lodge was seen from Les Aigues.
" But," resumed the general, " what's the difficulty?
If I do lose the suit against the Gravelots, a money
wound is not mortal, and I '11 have the leasing of my
forest so well advertised that there will be competition,
and I shall sell the timber at its true value."
"Business is not done in that way, Monsieur le
comte," said Sibilet. "Suppose you get no lessees,
what will you do?"
'' Cut the timber myself and sell it — "
"You, a wood merchant?" said Sibilet. "Well,
without looking at matters here, how would it be in
148
Sons of the Soih
Paris? You would have to hire a wood-yard, pay for
a license and the taxes, also for the right of navigation,
and duties, and the costs of unloading: besides the
salary of a trustworthy agent —"
"Yes, it is impracticable," said the general hastily,
alarmed at the prospect. '' But why can't I find per¬
sons to lease the right of cutting timber as before ?"
'' Monsieur le comte has enemies."
"Who are the}r? "
" Well, in the first place, Monsieur Gaubertin."
"Do you mean the scoundrel whose place you
took ?"
" Not so loud, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet,
showing fear; "I beg of you, not so loud, — my cook
might hear us."
" Do you mean to tell me that I am not to speak on
my own estate of a villain who robbed me ? " cried the
general.
'' For the sake of your own peace and comfort, come
further away, Monsieur le comte. Monsieur Gaubertin
is mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes."
"Ha! I congratulate Ville-aux-Fayes. Thunder!
what a nobly governed town! —"
" Do me the honor to listen, Monsieur le comte, and
to believe that I am talking of serious matters which
may affect your future life in this place."
'' I am listening; let us sit down on this bench
here."
" Monsieur le comte, when you dismissed Gaubertin,
he had to find some employment, for he was not rich — "
" Not rich! when he stole twenty thousand francs a
year from this estate?"
" Monsieur le comte, I don't pretend to excuse him,"
Sons of the Soil.
149
replied Sibilet. " I want to see Les Aigues prosperous,
if it were only to prove Gaubertin's dishonesty; but we
ought not to abuse him openly for he is one of the most
dangerous scoundrels to be found in all Burgundy, and
he is now in a position to injure you."
"In what way?" asked the general, sobering down.
" Gaubertin has control of nearly one third of the
supplies sent to Paris. As general agent for the timber
business, he orders all the work of the forests, — the fell¬
ing, chopping, floating, and sending to market. Being
in close relations with the workmen, he is the arbiter
of prices. It has taken him three years to create this
position, but he holds it now like a fortress. He is
essential to all dealers, never favoring one more than
another; he regulates the whole business in their in¬
terests, and their affairs are better and more cheaply
looked after by him than they were in the old time by
separate agents for each firm. For instance, he has so
completely put a stop to competition that he has abso¬
lute control of the auction sales; the crown and the
State are both dependent on him. Their timber is sold
under the hammer and falls invariably to Gaubertin's
dealers; in fact, no others attempt now to bid against
them. Last year Monsieur Mariotte, of Auxerre, urged
by the commissioner of domains, did attempt to com¬
pete with Gaubertin. At first, Gaubertin let him buy
the standing wood at the usual prices; but when it
came to cutting it, the Avonnais workmen asked such
enormous prices that Monsieur Mariotte was obliged
to bring laborers from Auxerre, whom the Ville-aux-
Fayes workmen attacked and drove away. The head
of the coalition, and the ringleader of the brawl were
brought before the police court, and the suits cost
150
Sons of the Soil.
Monsieur Mariotte a great deal of money ; for, besides
the odium of having convicted and punished poor men,
he was forced to pay all costs, because the losing side
had not a farthing to do it with. A suit against labor¬
ing men is sure to result in hatred to those who live
among them. Let me warn you of this ; for if you
follow the course you propose, you will have to fight
against the poor of this district at least. But that's
not all. Counting it over, Monsieur Mariotte, a wor¬
thy man, found he was the loser b}r his original lease.
Forced to pay ready money, he was nevertheless obliged
to sell on time ; Gaubertin delivered his timber at long
credits for the jjurpose of ruining his competitor. He
undersold him by at least five per cent, and the end
of it is that poor Mariotte's credit is badly shaken.
Gaubertin is now pressing and harassing the poor man
so that he is driven, they tell me, to leave not only
Auxerre, but even Burgundy itself; and he is right.
In this way land-owners have long been sacrificed to
dealers who now set the market-prices, just as the furni¬
ture-dealers in Paris dictate values to appraisers. But
Gaubertin saves the owners so much trouble and worry
that they are really gainers."
" How so? " asked the general.
"In the first place, because the less complicated a
business is, the greater the profits to the owners," an¬
swered Sibilet. "Besides which, their income is more
secure; and in all matters of rural improvement and
development that is the main thing, as you will find out.
Then, too, Monsieur Gaubertin is the friend and patron
of working-men; he pays them well and keeps them
always at work; therefore, though their families live
on the estates, the woods leased to dealers and belong-
Sons of the Soil,
151
ing to the land-owners who trust the care of their prop¬
erty to Gaubertin (such as MM. de Soulanges and de
Ronquerolles) are not devastated. The dead wood is
gathered up, but that is all —"
"That rascal Gaubertin has lost no time!" cried
the general.
" He is a bold man," said Sibilet. " He really is, as
he calls himself, the steward of the best half of the de¬
partment, instead of being merely the steward of Les
Aigues. He makes a little out of everybody, and that
little on every two millions brings him in forty to fifty
thousand francs a year. He says himself, ' The fires
on the Parisian hearths pay it all.' He is your enemy,
Monsieur le comte. My advice to jrou is to capitulate
and be reconciled with him. He is intimate, as you
know, with Soudry, the head of the gendarmerie at Sou¬
langes ; with Monsieur Rigou, our mayor at Blangy;
the patrols are under his influence ; therefore }rou will
find it impossible to repress the pilferings which are
eating into your estate. During the last two years
your woods have been devastated. Consequently the
Gravelots are more than likely to win their suit. They
say, very truly: ' According to the terms of the
lease, the care of the woods is left to the owner;
he does not protect them, and we are injured; the
owner is bound to pay us damages.' That's fair
enough; but it does 'nt follow that they should win
their case."
" We must be ready to defend this suit at all costs,"
said the general, " and then we shall have no more of
them."
" You will gratify Gaubertin," remarked Sibilet,
"How so?"
152
Sons of the Soil.
" Suing the Gravelots is the same as a hand to hand
fight with Gaubertin, who is their agent," answered
Sibilet. " He asks nothing better than such a suit.
He declares, so I hear, that he will bring you if neces¬
sary before the Court of Appeals."
'' The rascal! the — "
" If you attempt to work your own woods," con¬
tinued Sibilet, turning the knife in the wound, "you
will find yourself at the mercy of workmen who will
force you to pay rich men's prices instead of market-
prices. In short, they '11 put you, as they did that poor
Mariotte, in a position where you must sell at a loss.
If you then try to lease the woods you will get no ten¬
ants, for you cannot expect that any one should take
risks for himself which Mariotte only took for the
crown and the State. Suppose a man talks of his
losses to the government! The government is a gentle¬
man who is, like your obedient servant when he was in
its employ, a worthy man with a frayed overcoat, who
reads the newspapers at a desk. Let his salary be
twelve hundred or twelve thousand francs, his disposi¬
tion is the same, it is not a whit softer. Talk of reduc¬
tions and releases from the public treasury represented
by the said gentleman ! He '11 only pooh-pooh you as
he mends his pen. No, the law is the wrong road for
you, Monsieur le comte."
"Then what's to be done?" cried the general, his
blood boiling as he tramped up and down before the
bench.
"Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, abruptly, " what
I say to you is not for my own interests, certainly; but
I advise you to sell Les Aigues and leave the neighbor¬
hood."
Sons of the Soil.
153
On hearing these words the general sprang back as
if a cannon-ball had struck him; then he looked at
Sibilet with a shrewd, diplomatic eye.
" A general of the Imperial Guard running away
from the rascals, when Madame la comtesse likes Les
Aigues ! " he said. " No, I '11 sooner box Gaubertin's
ears on the market-place of Ville-aux-Fayes, and force
him to fight me that I may shoot him like a dog."
" Monsieur le comte, Gaubertin is not such a fool as
to let himself be brought into collision with you. Be¬
sides, you could not openly insult the mayor of so
important a place as Ville-aux-Fajms."
" I '11 have him turned out; the Troisvilles can do
that for me; it is a question of income."
" You won't succeed, Monsieur le comte ; Gaubertin's
arms are long; you will get yourself into difficulties
from which you cannot escape."
" Let us think of the present," interrupted the gen¬
eral. "About that suit?"
" That, Monsieur le comte, I can manage to win for
you," replied Sibilet, with a knowing glance.
" Bravo, Sibilet! " said the general, shaking his stew¬
ard's hand ; " how are you going to do it? "
"You will win it on a writ of error," replied Sibilet.
" In my opinion the Gravelots have the right of it.
But it is not enough to be in the right, the}*- must
also be in order as to legal forms, and that they have
neglected. The Gravelots ought to have summoned
you to have the woods better watched. They can't ask
for indemnity, at the close of a lease, for damages which
they know have been going on for nine years ; there is
a clause in the lease as to this, on which we can file a
bill of exceptions. You will lose the suit at Ville-aux-
154
Sons of the Soil.
Fayes, possibly in the upper court as well, but we will
carry it to Paris and you will win at the Court of
Appeals. The costs will be heavy and the expenses
ruinous. You will have to spend from twelve to fifteen
thousand francs merely to win the suit, — but you will
win it, if you care to. The suit will only increase the
enmit}* of the Gravelots, for the expenses will be even
heavier on them. You will be their bugbear; you will
be called litigious and calumniated in every way; still,
you can win — "
"Then, what's to be done?" repeated the general,
on whom Sibilet's arguments were beginning to produce
the effect of a violent poison.
Just then the remembrance of the blows he had given
Gaubertin with his cane crossed his mind, and made
him wish he had bestowed them on himself. His
flushed face was enough to show Sibilet the irritation
that he felt.
"You ask me what can be done, Monsieur le comte?
Why, only one thing, compromise; but of course you
can't negotiate that yourself. I must be thought to
cheat you! We, poor devils, whose only fortune and
comfort is in our good name, it is hard on us to
even seem to do a questionable thing. We are
always judged by appearances. Gaubertin himself
saved Mademoiselle Laguerre's life during the Revo¬
lution, but it seemed to others that he was robbing her.
She rewarded him in her will with a diamond worth
ten thousand francs, which Madame Gaubertin now
wears on her head."
The general gave Sibilet another glance still more
diplomatic than the first; but the steward seemed to
take no notice of the challenge it expressed.
Sons of the Soil.
155
" If I were to appear dishonest, Monsieur Gaubertin
would be so overjoyed that I could instantly obtain his
help," continued Sibilet. " He would listen with all
his ears if I said to him: ' Suppose I were to extort
twenty thousand francs from Monsieur le comte for
Messrs. Gravelot, on condition that they shared them
with me?' If your adversaries consented to that, Mon¬
sieur le comte, I should return you ten thousand francs ;
you lose only the other ten, you save appearances, and
the suit is quashed."
"You are a fine fellow, Sibilet," said the general,
taking his hand and shaking it. " If you can manage
the future as well as you do the present, I '11 call you
the prince of stewards."
"As to the future," said Sibilet, "you won't die
of hunger if no timber is cut for two or three years.
Let us begin by putting proper keepers in the woods.
Between now and then things will flow as the water
does in the Avonne. Gaubertin may die, or get rich
enough to retire from business; at any rate, you will
have sufficient time to find him a competitor. The
cake is too rich not to be shared. Look for another
Gaubertin to oppose the original."
" Sibilet," said the old soldier, delighted with this
variety of solutions. "I'll give you three thousand
francs if you '11 settle the matter as you propose. For
the rest, we'll think about it."
" Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, " first and
foremost have the forest properly watched. See for
yourself the condition in which the peasantry have put
it during your two years' absence. What could I do ?
I am steward; I am not a bailiff. To guard Les Aigues
properly you need a mounted patrol and three keepers."
156
Sons of the Soil.
"I certainly shall have the estate properly guarded.
So it is to he war, is it? Very good, then we will
make war. That does n't frighten me," said Montcor-
net, rubbing his hands.
" A war of francs," said Sibilet; " and you may find
that more difficult than the other kind; men can be
killed but you can't kill self-interest. You will fight
your enemy on the battlefield where all landlords are
compelled to fight, — I mean cash results. It is not
enough to produce, you must sell; and in order to sell,
you must be on good terms with everybody."
" I shall have the country people on my side."
" By what means?"
" By doing good among them."
" Doing good to the valley peasants! to the petty
shopkeepers of Soulanges ! " exclaimed Sibilet, squint¬
ing horribly, by reason of the irony which flamed
brighter in one eye than in the other. '1 Monsieur le
comte doesn't know what he undertakes. Our Lord
Jesus Christ would die again upon the cross in this
valley! If you wish an easj7 life, follow the example
of the late Mademoiselle Laguerre; let yourself be
robbed, or else make people afraid of you. Women,
children, and the masses are all governed by fear. That
was the great secret of the Convention, and of the
Emperor, too."
" Good heavens ! is this the forest of Bondy ? " cried
the general.
" My dear," said Sibilet's wife, appearing at this
moment, " your breakfast is ready. Pray excuse him,
Monsieur le comte; he has eaten nothing since morning
for he was obliged to go to Ronquerolles to deliver
some barley."
Sons of the Soil.
15T
" Go, go, Sibilet," said the general.
The next morning the count rose early, before day¬
light, and went to the gate of the Avonne, intending
to talk with the one forester whom he employed and
find out what the man's sentiments really were.
Some seven or eight hundred acres of the forest of
Les Aigues lie along the banks of the Avonne ; and to
preserve the majestic beauty of the river the large trees
that border it have been left untouched for a distance
of three leagues on both sides in an almost straight
line. The mistress of Henry IV., to whom Les Aigues
formerly belonged, was as fond of hunting as the king
himself. In 1593 she ordered a bridge to be built of
a single arch with shelving roadway by which to ride
from the lower side of the forest to a much larger por¬
tion of it, purchased by her, which lay upon the slopes
of the hills. The gate of the Avonne was built as
place of meeting for the huntsmen; and we know the
magnificence bestowed by the architects of that day
upon all buildings intended for the delight of the crown
and the nobility. Six avenues branched away from it,
their place of meeting forming a half-moon. In the
centre of the semi-circular space stood an obelisk sur¬
mounted by a round shield, formerly gilded, bearing on
one side the arms of Navarre and on the other those
of the Countess de Moret. Another half-moon, on the
side toward the river, communicated with the first by
a straight avenue, at the opposite end of which the
steep rise of the Venetian-shaped bridge could be seen.
Between two elegant iron railings of the same character
as that of the magnificent railing which formerly sur¬
rounded the garden of the Place Roy ale in Paris, now
go unfortunately destroyed, stood a brick pavilion, with
158
Sons of the Soil.
stone courses hewn in facets like those of the chateau,
with a very pointed roof and window-casings of stone cut
in the same manner. This old style, which gave the
building a regal air, is suitable onl}r to prisons when
used in cities ; but standing in the heart of forests it
derives from its surroundings a splendor of its own. A
group of trees formed a screen, behind which the ken¬
nels, an old faleonr}r, a pheasantry, and the quarters of
the huntsmen were falling into ruins, after being in their
day the wonder and admiration of Burgundy.
In 1595, the royal hunting-parties set forth from this
magnificent pavilion, preceded by those fine dogs so
dear to Rubens and to Paul Veronese; the huntsmen
mounted on high-stepping steeds with stout and blue-
white satiny haunches, seen no longer except in "Wou-
verman's amazing work, followed by footmen in livery;
the scene enlivened by whippers-in, wearing the high
top-boots with facings and the yellow leathern breeches
which have come down to the present day on the can¬
vas of Van der Meulen. The obelisk was erected in
commemoration of the visit of the B£arnais, and his
hunt with the beautiful Comtesse de Moret; the date
is given below the arms of Navarre. That jealous
woman, whose son was afterwards legitimatized, would
not allow the arms of France to figure on the obelisk,
regarding them as a rebuke.
At the time of which we write, when the general's
eyes rested on this splendid ruin, moss had gathered
for centuries on the four faces of the roof; the hewn-
stone courses, mangled by time, seemed to cry with
3rawning mouths against the profanation; disjointed
leaden settings let fall their octagonal panes, so that the
windows seemed blind of an eye here and there. Yel-
/Sons of the Soil.
159
low wallflowers bloomed about the copings; ivy slid
its white rootlets into every crevice.
All things bespoke a shameful want of care, — the
seal set by mere life-possessors on the ancient glories
that they possess. Two windows on the first floor were
stuffed with hay. Through another, on the ground-floor,
was seen a room filled with tools and logs of wood;
while a cow pushed her muzzle through a fourth,
proving that Courtecuisse, to avoid having to walk
from the pavilion to the pheasantry, had turned the
large hall of the building into a stable, — a hall with
panelled ceiling, and in the centre of each panel the
arms of all the various possessors of Les Aigues!
Black and dirty palings disgraced the approach to
the pavilion, making square inclosures with plank roofs
for pigs, ducks, and hens, the manure of which was
taken away every six months. A few ragged garments
were hung to dry on the brambles which boldly grew
unchecked here and there. As the general came along
the avenue from the bridge, Madame Courtecuisse was
scouring a saucepan in which she had just made her
coffee. The forester, sitting on a chair in the sun, con¬
sidered his wife as a savage considers his. When he
heard a horse's hoofs he turned round, saw the count,
and seemed taken aback.
" Well, Courtecuisse, my man," said the general,
" I'm not surprised that the peasants cut my woods
before Messrs. Gravelot can do so., So you consider
your place a sinecure?"
"Indeed, Monsieur le comte, I have watched the
woods so man}' nights that I'm ill from it. I've got
a chill, and I suffer such pain this morning that my wife
has just made me a poultice in that saucepan."
160
Sons of the Soil.
" My good fellow," said the count, " I don't know any
pain that a coffee poultice cures except that of hunger.
Listen to me, you rascal! I rode through my forest
yesterday, and then through those of Monsieur de Sou-
langes and Monsieur de Ronquerolles. Theirs are
carefully watched and preserved, while mine is in a
shameful state."
"Ah, monsieur! but the}' are the old lords of
the neighborhood; everybody respects their property.
How can you expect me to fight against six districts?
I care for my life more than for your woods. A man
who would undertake to watch your woods as they
ought to be watched would get a ball in his head for
wages in some dark corner of the forest —"
"Coward!" cried the general, trying to control the
anger the man's insolent reply provoked in him. " Last
night was as clear as day, yet it cost me three hundred
francs in actual robbery and over a thousand in future
damages. You will leave my service unless you do better.
All wrong-doing deserves some mercy; therefore these
are my conditions: You may have the fines, and I
will pay you three francs for every indictment you
bring against these depredators. If I don't get what
I expect, you know what yrou have to expect, and no
pension either. Whereas, if you serve me faithfully
and contrive to stop these depredat'ons, I '11 give you
an annuity of three hundred francs for life. You can
think it over. Here are six ways," continued the
count, pointing to the branching roads ; " there's onlyr
one for you to take, — as for me also, who am not afraid
of balls ; try and find the right one."
Courtecuisse, a small man about forty-six years of
age, with a full-moon face, found his greatest happiness
Sons of the Soil.
161
in doing nothing. He expected to live and die in that
pavilion, now considered by him his pavilion. His
two cows were pastured in the forest, from which he
got his wood; and he spent his time in looking after
his garden instead of after the delinquents. Such
neglect of duty suited Gaubertin, and Courtecuisse
knew it did. The keeper chased only those depredators
who were the objects of his personal dislike, — young
women who would not yield to his wishes, or persons
against whom he had a grudge ; though for some time
past he had really felt no dislikes, for every one yielded
to him on account of his easy-going ways with them.
Courtecuisse had a place alwa}rs kept for him at the
table of the Grand-I-Vert; the wood-pickers feared him
no longer; indeed, his wife and he received many gifts
in kind from them; his wood was brought in; his
vineyard dug; in short, all delinquents at whom he
blinked did him service.
Counting on Gaubertin for the future, and feeling
sure of two acres of land whenever Les Aigues should
be brought to the hammer, he was roughly awakened by
the curt speech of the general, who, after four quiescent
years, was now revealing his true character, — that of a
bourgeois rich man who was determined to be no longer
deceived. Courtecuisse took his cap, his game-bag, and
his gun, put on his gaiters and his belt (which bore the
very recent arms of Montcornet), and started for Yille-
aux-Fayes, with the careless, indifferent air and manner
under which country-people often conceal very deep
reflections, while he gazed at the woods and whistled to
the dogs to follow him.
" What! you complain of the Shopman when he pro¬
poses to make your fortune ?" said Gaubertin. 4' Does n't
162
Sons of the Soil,
the fool offer to give you three francs for every arrest
you make, and the fines to boot? Have an understand¬
ing with your friends and you can bring as many indict¬
ments as you please, — hundreds if you like ! With one
thousand francs you can buy La Bachelerie from Rigou,
become a property owner, live in your own house, and
work for yourself, or rather, make others work for you,
and take }-our ease. Only — now listen tome — you
must manage to arrest only such as have n't a penny in
the world. You can't shear sheep unless the wool is
on their backs. Take the Shopman's offer and leave
him to collect the costs, — if he wants them; tastes
differ. Did n't old Mariotte prefer losses to profits, in
spite of my advice ?"
Courtecuisse, filled with admiration for these words
of wisdom, returned home burning with the desire to
be a land-owner and a bourgeois like the rest.
When the general reached Les Aigues he related his
expedition to Sibilet.
" Monsieur le comte did very right," said the stew¬
ard, rubbing his hands; "but he must not stop short
half-way. The field-keeper of the district who allows
the country-people to prey upon the meadows and rob
the harvests ought to be changed. Monsieur le comte
should have himself chosen mayor, and appoint one of
his old soldiers, who would have the courage to carry
out his orders, in place of Vaudoyer. A great land¬
owner should be master in his own district. Just see
what difficulties we have with the present mayor!"
The mayor of the district of Blangy, formerly a
Benedictine, named Rigou, had married, in the first
3'ear of the Republic, the servant-woman of the late
priest of Blangy. In spite of the repugnance which a
tSons of the Soil.
163
married monk excited at the Prefecture, lie had con¬
tinued to be mayor after 1815, for the reason that there
was no one else at Blangy who was capable of filling the
post. But in 1817, when the bishop sent the Abbe
Brossette to the parish of Blangy (which had then
been vacant over twenty-five years), a violent opposi¬
tion not unnaturally broke out between the old apos¬
tate and the young ecclesiastic, whose character is al¬
ready known to us. The war which was then and
there declared between the mayor's office and the par¬
sonage increased the popularity of the magistrate, who
had hitherto been more or less despised. Bigou, whom
the peasants had disliked for usurious dealings, now
suddenly represented their political and financial inter¬
ests, supposed to be threatened by the Restoration, and
more especially by the clergy.
A copy of the " Constitutionnel," that great organ of
liberalism, after making the rounds of the Cafe de la
Paix, came back to Rigou on the seventh day, — the
subscription, standing in the name of old Socquard the
keeper of the coffee-house, being shared by twenty per¬
sons. Rigou passed the paper on to Langlume the
miller, who, in turn, gave it in shreds to any one who
knew how to read. The " Paris items," and the anti-
religion jokes of the liberal sheet formed the public
opinion of the valley des Aigues. Rigou, like the
venerable Abbe Gregoire, became a hero. For him,
as for certain Parisian bankers, politics spread a mantle
of popularity over his shameful dishonesty.
At this particular time the perjured monk, like
Franjois Keller the great orator, was looked upon as
a defender of the rights of the people, — he who, not
so very long before, dared not walk in the fields after
164
Sons of the Soil.
dark, lest he should stumble into pitfalls where he
would seem to have been killed by accident! Perse¬
cute a man politically and you not only magnify him,
but you redeem his past and make it innocent. The
liberal party was a great worker of miracles in this
respect. Its dangerous journal, which had the wit to
make itself as commonplace, as calumniating, as credu¬
lous, and as sillily perfidious as every audience made
up of the general masses, did in all probability as much
injury to private interests as it did to those of the
Church.
Rigou flattered himself that he should find in a Bona-
partist general now laid on the shelf, in a son of the
people raised from nothing by the Revolution, a sound
enemy to the Bourbons and the priests. But the gen¬
eral, bearing in mind his private ambitions, so arranged
matters as to evade the visit of Monsieur and Madame
Rigou when he first came to Les Aigues.
When you have become better acquainted with the
terrible character of Rigou, the lynx of the valley, you
will understand the full extent of the second capital
blunder which the general's aristocratic ambitions led
him to commit, and which the countess made all the
greater by an offence which will be described in the
further history of Rigou.
If Montcornet had courted the mayor's good-will, if
he had sought his friendship, perhaps the influence of
the renegade might have neutralized that of Gauber-
tin. Far from that, three suits were now pending
in the courts of Ville-aux-Fayes between the general
and the ex-monk. Until the present time the general
had been so absorbed in his personal interests and in
bis marriage that he had never remembered Rigou;
Sons of the Soil.
165
but when Sibilet advised him to get himself made
mayor in Rigou's place, he took post-horses and went
to see the prefect.
The prefect, Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, had
been a friend of the general since 1804; and it was a
word from him said to Montcornet in a conversation in
Paris, which brought about the purchase of Les Aigues.
Comte Martial, a prefect under Napoleon, remained a
prefect under the Bourbons, and courted the bishop to
retain his place. Now it happened that Monseigneur
had several times requested him to get rid of Rigou.
Martial, to whom the condition of the district was per¬
fectly well known, was delighted with the general's
request; so that in less than a month the Comte de
Montcornet was mayor of Blangy.
By one of those accidents which come about natur¬
ally, the general met, while at the prefecture where his
friend put him up, a non-commissioned officer of the
ex-imperial guard, who had been cheated out of his
retiring pension. The general had already, under other
circumstances, done a service to the brave cavalryman,
whose name was Groison; the man, remembering it,
now told him his troubles, admitting that he was penni¬
less. . The general promised to get him his pension, and
proposed that he should take the place of field-keeper to
the district of Blangy, as a way of paying off his score
of gratitude by devotion to the new mayor's interests.
The appointments of master and man were made simul¬
taneously, and the general gave, as ma}* be supposed,
very firm instructions to his subordinate.
Vaudoj^er, the displaced keeper, a peasant on the
Ronquerolles estate, was onl}r fit, like most field-
keepers, to stalk about, and gossip, and let himself be
12
166
Sons of the Soil.
petted by the poor of the district, who asked nothing
better than to corrupt that subaltern authority, — the
advanced guard, as it were, of the land-owners. He
knew Soudry, the brigadier at Soulanges, for brigadiers
of gendarmerie, performing functions that are semi-
judicial in drawing up criminal indictments, have much
to do with the rural keepers, who are, in fact, their
natural spies. Soudry, being appealed to, sent Vau-
doyer to Gaubertin, who received his old acquaintance
very cordially, and invited him to drink while listening
to the recital of his troubles.
" My dear friend," said the mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes,
who could talk to ever}' man in his own language,
'' what has happened to you is likely to happen to us
all. The nobles are back upon us. The men to whom
the Emperor gave titles make common cause with the
old nobility. They all want to crush the people, re¬
establish their former rights and take our property
from us. But we are Burgundians; we must resist,
and drive those Arminacs back to Paris. Return to
Blangy; you shall be agent for Monsieur Polissard,
the wood-merchant, who is contractor for the forest of
Ronquerolles. Don't be uneasy, my lad ; I '11 find you
enough to do for the whole of the coming year. But
remember one thing ; the wood is for ourselves ! Not
a single depredation, or the thing is at an end. Send
all interlopers to Les Aigues. If there's brush or fag¬
ots to sell make people buy ours; don't let them buy
of Les Aigues. You '11 get back to your place as field-
keeper before long; this thing can't last. The general
will get sick of living among thieves. Did }'ou know
that that Shopman called me a thief, me ! — son of the
stanchest and most incorruptible of republicans; me / —
Sons of the Soil.
167
the son-in-law of Mouchon, that famous representative
of the people, who died without leaving enough to bury
him?"
The general raised the salary of the new field-keeper
to three hundred francs; and built a town-hall, in which
he gave him a residence. Then he married him to a
daughter of one of his tenant-farmers, who had lately
died, leaving her an orphan with three acres of vine¬
yard. Groison attached himself to the general as a dog
to his master. This legitimate fidelity was admitted by
the whole community. The keeper was feared and re¬
spected, but like the captain of a vessel whose ship's
company hate him ; the peasantry shunned him as they
would a leper. Met either in silence or with sarcasms
veiled under a show of good-humor, the new keeper
was a sentinel watched by other sentinels. He could do
nothing against such numbers. The delinquents took
delight in plotting depredations which it was impossible
for him to prove, and the old soldier grew furious at
his helplessness. Groison found the excitement of a
war of factions in his duties, and all the pleasures of
the chase, — a chase after petty delinquents. Trained
in real war to a loyalty which consists in part of play¬
ing a fair game, this enemy of traitors came at last
to hate these people, so treacherous in their conspira¬
cies, and so clever in their thefts that they mortified
Ms self-esteem. He soon observed that the depreda¬
tions were committed only at Les Aigues ; all the other
estates were respected. At first he despised a peasan¬
try ungrateful enough to pillage a general of the Em¬
pire, an essentially, kind and generous man ; presently,
however, he added hatred to contempt. But multiply
himself as he would, he could not be everywhere, and
168
Sons of the Soil.
the enemy pillaged everywhere that he was not. Groi-
son made the general understand that it was neces¬
sary to organize the defence on a war footing, and
proved to him the insufficiency of his own devoted ef¬
forts and the evil disposition of the inhabitants of the
valley.
" There is something behind it all, general," he said;
'' these people are so bold they fear nothing; they
seem to rely on the favor of the good God."
"We shall see," replied the count.
Fatal word! The verb to see has 110 future tense for
politicians.
At the moment, Montcornet was considering another
difficulty, which seemed to him more pressing. He
needed an alter ego to do his work in the mayor's office
during the months he lived in Paris. Obliged to find
some man who knew how to read and write for the
position of assistant mayor, he knew of none and could
hear of none throughout the district but Langlume,
the tenant of his own flour-mill. The choice was dis¬
astrous. Not only were the interests of mayor and
miller diametrically opposed, but Langlum^ had long
hatched swindling projects with Rigou, who lent him
money to carry on his business, or to acquire property.
The miller had bought the right to the hay of certain
fields for his horses, and Sibilet could not sell it except
to him. The hay of all the fields in the district was
sold at better prices than that of Les Aigues, though
the yield of the latter was the best.
Langlume, then, became the provisional mayor; but
in France the provisional is eternal, — though French¬
men are suspected of loving change. Acting by Rigou's
advice, he played a part of great devotion to the gen-
Sons of the Soil.
169
eral; and he was still assistant-mayor at the moment
when, by the omnipotence of the historian, this drama
begins.
In the absence of the mayor, Rigou, necessarily a
member of the district council, reigned supreme, and
brought forward resolutions all injuriously affecting
the general. At one time he caused money to be spent
for purposes that were profitable to the peasants only, —
the greater part of the expenses falling upon Les Aigues,
which, by reason of its great extent, paid two thirds of
the taxes; at other times the council refused, under
his influence, certain useful and necessary allowances,
such as an increase of salary for the abbe, repairs or
improvements to the parsonage, or "wages" to the
school-master.
" If the peasants once know how to read and write,
what will become of us?" said Langlume, naively, to
the general, to excuse this anti-liberal action taken
against a brother of the Christian Doctrine whom the
Abbe Brossette wished to establish as a public school¬
master in Blangy.
The general, delighted with his old Groison, returned
to Paris and immediately looked about him for other
old soldiers of the late imperial guard, with whom to
organize the defence of Les Aigues on a formidable
footing. By dint of searching out and questioning his
friends and many officers on half-pay, he unearthed
Michaud, a former quartermaster at headquarters of
the cuirassiers of the guard; one of those men whom
troopers call " hard-to-cook," a nickname derived from
the mess kitchen where refractory beans are not un¬
common. Michaud picked out from among his friends
and acquaintances, three other men fit to be his helpers,
170
Sons of the Soil.
and able to guard the estate without fear and without
reproach.
The first, named Steingel, a pure-blooded Alsacian,
was a natural son of the general of that name, who fell
in one of Bonaparte's first victories with the army of
Italy. Tall and strong, he belonged to the class of
soldiers accustomed, like the Russians, to obe}^, pas¬
sively and absolutely. Nothing hindered him in the
performance of his duty; he would have collared an
emperor or the pope if such were his orders. He ig¬
nored danger. Perfectly fearless, he had never received
the smallest scratch during his sixteen years' campaign¬
ing. He slept in the open air or in his bed with stoical
indifference. At any increased labor or discomfort, he
merely remarked, " It seems to be the order of the day."
The second man, Vatel, son of the regiment, corporal
of voltigeurs, gay as a lark, rather free and easy with
the fair sex, brave to foolhardiness, was capable of
shooting a comrade with a laugh if ordered to execute
him. With no future before him and not knowing how
to employ himself, the prospect of finding an amusing
little war in the functions of keeper, attracted him ; and
as the grand army and the Emperor had hitherto stood
him in place of a religion, so now he swore to serve
the brave Montcornet against and through all and
everything. His nature was of that essentially wrang¬
ling quality to which a life without enemies seems dull
and objectless, — the nature, in short, of a litigant, or a
policeman. If it had not been for the presence of the
sheriff's officer, he would have seized Tonsard and the
bundle of wood at the Grand-I-Vert, snapping his
fingers at the law on the inviolability of a man's
domicile.
Sons of the Soil.
171
The third man, Gaillard, also an old soldier, risen to
the rank of sub-lieutenant, and covered with wounds,
belonged to the class of mechanical soldiers. The fate
of the Emperor never left his mind and he became in¬
different to everything else. With the care of a natural
daughter on his hands, he accepted the place that was
now offered to him as a means of subsistence, taking
it as he would have taken service in a regiment.
When the general reached Les Aigues, whither he
had gone in advance of his troopers, intending to send
away Courtecuisse, he was amazed at discovering the
impudent audacity with which the keeper had fulfilled
his commands. There is a method of obe3*ing which
makes the obedience of the servant a cutting sarcasm
on the master's order. But all things in this world can
be reduced to absurdity, and Courtecuisse in this in¬
stance went beyond its limits.
One hundred and twenty-six indictments against
depredators (most of whom were in collusion with
Courtecuisse) and sworn to before the justice court of
Soulanges, had resulted in sixty-nine commitments for
trial, in virtue of which Brunet, the sheriffs officer, de¬
lighted at such a windfall of fees, had rigorously enforced
the warrants in such a way as to bring about what is
called, in legal language, a declaration of insolvency;
a condition of pauperism where the law becomes of
course powerless. By this declaration the sheriff proves
that the defendant possesses no propertj7 of an}r kind,
and is therefore a pauper. Where there is absolutely
nothing, the creditor, like the king, loses his right
to sue. The paupers in this case, carefully selected by
Courtecuisse, were scattered through five neighboring
districts, whither Brunet betook himself duly attended
172
Sons of the Soil.
by his satellites, Vermicheland Fourchon, to serve the
writs. Later he transmitted the papers to Sibilet with
a bill of costs for five thousand francs, requesting him
to obtain the further orders o'f Monsieur le comte de
Montcornet.
Just as Sibilet, armed with these papers, was calmly
explaining to the count the result of the rash orders he
had given to Courtecuisse, and witnessing, as calmly, a
burst of the most violent anger a general of the French
calvary was ever known to indulge in, Courtecuisse en¬
tered to pay his respects to his master and to bring his
own account of eleven hundred francs, the sum to which
his promised commission now amounted. The natural
man took the bit in his teeth and ran off with the gen¬
eral, who totally forgot his coronet and his field rank;
he was a trooper once more, vomiting curses of which
he probably was ashamed when he thought of them
later.
" Ha! eleven hundred francs ! " he shouted, " eleven
hundred slaps in your face ! eleven hundred kicks! —
Do you think I can't see through your lies ? Out of my
sight, or I '11 strike you flat! "
At the mere look of the general's purple face and be¬
fore that warrior could get out the last words, Courte¬
cuisse was off like a swallow.
" Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet, gently, "you are
wrong."
" Wrong! I, wrong? "
"Yes, Monsieur le comte, take care, you will have
trouble with that rascal; he will sue you."
" What do I care for that? Tell the scoundrel to
leave the place instantly! See that he takes nothing
of mine, and pay him his wages."
Sons of the Soil.
173
Four hours later the whole couutry-side was gossip¬
ing about this scene. The general, they said, had
assaulted the unfortunate Courtecuisse, and refused to
pay his wages and two thousand francs besides, which
he owed him. Extraordinary stories went the rounds,
and the master of Les Aigues was declared insane. The
next day Brunet, who had served all the warrants for
the general, now brought him on behalf of Courtecuisse
a summons to appear before the police court. The lion
was stung by gnats; but his misery was only just
beginning.
The installation of a keeper is not done without a few
formalities; he must, for instance, file an oath in the
civil court. Some days therefore elapsed before the
three keepers really entered upon their functions.
Though the general had written to Michaud to bring
his wife without waiting till the lodge at the gate of the
Avonne was ready for them, the future head-keeper, or
rather bailiff, was detained in Paris by his marriage and
his wife's family, and did not reach Les Aigues until a
fortnight later. During those two weeks, and during
the time still further required for certain formalities
which were carried out with very ill grace by the author¬
ities at Ville-aux-Fayes, the forest of Les Aigues was
shamefully devastated by the peasantry, who took ad¬
vantage of the fact that there was practically no watch
over it.
The appearance of three keepers handsomely dressed
in green cloth, the Emperor's color, with faces denoting
firmness, and each of them well-made, active, and capa¬
ble of spending their nights in the woods, was a great
event in the valley, from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes.
Throughout the district Groison was the only man
174
/Sons of the Soil.
who welcomed these veterans. Delighted to be thus
reinforced, he let fall a few threats against thieves, who
before long, he said, would be watched so closely that
they could do no damage. Thus the usual proclama¬
tion of all great commanders was not lacking to the
present war; in this case it was said aloud and also
whispered in secret.
Sibilet called the general's attention to the fact that
the gendarmerie of Soulanges, and especially its briga¬
dier, Soudry, were thoroughly and hypocritically hostile
to Les Aigues. He made him see the importance of
substituting another brigade, which might show a better
spirit.
" With a good brigadier and a company of gendarmes
devoted to your interests, you could manage the coun¬
try," he said to him.
The general went to the Prefecture and obtained from
the general in command of the division the retirement
of Soudry and the substitution of a man named Viallet,
an excellent gendarme at headquarters, who was much
praised by his general and the prefect. The company
of gendarmes at Soulanges were dispersed to other
places in the department bj' the colonel of the gen¬
darmerie, an old friend of Montcornet, and chosen men
were put in their places with secret orders to keep
watch over the estate of the Comte de Montcornet, and
prevent all future attempts to injure it; they were also
particularly enjoined not to allow themselves to be
gained over by the inhabitants of Soulanges.
This last revolutionary measure, carried out with such
rapidity that there was no possibility of countermining
it created much astonishment in Soulanges and in
Ville-aux-Fayes. Soudry, who felt himself dismissed,
/Sons of the Soil.
175
complained bitterly, and Gaubertin managed to get him
appointed mayor, which put the gendarmerie under his
orders. An outcry was made about tyranny. Mont-
cornet became an object of general hatred. Not only
were five or six lives radically changed by him, but
many personal vanities were wounded. The peasants,
taking their cue from words dropped by the small
tradesmen of Ville-aux-Fayes and Soulanges, and by
Rigou, Langlume, Guerbet, and the postmaster at
Conches, thought they were on the eve of losing what
they called their rights.
The general stopped the suit brought by Courteeuisse
by paying him all he demanded. The man then pur¬
chased, nominally for two thousand francs, a little
property surrounded on all sides but one by the estate
of Les Aigues, — a sort of cover into which the game
escaped. Rigou, the owner, had never been willing to
part with La Bachelerie, as it was called, to the posses¬
sors of the estate, but he now took malicious pleasure
in selling it, at fifty per cent discount, to Courteeuisse ;
which made the ex-keeper one of Rigou's numerous
henchmen, for all he actually paid for the property was
one thousand francs.
The three keepers, with Michaud the bailiff, and
Groison the field-keeper of Blangy, led henceforth the
life of guerillas. Living night and day in the forest,
they soon acquired that deep knowledge of woodland
things which becomes a science among foresters, saving
them much loss of time ; they studied the tracks of
animals, the species of the trees, and their habits of
growth, training their ears to every sound and to every
murmur of the woods. Still further, they observed
faces, watched and understood the different families in
1T6
Sons of the Soil.
the various villages of the district, and knew the indi¬
viduals in each family, their habits, characters, and
means of living, — a far more difficult matter than most
persons suppose. When the peasants who obtained
their living from Les Aigues saw these well-planned
measures of defence, they met them with dumb resist¬
ance or sneering submission.
From the first, Michaud and Sibilet mutually disliked
each other. The frank and loyal soldier, with the
sense of honor of a subaltern of the young garde, hated
the servile brutality and the discontented spirit of the
steward. He soon took note of the objections with
which Sibilet opposed all measures that were really
judicious, and the reasons he gave for those that were
questionable. Instead of calming the general, Sibilet,
as the reader has already seen, constantly excited him
and drove him to harsh measures, all the while trying
to daunt him by drawing his attention to countless
annoyances, petty vexations, and ever-recurring and
unconquerable difficulties. Without suspecting the role
of spy and exasperator undertaken b}r Sibilet (who se¬
cretly intended to eventually make choice in his own
interests between Gaubertin and the general) Michaud
felt that the steward's nature was bad and grasping,
and he was unable to explain to himself its apparent
honesty. The enmity which separated the two func¬
tionaries was satisfactory to the general. Michaud's
hatred led him to watcli the steward, though he would
not have condescended to play the .part of spy if the
general had not required it. Sibilet fawned upon the
bailiff and flattered him, without being able to get any¬
thing from him beyond an extreme politeness which
the loyal soldier established between them as a barrier.
Sons of the Soil.
177
Now, all preliminary details having been made
known, the reader will understand the conduct of the
general's enemies and the meaning of the conversation
which he had with what he called his two ministers,
after Madame de Montcornet, the abbe, and Blondet
left the breakfast-table.
1T8
Sons of the Soil.
IX.
CONCERNING THE MEDIOCRACY.
"Well, Michaud, what's the news?" asked the
general as soon as his wife had left the room.
" General, if you will permit me to say so, it would
be better not to talk over matters in this room. Walls
have ears, and I should like to be certain that what we
say reaches none but our own."
"Very good," said the general; "then let us walk
towards the steward's lodge by the path through the
fields ; no one can overhear us there."
A few moments later the general, with Michaud and
Sibilet, was crossing the meadows, while Madame de
Montcornet, with the abbe and Blondet, was on her
way to the gate of the Avonne.
Michaud related the scene that had just taken place
at the Grand-I-Vert.
" Vatel did wrong," said Sibilet.
"They made that plain to him at once," replied
Michaud, "by blinding him; but that's nothing.
General, you remember the plan we agreed upon, —to
seize the cattle of .those depredators against whom
judgment was given? Well, we can't do it. Brunet,
like his colleague Plissoud, is not loyal in his support.
They both warn the delinquents when they are about to
make a seizure. Vermichel, Brunet's assistant, went
to the Grand-I-Vert this morning, ostensibly after Pere
Fourchon; and Marie Tonsard, who is intimate with
Sons of the Soil.
179
Bonnebault, ran off at once to give the alarm at
Conches. The depredations have begun again."
" A strong show of authority is becoming daily more
and more necessary," said Sibilet.
"What did I tell yon?" cried the general. "We
must demand the enforcement of the judgment of the
court, which carried with it imprisonment; we must
arrest for debt all those who do not pay the damages I
have won and the costs of the suits."
" These fellows imagine the law is powerless, and
tell each other that you dare not arrest them," said
Sibilet. " They think they frighten you! They have
confederates at Ville-aux-Fayes; for even the prose¬
cuting attorney seems to have ignored the verdicts
against them."
" I think," said Michaud, seeing that the general
looked thoughtful, " that if you are willing to spend a
good deal of money j-ou can still protect the property."
" It is better to spend money than to act harshly,"
remarked Sibilet.
"What is your plan?" asked the general of his
bailiff.
"It is very simple," said Michaud. "Inclose the
whole forest with walls, like those of the park, and you
will be safe; the slightest depredation then becomes a
criminal offence and is taken to the assizes."
" At a franc and a half the square foot for the mate¬
rial only, Monsieur le comte would find his wall would
cost him a third of the whole Aralue of Les Aigues,"
said Sibilet, with a laugh.
" Well, well," said Montcornet, " I shall go and see
the attorney-general at once."
" The attorney-general," remarked Sibilet, gently,
180
Sons of the Soil.
" may perhaps share the opinion of his subordinate;
for the negligence shown by the latter is probably the
result of an agreement between them."
" Then I wish to know it! " cried Montcornet. "If
I have to get the whole of them turned out, judges, civil
authorities, and the attorney-general to boot, I '11 do it;
I '11 go to the Keeper of the Seals, or to the king
himself."
At a vehement sign made by Michaud the general
stopped short and said to Sibilet, as he turned to retrace
his steps, " Good day, my dear fellow," — words which
the steward understood.
" Does Monsieur le comte intend, as mayor, to en¬
force the necessary measures to repress the abuse of
gleaning ?" he said, respectfully. " The harvest is com¬
ing on, and if we are to publish the statutes about cer¬
tificates of pauperism and the prevention of paupers
from other districts gleaning on our land, there is no
time to be lost."
" Do it at once, and arrange with Groison," said the
count. " With such a class of people," he added, " we
must follow out the law."
So, without a moment's reflection, Montcornet gave
in to a measure that Sibilet had been proposing to him
for more than a fortnight, to which he had hitherto
refused to consent; but now, in the violence of his
anger caused by Yatel's mishap, he instantly adopted it
as the right thing to do.
When Sibilet was at some distance the general said
in a low voice to his bailiff: —
"Well, my dear Michaud, what is it; why did you
make me that sign? "
" You have an enemy within the walls, general, yet
Sons of the Soil.
181
you tell him plans which you ought not to confide even
to the secret police."
" I share your suspicions, my dear friend," replied
Montcornet, '' but I don't intend to commit the same
fault twice over. I shall not part with another steward
till I'm sure of a better. I am waiting to get rid of
Sibilet, till you understand the business of steward well
enough to take his place, and till Vatel is fit to succeed
3'ou. And yet, I have no ground of complaint against
Sibilet. He is honest and punctual in all his dealings;
he has n't kept back a hundred francs in all these five
years. He has a perfectly detestable nature, and that's
all one can say against him. If it were otherwise, what
would be his plan in acting as he does ? "
" General," said Michaud, gravely, " I will find out,
for, undoubtedly he has one; and if you would only
allow it, a good bribe to that old scoundrel Fourchon
will enable me to get at the truth; though after what
he said just now I suspect the old fellow of having more
secrets than one in his pouch. That swindling old
cordwainer told me himself they want to drive you
from Les Aigues. And let me tell }7ou, for you ought
to know it, that from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes there
is not a peasant, a petty tradesman, a farmer, a tavern-
keeper who is n't la3ring by his money to bu3r a bit of
the estate. Fourchon confided to me that Tonsard has
already put in his claim. The idea that 3rou can be
forced to sell Les Aigues has gone from end to end of
the valley like an infection in the air. It may be that
the steward's present house, with some adjoining land,
will be the price paid for Sibilet's spying. Nothing is
ever said among us that is not immediately known at
Ville-aux-Fayes, Sibilet is a relative of your enemy
13
182
Sons of the Soil.
Gaubertin. What you have just said about the attor¬
ney-general and the others will probably be reported
before you have reached the Prefecture. You don't
know what the inhabitants of this district are."
"Don't I know them? I know they are the scum
of the earth! Do you suppose I am going to yield
to such blackguards?" cried the general. "Good
heavens, I'd rather burn Les Aigues myself!"
" No need to burn it; let us adopt a line of conduct
which will baffle the schemes of these Lilliputians.
Judging by threats, general, they are resolved on war
to the knife against you; and therefore since 3rou men¬
tion incendiarism, let me beg of 3-ou to insure all your
buildings and all your farmhouses."
" Michaud, do 3'ou know whom the3' mean by ' Shop¬
man ' ? Yesterda}', as I was riding along by the Thune,
I heard some little rascals cry out, ' The Shopman!
here's the Shopman!' and then they ran away."
"Ask Sibilet; the answer is in his line, he likes
to make you angry," said Michaud, with a pained
look. "But — if you will have an answer — well,
that's a nickname these brigands have given 3*ou,
general."
'' What does it mean ? "
" It means, general— well, it refers to your father."
"Ha! the curs!" cried the count, turning livid.
"Yes, Michaud, my father was a shopkeeper, an up¬
holsterer ; the countess does n't know it. Oh ! that I
should ever — well! after all, I have waltzed with
queens and empresses. I '11 tell her this very night,"
he cried, after a pause.
" They also call you a coward," continued Michaud.
" Ha!"
Sons of the Soil.
183
"They ask how you managed, to save yourself at
Essling when nearly all your comrades perished."
The accusation brought a smile to the general's lips.
" Michaud, I shall go at once to the Prefecture!" he
cried, with a sort of fury, " if it is only to get the poli¬
cies of insurance you ask for. Let Madame la comtesse
know that I have gone. Ha, ha ! they want war, do
they? Well, they shall have it; I'll take my pleasure
in thwarting them, — every one of them, those bour¬
geois of Soulanges and their peasantry! We are in
the enemy's countiy, therefore prudence ! Tell the for¬
esters to keep within the limits of the law. Poor Vatel,
take care of him. The countess is inclined to be timid ;
she must know nothing of all this; otherwise I could
never get her to come back here."
Neither the general nor Michaud understood their
real peril. Michaud had been too short a time in this
Burgundian valley to realize the enemy's power, though
he saw its action. The general, for his part, believed
in the supremacy of the law.
The law, such as the legislature of these days manu¬
factures it, has not the virtue we attribute to it. It
strikes unequally; it is so modified in many of its
modes of application that it virtually refutes its own
principles. This fact may be noted more or less dis¬
tinctly throughout all ages. Is there any historian
ignorant enough to assert that the decrees of the most
vigilant of all powers were ever enforced throughout
France ? — for instance, that the requisitions of the Con¬
vention for men, commodities, and money were obeyed
in Provence, in the depths of Normandy, on the bor¬
ders of Brittany, as they were at the great centres of
social life ? What philosopher dares deny that a head
184
Sons of the Soil.
falls to-day in such or such department, while in a
neighboring department another head stays on its shoul¬
ders though guilty of a crime identically the same, and
often more horrible? We ask for equality in life, and
inequality reigns in law and in the death penalty!
When the population of a town falls below a certain
figure the administrative system is no longer the same.
There are perhaps a hundred cities in France where the
laws are vigorously enforced, and there the intelligence
of the citizens rises to the conception of the problem of
public welfare and future security which the law seeks
to solve ; but throughout the rest of France nothing is
comprehended beyond immediate gratification; people
rebel against all that lessens it. Therefore in nearly
one half of France we find a power of inertia which
defeats all legal action, both municipal and governmen¬
tal. This resistance, be it understood, does not affect
the essential things of public polity. The collection of
taxes, recruiting, punishment of great crimes, as a gen¬
eral thing do systematically go on; but outside of
such recognized necessities, all legislative decrees which
affect customs, morals, private interests, and certain
abuses, are a dead letter, owing to the sullen opposition
of the people. At the very moment when this book is
going through the press, this dumb resistance, which
opposed Louis XIY. in Brittany, may still be seen and
felt. See the unfortunate results of the game-laws, to
which we are now sacrificing yearly the lives of some
twenty or thirty men for the sake of preserving a few
animals.
In France the law is, to at least twenty million of
inhabitants, nothing more than a bit of white paper
posted on the doors of the church and the town-hall.
Sons of the Soil.
185
That gives rise to the term " papers," which Mouche
used to express legality. Many mayors of cantons (not
to speak of the district mayors) put up their bundles of
seeds and herbs with the printed statutes. As for the
district mayors, the number of those who do not know
how to read and write is really alarming, and the man¬
ner in which the civil records are kept is even more so.
The danger of this state of things, well-known to the
governing powers, is doubtless diminishing; but what
centralization (against which every one declaims, as it is
the fashion in France to declaim against all things good
and useful and strong), — what centralization cannot
touch, the Power against which it will forever fling itself
in vain, is that which the general was now about to attack,
and which we shall take leave to call the Mediocracy.
A great outcry was made against the tyranny of the
nobles ; in these days the cry is against that of capi¬
talists, against abuses of power, which may be merely
the inevitable galling of the social yoke, called Com¬
pact by Eousseau, Constitution by some, Charter by
others; Czar here, King there, Parliament in Great
Britain ; while in France the general levelling begun in
1789 and continued in 1830 has paved the wa}T for the
juggling dominion of the middle classes, and delivered
the nation into their hands without escape. The por¬
trayal of one fact alone, unfortunately only too common
in these days, namely, the subjection of a canton, a little
town, a sub-prefecture, to the will of a family clique, —
in short, the power acquired by Gaubertin, — will show
this social danger better than all dogmatic statements
put together. Many oppressed communities will recog¬
nize the truth of this picture ; many persons secretly
and silently crushed by this tyranny will find in these
186
Sons of the Soil.
words an obituary, as it were, which may half console
them for their hidden woes.
At the very moment when the general imagined him¬
self to be renewing a warfare in which there had really
been no truce, his former steward had just completed
the last meshes of the net-work in which he now held
the whole arrondissement of Ville-aux-Fayes. To
avoid too many explanations it is necessary to state,
once for all, succinctly, the genealogical ramifications
by means of which Gaubertin wound himself about the
country, as a boa-constrictor winds around a tree, —
with such art that a passing traveller thinks he beholds
some natural effect of the tropical vegetation.
In 1793 there were three brothers of the name of
Mouchon in the valley of the Avonne. After 1793
they changed the name of the valley to that of the
Valley des Aigues, out of hatred to the old nobility.
The eldest brother, steward of the property of the
Ronquerolles family, was elected deputy of the depart¬
ment to the Convention. Like his friend, Gaubertin's
father, the prosecutor of those days, who saved the
Soulanges family, he saved the property and the lives
of the Ronquerolles. He had two daughters; one
married to Gendrin, the lawyer, the other to Gauber¬
tin. He died in 1804.
The second, through the influence of his elder brother,
was made postmaster at Conches. His only child was
a daughter, married to a rich farmer named Guerbet.
He died in 1817.
The last of the Mouchons, who was a priest, and the
curate of Ville-aux-Fayes before the Revolution, was
again a priest after the re-establishment of Catholic
worship, and again the curate of the same little town.
Sons of the Soil.
187
He was not willing to take the oath, and was hidden for
a long time in the hermitage of Les Aigues, under the
protection of the Gaubertins, father and son. Now
about sixty-seven years of age, he was treated with
universal respect and affection, owing to the harmony
of his nature with that of the inhabitants. Parsimoni¬
ous to the verge of avarice, he was thought to be rich,
and the credit of being so increased the respect that
was shown to him. Monseigneur the bishop paid the
greatest attention to the Abbe Mouchon, who was
always spoken of as the venerable curate of Ville-aux-
Fayes; and the fact that he had several times refused
to go and live in a splendid parsonage attached to the
Prefecture, where Monseigneur wished to settle him,
made him dearer still to his people.
Gaubertin, now mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, received
steady support from his brother-in-law Gendrin, who
was judge of the municipal court. Gaubertin the
younger, the solicitor who had the most practice before
this court and much repute in the arrondissement, was
already thinking of selling his practice after five years'
exercise of it. He wanted to succeed his Uncle Gen¬
drin as counsellor whenever the latter should retire
from the profession. Gendrin's only son was com¬
missioner of mortgages.
Soudry's son, who for the last two years had been
prosecuting-attorney at the prefecture, was Gaubertin's
henchman. The clever Madame Soudry had secured
the future of her husband's son by marking him to
Rigou's only daughter. The united fortunes of the
Soudrys and the ex-monk, which would come even¬
tually to the attorney, made that young man one of the
most important personages of the department.
188
Sons of the Soil.
The sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes, Monsieur des
Lupeaulx, nephew of the general-secretary of one of the
most important ministries in Paris, was the prospective
husband of Mademoiselle Elise Gaubertin, the mayor's
youngest daughter, whose dowry, like that of her elder
sister, was two hundred thousand francs, not to speak
of " expectations." This functionary showed much
sense, though not aware of it, in falling in love with
Mademoiselle Elise when he first arrived at Ville-aux-
Fa}-es, in 1819. If it had not been for his social posi¬
tion, which made him " eligible," he would long ago have
been forced to ask for his exchange. But Gaubertin
in marrying him to his daughter thought much more of
the uncle, the general-secretary, than of the nephew;
and in return, the uncle, for the sake of his nephew,
gave all his influence to Gaubertin.
Thus the Church, the magistracy both removable
and irremovable, the municipality, and the prefecture,
the four feet of power, walked as the mayor pleased.
Let us now see how that functionary strengthened him¬
self in the spheres above and below that in which he
worked.
The department to which Ville-aux-Fayes belongs is
one the number of whose population gives it the right to
elect six. deputies. Ever since the creation of the Left
Centre of the Chamber, the arrondissement of Ville-aux-
Fayes had sent a deputy named Leclercq, formerly
banking agent of the wine department of the custom¬
house, a son-in-law of Gaubertin, and now a governor
of the Bank of France. The number of electors which
this rich valley sent to the electoral college was suffi¬
cient to insure, if onty through private dealing, the
constant appointment of Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the
Sons of the Soil.
189
patron of the Mouclion family. The voters of Ville-
aux-Fayes lent their support to the prefect, on condi¬
tion that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was maintained
in the college. Thus Gaubertin, who was the first to
broach the idea of this arrangement, was favorably
received at the Prefecture, which he often, in return,
saved from petty annoyances. The prefect always
selected three firm ministerialists, and two deputies of
the Left Centre. The latter, one of them being the
Marquis de Ronquerolles, brother-in-law of the Comte
de Serisy, and the other a governor of the Bank of
France, gave little or no alarm to the cabinet, and the
elections in this department were rated excellent at the
ministry of the interior.
The Comte de Soulanges, peer of France, selected to
be the next marshal, and faithful to the Bourbons,
knew that bis forests and other property were all well-
managed by the notary Lupin, and well-watched by
Soudry. He was a patron of Gendrin's, having ob¬
tained his appointment as judge partly by the help of
Monsieur de Ronquerolles.
Messieurs Leclercq and de Ronquerolles sat in the
Left Centre, but nearer to the left than to the centre,—
a political position which offers great advantages to
those who regard their political conscience as a garment.
The brother of Monsieur Leclercq had obtained the
situation of collector at Ville-aux-Fayes, and Leclercq
himself, Gaubertin's son-in-law, had lately bought a fine
estate beyond the valley of the Avonne, which brought
him in a rental of thirty thousand francs, with park and
chateau and a controlling influence in its own canton.
Thus, in the upper regions of the State, in both Cham¬
bers, and in the chief ministerial department, Gaubertin
190
Sons of the Soil.
could rely on an influence that was powerful and also
active, and which he was careful not to weary with un¬
important requests.
The counsellor Gendrin, appointed judge by the
Chamber, was the leading spirit of the Supreme Court;
for the chief justice, one of the three ministerial depu¬
ties, left the management of it to Gendrin during half
the year. The counsel for the Prefecture, a cousin of
Sarcus, called " Sarcus the rich," was the right-hand
man of the prefect, himself a deputy. Even without the
family reasons which allied Gaubertin and young des
Lupeaulx, a brother of Madame Sarcus would still have
been desirable as sub-prefect to the arrondissement of
Ville-aux-Fayes. Madame Sarcus, the counsellor's
wife, was a Vallat of Soulanges, a family connected
with the Gaubertins, and she was said to have " distin¬
guished " the notary Lupin in her youth. Though she
was now forty-five years old, with a son in the school of
engineers, Lupin never went to the Prefecture without
paying his respects and dining with her.
The nephew of Guerbet, the postmaster, whose father
was, as we have seen, collector of Soulanges, held the
important situation of examining judge in the municipal
court of Ville-aux-Fayes. The third judge, son of
Corbinet, the notary, belonged body and soul to the
all-powerful mayor; and, finally, young Vigor, son of
the lieutenant of the gendarmerie, was the substitute
judge.
Sibilet's father, sheriff of the court, had married his
sister to Monsieur Vigor the lieutenant, and that indi¬
vidual, father of six children, was cousin of the father
of Gaubertin through his wife, a Gaubertin-Vail at.
Eighteen months previously the united efforts of the
Sons of the Soil.
191
two deputies, Monsieur de Soulanges and Gaubertin,
bad created the place of commissary of police for the
sheriff's second son.
Sibilet's eldest daughter married Monsieur Herv6, a
school-master, whose school was transformed into a
college as a result of this marriage, s© that for the
past year Soulanges had rejoiced in the presence of a
professor.
The sheriff's youngest son was employed on the gov¬
ernment domains, with the promise of succeeding the
clerk of registrations so soon as that officer had com¬
pleted the term of service which enabled him to retire
on a pension.
The youngest Sibilet girl, now sixteen years old, was
betrothed to Corbinet, brother of the notary. And an
old maid, Mademoiselle Gaubertin-Yallat, sister of
Madame Sibilet, the sheriff's wife, held the office for the
sale of stamped paper.
Thus, wherever we turn in Ville-aux-Fayes we meet
some member of the invisible coalition, whose avowed
chief, recognized as such by every one, great and
small, was the mayor of the town, the general agent
for the entire timber business, Gaubertin!
If we turn to the other end of the valley of the
Avonne we shall see that Gaubertin ruled at Soulanges
through the Soudrys, through Lupin the assistant
mayor and steward of the Soulanges estate, who was
necessarily in constant communication with the Cointe
de Soulanges, through Sarcus, justice of the peace,
through Guerbet, the collector, through Gourdin, the
doctor, who had married a Gendrin-Vatebled. He gov¬
erned Blangy through Rigou, Conches through the post¬
master, the despotic ruler of his own district.
192
Sons of the Soil.
Gaubertin's influence was so great and powerful that
even the investments and the savings of Rigou, Soudiy,
Gendrin, Guerbet, Lupin, even Sarcus the rich himself,
were managed by his advice. The town of Ville-aux-
Fayes believed implicitly in its mayor. Gaubertin's
ability was not less extolled than his honesty and his
kindness ; he was the servant of his relatives and con¬
stituents (always with an eye to a return of benefits),
and the whole municipality adored him. The town
never ceased to blame Monsieur Mariotte, of Auxerre,
for having opposed and thwarted that worthy Monsieur
Gaubertin.
Not aware of their strength, no occasion for display¬
ing it having arisen, the bourgeoisie of Yille-aux-Fayes
contented themselves with boasting that no strangers
intermeddled in their affairs, and they believed them¬
selves excellent citizens and faithful public servants.
Nothing, however, escaped their despotic rule, which
in itself was not perceived, the result being considered
a triumph of the locality.
The only stranger in this family community was the
government engineer in the highway department; and
his dismissal in favor of the son of Sarcus the rich was
now being pressed, with a fair chance that this one weak
thread in the net would soon be strengthened. And
yet this powerful league, which monopolized all duties
both public and private, sucked the resources of the
region, and fastened on power like limpets to a ship,
escaped all notice so completely that General Mont-
cornet had no suspicion of it. The prefect boasted of
the prosperity of Yille-aux-Fayes and its arrondisse-
ment; even the minister of the interior was heard to
remark: " There's a model sub-prefecture, which runs
Sons of the Soil.
193
on wheels ; we should be lucky indeed if all were like
it." Family designs were so involved with local inter¬
ests that here, as in many other little towns and even
prefectures, a functionary who did not belong to the
place would have been forced to resign within a year.
When this despotic middle-class cousinry seizes a
victim, he is so carefully gagged and bound that com¬
plaint is impossible ; he is smeared with slime and wax
like a snail in a beehive. This invisible, imperceptible
tyranny is upheld by powerful reasons, — such as the
wish to be surrounded by their own family, to keep
property in their own hands, the mutual help they
ought to lend each other, the guarantees given to the
administration by the fact that their agent is under the
ej*es of his fellow-citizens and neighbors. What does
all this lead to? To the fact that local interests super¬
sede all questions of public interest; the centralized
will of Paris is frequently overthrown in the provinces,
the truth of things is disguised, and country communi¬
ties snap their fingers at government. In short, after
the main public necessities have been attended to, it will
be seen that the laws, instead of acting upon the masses,
receive their impulse from them ; the populations adapt
the law to themselves and not themselves to the law.
Whoever has travelled in the south or west of France,
or in Alsace, in any other way than from inn to inn to
see buildings and landscapes, will surely admit the truth
of these remarks. The results of middle-class nepotism
may be, at present, merely isolated evils; but the ten¬
dency of existing laws is to increase them. This low-
level despotism can and will cause great disasters, and
the events of the drama about to be played in the valley
of Les Aigues will prove it.
194
Sons of the Soil.
The monarchical and imperial sj'stems, more rashly
overthrown than people realize, remedied these abuses
by means of certain consecrated lives, by classifications
and categories and by those particular counterpoises
since so absurdly defined as '' privileges." There are
no privileges now, when every human being is free to
climb the greased pole of power. But surety it would
be safer to allow open and avowed privileges than
those which are underhand, based on trickery, subver¬
sive of what should be public spirit, and continuing the
work of despotism on a lower and baser level than here¬
tofore. May we not have overthrown noble tyrants
devoted to their country's good, to create the tyranny
of selfish interests ? Shall power lurk in secret places,
instead of radiating from its natural source? This is
worth thinking about. The spirit of local sectionalism,
such as we have now depicted it, will soon be seen to
invade the Chamber.
Montcornet's friend, the late prefect, Comte de la
Roche-Hugon, had lost his position just before the last
arrival of the general at Les Aigues. This dismissal
drove him into the ranks of the Liberal opposition,
where he became one of the chorus of the Left, a posi¬
tion he soon after abandoned for an embassy. His
successor, luckily for Montcornet, was a son-in-law of
the Marquis de Troisville, uncle of the countess, the
Comte de Casteran. He welcomed Montcornet as a
relation and begged him to continue his intimacy at the
Prefecture. After listening to the general's complaints
the Comte de Casteran invited the bishop, the attorney-
general, the colonel of the gendarmerie, counsellor
Sarcus, and the general commanding the division to
meet him the next day at breakfast.
Sons of the Soil.
195
The attorney-general, Baron Bourlae (so famous in
the Chanterie and Rifael suits), was one of those men
well-known to all governments, who attach themselves
to power, no matter in whose hands it is, and who make
themselves invaluable by such devotion. Having owed
his elevation in the first place to his fanaticism for the
Emperor, he now owed the retention of his official rank
to his inflexible character and the conscientiousness
with which he fulfilled his duties. He who once im¬
placably prosecuted the remnant of the Chouans now
prosecuted the Bonapartists as implacably. But years
and turmoils had somewhat subdued his energy and he
had now become, like other old devils .incarnate, per¬
fectly charming in manner and ways.
The general explained his position and the fears of
his bailiff', and spoke of the necessity of making an ex¬
ample and enforcing the rights of property.
The high functionaries listened gravely, making, how¬
ever, no reply beyond mere platitudes, such as, "Un¬
doubtedly, the laws must be upheld;" " Your cause is
that of all land-owners;" "We will consider it; but,
situated as we are, prudence is very necessary;" "A
monarchy could certainly do more for the people than
the people would do for itself, even if it were, as in
1793, the sovereign people; " " The masses suffer, and
we are bound to do as much for them as for ourselves."
The relentless attorney-general expressed such kindly
and benevolent views respecting the condition of the
lower classes that our future Utopians, had they heard
him, might have thought that the higher grade of gov¬
ernment officials were already aware of the difficulties
of that problem which modern society will be forced to
solve.
196
Sons of the Soil.
It may be well to say here that at this period of the
Restoration, various bloody encounters had taken place
in remote parts of the kingdom, caused by this very
question of the pillage of woods, and the marauding
rights which the peasants were everywhere arrogating
to themselves. Neither the government nor the court
liked these outbreaks, nor the shedding of blood which
resulted from repression. Though they felt the neces¬
sity of rigorous measures, they nevertheless treated as
blunderers the officials who were compelled to employ
them, and dismissed them on the first pretence. The
prefects were therefore anxious to shuffle out of such
difficulties whenever possible.
At the very beginning of the conversation Sarcus
(the rich) had made a sign to the prefect and the
attorney-general which Montcornet did not see, but
which set the tone of the discussion. The attorney-
general was well aware of the state of mind of the
inhabitants of the valley des Aigues through his sub¬
ordinate, Soudry the young attorney.
" I foresee a terrible struggle," the latter had said to
him. "They mean to kill the gendarmes; my spies
tell me so. It will be very hard to convict them for it.
The instant the jury feel they are incurring the hatred
of the friends of the twenty or thirty prisoners, they
will not sustain us, — we could not get them to convict
for death, nor even for the galleys. Possibly by prose¬
cuting in person you might get a few years' imprison¬
ment for the actual murderers. Better shut our eyes
than open them, if by opening them we bring on a colli¬
sion which costs bloodshed and several thousand francs
to the State, — not to speak of the cost of keeping
the guilty in prison. It is too high a price to pay for a
Sons of the Soil.
19T
victory which will onty reveal our judicial weakness to
the eyes of all."
Montcornet, who was wholly without suspicion of the
strength and influence of the Mediocracy in his happy
valley, did not even mention Gaubertin, whose hand
kept these embers of opposition always alive, though
smouldering. After breakfast the attorney-general took
Montcornet by the arm and led him to the Prefect's
studj% When the general left that room after their
conference, he wrote to his wife that he was starting
for Paris and should be absent a week. We shall see,
after the execution of certain measures suggested by
Baron Bourlac, the attorney-general, whether the secret
advice he gave Montcornet was wise, and whether in
conforming to it the count and Les Aigues were enabled
to escape the " Evil grudge."
Some minds, eager after mere amusement, will com¬
plain that these various explanations are far too long;
but we once more call attention to the fact that the
historian of the manners, customs, and morals of his
time must obey a law far more stringent than that im¬
posed on the historian of mere facts. He must show
the probability of everything, even the truth; whereas,
in the domain of history, properly so-called, the impos¬
sible must be accepted for the sole reason that it did
happen. The vicissitudes of social or private life are
brought about by a crowd of little causes derived from
a thousand conditions. The man of science is forced
to clear away the avalanche under which whole villages
lie buried, to show you the pebbles brought down from
the summit which alone can determine the formation of
the mountain. If the historian of human life were sim¬
ply telling you of a suicide, five hundred of which occur
If
198
Sons of the Soil.
yearly in Paris, the melodrama is so commonplace that
brief reasons and explanations are all that need be
given; but how shall he make you see that the self-
destruction of an estate could happen in these days
when property is reckoned of more value than life?
De re vestra agitur, said a maker of fables ; this tale
concerns the affairs and interests of all those, no matter
who they be, who possess anything.
Eemember that this coalition of a whole canton and
of a little town against a general, who, in spite of his
rash courage, had escaped the dangers of actual war,
is going on in other districts against other men who
seek only to do what is right by those districts. It is a
coalition which to-clay threatens every man, the man of
genius, the statesman, the modern agriculturalist, — in
short, all innovators.
This last explanation not only gives a true presenta¬
tion of the personages of this drama, and a serious
meaning even to its petty details, but it also throws a
vivid light upon the scene where so many social inter¬
ests are now marshalling.
Sons of the Soil.
199
X.
THE SADNESS OF A HAPPY WOMAN.
At the moment when the general was getting into
his caleche to go to the Prefecture, the countess and
the two gentlemen reached the gate of the Avonne,
where, for the last eighteen months, Michaud and his
wife Olympe had made their home.
Whoso remembered the pavilion in the state in which
we lately described it would have supposed it had been
rebuilt. The bricks fallen or broken by time, and the
cement lacking to their edges, were replaced; the slate
roof had been cleaned, and the effect of the white balus¬
trade against its bluish background restored the gay
character of the architecture. The approaches to the
building, formerly choked up and sandy, were now
cared for by the man whose duty it was to keep the
park roadways in order. The poultry-yard, stables, and
cow-shed, relegated to the buildings near the pheasantry
and hidden by clumps of trees, instead of afflicting the
eye with their foul details, now blended those soft mur¬
murs and cooings and the sound of flapping wings,
which are among the most delightful accompaniments of
Nature's eternal harmony, with the peculiar rustling
sounds of the* forest. The whole scene possessed the
double charm of a natural, untouched forest and the
elegance of an English park. The surroundings of
the pavilion, in keeping with its own exterior, presented
a certain noble, dignified, and cordial effect; while the
200
Sons of the Soil.
hand of a young and happy woman gave to its interior
a very different look from what it wore under the coarse
neglect of Courtecuisse.
Just now the rich season of the year was putting
forth its natural splendors. The perfume of the flower¬
beds blended with the wild odor of the woods ; and the
meadows near by, where the grass had been lately cut,
sent up the fragrance of new-mown hay.
When the countess and her guests reached the end
of one of the winding paths which led to the pavilion,
they saw Madame Michaud, sitting in the open air
before the door, employed in making a baby's garment.
The young woman thus placed, thus employed, added
the human charm that was needed to complete the scene,
— a charm so touching in its actuality that painters have
committed the error of endeavoring to convey it in their
pictures. Such artists forget that the soul of a land¬
scape, if they represent it trul}', is so grand that the
human element is crushed by it; whereas such a scene
added to Nature limits her to the proportions of the
personality, like a frame to which the mind of the specta¬
tor confines it. When Poussin, the Raffaelle of France,
made a landscape accessory to his Shepherds of Arcadia
he perceived plainly enough that man becomes diminu¬
tive and abject when Nature is made the principal
feature on a canvas. In that picture August is in its
glory, the harvest is ready, all simple and strong human
interests are represented. There we find realized in
nature the dream of many men whose uncertain life of
mingled good and evil harshly mixed makes them long
for peace and rest.
Let us now relate, in few words, the romance of this
home. Justin Michaud did not reply very cordially to
iSons of the Soil.
201
the advances made to him by the illustrious colonel of
cuirassiers when first offered the situation of bailiff at
Les Aigues. He was then thinking of re-entering the
service. But while the negotiations, which naturally
took him to the Hotel Montcornet, were going on, lie
met the countess's head waiting-maid. This young girl,
who was entrusted to Madame de Montcornet by her
parents, worthy farmers in the neighborhood of Alengon,
had hopes of a little fortune, some twenty or thirty
thousand francs, when the heirs were all of age. Like
other farmers who marry young, and whose own par¬
ents are still living, the father and mother of the girl,
being pinched for immediate means, placed her with
the young countess. Madame de Montcornet had her
taught to sew and to make dresses, arranged that she
should take her meals alone, and was rewarded for the
care she bestowed on Olympe Charel by one of those
unconditional attachments which are so precious to
Parisians.
Olympe Charel, a pretty Norman girl, rather stout,
with fair hair of a golden tint, an animated face lighted
by intelligent eyes, and distinguished b}' a finely curved
thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly air in spite of a
certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself,
possessed all the points that a young girl born just
above the level of the masses is likely to acquire from
whatever close companionship a mistress is willing to
allow her. Always suitably dressed, with modest bear¬
ing and manner, and able to express herself well,
Michaud was soon in love with her, — all the more when
he found that his sweetheart's dowry would one day be
considerable. The obstacles came from the countess,
who could not bear to part with so invaluable a maid ;
202
Sons of the Soil.
but when Montcornet explained to her the affairs at
Les Aigues, she gave way, and the marriage was no
longer delayed, except to obtain the consent of the
parents, which, of course, was quickly given.
Michaud, like his general, looked upon his wife as a
superior being, to whom he owed military obedience
without a single reservation. He found in the peace
of his home and his busy life out-of-doors the elements
of a happiness soldiers long for when they give up their
profession, — enough work to keep his body healthy,
enough fatigue to let him know the charms of rest.
In spite of his well-known intrepidity, Michaud had
never been seriously wounded, and he had none of
those physical pains which often sour the temper of
veterans. Like all really strong men, his temper was
even; his wife, therefore, loved him utterly. From
the time they took up their abode in the pavilion, this
happy home was the scene of a long honey-moon in
harmony with Nature and with the art whose creations
surrounded them, — a circumstance rare indeed! The
things about us are seldom in keeping with the con¬
dition of our souls!
The picture was so pretty that the countess stopped
short and pointed it out to Blondet and the abbe ; for
they could see Madame Michaud from where the}7 stood,
without her seeing them.
" I always come this way when I walk in the park,"
said the countess, softly. " I delight in looking at the
pavilion and its two turtle-doves, as much as I delight
in a fine view."
She leaned significantly on Blondet's arm, as if to
make him share sentiments too delicate for words but
which all women feel.
Sotis of the Soil.
203
" I wish I were a gate-keeper at Les Aigues," said
Blondet, smiling. "Why! what troubles 3'ou?" he
added, noticing an expression of sadness on the
countess's face.
" Nothing," she replied.
Women are always hiding some important thought
when they say, hypocritically, " It is nothing."
"A woman may be the victim of ideas which would
seem very flimsy to }7ou," she added, "but which, to
us, are terrible. As for me, I envy Olympe's lot."
"God hears you," said the abbe, smiling as though
to soften the sternness of his remark.
Madame de Montcornet grew seriously uneasy when
she noticed an expression of fear and anxiety in
Olympe's face and attitude. By the way a woman
draws out her needle or sets her stitches another wo¬
man understands her thoughts. In fact, though wear¬
ing a rose-colored dress, with her hair carefully braided
about her head, the bailiff's wife was thinking of mat¬
ters that were out of keeping with her pretty dress, the
glorious day, and the work her hands were engaged on.
Her beautiful brow, and the glance she turned some¬
times on the ground at her feet, sometimes on the foli¬
age around, evidently seeing nothing, betrayed some
deep anxiety, — all the more unconsciously because she
supposed herself alone.
"Just as I was envjdng her! What can have sad¬
dened her? " whispered the countess to the abbe.
" Madame," he replied in the same tone, "tell me
why man is often seized with vague and unaccountable
presentiments of evil in the very midst of some perfect
happiness ? "
"Abbe!" said Blondet, smiling, "you talk like a
204
Sons of the Soil.
bishop. Napoleon said, 'Nothing is stolen, all is
bought!'"
" Such a maxim, uttered by those imperial lips, takes
the proportions of society itself," replied the priest.
" Well, Glympe, my dear girl, what is the matter ? "
said the countess going up to her former maid. "You
seem sad and thoughtful; is it a lover's quarrel ? "
Madame Michaud's face, as she rose, changed com¬
pletely.
" My dear," said 111 mile Blondet, in a fatherty tone,
" I should like to know what clouds that brow of yours,
in this pavilion where you are almost as well lodged as
the Comte d' Artois at the Tuileries. It is like a nest of
nightingales in a grove ! And what a husband we
have ! — the bravest fellow of the young garde, and a
handsome one, and who loves us to distraction! If I
had known the advantages Montcornet has given you
here I should have left my diatribing business and
made myself a bailiff."
" It is not the place for a man of your talent, mon¬
sieur," replied Olympe, smiling at Blondet as an old
acquaintance.
" But what troubles you, dear? " said the countess.
'' Madame, I'm afraid — "
" Afraid! of what ? " said the countess, eagerly; for
the word reminded her of Mouche and Fourchon.
"Afraid of the wolves, is that it?" said Pmile,
making Madame Michaud a sign, which she did not
understand.
" No, monsieur, —afraid of the peasants. I was born
in Le Perche, where of course there are some bad
people, but I had no idea how wicked people could be
until I came here. I try not to meddle in Michaud's
/Sons of the Soil.
205
affairs, but I do know that he distrusts the peasants so
much that he goes armed, even in broad daylight, when
he enters the forest. He warns his men to be always
on the alert. Every now and then things happen about
here that bode no good. The other day I was walking
along the wall, near the source of that little sandy
rivulet which comes from the forest and enters the park
through a culvert about five hundred feet from here, —
you know it, madame ? it is called Silver Spring, be¬
cause of the star-flowers Bouret is said to have sown
there. Well, I overheard the talk of two women who
were washing their linen just where the path to Conches
crosses the brook; they did not know I was there.
Our house can be seen from that point, and one old
woman pointed it out to the other, saying: ' See what
a lot of money they have spent on the man who turned
out Courtecuisse.' ' They ought to pay a man well
when they set him to harass poor people as that man
does,' answered the other. ' Well, it won't be for
long,' said the first one ; ' the thing is going to end
soon. We have a right to our wood. The late Ma¬
dame allowed us to take it. That's thirty years ago,
so the right is ours.' 'We'll see what we shall see
next winter,' replied the second. ' My man has
sworn the great oath that all the gendarmerie in the
world sha'n't keep us from getting our wood; he says
he means to get it himself, and if the worst happens so
much the worse for them !' ' Good God !' cried the
other; ' we can't die of cold, and we' must bake bread
to eat! The}' want for nothing, those others ! the wife
of that scoundrel of a Michaud will be taken care of,
I warrant you!' And then, madame, the}' said such
horrible things of me and of you and of Monsieur le
206
Sons of the Soil.
comte ; and they finally declared that the farms would
all be burned, and then the chateau."
"Bah!" said Emile, "idle talk! They have been
robbing the general, and they will not be allowed to rob
him any longer. These people are furious, that's the
whole of it. You must remember that law and the
government are always strongest everywhere, even in
Burgundy. In case of an outbreak the general could
bring a regiment of cavalry here if necessary."
The abbe made a sign to Madame Michaud from
behind the countess, telling her to say no more about
her fears, which were doubtless the effect of that second
sight which true passion bestows. The soul, dwelling
exclusively on one only being, grasps in the end the
moral elements that surround it, and sees in them the
makings of the future. The woman who loves feels
the same presentiments that later illuminate her mother¬
hood. Hence a certain melancholy, a certain inexpli¬
cable sadness which surprises men, who are one and all
distracted from any such concentration of their souls
by the cares of life and the continual necessity for
action. All true love becomes to a woman an active
contemplation, which is more or less lucid, more or less
profound, according to her nature.
"Come, my dear, show your home to Monsieur
Emile," said the countess,' whose mind was so pre¬
occupied that she forgot La Pechina, who was the osten¬
sible object of her visit.
The interior of the restored pavilion was in keeping
with its exterior. On the ground-floor the old divisions
had been replaced, and the architect, sent from Paris
with his own workmen (a cause of bitter complaint in
the neighborhood against the master of Les Aigues),
Sons of the Soil.
207
had made four rooms out of the space. First, an ante¬
chamber, at the farther end of which was a winding
wooden staircase, behind which came the kitchen;
on either side of the antechamber was a dining-room
and a parlor panelled in oak now nearly black, with,
armorial bearings in the divisions of the ceiling. The
architect chosen by Madame de Montcornet for the
restoration of Les Aigues had taken care to put the
furniture of this room in keeping with its original
decoration.
At the time of which we write fashion had not yet
given an exaggerated value to the relics of past ages.
The carved settee, the high-backed chairs covered with
tapestry, the consoles, the clocks, the tall embroidery
frames, the tables, the lustres, hidden away in the
second-hand shops of Auxerre and Ville-aux-Fayes were
fifty per-cent cheaper than the modern, ready-made
furniture of the faubourg Saint Antoine. The architect
had therefore bought two or three cartloads of well-
chosen old things, which, added to a few others dis¬
carded at the chateau, made the little salon of the
gate of the Avonne an artistic creation. As to the
dining-room, he painted it in browns and hung it with
what was called a Scotch paper, and Madame Michaud
added white cambric curtains with green borders at the
windows, mahogany chairs covered with green cloth,
two large buffets and a table, also in mahogany. This
room, ornamented with engravings of military scenes,
was heated by a porcelain stove, on each side of which
were sporting-guns suspended on the walls. These
adornments, which cost but little, were talked of
throughout the whole valley as the last extreme of ori¬
ental luxury. Singular to say, they, more than anything
208
Sons of the Soil.
else, excited the envy of Gaubertin, and whenever he
thought of his fixed determination to bring Les Aigues
to the hammer and cut it in pieces, he reserved for him¬
self, in petto, this beautiful pavilion.
On the next floor three chambers sufficed for the
household. At the windows were muslin curtains which
reminded a Parisian of the particular taste and fancy
of bourgeois requirements. Left to herself in the deco¬
ration of these rooms, Madame Michaud had chosen
satin papers; on the mantel-shelf of her bedroom —
which was furnished in that vulgar style of mahogany
and Utrecht velvet which is seen everywhere, with its
high-backed bed and canopy to which embroidered
muslin curtains are fastened — stood an alabaster clock
between two candelabra covered with gauze and flanked
by two vases filled with artificial flowers protected by
glass shades, a conjugal gift of the former cavalry ser¬
geant. Above, under the roof, the bedrooms of the
cook, the man-of-all-work, and La Pechina had bene¬
fited by the recent restoration.
" Olympe, my dear, you did not tell me all," said
the countess, entering Madame Michaud's bedroom, and
leaving Emile and the abbe on the stairway, whence
they descended when they heard her shut the door.
Madame Michaud, to whom the abb£ had contrived
to whisper a word, was now anxious to say no more
about her fears, which were really greater than she had
intimated, and she therefore began to talk of a matter
which reminded the countess of the object of her visit.
" I love Michaud, madame, as you know. "Well,
how would you like to have, in your own house, a rival
always beside you? "
"A rival?"
Sons of the Soil.
209
" Yes, madame; that swarthy girl you gave me to
take care of loves Michaud without knowing it, poor
thing! The child's conduct, long a mystery to me,
has been cleared up in my mind for some days."
" Why, she is only thirteen years old ! "
" I know that, madame. But you will admit that a
woman who is three months pregnant and means to
nurse her child herself may have some fears ; but as I
did not want to speak of this before those gentlemen, I
talked a great deal of nonsense when you questioned
me," added the generous creature, adroitly.
Madame Michaud was not really afraid of Genevieve
Niseron, but for the last three days she was in mortal
terror of some disaster from the peasantry.
" How did you discover this?" said the countess.
" From everything and from nothing," replied
Olympe. " The poor little thing moves with the slow¬
ness of a tortoise when she' is obliged to obe}T me, but
she runs like a lizard when Justin asks for anything, she
trembles like a leaf at the sound of his voice ; and her
face is that of a saint ascending to heaven when she
looks at him. But she knows nothing about love ; she
has no idea that she loves him."
"Poor child!" said the countess with a smile and
tone that were full of naivete.
"And so," continued Madame Michaud, answering
with a smile the smile of her late mistress, " Genevieve
is gloomy when Justin is out of the house; if I ask
her what she is thinking of she replies that she is afraid
of Monsieur Rigou, or some such nonsense. She thinks
people envy her, though she is as black as the inside of
a chimney. When Justin is patrolling the woods at
night the child is as anxious as I am. If I open my
210
Sons of the Soil.
window to listen for the trot of his horse, I see a light
in her room, which shows me that La Pechina (as they
call her) is watching and waiting too. She never goes
to bed, any more than I do, till he comes in."
" Thirteen ! " exclaimed- the countess ; " unfortunate
child!"
"Unfortunate? no. This passion will save her."
'' From what ? " asked Madame de Montcornet.
'' From the fate which overtakes nearly all the girls
of her age in these parts. Since I have taught her
cleanliness she is much less ugly than she was; in fact,
there is something odd and wild about her which at¬
tracts men. She is so changed that you would hardly
recognize her. The son of that infamous innkeeper of
the Grand-I-Vert, Nicolas, the worst fellow in the
whole district, wants her; he hunts her like game.
Though I can't believe that Monsieur Rigou, who
changes his servant-girls every year or two is persecut¬
ing such a little fright, it is quite certain that Nicolas
Tonsard is. Justin told me so. It would be a dread¬
ful fate, for the people of this vallej' actually live like
beasts ; but Justin and our two servants and I watch
her carefully. Therefore don't be uneasy, madame;
she never goes out alone except in broad daylight, and
then only as far as the gate of Conches. If by chance
she fell into an ambush, her feeling for Justin would
give her strength and wit to escape; for all women
who have a preference in their hearts can resist a
man they hate."
" It was about her that I came," said the countess,
" and I little thought my visit could be so useful to
you. That child, you know, can't remain thirteen;
and she will probably grow better-looking."
Sons of the Soil.
211
44 Oh, madame," replied Olympe, smiling, "I am
quite sure of Justin. What a man ! what a heart! —-
If you only knew what a depth of gratitude he feels for
his general, to whom, he says, he owes his happiness.
He is only too devoted; he would risk his life for
him here, as he would on the field of battle, and he
forgets sometimes that he will one day be father of a
family."
"Ah! I once regretted losing you," said the coun¬
tess, with a glance that made Olympe blush; " but I
regret it no longer, for I see you happy. What a sub¬
lime and noble thing is married love! " she added,
speaking out the thought she had not dared express
before the abbe.
Virginie de Troisville dropped into a revery, and
Madame Michaud kept silence.
"Well, at least the girl is honest, is she not?" said
the countess, as if waking from a dream.
4' As honest as I am myself, madame."
4 4 Discreet ? "
44 As the grave."
4 4 Grateful ? "
"Ah! madame; she has moments of humility and
gentleness towards me which seem to show an angelic
nature. She will kiss m}r hands and say the most up¬
setting things. 4 Can we die of love ?' she asked me
yesterday. 4 Why do you ask me that?' I said. 41
want to know if love is a disease.'"
"Did she really say that? "
" If I could remember her exact words I would tell
you a great deal more," replied Olympe ; 44 she appears
to know much more than I do."
" Do you think, my dear, that she could take your
212 Sons of the Soil.
place in my service. I can't do without an Olympe,"
said the countess, smiling in a rather sad way.
" Not yet, madame, — she is too young; hut in two
years' time, yes. If it becomes necessary that she
should go away from here I will let you know. She
ought to be educated, and she knows nothing of the
world. Her grandfather, Pere Niseron, is a man who
would let his throat be cut sooner than tell a lie; he
would die of hunger in a baker's shop; he has the
strength of his opinions, and the girl was brought up
to all such principles. La Pechina would consider her¬
self your equal; for the old man has made her, as he
says, a republican,—just as Pere Fourchon has made
Mouche a bohemian. As for me, I laugh at such ideas,
but you might be displeased. She would revere you
as her benefactress, but never as her superior. It
can't be otherwise; she is wild and free like the swal¬
lows — her mother's blood counts for a good deal in
what she is."
'' Who was her mother ?"
" Does n't madame know the story?" said Olympe.
" Well, the son of the old sexton at Blangy, a splen¬
did fellow, so the people about here tell me, was drafted
at the great conscription. In 1809 young Niseron was
still only an artilleryman, in a corps d'armee stationed
in Illyria and Dalmatia when it received sudden orders
to advance through Hungary and cut off the retreat of
the Austrian army in case the Emperor won the battle
of Wagram. Michaud told me all about Dalmatia, for
he was there. Niseron, being so handsome a man, cap¬
tivated a Montenegrin girl of Zahara among the moun¬
tains, who was not averse to the French garrison. This
lost her the good-will of her compatriots, and life in her
Sons of the Soil.
213
own town became impossible after the departure of the
French. Zena Kropoli, called in derision the French¬
woman, followed the artillery, and came to France
after the peace. Auguste Niseron asked permission
to marry her; but the poor woman died at Vincennes
in January, 1810, after giving birth to a daughter, our
Genevieve. The papers necessary to make the mar¬
riage legal arrived a few days later. Auguste Niseron
then wrote to his father to come and take the child,
with a wetnurse he had got from its own country; and
it was lucky he did, for he was killed soon after by
the bursting of a shell at Montereau. Kegistered by
the name of Genevieve and baptized at Soulanges, the
little Dalmatian was taken under the protection of
Mademoiselle Laguerre, who was touched by her story.
It seems as if it were in the destiny of the child to be
taken care of by the owners of Les Aigues! Pere
Niseron obtained its clothes, and now and then some
help in monej7 from Mademoiselle."
The countess and Olympe were just then standing
before a window from which they could see Michaud
approaching the abbe and Blondet, who were walking
up and down the wide, semi-circular gravelled space
which repeated on the park side of the pavilion the
exterior half-moon; they were conversing earnestly.
"Where is she?" said the countess; "you make
me anxious to see her."
" She is gone to carry milk to Mademoiselle Gaillard
at the gate of Conches ; she will soon be back, for it is
more than an hour since she started."
" Well, I '11 go and meet her with those gentlemen,"
said Madame de Montcornet, going downstairs.
Just as the countess opened her parasol, Michaud
15
214
Sons of the Soil.
came up and told her that the general had left her a
widow for probably two days.
"Monsieur Michaud," said the countess, eagerly,
" don't deceive me, there is something serious going
on. Your wife is frightened, and if there are many
persons like Pere Fourchon, this part of the country
will be uninhabitable — "
" If it were so, madame," answered Michaud, laugh¬
ing, "we should not be in the land of the living, for
nothing would be easier than to make away with us.
The peasants grumble, that's all. But as to passing
from growls to blows, from pilfering to crime, they
care too much for life and the free air of the fields.
Olympe has been saying something that frightened you,
but you know she is in state to be frightened at noth¬
ing," he added, drawing his wife's hand under his arm
and pressing it to warn her to say no more.
" Cornevin ! Juliette ! " cried Madame Michaud, who
soon saw the head of her old cook at the window.
"I am going for a little walk; take care of the
premises."
Two enormous dogs, who began to bark, proved that
the effective of the garrison at the gate of the Avonne
was not to be despised. Hearing the dogs, Cornevin,
an old Percheron, Olympe's foster-father, came from
behind the trees, showing a head such as no other re¬
gion than Le Perche can manufacture. Cornevin was
undoubtedly a Chouan in 1794 and 1799.
The whole party accompanied the countess along that
one of the six forest avenues which led directly to the
gate of Conches, crossing the Silver-spring rivulet.
Madame de Montcornet walked in front with Blondet.
The abbe and Michaud and his wife talked in a low
Sons of the Soil.
215
voice of the revelation that had just been made to the
countess of the state of the country.
" Perhaps it is providential," said the abbd; "for if
madame is willing, we might, perhaps, by dint of bene¬
fits and constant consideration of their wants, change
the hearts of these people."
At about six hundred feet from the pavilion and be¬
low the brook, the countess caught sight of a broken
red jug and some spilt milk.
" Something has happened to the poor child ! " she
cried, calling to Michaud and his wife, who were return¬
ing to the pavilion.
"A misfortune like Perrette's," said Blondet,
laughing.
" No ; the poor child has been surprised and pursued,
for the jug was thrown outside the path," said the abbe,
examining the ground.
"Yes, that is certainly La Pechina's step," said Mi¬
chaud ; " the print of the feet, which have turned, you
see, quickly, shows sudden terror. The child must have
darted in the direction of the pavilion, trying to get
back there."
Every one followed the traces which the bailiff pointed
out as he walked along examining them. Presently he
stopped in the middle of the path about a hundred feet
from the broken jug, where the girl's foot-prints ceased.
" Here," he said, " she turned towards the Avonne ;
perhaps she was headed off from the direction of the
pavilion.
"But she has been gone more than an hour," cried
Madame Michaud.
Alarm was in all faces. The abbd ran towards
the pavilion, examining the state of the road, while
216
Sons of the Soil.
Michaud, impelled by the same thought, went up the
path towards Conches.
" Good God! she fell here," said Michaud, returning
from a place where the footsteps stopped near the
brook, to that where they had turned in the road, and
pointing to the ground, he added, " See ! "
The marks were plainly seen of a body lying at full
length on the sandy path.
"The footprints which have entered the wood are
those of some one who wore knitted soles," said the abbe.
" A woman, then," said the countess.
" Down there, by the broken pitcher, are the foot¬
steps of a man," added Michaud..
" I don't see traces of any other foot," said the abbe,
who was tracking into the wood the prints of the
woman's feet.
" She must have been lifted and carried into the
wood," cried Michaud.
"That can't be, if it is really a woman's foot," said
Blond et.
" It must be some trick of that wretch, Nicolas,"
said Michaud. '' He has been watching La Pechina
for some time. Only this morning I stood two hours
under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was
about. A woman may have helped him."
" It is dreadful! " said the countess.
" They call it amusing themselves," added the priest,
in a sad and grieved tone.
" Oh ! La Pdchina would never let them keep her,"
said the bailiff; " she is quite able to swim across the
river. I shall look along the banks. Go home, my
dear Olympe ; and you gentlemen and madame, please
to follow the avenue towards Conches."
Sons of the Soil.
217
" What a country ! " exclaimed the countess.
" There are scoundrels everywhere," replied Blondet.
"Is it true, Monsieur l'abbe," asked Madame de
Montcornet, "that I saved the poor child from the
clutches of Rigou? "
" Every young girl over fifteen years of age whom
you may protect at the chateau is saved from that
monster," answered the abbd. " In trying to get pos¬
session of La Pechina from her earliest years, the
apostate sought to satisfy both his lust and his ven¬
geance. When I took Pere Niseron as sexton I told
him what Rigou's intentions were. That is one of the
causes of the late mayor's rancor against me ; his ha¬
tred grew out of it. Pere Niseron said to him solemnly
that he would kill him if any harm came to Genevieve,
and he made him responsible for all attempts upon the
poor child's honor. I can't help thinking that this pur¬
suit of Nicolas is the result of some infernal collusion
with Rigou, who thinks he can do as he likes with these
people."
" Does n't he fear the law? "
" In the first place, he is father-in-law of the prose-
cuting-attorney," said the abbe, pausing to listen. "And
then," he resumed, "you have no conception of the
utter indifference of the rural police to what is done
around them. So long as the peasants do not burn the
farm-houses and buildings, commit no murders, poison
no one, and pay their taxes, they let them do as they
like; and as these people are not restrained by any
religious principle, horrible things happen every day.
On the other side of the Avonne helpless old men are
afraid to stay in their own homes, for they are allowed
nothing to eat; they wander out into the fields as far as
218
Sons of the Soil.
their tottering legs can bear them, knowing well that if
they take to their beds they will die for want of food.
Monsieur Sarcus, the magistrate, tells me that if they
arrested and tried all criminals, the costs would ruin
the municipality."
"Then he at least sees how things are?" said
Blondet.
" Monseigneur thoroughly understands the condition
of the valle}', and especially the state of this district,"
continued the abbe. " Religion alone can cure such
evils; the law seems to me powerless, modified as it
is now — "
The words were interrupted by loud cries from the
woods, and the countess, preceded by Emile and the
abbe, sprang bravely into the brushwood in the direction
of the sounds.
Sons of the Soil.
219
XI.
THE OARISTYS, EIGHTEENTH ECLOGUE OF THE¬
OCRITUS; LITTLE ADMIRED ON THE POLICE
CALENDAR.
The sagacity of a savage, which Michaud's new
occupation had developed among his faculties, joined
to an acquaintance with the passions and interests of
Blangy, enabled him partially to understand a third
idyl in the Greek style, which poor villagers like
Tonsard, and middle-aged rich men like Rigou, trans¬
late freely — to use the classic word — in the depths of
their country solitudes.
Nicolas, Tonsard's second son, had drawn an un¬
lucky number at a recent conscription. Two years
earlier his eldest brother had been pronounced, through
the influence of Soudry, Gaubertin, and Sarcus the rich,
unfit for military service, on account of a pretended
weakness in the muscles of the right arm ; but as Jean-
Louis had since wielded instruments of husbandry with
remarkable force and skill, a good deal of talk on the
subject had gone through the district. Soudr}r, Rigou,
and Gaubertin, who were the special protectors of the
family, had warned Tonsard that he must not expect to
save Nicolas, who was tall and vigorous, from being
recruited if he drew a fatal number. Nevertheless,
Gaubertin and Rigou were so well aware of the impor¬
tance of conciliating bold men able and willing to do
mischief, if properly directed against Les Aigues, that
220
Sons of the Soil.
Rigou held out certain hopes of safety to Tonsard and
his son. The late monk was occasionally visited by
Catherine Tonsard who was veiy devoted to her brother
Nicolas ; on one such occasion Rigou advised her to
appeal to the general and the countess.
" They may be glad to do you this service to cajole
3*ou; in that case, it is just so much gained from the
enem}'," he said. "If the Shopman refuses, then we
shall see what we shall see."
Rigou foresaw that the general's refusal would pass
as one wrong the more done by the land-owner to the
peasantry, and would bind Tonsard by an additional
motive of gratitude to the coalition, in case the craft}''
mind of the innkeeper could suggest to him some plaus¬
ible way of liberating Nicolas.
Nicolas, who was soon to appear before the examin¬
ing board, had little hope of the general's intervention
because of the harm done to Les Aigues b}r all the
members of the Tonsard family. His passion, or to
speak more correctly, his caprice and obstinate pursuit
of La Pechina were so aggravated by the prospect
of his immediate departure, which left him no time to
seduce her, that he resolved on attempting violence.
The child's contempt for her prosecutor, plainly shown,
excited the Lovelace of the Grand-I-Vert to a hatred
whose fury was equalled only by his desires. For the
last three days he had been watching for La Pechina,
and the poor child knew she was watched. Between
Nicolas and his prey the same sort of understanding
existed which there is between the hunter and the
game. When the girl was at some little distance from
the pavilion she saw Nicolas in one of the paths which
ran parallel to the walls of the park, leading to the
Sons of the Soil.
221
• bridge of the Avonne. She could easily have escaped
the man's pursuit had she appealed to her grandfather;
but all young girls, even the most unsophisticated,
have a strange fear, possibly instinctive, of trusting to
their natural protectors under the like circumstances.
Genevieve had heard Pere Niseron take an oath to
kill any man, no matter who he was, who should dare
to touch (that was his word) his granddaughter. The
old man thought the child amply protected by the halo of
white hair and honor which a spotless life of three-score
years and ten had laid upon his brow. The vision of
bloody scenes terrifies the imagination of young girls
so that they need not dive to the bottom of their hearts
for other numerous and inquisitive reasons which seal
their lips.
When La Pe china started with the milk which
Madame Michaud had sent to the daughter of Gaillard,
the keeper of the gate of Conches, whose cow had just
calved, she looked about her cautiously, like a cat when
it ventures out into the street. She saw no signs
of Nicolas; she listened to the silence, as the poet
says, and hearing nothing, she concluded that the rascal
had gone to his day's work. The peasants were just
beginning to cut the rye; for they were in the habit
of getting in their own harvests first, so as to benefit
by the best strength of the mowers. But Nicolas was
not a man to mind losing a day's work, — especially
now that he expected to leave the country after the fair
at Soulanges and begin, as the country people say, the
new life of a soldier.
When La Pechina, with the jug on her head, was
about half-way, Nicolas slid like a wild-cat down the
trunk of an elm, among the branches of which he was
222
Sons of the Soil.
hiding, and fell like a thunderbolt in front of the girl,
who flung away her pitcher and trusted to her fleet legs
to regain the pavilion. But a hundred feet farther on,
Catherine Tonsard, who was on the watch, rushed out
of the wood and knocked so violently against the flying
girl that she was thrown down. The violence of the fall
made her unconscious. Catherine picked her up and
carried her into the woods to the middle of a tiny
meadow where the Silver-spring brook bubbled up.
Catherine Tonsard was tall and strong, and in every
respect the type of woman whom painters and sculptors
take, as the Republic did in former days, for their
figures of Liberty. She charmed the young men of
the valley of the Avonne with her voluminous bosom,
her muscular legs, and a waist as robust as it was flexi¬
ble ; with her plump arms, her eyes that could flash and
sparkle, and her jaunty air; with the masses of hair
twisted in coils around her head, her masculine fore¬
head and her red lips curling with that same ferocious
smile which Eugene Delacroix and David (of Angers)
caught and represented so admirably. True image of
the People, this fiery and swarthy creature seemed to
emit revolt through her piercing yellow eyes, blazing
with the insolence of a soldier. She inherited from her
father so violent a nature that the whole family, except
Tonsard, and all who frequented the tavern feared her.
"Well, how are you now?" she said to La P6china
as the latter recovered consciousness.
Catherine had placed her victim on a little mound
beside the brook and was bringing her to her senses
with dashes of cold water. " Where am I?" said the
child, opening her beautiful black eyes through which a
sun-ray seemed to glide.
Sons of the Soil.
228
" Ali! " said Catherine, "if it had n't been for rae
you'd have been killed."
" Thank you," said the girl, still bewildered; " what
happened to me?"
" You stumbled over a root and fell flat in the road
over there, as if shot. Ha! how you did run!"
" It was your brother who made me," said La Pdchi-
na, remembering Nicolas.
" My brother? I did not see him," said Catherine.
" What did he do to you, poor fellow, that should make
you fly as if he were a wolf? Isn't he handsomer than
your Monsieur Michaud ? "
" Oh! " said the girl, contemptuously.
" See here, little one; you are laying up a crop of
evils for yourself by loving those who persecute us.
Why don't you keep to our side ? "
" Why don't you come to church; and why do you
steal things night and day?" asked the child.
" So you let those people talk you over!" sneered
Catherine. "They love us, don't they?—just as they
love their food which they get out of us, and they want
new dishes every da}'. Did you ever know one of them
to marry a peasant-girl? Not they ! Does Sarcus the
rich let his son marry that handsome Gatienne Gibou-
lard? Not he, though she is the daughter of a rich
upholsterer. You have never been at the Tivoli ball
at Soulanges in Socquard's tavern; you had better
come. You '1.1 see 'em all there, these bourgeois fellows,
and you '11 find they are not worth the money we shall
get out of them when we've pulled them down. Come
to the fair this year!"
" They say it's fine, that Soulanges fair! " cried La
Pechiua, artlessly.
224
/Sons of the Soil.
"I '11 tell you what it is in two words," said Cather¬
ine. " If you are handsome you're well ogled. What
is the good of being as pretty as 3*011 are if }*ou are not
admired by the men ? Ha ! when I heard one of them
say for the first time, ' What a fine sprig of a girl!' all
my blood was on fire. It was at Socquard's, in the
middle of a dance ; m}* grandfather, Fourchon, who
was pla3Ting the clarionet, heard it and laughed. Tivoli
seemed to me as grand and fine as heaven itself. It's
lighted up, my dear, with glass lamps, and you'll think
3*ou are in paradise. All the gentlemen of Soulanges
and Auxerre and Ville-aux-Fa3^es will be there. Ever
since that first night I've loved the place where those
words rang in ny* ears like military music. It's worth
giving }Tour eternity to hear such words said of 3*0u
by a man 3rou love."
"Yes, perhaps," replied La Pecliina, thoughtfully.
" Then come, and get the praise of men ; you 're sure
of it!" cried Catherine. "Ha! 3rou'll have a fine
chance, handsome as you are, to pick up good luck.
There's the son of Monsieur Lupin, Amauty, he might
marry 3*011. But that's not all; if 3rou onl3r knew what
comforts 3*ou can find there against vexation and woriy.
Wh3T, Socquard's boiled wine will make 3*ou forget
every trouble you ever had. Fancy! it can make 3rou
dream, and feel as light as a bird. Did n't you ever
drink boiled wine ? Then you don't know what life is."
The privilege enjoyed by older persons to wet their
throats with boiled wine excites the curiosity of the
children of the peasantry over twelve years of age to
such a degree that Genevieve had once put her lips to
a glass of boiled wine ordered by the doctor for her
grandfather when ill. The taste had left a sort of magic
Sons of the Soil.
225
Influence in the memory of the poor child, which may
explain the interest with which she listened, and on
which the evil-minded Catherine counted to carry out a
plan already half-successful. No doubt she was trjdng
to bring her victim, giddy from the fall, to the moral
intoxication so dangerous to young women living in the
wilds of nature, whose imagination, deprived of other
nourishment, is all the more ardent when the occasion
comes to exercise it. Boiled wine, which Catherine had
held in reserve, was to end the matter by intoxicating
the victim.
" What do they put into it?," asked La Pechina.
"All sorts of things," replied Catherine, glancing
back to see if her brother were coming; "in the first
place, those what d' ye call 'ems that come from India,
cinnamon, and herbs that change you by magic,—you
fancy you have everything you wish for; boiled wine
makes you happy! you can snap your fingers at all
your troubles! "
" I should be afraid to drink boiled wine at a dance,"
said La Pechina.
" Afraid of what?" asked Catherine. " There's not
the slightest danger. Think what lots of people there
will be. All the bourgeois will be looking at us ! Ah !
it is one of those days that make up for all our misery.
See it and-die, — for it's enough to satisfy any one."
" If Monsieur and Madame Michaud would only take
me!" cried La Pechina, her eyes blazing.
" Ask your grandfather Niseron; you have not given
him up, poor dear man, and he'd be pleased to see you
admired like a little queen. "Why do you like those
Arminacs the Michauds better than 3rour grandfather
and the Burgundians. It's bad to neglect your own
226
Sons of the Soil.
people. Besides, why should the Michauds object if
your grandfather takes you to the fair ? Oh! if you
knew what it is to reign over a man and put him beside
himself, and say to him, as I say to Godain, "Go
there!" and he goes, "Do that!" and he does it!
You've got it in you, little one, to turn the head of a
bourgeois like that son of Monsieur Lupin. Monsieur
Amaury took a fancy to my sister Marie because she
is fair and because he is half-afraid of me ; but he'd
adore you, for ever since those people at the pavilion
have spruced you up a bit you've got the airs of an
empress."
Adroitly leading the innocent heart to forget Nicolas
and so put it off its guard, Catherine distilled into the
girl the insidious nectar of compliments. Unawares,
she touched a secret wound. La Pechina, without be¬
ing other than a poor peasant girl, was a specimen of
alarming precocity, like many another creature doomed
to die as prematurely as it blooms. Strange pro¬
duct of Burgundian and Montenegrin blood, conceived
and borne amid the toils of war, the girl was doubt¬
less in many ways the result of her congenital circum¬
stances. Thin, slender, brown as a tobacco leaf, and
short in stature, she nevertheless possessed extraordi¬
nary strength, — a strength unseen by the eyes of peas¬
ants, to whom the mysteries of the nervous system are
unknown. Nerves are not admitted into the medical
rural mind.
At thirteen years of age Genevieve had completed
her growth, though she was hardly as tall as an ordi¬
nary girl of her age. Did her face owe its topaz skin,
so dark and yet so brilliant, dark in tone and brilliant
in the quality of its tissue, giving a look of age to the
Sons of the Soil.
227
childish face, to her Montenegrin origin, or to the ar¬
dent sun of Burgund}* ? Medical science may dismiss
the inquiry. The premature old age on the surface of
the face was counterbalanced by the glow, the fire, the
wealth of light which made the eyes two stars. Like
all eyes which fill with sunlight and need, perhaps, some
sheltering screen, the eyelids were fringed with lashes
of extraordinary length. The hair, of a bluish black,
long and fine and abundant, crowned a brow moulded
like that of the Farnese Juno. That magnificent dia¬
dem of hair, those grand Armenian eyes, that celestial
brow eclipsed the rest of the face. The nose, though
pure in form as it left the brow, and graceful in curve,
ended in flattened and flaring nostrils. Anger increased
this effect at times, and then the face wore an abso¬
lutely furious expression. All the lower part of the
face, like the lower part of the nose, seemed unfinished,
as if the clay in the hands of the divine sculptor had
proved insufficient. Between the lower lip and the
chin the space was so short that any one taking La
Pechina by the chin would have rubbed the lip; but
the teeth prevented all notice of this defect. One might
almost believe those little bones had souls, so brilliant
were they, so polished, so transparent, so exquisitely
shaped, disclosed as they were by too wide a mouth,
curved in lines that bore resemblance to the fantastic
shapes of coral. The shells of the ears were so trans¬
parent to the light that in the sunshine they were rose-
colored. The complexion, though sun-burned, showed
a marvellous delicacy in the texture of the skin. If,
as Buffon declared, love lies in touch, the softness of
the girl's skin must have had the penetrating and incit¬
ing influence of the fragrance of daturas. The chest
228
Sons of the Soil.
and indeed the whole body was alarmingly thin; but
the feet and hands, of alluring delicacy, showed re¬
markable nervous power, and a vigorous organism.
This mixture of diabolical imperfections and divine
beauties, harmonious in spite of discords, for they
blended in a species of savage dignity, also this tri¬
umph of a powerful soul over a feeble bod}T, as written
in those eyes, made the child, when once seen, unfor¬
gettable. Nature had wished to make that frail young
being a woman; the circumstances of her conception
moulded her with the face and body of a boy. A poet
observing the strange creature would have declared
her native clime to be Arabia the Blest; she belonged
to the Afrite and Genii of Arabian tales. Her face told
no lies. She had the soul of that glance of fire, the
intellect of those lips made brilliant by the bewitching
teeth, the thought enshrined within that glorious brow,
the passion of those nostrils ready at all moments to
snort flame. Therefore love, such as we imagine it on
burning sands, in lonely deserts, filled that heart of
twenty in the breast of a child, doomed, like the snowy
heights of Montenegro, to wear no flowers of the spring.
Observers ought now to understand how it was that
La Pechina, from whom passion issued by every pore,
awakened in perverted natures the feelings deadened by
abuse; just as water fills the mouth at sight of those
twisted, blotched, and speckled fruits which gourmands
know by experience, and beneath whose skin nature has
put the rarest flavors and perfumes. Why did Nicolas,
that vulgar laborer, pursue this being who was worthy
of a poet, while the eyes of the country-folk pitied her
as a sickly deformity ? Why did Rigou, the old man,
feel the passion of a young one for this girl ? Which
Sons of the Soil.
229
of the two men was young, and which was old? Was
the young peasant as blase as the old usurer? Why
did these two extremes of life meet in one common
and devilish caprice? Does the vigor that draws to
its close resemble the vigor that is only dawning? The
moral perversities of men are gulfs guarded by sphinxes ;
they begin and end in questions to which there is no
answer.
The exclamation, formerty quoted, of the countess,
" Piccina! " when she first saw Genevieve by the road¬
side, open-mouthed at sight of the carriage and the
elegantly dressed woman within it, will be understood.
This girl, almost a dwarf, of Montenegrin vigor, loved
the handsome, noble bailiff, as children of her age love,
when they do love, that is to say, with childlike passion,
with the strength of youth, with the devotion which in
truly virgin souls gives birth to divinest poes}7. Cather¬
ine had just swept her coarse hands across the sensitive
strings of that choice harp, strung to the breaking-point.
To dance before Michaud, to shine at the Soulanges
ball and inscribe herself on the memory of that adored
master! What glorious thoughts ! To fling them into
that volcanic head was like casting live coal upon straw
dried in the August sun.
"No, Catherine," replied La Pechina, "I am ugly
and puny ; my lot is to sit in a corner and never to be
married, but live alone in the world."
"Men like weaklings," said Catherine. "You see
me, don't you?" she added, showing her handsome,
strong arms. " I please Godain, who is a poor stick;
I please that little Charles, the count's groom; but
Lupin's son is afraid of me. I tell you it is the small
kind of men who love me, and who say when they see
16
230
Sons of the Soil.
me go by at Ville-aux-Fayes and at Soulanges, ' Ha!
what a fine girl!' Now you, that's another thing;
you '11 please the fine men."
" Ah ! Catherine, if it were true — that! " cried the
bewitched child.
" It is true, it is so true that Nicolas, the handsomest
man in the canton, is mad about 3*011; he dreams of
3*ou, he is losing his mind ; and }*et ail the other girls
are in love with him. He is a fine lad ! If you '11 put
on a white dress and 3rellow ribbons, and come to
Socquard's for the midsummer ball, 3*ou '11 be the
handsomest girl there, and all the fine people from
Ville-aux-Fayes will see you. Come, won't }*ou? —
See here, I 've been cutting grass for the cows, and I
brought some boiled wine in my gourd ; Socquard gave
it me this morning," she added quickl}', seeing the half-
delirious expression in La Pechina's e3*es which women
understand so well. "We'll share it together, and
you'll fancy the men are in love with }*ou."
During this conversation Nicolas, choosing the grassy
spots to step on, had noiselessty slipped behind the
trunk of an old oak near which his sister had seated
La Pechina. Catherine, who had now and then cast
her eyes behind her, saw her brother as she turned to
get the boiled wine.
" Here, take some," she said, offering it.
"It burns me!" cried Genevieve, giving back the
gourd, after taking two or three swallows from it.
" Silly child ! " replied Catherine ; " see here ! " and
she emptied the rustic bottle without taking breath.
"See how it slips down; it goes like a sunbeam into
the stomach."
" But I ought to be carrying the milk to Mademoi-
Sons of the Soil.
281
selle Gaillard," cried Genevieve; " and it is all spilt!
Nicolas frightened me so! "
" Don't you like Nicolas?"
"No," answered Genevieve. "Why does he per¬
secute me? He can get plenty other girls, who are
willing."
" But if he likes you better than all the other girls in
the valley — "
" So much the worse for him."
" I see you don't know him," answered Catherine, as
she seized the girl rapidly by the waist and flung her on
the grass, holding her down in that position with her
strong arms. At this moment Nicholas appeared.
Seeing her odious persecutor, the child screamed with
all her might, and drove him five feet awajT with a vio¬
lent kick in the stomach ; then she twisted herself like
an acrobat, with a dexterity for which Catherine was
not prepared, and rose to run away. Catherine, still on
the ground, caught her by one foot and threw her head¬
long on her face. This frightful fall stopped the brave
child's cries for a moment. Nicholas attempted, furi¬
ously, to seize his victim, but she, though giddy from
the wine and the fall, caught him by the throat in a
grip of iron.
" Help ! she's strangling me, Catherine," cried Nico¬
las, in a stifled voice.
La Pechina uttered piercing screams, which Catherine
tried to choke by putting her hands over the girl's
mouth, but she .bit them and drew blood. It was at
this moment that Blondet, the countess, and the abbe
appeared at the edge of the wood.
" Here are those Aigues people ! " exclaimed Cather¬
ine, helping Genevieve to rise.
232
Sons of the Soil.
" Do you want to live?" hissed Nicolas in the child's
ear.
"What then?" she asked.
" Tell them we were all plaj'ing, and I '11 forgive
3'ou," said Nicolas, in a threatening voice.
" Little wretch, mind }"Ou say it! " repeated Cather¬
ine, whose glance was more terrifying than her brother's
murderous threat.
" Yes, I will, if you let me alone," replied the child.
"But anyhow I will never go out again without my
scissors."
" You are to hold your tongue, or I '11 drown you in
the Avonne," said Catherine, ferociously.
"You are monsters," cried the abbe, coming up;
" you ought to be arrested and taken to the assizes."
"Ha! and pray what do }"OU clo in your drawing-
rooms?" said Nicolas, looking full at the countess and
Blondet. " You play and amuse yourselves, don't
you? "Well, so do we, in the fields which are ours.
We can't always work ; we must play sometimes, — ask
my sister and La Pechina."
" How do you fight if you call that playing ? " cried
Blondet.
Nicolas gave him a murderous look.
"Speak!" said Catherine, gripping La Pechina by
the forearm and leaving a blue bracelet on the flesh.
"Were not we amusing ourselves?"
"Yes, madame, we were amusing ourselves," said
the child, exhausted by her display of strength, and
now breaking down as though she were about to faint.
" You hear what she says, madame," said Catherine,
boldly, giving the countess one of those looks which
women give each other like dagger thrusts.
Sons of the Soil.
233
She took her brother's arm, and the pair walked off,
not mistaking the opinion they left behind them in the
minds of the three persons who had interrupted the
scene. Nicolas twice looked back, and twice encoun¬
tered Blondet's gaze. The journalist continued to
watch the tall scoundrel, who was broad in the shoulders,
healthy and vigorous in complexion, with black hair
curling tightly, and whose rather soft face showed upon
its lips and around the mouth certain lines which reveal
the peculiar cruelty that characterizes sluggards and
voluptuaries. Catherine swung her petticoat, striped
blue and white, with an air of insolent coquetry.
" Cain and his wife ! " said Blondet to the abbe.
"You are nearer the truth than }*ou know," replied
the priest.
" Ah! Monsieur le cure, what will they do to me? "
said La Pechina, when the brother and sister were out
of sight.
The countess, as white as her handkerchief, was so
overcome that she heard neither Blondet nor the abbe
nor La Pechina.
" It is enough to drive one from this terrestial para¬
dise," she said at last. " But the first thing of all is to
save that child from their claws."
" You are right," said Blondet in a low voice. " That
child is a poem, a living poem."
Just then the Montenegrin girl was in a state where
soul and body smoke, as it were, after the conflagration
of an anger which has driven all forces, physical and
intellectual, to their utmost tension. It is an unspeak¬
able and supreme splendor, which reveals itself only
under the pressure of some frenzy, be it resistance or
victor}7, love or martyrdom. She had left home in a
234
Sons of the Soil.
dress with alternate lines of brown and yellow, and a
collarette which she pleated herself by rising before day¬
light ; and she had not yet noticed the condition of her
gown soiled by her struggle on the grass, and her collar
torn in Catherine's grasp. Feeling her hair hanging
loose, she looked about for her comb. At this moment
Michaud, also attracted by the screams, came upon the
scene. Seeing her god, La Pechina recovered her full
strength. "Monsieur Michaud," she cried, "he did
not even touch me! "
The cry, the look, the action of the girl were an elo¬
quent commentary, and told more to Blondet and the
abbe than Madame Michaud had told the countess
about the passion of that strange nature for the bailiff,
who was utterly unconscious of it.
'' The scoundrel!" cried Michaud.
Then, with an involuntary and impotent gesture,
such as mad men and wise men both can be forced into
giving, he shook his fist in the direction in which he
had caught sight of Nicolas disappearing with his sister.
" Then you were not playing?" said the abbe with a
searching look at La Pechina.
"Don't fret her," interposed the countess; "let us
return to the pavilion."
Genevieve, though quite exhausted, found strength
under Michaud's eyes to walk. The countess followed
the bailiff through one of the by-paths known to keep¬
ers and poachers where only two can go abreast, and
which led to the gate of the Avonne.
" Michaud," said the countess when they reached
the depth of the wood, "We must find some way of
ridding the neighborhood of such vile people; that
child is actually in danger of death."
Sons of the Soil.
235
"In the first place," replied Michaud, "Genevieve
shall not leave the pavilion. My wife will be glad to
take the nephew of Vatel, who has the care of the park
roads, into the house. With Gounod (that is his name)
and old Cornevin, my wife's foster-father, always at hand,
La Pechina need never go out without a protector."
" I will tell Monsieur to make up this extra expense
to you," said the countess. " But this does not rid us
of that Nicolas. How can we manage that? "
" The means are easy and right at hand," answered
Michaud. " Nicolas is to appear very soon before the
court of appeals on the draft. The general, instead of
asking for his release, as the Tonsards expect, has only
to advise his being sent to the army — "
" If necessary, I will go myself," said the countess,
" and see my cousin, de Castdran, the prefect. But
until then, I tremble for that child — "
The words were said at the end of the path close to
the open space by the bridge. As they reached the
edge of the bank the countess gave a cry; Michaud
advanced to help her, thinking she had struck her foot
against a stone; but he shuddered at the sight that
met his eyes.
Marie Tonsard and Bonnebault, seated below the
bank, seemed to be conversing, but were no doubt hid¬
ing there to hear what passed. Evidently they had
left the wood as the party advanced towards them.
Bonnebault, a tall, wiry fellow, had lately returned
to Conches after six years' service in the cavalry, with
a permanent discharge due to his evil conduct, — his
example being likely to ruin better men. He wore
mustachios and a small chin-tuft; a peculiarity which,
joined to his military carriage, made him the reigning
236
Sons of the Soil.
fancy of all the girls in the valley. His hair, in com¬
mon with that of other soldiers, was cut very short
behind, but he frizzed it on the top of his head, brush¬
ing up the ends with a dand}r air; on it his foraging
cap was jauntily tilted to one side. Compared to the
peasants, who were mostly in rags, like Mouche and
Fourchon, he seemed gorgeous in his linen trousers,
boots, and short waistcoat. These articles, bought at
the time of his liberation, were, it is true, somewhat the
worse for a life in the fields ; but this village cock-of-the
walk had others in reserve for balls and holidays. He
lived, it must be said, on the gifts of his female friends,
which, liberal as they were, hardly sufficed for the liba¬
tions, the dissipations, and the squanderings of all
kinds which resulted from his intimacy with the Cafe
de la Paix.
Cowardice is like courage ; of both there are various
kinds. Bonnebault would have fought like a brave
soldier, but he was weak in presence of his vices and
his desires. Lazy as a lizard, that is to say, active
only when it suited him, without the slightest decency,
arrogant and base, able for much but neglectful of all,
the sole pleasure of this '' breaker of hearts and plates "
to use a barrack term, was to do evil or inflict damage.
Such a nature does as much harmJn rural communities
as it does in a regiment. Bonnebault, like Tonsard
and like Fourchon, desired to live well and do nothing;
and he had his plans laid. Making the most of his
gallant appearance with increasing success, and of his
talents for billiards with alternate loss and gain, he
flattered himself that the day would come when he
could marry Mademoiselle Aglae Socquard, only daugh¬
ter of the proprietor of the Caf<£ de la Paix, a resort
Sons of the Soil.
237
which was to Soulanges what, relatively speaking,
Ranelagh is to the Bois de Boulogne. To get into the
business of tavern-keeping, to manage the public balls,
what a fine career for the marshal's baton of a ne'er-do-
weel! These morals, this life, this nature, were so
plainly stamped upon the face of the low-lived profli¬
gate that the countess was betrayed into an exclama¬
tion when she beheld the pair, for they gave her the
sensation of beholding snakes.
Marie, desperately in love with Bonnebault, would
have robbed for his benefit. Those moustachios, the
swaggering gait of a trooper, the fellow's smart clothes,
all went to her heart as the manners and charms of a
de Marsay touch that of a pretty Parisian. Each social
sphere has its own standard of distinction. The jeal¬
ous Marie rebuffed Amaury Lupin, the other dandy of
the little town, her mind being made up to become
Madame Bonnebault.
"Hey! you there, hi! come on!" cried Nicolas
and Catherine from afar, catching sight of Marie and
Bonnebault.
The sharp call echoed through the woods like the cry
of savages.
Seeing the pair at his feet, Michaud shuddered and
deeply repented having spoken. If Bonnebault and
Marie Tonsard had overheard the conversation, nothing
but harm could come of it. This event, insignificant as
it seems, was destined, in the irritated state of feeling
then existing between Les Aigues and the peasantry, to
have a decisive influence on the fate of all, — just as
victory or defeat in battle sometimes depends upon a
brook which shepherds jump while cannon are unable
to pass it.
238
Sons of the Soil.
Gallantly bowing to the countess, Bonnebault passed
Marie's arm through his own with a conquering air and
took himself off triumphantly.
" The King of Hearts of the valley," muttered Mi-
ckaud to the countess. "A dangerous man. When
he loses twenty francs at billiards he would murder
Rigou to get them back. He loves a crime as he does
a pleasure."
"I have seen enough for to-day; take me home,
gentlemen," murmured the countess, putting her hand
on Emile's arm.
She bowed sadly to Madame Michaud, after watch¬
ing La Pechina safely back to the pavilion. Olympe's
depression was transferred to her mistress.
"Ah, madame," said the abbe, as they continued
their way, " can it be that the difficulty of doing good
is about to deter you ? For the last five years I have
slept on a pallet in a parsonage which has no furniture;
I say mass in a church without believers ; I preach to
no hearers; I minister without fees or salary; I live
on the six hundred francs the law allows me, asking
nothing of my bishop, and I give the third of that in
charity. Still, I am not hopeless. If you knew what
my winters are in this place you would understand the
strength of those words, — I am not hopeless. I keep
myself warm with the belief that we can save this valley
and bring it back to God. No matter for ourselves,
madame ; think of the future ! If it is our duty to sa}'
to the poor, ' Learn how to be poor; that is, how to
work, to endure, to strive,' it is equally our duty to say
to the rich, 'Learn your duty as prosperous men,'—■
that is to say, ' Be wise, be intelligent in your benev¬
olence ; pious and virtuous in the place to which God
Sons of the Soil.
239
has called you.' Ah! madame, you are only the
steward of Him who grants you wealth; if you do not
ohey His behests you will never transmit to your chil¬
dren the prosperity He gives you. You will rob your
posterity. If you follow in the steps of that poor
singer's selfishness, which caused the evils that now
terrify us, you will bring back the scaffolds on which
your fathers died for the faults of their fathers. To
do good humbly, in obscurity, in country solitudes,
as Rigou now does evil, — ah! that indeed is prayer
in action and dear to God. If in every district three
souls only would work for good, France, our couutry,
might be saved from the abyss that yawns ; into which
we are rushing headlong, through spiritual indifference
to all that is not our own self-interest. Change ! you
must change your morals, change your ethics, and that
will change your laws."
Though deeply moved as she listened to this grand
utterance of true catholic charity, the countess answered
in the fatal words, "We will consider it," — words of
the rich, which contain that promise to the ear which
saves their purses and enables them to stand with arms
crossed in presence of all disaster, under pretext that
they were powerless.
Hearing those words, the abbe bowed to Madame de
Montcornet and turned off into a path which led him
direct to the gate of Blangy.
'' Belshazzar's feast is the everlasting symbol of the
dying days of a caste, of an oligarchy, of a power! "
he thought as he walked away. " My God! if it be Thy
will to loose the poor like a torrent to reform society, I
know, I comprehend, why it is that Thou hast aban¬
doned the wealthy to their blindness!"
240
Sons of the Soil,
XII.
SHOWETH HOW THE TAVERN IS THE PEOPLE'S
PARLIAMENT.
Old Mother Tonsard's screams brought a number of
people from Blangy to know what was happening at the
Grand-I-Vert, the distance from the village to the inn
not being greater than that from the inn to the gate of
Blangy. One of these inquiring visitors was old Niseron,
La Pe china's grandfather, who was on his way, after
ringing the second Angelus, to dig the vine-rows in his
last little bit of ground.
Bent by toil, with pallid face and silvery hair, the
old vinedresser, now the sole representative of civic
virtue in the community, had been, during the Revolu¬
tion, president of the Jacobin club at Ville-aux-Fayes,
and a juror in the revolutionary tribunal of the district.
Jean-Francois Niseron, carved out of the wood that the
apostles were made of, was of the type of Saint Peter;
whom painters and sculptors have united in repre¬
senting with the square brow of the people, the thick,
naturally curling hair of the laborer, the muscles of the
man of toil, the complexion of a fisherman; with the
large nose, the shrewd, half-mocking lips that scoff at
fate, the neck and shoulders of the strong man who cuts
his wood to cook his dinner while the doctrinaires of his
opinions talk.
Such, at forty years of age on the breaking out of
the Revolution, was this man, strong as iron, pure as
Sons of the Soil.
241
gold. Advocate of the people, he believed in a republic
through the very roll of that name, more formidable in
sound perhaps than in reality. He believed in the re¬
public of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the brotherhood of
man, in the exchange of noble sentiments, in the pro¬
clamation of virtue, in the choice of merit without in¬
trigue, — in short, in all that the narrow limits of one
arrondissement like Sparta make possible, and which
the vast proportions of an empire make chimerical. He
signed his beliefs with his blood, — his only son went to
the war; he did more, he signed them with the pros¬
perity of his life,—last sacrifice of self. Nephew and
sole heir of the curate of Blangy, the then all-powerful
tribune might have enforced his rights and recovered
the property left by the priest to his pretty servant-girl,
Arsene; but be respected his uncle's wishes and ac¬
cepted poverty, which came upon him as rapidly as the
fall of his cherished republic came upon France.
Never a farthing's worth, never so much as the branch
of a tree belonging to another passed into the hands of
this noble republican, who would have made the republic
acceptable to the world if he and such as he could have
guided it. He refused to buy the national domains ; he
denied the right of the Republic to confiscate property.
In reply to all demands of the committee of public safety
he asserted that the virtue of citizens would do for their
sacred country what low political intriguers did for
money. This patriot of antiquity publicly reproved
Gaubertin's father for his secret treachery, his under¬
hand bargaining, his malversations. He reprimanded
the virtuous Mouchon, that representative of the people
whose virtue was nothing more nor less than incapacity,
— as it is with so many other legislators who, gorged
242
Sons of the Soil.
with the greatest political resources that any nation
ever gave, armed with the whole force of a people, are
still unable to bring forth from them the grandeur
which Richelieu wrung for France out of the weakness
of a king. Consequently, citizen Niseron became a
living reproach to the people about him. They en¬
deavored to put him out of sight and mind with the
reproachful remark, "Nothing satisfies that man."
The patriot-peasant returned to his cot at Blangy and
watched the destruction, one by one, of his illusions;
he saw his republic come to an end at the heels of an
emperor, while he himself fell into utter poverty, to
which Rigou stealthily managed to reduce him. And
why ? Because Niseron had never been willing to ac¬
cept anything from him. Reiterated refusals showed the
ex-priest in what profound contempt the nephew of the
curate held him ; and now that icy scorn was revenged
by the terrible threat as to his little granddaughter, about
which the Abbe Brossette spoke to the countess.
The old man had composed in his own mind a history
of the twelve years of the French republic, filled with the
glorious features which gave immortality to that heroic
period to the exclusion of all else. The infamous deeds,
the massacres, the spoliations, his virtuous soul ig¬
nored ; he admired, with a single mind, the devoted-
ness of the people, the "Vengeur," the gifts to the
nation, the uprising of the country to defend its frontier;
and he still pursued his dream that he might sleep in
peace.
The Revolution produced man}' poets like old Niseron,
who sang their poems in the country solitudes, in the
army, openly or secretly, by deeds buried beneath the
whirlwind of that storm, just as the wounded left be-
Sons of the Soil.
243
hind to die in the great wars of the empire cried out,
"Long live the Emperor!" This sublimity of soul
belongs especially to France. The Abbe Brossette re¬
spected the convictions of the old man, who became
simply but deeply attached to the priest from hearing
him say, "The true republic is in the Gospel." The
stanch republican carried the cross, and wore the sex¬
ton's robe, half-red, half-black, and was grave and dig¬
nified in church, — supporting himself by the triple
functions with which he was invested by the abbe, who
was able to give the fine old man, not, to be sure,
enough to live on, but enough to keep him from dying
of hunger.
Niseron, the Aristides of Blangy, spoke little, like all
noble dupes who wrap themselves in the mantle of re¬
signation ; but he was never silent against evil, and the
peasants feared him as thieves fear the police. He
seldom came more than six times a year to the Grand-
I-Vert, though he was always warmly welcomed there.
The old man cursed the want of charity of the rich, —
their selfishness disgusted him; and through this fibre
of his mind he seemed to the peasants to belong to
them ; they were in the habit of saying, " Pere Niseron
does n't like the rich ; he's one of us."
The civic crown won by this noble life throughout the
valley ky in these words: '' That good old Niseron !
there's not a more honest man." Often taken as um¬
pire in certain kinds of disputes, he embodied the mean¬
ing of that archaic term, — the village elder. Always
extremely clean, though threadbare, he wore breeches,
coarse woollen stockings, hob-nailed shoes, the distinc¬
tively French coat with large buttons and the broad-
brimmed felt hat to which all old peasants cling; but
244
Sons of the Soil.
for daily wear he kept a blue jacket so patched and
darned that it looked like a bit of tapestry. The pride
of a man who feels he is free, and knows he is worthy of
freedom, gave to his countenance and his whole bear¬
ing a something that was inexpressibly noble; you
would have felt he wore a robe, not rags.
" Hey ! what's happening so unusual? " he said, " I
heard the noise down here from the belfry."
They told him of Vatel's attack on the old woman",
talking all at once after the fashion of country-people.
" If she did n't cut the tree, Vatel was wrong; but if
she did cut it, you have done two bad actions," said
Pere Niseron.
"Take some wine," said Tonsard, offering a full
glass to the old man.
"Shall we start?" said Vermichel to the sheriffs
officer.
" Yes," replied Brunet, "we must do without Pere
Fourchon and take the assistant at Conches. Go on
before me; I have a paper to carry to the chateau.
Rigou has gained his second suit, and I've got to
deliver the verdict."
So saying, Monsieur Brunet, all the livelier for a
couple of glasses of brandy, mounted his gray mare
after saying good-bye to Pere Niseron; for the whole
valley were desirous in their hearts of the good man's
esteem.
No science, not even that of statistics, can explain
the rapidity with which news flies in the country, nor
how it spreads over those ignorant and untaught re¬
gions which are, in France, a standing reproach to the
government and to capitalists. Contemporaneous his¬
tory can show that a famous banker, after driving post-
Sons of the Soil.
245
horses to death between "Waterloo and Paris (everybody
knows why — he gained what the Emperor lost, a com¬
mission!) carried the fatal news only three hours in
advance of rumor. So, not an hour after the encounter
between old mother Tonsard and Vatel, a number of
the customers of the Grand-I-Vert assembled there to
hear the tale.
The first to come was Courtecuisse, in whom you
would scarcely have recognized the once jovial forester,
the rubicund do-nothing, whose wife made his morning
coffee as we have before seen. Aged, and thin, and
haggard, he presented to all eyes a lesson that no one
learned. "He tried to climb higher than the ladder,"
was what his neighbors said when others pitied him
and blamed Rigou. " He wanted to be a bourgeois
himself."
In fact, Courtecuisse did intend to pass for a bour¬
geois in buying the Bachelerie, and he even boasted of
it; though his wife went about the roads gathering up
the horse-droppings. She and Courtecuisse got up
before daylight, dug their garden, which was richly
manured, and obtained several yearly crops from it,
without being able to do more than pay the interest due
to Rigou for the rest of the purchase-money. Their
daughter, who was living at service in Auxerre, sent
them her wages; but in spite of all their efforts, in
spite of this help, the last day for the final payment was
approaching and not a penny in hand with which to
meet it. Madame Courtecuisse, who in former times
occasionally allowed herself a bottle of boiled wine or
a bit of roast meat, now drank nothing but water.
Courtecuisse was afraid to go to the Grand-I-Vert lest
he should have to leave three sous behind him. De-
17
246
Sons of the Soil.
prived of power, lie had lost his privilege of free
drinks, and he bitterly complained, like all other fools,
of man's ingratitude. In short, he found, according
to the experience of all peasants bitten with the demon
of proprietorship, that toil had increased and food
decreased.
" Courtecuisse has done too much to the property,"
the people said, secretly envying his position. " He
ought to have waited till he had paid the money down
and was master before he put up those fruit palings."
With the help of his wife he had managed to manure
and cultivate the three acres of land sold to him by
Eigou, together with the garden adjoining the house,
which was beginning to be productive; and he was in
danger of being turned out of it all. Clothed in rags
like Fourchon, poor Courtecuisse, who lately wore the
boots and gaiters of a huntsman, now thrust his feet
into sabots and accused " the rich" of Les Aigues of
having caused his destitution. These wearing anxie¬
ties had given to the fat little man and his once smiling
and rosy face a gloomy and dazed expression, as
though he were ill from the effects of poison or with
some chronic malady.
"What's the matter with you, Monsieur Courte¬
cuisse; is your tongue tied?" asked Tonsard, as the
man continued silent after he had told him about the
battle which had just taken place.
"No, no!" cried Madame Tonsard; "he needn't
complain of the midwife who cut his string, — she made
a good job of it."
"It is enough to make a man dumb, thinking from
morning till night of some way to escape Rigou," said
the premature old man, gloomily.
Sons of the Soil.
247
" Bah! " said old Mother Tonsard, " you 'ye got a
pretty daughter, seventeen years old. If she's a good
girl you can easily manage matters with that old jail¬
bird — "
"We sent her to Auxerre two years ago to Madame
Mariotte the elder, to keep her out of harm's way ; I'd
rather die than — "
" What a fool you are!" said Tonsard, " look at my
girls, — are the}1- any the worse ? He who dares to say
they are not as virtuous as marble images will have to
do with my gun."
" It'll be hard to have to come to that," said Courte-
cuisse, shaking his head. "I'd rather earn the money
by shooting one of those Arminacs."
" Well, I call it better for a girl to save a father than
to wrap up her virtue and let it mildew," retorted the
innkeeper.
Tonsard felt a sharp tap on his shoulder, delivered
by Pere Niseron.
"That is not a right thing to say! " cried the old
man. " A father is the guardian of the honor of his
family. It is by behaving as you do that scorn and
contempt are brought upon us; it is because of such
conduct that the People are accused of being unfit for
liberty. The People should set an example of civic
virtue and honor to the rich. You all sell yourselves
to Rigou for gold; and if you don't sell him your
daughters, at any rate you sell him your honor, — and
it's wrong."
"Just see what a position Courtecuisse is in," said
Tonsard.
" See what a position I am in," replied Pere Niseron;
" but I sleep in peace ; there are no thorns in my pillow."
248
Sons of the Soil.
" Let him talk, Tonsard," whispered his wife, " you
know they're just his notions, poor dear man."
Bonnebault and Marie, Catherine and her brother
came in at this moment in a state of exasperation,
which had begun with Nicolas's failure, and was raised
to the highest pitch by Michaud's advice to the coun¬
tess about Bonnebault. As Nicolas entered the tavern
he was uttering frightful threats against the Michaud
family and Les Aigues.
"The harvest's coming; well, I vow I'll not go
before I've lighted my pipe at their wheat-stacks," he
cried, striking his fist on the table as he sat down.
" Must n't yelp like that before people," said Godain,
showing him Pere Niseron.
"If the old fellow tells, I'll wring his neck," said
Catherine. " He's had his day, that old peddler of
foolish reasons ! They call him virtuous ; it's his tem¬
perament keeps him so, that's all."
Strange and noteworthy sight! — that of those lifted
heads, that group of persons gathered in the reeking
hovel, while old Mother Tonsard stood sentinel at the
door as security for the secret words of the drinkers.
Of all those faces, that of Godain, Catherine's suitor,
was perhaps the most alarming, though the least pro¬
nounced. Godain, a miser without monej7, — the cruel¬
lest of all misers, for he who seeks money surely takes
precedence of him who hoards it, one turning his
eagerness within himself, the other looking outside
with terrible intentness, —Godain represented the type
of the majority of peasant faces.
He was a journeyman, small in frame, and saved
from the draft by not attaining the required military
height; naturally lean and made more so by hard work
Sons of the Soil.
249
and the enforced sobriety under which reluctant workers
like Courtecuisse succumb. His face was no bigger
than a man's fist, and was lighted by a pair of yellow
eyes with greenish stripes and brown spots, in which
a thirst for the possession of property was mingled
with a concupiscence which had no heat, — for desire,
once at the boiling-point, had now stiffened like lava.
His skin, brown as that of a mummy, was glued to his
temples. His scanty beard bristled among his wrinkles
like stubble in the furrows. Godain never perspired, he
reabsorbed his substance. His hairy hands, formed
like claws, nervous, never still, seemed to be made of
old wood. Though scarcety twenty-seven years of age,
white lines were beginning to show in his rusty black
hair. He wore a blouse, through the breast opening of
which could be seen a shirt of coarse linen, so black
that he must have worn it a month and washed it him¬
self in the Thune. His sabots were mended with old
iron. The original stuff of his trousers was unrecog¬
nizable from the darns and the infinite number of
patches. On his head was a horrible cap, evidently
cast off and picked up in the doorway of some bour¬
geois house in Ville-aux-Fayes.
Clearsighted enough to estimate the elements of
good fortune that centred in Catherine Tonsard, his
ambition was to succeed her father at the Grand-I-
Vert. He made use of all his craftiness and all his ac¬
tual powers to capture her ; he promised her wealth, he
also promised her the license her mother had enjoyed ;
besides this, he offered his prospective father-in-law an
enormous rental, five hundred francs a year, for his inn,
until he could buy him out, trusting to an agreement he
had made with Monsieur Brunet to pay these costs by
250
Sons of the Soil.
notes on stamped paper. By trade a journeyman tool-
maker, this gnome worked for the wheelwrights when
work was plentiful, but he also hired himself out for
any extra labor which was well paid. Though he
possessed, unknown to the whole neighborhood, eigh¬
teen hundred francs now in Gaubertin's hands, he lived
like a beggar, slept in a barn, and gleaned at the har¬
vests. He wore Gaubertin's receipt for his money sewn
into the waist-belt of his trousers, — having it renewed
every jrear with its own added interest and the amount
of his savings.
" Hey ! what do I care? " cried Nicolas, replying to
Godain's prudent advice not to talk before Niseron.
"If I'm doomed to be a soldier I'd rather the saw¬
dust of the basket sucked up my blood than have it
dribbled out drop by drop in the battles. I '11 deliver
this country of at least one of those Arminacs that the
devil has launched upon us."
And he related what he called Michaud's plot against
him, which Marie and Bonn^bault had overheard.
"Where do you expect France to find soldiers?"
said the white-haired old man, rising and standing
before Nicolas during the silence which followed the
utterance of this threat.
" We serve our time and come home again," remarked
Bonnebault, twirling his moustache.
Observing that all the worst characters of the neigh¬
borhood were collecting, Pere Niseron shook his head
and left the tavern, after offering a farthing to Madame
Tonsard in payment for his glass of wine. When the
worthy man had gone down the steps a movement of
relief and satisfaction passed through the assembled
drinkers which would have told whoever watched them
Sons of the Soil.
251
that each man in that company felt he was rid of the
living image of his own conscience.
" Well, what do you say to all that, hey, Courte-
cuisse?" asked Vaudoyer, who had just come in, and
to whom Tonsard had related Vatel's attempt.
Courtecuisse clacked his tongue against the roof of
his mouth and set his glass on the table.
" Yatel put himself in the wrong," he said. " If I
were Mother Tonsard, I'd give myself a few wounds
and go to bed and say I was ill, and have that Shop¬
man and his keeper up before the assizes and get twenty
crowns damages. Monsieur Sarcus would give them."
" In any case the Shopman would give them to stop
the talk it would make," said Godain.
Vaudoyer, the former field-keeper, a man five feet
six inches tall, with a face pitted with the small-pox
and furrowed like a nut-cracker, kept silence with a
hesitating air.
"Well, you old ninny, does that ruffle you?" asked
Tonsard, attracted by the idea of damages. " If they
had broken twenty crowns' worth of my mother's bones
we could turn it to good account; we might make a fine
fuss for three hundred francs ; Monsieur Gourdon would
go to Les Aigues and tell them that the mother had got
a broken hip — "
" And break it, too," interrupted Madame Tonsard ;
" they do that in Paris."
" It would cost too much," remarked Godain.
'' I have been too long among the people who rule
us to believe that matters will go as you want them,"
said Vaudoyer at last, remembering his past official
intercourse with the courts and the gendarmerie. "If
it were at Soulanges, now, it might be done ; Monsieur
252
Sons of the Soil.
Soudry represents the government there, and he does n't
wish well to the Shopman ; but if you attack the Shop¬
man and Vatel the}*'11 defend themselves viciously;
they '11 say, ' The woman was to blame ; she had a tree,
otherwise she would have let her bundle be examined
on the highroad ; she would n't have run away; if an
accident happened to her it was through her own fault.'
No, you can't trust to that plan."
" The Shopman did n't resist when I sued him," said
Courtecuisse ; "he paid me at once."
" I'll go to Soulanges, if you like," said Bonnebault,
" and consult Monsieur Gourdon, the clerk of the court,
and you shall know to-night if there's money in it."
" You are only making an excuse to be after that big
goose of a girl, Socquard's daughter," said Marie
Tonsard, giving Bonnebault a slap on the shoulder
that made his lungs hum.
Just then a verse of an old Burgundian Christmas
carol was heard: —
" One fine moment of his life
Was at the wedding feast;
He changed the water into wine, —
Madeira of the best."
Every one recognized the vinous voice of old Four-
chon, to whom the verse must have been peculiarly
agreeable ; Mouchon accompanied in his treble tones.
" Ha ! they 're full! " cried old Mother Tonsard to
her daughter-in-law; "your father is as red as a grid¬
iron, and that chip o' the old block as pink as vine-
shoot."
"Your healths!" cried the old man, "and a fine
lot of scoundrels you are ! All hail! " he said to his
granddaughter, whom he spied kissing Bonnebault,
Sons of the Soil.
253
"hail, Marie, full of vice! Satan is with thee; cursed
art thou among women, etcetra. All hail, the company
present! you are done for, every one of you ! you may
just say good-bye to your sheaves. I bring news. I
always told you the rich would crush us ; well now, the
Shopman is going to have the law of you! Ha! see
what it is to struggle against those bourgeois fellows,
who have made so many laws since they got into
power that they've a law to enforce every trick they
play—"
A violent hiccough gave a sudden turn to the ideas
of the distinguished orator.
" If Vermichel were only here I'd blow in his gullet,
and he'd get an idea of sherry wine. Hey! what a
wine it is! If I was n't a Burgundian I'd be a Span¬
iard ! It's God's own wine ! the pope sa}*s mass with
it— Hey! I'm young again ! Say, Courtecuisse ! if
your wife were onty here we'd be young together.
Don't tell me! Spanish wine is worth a dozen of
boiled wine. Let's have a revolution if it's only to
empty the cellars ! "
"But what's your news, papa?" said Tonsard.
" There '11 be no harvest for j^ou ; the Shopman has
given orders to stop the gleaning."
" Stop the gleaning! " cried the whole tavern, with
one voice, in which the shrill tones of the four women
predominated.
" Yes," said Mouche, "he is going to issue an order,
and Groison is to take it round, and post it up all over
the canton. No one is to glean except those who have
pauper certificates."
" And what's more," said Fourchon, " the folks from
the other districts won't be allowed here at all."
254
Sons of the Soil.
" What's that ? " cried Bonnebault, " do you mean to
tell me that neither my grandmother nor I, nor your
mother, Godain, can come here and glean? Here's
tomfoolery for you ; a pretty show of authority ! Why,
the fellow is a devil let loose from hell, — that scoundrel
of a mayor !"
"Shall you glean whether or no, Godain?" said
Tonsard to the journeyman wheelwright, who was say¬
ing a few words to Catherine.
"I? I've no property; I'm a pauper," he replied;
" I shall ask for a certificate."
" What did they give my father for his otter, bibi?"
said Madame Tonsard to Mouche.
Though nearly at his last gasp from an over-taxed
digestion and two bottles of wine, Mouche, sitting on
Madame Tonsard's lap, laid his head on his aunt's neck
and whispered slyly in her ear: —
" I don't know, but he has got gold. If you'll feed
me high for a month, perhaps I can find out his hiding-
place ; he has one, I know that."
" Father's got gold !" whispered La Tonsard to her
husband, whose voice was loudest in the uproar of the
excited discussion, in which all present took part.
" Hush ! here's Groison," cried the old sentinel.
Perfect silence reigned in the tavern. When Groison
had got to a safe distance, Mother Tonsard made a sign,
and the discussion began again on the question as to
whether they should persist in gleaning, as before, with¬
out a certificate.
" You'll have to give in," said Pere Fourchon; "for
the Shopman has gone to see the prefect and get troops
to enforce the order. They '11 shoot you like dogs, —
and that's what we are! " cried the old man, trying to
Sons of the Soil.
255
conquer the thickening of his speech produced by his
potations of sherry.
This fresh announcement, absurd as it was, made all
the drinkers thoughtful; they really believed the govern¬
ment capable of slaughtering them without pity.
" I remember just such ti'oubles near Toulouse, when
I was stationed there," said Bonnebault. "We were
marched out, and the peasants were cut and slashed
and arrested. Everybody laughed to see them try to
resist cavalry. Ten were sent to the galle}Ts, and eleven
put in prison; the whole thing was crushed. Hey!
what? why, soldiers are soldiers, and you are nothing
but civilian beggars; they've a right, they think, to
sabre peasants, the devil take you !"
"Well, well," said Tonsard, "what is there in all
that to frighten you like kids ? What can they get out
of my mother and my daughters ? Put 'em in prison ?
well, then they must feed them ; and the Shopman can't
imprison the whole country. Besides, prisoners are
better fed at the king's expense than they are at their
own ; and they're kept warmer, too."
" You are a pack of fools ! " roared Fourchon. "Bet¬
ter gnaw at the bourgeois than attack him in front;
otherwise, you '11 get your backs broke. If you like the
galleys, so be it,—that's another thing! You don't
work as hard there as you do in the fields, true enough;
but you don't have your liberty."
" Perhaps it would be well," said Vaudoyer, who was
among the more valiant in counsel, "if some of us
risked our skins to deliver the neighborhood of that
Languedoc fellow who has planted himself at the gate
of the Avonne."
"Do Michaud's business for him?" said Nicolas;
"I'm good for that."
256
Sons of the Soil.
"Things are not ripe for it," said old Fonrclion.
" We should risk too much, my children. The best way
is to make ourselves look miserable and cry famine;
then the Shopman and his wife will want to help us,
and you'll get more out of them that way than you will
by gleaning."
" You are all blind moles," shouted Tonsard, " let 'em
pick a quarrel with their law and their troops, they can't
put the whole country in irons, and we've plenty of
friends at Ville-aux-Fa3^es and among the old lords
who'll sustain us."
"That's true," said Courtecuisse; "none of the
other land-owners complain, it is only the Shopman;
Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur de Ronquerolles
and others, they are satisfied. When I think that if
that cuirassier had only had the courage to let himself
be killed like the rest I should still be happy at the
gate of the Avonne, and that it was he that turned my
life topsy-turvy, it just puts me beside myself."
"They won't call out the troops for a Shopman who
has set every one in the district against him," said Go-
dain. "The fault's his own; he tried to ride over
everybody here, and upset everything; and the govern¬
ment will just say to him, ' Hush up.'"
'' The government never saj's anything else ; it can't,
poor government!" said Foui-chon, seized with a sudden
tenderness for the government. " Yes, I pity it, that
good government; it is very unlucky, — it has n't a
penny, like us; but that's very stupid of a government
that makes the money itself, very stupid! Ah! if I
were the government — "
"But," cried Courtecuisse, "they tell me in Ville-
aux-Fayes that Monsieur de Ronquerolles talked about
our rights in the Assembly."
Sons of the Soil.
257
" That's in Monsieur Rigou's newspaper," said Vau-
doyer, who in his capacity of ex-field-keeper knew how
to read and write ; " I read it— "
In spite of his vinous tenderness, old Fourchon, like
many of the lower classes whose faculties are stimulated
by drunkenness, was following, with an intelligent eye
and a keen ear, this curious discussion which a variety
of asides rendered still more curious. Suddenly, he
stood up in the middle of the room.
" Listen to the old one, he's drunk ! " said Tonsard,
"and when he is, he is twice as full of deviltry; he
has his own and that of the wine — "
" Spanish wine, and that trebles it! " cried Fourchon,
laughing like a satyr. " My sons, don't butt your head
straight at the thing, — you 're too weak ; go at it side¬
ways. Lay low, play dead ; the little woman is scared.
I tell you, the thing'11 come to an end before long;
she '11 leave the place, and if she does the Shopman will
follow her, for she's his passion. That's your plan.
Only, to make 'em go faster, my advice is get rid of
their counsellor, their support, our spy, our ape — "
"Who's that?"
" The damned abbe, of course," said Tonsard ; " that
hunter after sins, who thinks the host is food enough
for us."
"That's true," cried Vaudoyer; "we were happy
enough till he came. We ought to get rid of that eater
of the good God, — he's the real enemy."
" Finikin," added Fourchon, using a nickname which
the abbe owed to his prim and rather puny appearance,
" might be led into temptation and fall into the power
of some sly girl, for he fasts so much. Then if we
could catch him in the act and drum him up with a good
258
Sons of the Soil.
charivari, the bishop would be obliged to send him
elsewhere. It would please old Rigou devilish well.
Now if your daughter, Courtecuisse, would leave Aux-
erre—she's a pretty girl, and if she'd take to piety,
she might save us all. Hey! ran tan plan! — "
"Why don't you do it?" said Godain to Catherine,
in a low voice ; " there'd be scuttles full of money to
hush up the talk; and for the time being you 'd be
mistress here — "
" Shall we glean, or shall we not glean? that's the
point," said Bonnebault. " I don't care two straws for
your abbe, not I; I belong to Conches, where we
have n't a black-coat to poke up our consciences."
" Look here," said Vaudoyer, " we had better go
and ask Rigou, who knows the law, whether the Shop¬
man can forbid gleaning, and he '11 tell us if we "ve got
the right of it. If the Shopman has the law on his
side, well, then we must do as the old one says, — see
about taking things sidewaj's."
"Blood will be spilt," said Nicolas, darkly, as he
rose after drinking a whole bottle of wine, which Cathe¬
rine drew for him in order to keep him silent. '' If
you'd only listen to me you'd down Michaud ; but you
are miserable weaklings, — nothing but poor trash ! "
"I'm not," said Bonnebault. " If you are all safe
friends who '11 keep your tongues between your teeth,
I '11 aim at the Shopman — Hey! how I'd like to put
a plum through his bottle ; would n't it avenge me on
those cursed officers?"
"Tut! tut!" cried Jean-Louis Tonsard, who was
supposed to be, more or less, Gaubertin's son, and who
had just entered the tavern. This fellow, who was
courting Rigou's pretty servant-girl, had succeeded his
Sons of the Soil.
259
nominal father as clipper of hedges and shrubberies
and other Tonsardial occupations. Going about among
the well-to-do houses, he talked with masters and ser¬
vants and picked up ideas which made him the man of
the world of the family, the shrewd head. We shall
present^ see that in making love to Rigou's servant-
girl, Jean-Louis deserved his reputation for shrewdness.
" Well, what have you to say, prophet?" said the
innkeeper to his son.
" I say that you are playing into the hands of the
rich folk," replied Jean-Louis. " Frighten the Aigues
people to maintain your rights if you choose; but if
you drive them out of the place and make them sell the
estate, you are doing just what the bourgeois of the
valley want, and it's against your own interest. If you
help the bourgeois to divide the great estates among
them, where's the national domain to be bought for
nothing at the next Revolution? Wait till then, and
you'll get your land without paying for it, as Rigou
got his ; whereas if you go and thrust this estate into
the jaws of the rich folk of the valley, the rich folk will
dribble it back to you impoverished and at twice the
price they paid for it. You are working for their in¬
terests, I tell you; so does everybody who works for
Rigou, — look at Courtecuisse."
The policy contained in this allocution was too deep
for the drunken heads of those present, who were all,
except Courtecuisse, laying by their money to buy a
slice of the Aigues cake. So they let Jean-Louis ha¬
rangue, and continued, as in the Chamber of Deputies,
their private confabs with one another.
" Yes, that's so; you '11 be Rigou's cats-paw!" cried
Fourchon, who alone understood his grandson.
280
Sons of the Soil.
Just then Langlume, the miller of Les Aigues, passed
the tavern. Madame Tonsard hailed him.
"Is it true," she said, "that gleaning is to be
forbidden ? "
Langlume, a jovial little man, white with flour and
dressed in grayish-white clothes, came up the steps and
looked in. Instantly all the peasants became as sober
as judges.
"Well, my children, I'm forced to answer yes, and
no. None but the poor are to glean ; but the measures
they are going to take will turn out to your advantage."
'' How so ? " asked Godain.
" Why, they can prevent any but paupers from glean¬
ing here," said the miller, winking in true Norman
fashion ; " but that does n't prevent you from gleaning
elsewhere, — unless all the mayors do as the Blangy
mayor is doing."
" Then it is true," said Tonsard, in a threatening
voice.
" As for me," said Bonnebault, putting his foraging-
cap over one ear and making his hazel stick whiz in the
air, " I'm off to Conches to warn the friends."
And the Lovelace of the valley departed, whistling
the tune of the martial song, —
" You who know the hussars of the Guard,
Don't you know the trombone of the regiment ? "
"I say, Marie! he's going a queer way to get to
Conches, that friend of yours," cried old Mother Ton¬
sard to her granddaughter.
"He's after Aglae!" said Marie, who made one
bound to the door. "I'll have to thrash her once for
all, that baggage ! " she cried, viciously.
Sons of the Soil.
261
" Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, " go and see
Rigou, and then we shall know what to do; he's our
oracle, and his spittle don't cost anything."
" Another folly!" said Jean-Louis, in a low voice,
" Rigou betrays everybody; Annette tells me so; she
says he's more dangerous when he listens to you than
other folks are when they bluster."
" I advise you to be cautious," said Langlume. " The
general has gone to the prefecture about your misdeeds,
and Sibilet tells me he has sworn an oath to go to
Paris and s<3e the Chancellor of France and the King
himself, and the whole pack of them if necessary, to
get the better of his peasantry."
" His peasantry ! " shouted every one.
" Ha, ha! so we don't belong to ourselves any
longer ? "
As Tonsard asked the question,' Vaudoyer left the
house to see Rigou.
Langlume, who had already gone out, turned on the
door-step, and answered: —
"Crowd of do-nothings! are you so rich that you
think you are your own masters ?"
Though said with a laugh, the meaning contained in
the words was understood by all present, as horses
understand the cut of a whip.
" Ran tan plan! masters indeed!" shouted old
Fourchon. "I say, my lad," he added to Nicolas,
'' after your performance of this morning it's not my
clarionet that you '11 get between your thumb and four
fingers! "
" Don't plague him, or he '11 make you throw up your
wine by a punch in the stomach," said Catherine,
roughly.
262
Sons of the Soil.
XIII.
A TYPE OF THE COUNTRY USURER.
Strategically, Rigou's position at Blangy was that
of a picket sentinel. He watched Les Aigues, and
watched it well. The police have no spies comparable
to those that serve hatred.
When the general first came to Les Aigues Rigou
apparently formed some plans about him which Mont-
cornet's marriage with a Troisville put an end to; he
seems to have wished to patronize the new land-owner.
In fact his intentions were so patent that Gaubertin
thought best to let him into the secrets of the coalition
against Les Aigues. Before accepting any part in the
affair, Rigou determined, as he said, to put the general
between two stools.
One day, after the countess was faii'ly installed, a
little wickei; carriage painted green entered the grand
court3Tard of the chateau. The mayor, who was flanked
by his mayoress, got out and came round to the portico
on the garden side. As he did so Rigou saw Madame
la comtesse at a window. She, however, devoted to
the bishop and to religion and to the Abbe Brossette,
sent word by Frangois that " Madame was out."
This act of incivility, worthy of a woman born in
Russia, turned the face of the ex-Benedictine j-ellow.
If the countess had seen the man whom the abbe told
her was " a soul in hell who plunged into iniquity as
Sons of the Soil.
263
into a bath in his efforts to cool himself," if she had
seen his face then she might have refrained from ex¬
citing the cold, deliberate hatred felt by the liberals
against the royalists, increased as it was in country-
places by the jealousies of neighborhood, where the
recollections of wounded vanity are kept constantly
alive.
A few details about this man and his morals will not
only throw light on his share of the plot, called "the
great affair" by his two associates, but it will have
the merit of picturing an extremely curious type of
man, — one of those rural existences which are peculiar
to France, and which no writer has hitherto sought to
depict. Nothing about this man is without signifi¬
cance, — neither his house, nor his manner of blowing
the fire, nor his ways of eating; his habits, morals,
and opinions will vividly illustrate the history of the
valley. This renegade serves to show the utility of
democracy; he is at once its theory and its practice,
its alpha and its omega, in short, its summum.
Perhaps you will remember certain masters of avarice
pictured in former scenes of this comedy of human life :
in the first place the provincial miser, Pere Grandet of
Saumur, miserly as a tiger is cruel; next Gobseck, the
usurer, that Jesuit of gold, delighting only in its power,
and relishing the tears of the unfortunate because gold
produced them; then Baron Nucingen, lifting base and
fraudulent money transactions to the level of State
policy. Then, too, }Tou may remember that portrait of
domestic parsimony, old Hochon of Issoudun, and that
other miser in behalf of family interests, little la Bau-
tlraye of Sancerre. Well, human emotions — above all,
those of avarice — take on so many and diverse shades
m
Sons of the Soil.
in the diverse centres of social existence that there still
remains upon the stage of our comedy another miser to
be studied, namely, Rigou, —Rigou, the miser-egoist;
full of tenderness for his own gratifications, cold and
hard to others ; the ecclesiastical miser; the monk still
a monk so far as he can squeeze the juice of the fruit
called good-living, and becoming secular only to put a
paw upon the public money. In the first place, let us
explain the continual pleasure that he took in sleeping
under his own roof.
Blangy — by that we mean the sixty houses described
by Blondet in his letter to Nathan — stands on a rise of
land to the left of the Thune. As all the houses are
surrounded by gardens, the village is a very pretty one.
Some houses are built on the banks of the stream. At
the upper end of the long rise stands the church, for¬
merly flanked by a parsonage, its apse surrounded, as
in many other villages, by a graveyard. The sacrilegi¬
ous Rigou had bought the parsonage, which was origi¬
nally built by an excellent Catholic, Mademoiselle Choin,
on land which she had bought for the purpose. A ter¬
raced garden, from which the eye looked down upon
Blangy, Cerneux, and Soulanges standing between the
two great seignorial parks, separated the late parsonage
from the church. On its opposite side lay a meadow,
bought by the last curate of the parish not long before
his death, which the distrustful Rigou had since sur¬
rounded with a wall.
The ex-monk and majw having refused to sell back
the parsonage for its original purpose, the parish was
obliged to buy a house belonging to a peasant, which
adjoined the church. It was necessary to spend five
thousand francs to repair and enlarge it and to enclose
Sons of the Soil.
265
it in a little garden, one wall of which was that of the
sacristy, so that communication between the parsonage
and the church was still as close as it ever was.
These two houses, built on a line with the church,
and seeming to belong to it by their gardens, faced a
piece of open ground planted by trees, which might be
called the square of Blangy, — all the more because the
count had lately built, directly opposite to the new par¬
sonage, a communal building intended for the mayor's
office, the home of the field-keeper, and the quarters of
that school of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, for
which the Abbe Brossette had hitherto begged in vain.
Thus, not only were the houses of the ex-monk and the
young priest connected and yet separated by the church,
but they were in a position to watch each other. In¬
deed, the whole village spied upon the abbe. The
main street, which began at the Thune, crept tortuously
up the hill to the church. Vineyards, the cottages of
the peasantry, and a small grove crowned the heights.
Bigou's house, the handsomest in the village, was
built of the large rubble-stone peculiar to Burgundy',
imbedded in yellow mortar smoothed by the trowel,
which produced an uneven surface, still further broken
here and there by projecting points of the stone, which
was mostly black. A band of cement, in which no
stones were allowed to show, surrounded each window
with a sort of frame, where time had made some slight,
capricious cracks, such as appear on plastered ceilings.
The outer blinds, of a clumsy pattern, were noticeable
for their color, which was dragon-green. A few mosses
grew among the slates of the roof. The type is that of
Burgundian homesteads ; the traveller will see thousands
like it when visiting this part of France.
266
Sons of the Soil.
A double door opened upon a passage, half-way down
which was the well of the staircase. By the entrance
was the door of a large room with three windows look¬
ing out upon the square. The kitchen, built behind and
beneath the staircase, was lighted from the courtyard,
which was neatly paved with cobble-stones and entered
by a porte-cochere. Such was the ground-floor. The
first floor contained three bedrooms, above them a small
attic chamber.
A wood-shed, a coach-house, and a stable adjoined
the kitchen, and formed two sides of a square around
the courtyard. Above these rather flimsy buildings
were lofts containing hay and grain, a fruit-room, and
one servant's-chamber.
A poultry-yard, the stable, and a pigsty faced the
house across the courtyard.
The garden, about an acre in size and enclosed by
walls, was a true priest's garden ; that is, it was full of
wall-fruit and fruit-trees, grape-arbors, gravel-paths,
closely trimmed box-trees, and square vegetable-patches,
made rich with the manure from the stable.
Above the house was another enclosure, planted with
trees, surrounded by a hedge, and large enough to pas¬
ture two cows, who lived there in all weathers.
Within, the large room, panelled in wainscot, was
hung with old tapestry. The walnut furniture, brown
with age and covered with stuffs embroidered in needle¬
work, was in keeping with the wainscot and with the
ceiling, which was also panelled. The latter had three
projecting beams, but these were painted, and between
them the space was plastered. The mantel, also in
walnut, surmounted by a mirror in a most grotesque
frame, had no other ornament than two brass eggs
Sons of the Soil.
267
standing on a marble base, each of which opened in the
middle; the upper half when turned over showed a
socket for a candle. These candlesticks for two lights,
festooned with chains (an invention of the reign of
Louis XV.), were becoming rare. On a green and gold
bracket fastened to the wall opposite to the window was
a common but excellent clock. The curtains, which
squeaked upon their rods, were at least fifty years
old; their material, of cotton in a square pattern like
that of mattresses, alternately pink and white, came
from the Indies. A sideboard and dinner-table com¬
pleted the equipment of the room, which was kept with
extreme nicety.
At the corner of the fireplace was an immense sofa,
Rigou's especial seat. In the angle, above a little bon-
heur clu jour, which served him as a desk, and hanging
to a common screw, was a pair of bellows, the origin of
Rigou's fortune.
From this succinct description, in style like that of
an auction sale, it will be easy to imagine that the bed¬
rooms of Monsieur and Madame Rigou were limited to
mere necessaries ; j^et it would be a mistake to suppose
that such parsimony affected the essential excellence of
those necessaries. For instance, the most fastidious of
women would have slept well in Rigou's bed, with fine
linen sheets, excellent mattresses, made luxurious by
a feather-bed (doubtless bought for some abbe by a
pious female parishioner) and protected from draughts
by thick curtains. All the rest of Rigou's belongings
were made comfortable for his use, as we shall see.
In the first place, he had reduced his wife, who could
neither read, write, nor cipher, to absolute obedience.
After having ruled her deceased master, the poor
268
Sons of the Soil,
creature was now the servant of her husband; she
cooked and did the washing, with very little help from
a pretty girl named Annette, who was nineteen years
old and as much a slave to Rigou as her mistress, and
whose wages were thirty francs a year.
Tall, thin, and withered, Madame Rigou, a woman
with a yellow face red about the cheek-bones, her head
always wrapped in a colored handkerchief, and wearing
the same dress all the year round, did not leave the
house for two hours in a month's time, but kept herself
in exercise by doing the hard work of a devoted ser¬
vant. The keenest observer could not have found a
trace of the fine figure, the Rubens coloring, the splen¬
did lines, the superb teeth, the virginal eyes which first
drew the attention of the Abbd Niseron to the young
girl. The birth of her only daughter, Madame Soudry,
Jr., had blighted her complexion, decayed her teeth,
dimmed her eyes, and even caused the dropping of
their lashes. It almost seemed as if the finger of God
had fallen upon the wife of the priest. Like all well-
to-do country house-wives, she liked to see her closets
full of silk gowns, made and unmade, and jewels and
laces which did her no good and only excited the sin of
envy and a desire for her death in the minds of all the
young women who served Rigou. She was one of
those beings, half-woman, half-animal, who are born to
live by instinct. This ex-beautiful Arsene was disin¬
terested ; and the bequest left to her by the late Abbd
Niseron would be inexplicable were it not1 for the curi¬
ous circumstance which prompted it, and which we give
here for the edification of the vast tribe of expectant
heirs.
Madame Niseron, the wife of the old republican
/Sons of the Soil.
269
sexton, always paid the greatest attention to her hus¬
band's uncle, the priest of Blangy; the forty or fifty
thousand francs soon to be inherited from the old man
of seventy would put the family of his only nephew
into a condition of affluence which she impatiently
awaited, for besides her only son (the father of La
Pechina) Madame Niseron had a charming little
daughter, lively and innocent, — one of those beings that
seem perfected only because they are to die, which she
did at the age of fourteen from " pale color," the popu¬
lar name for chlorosis among the peasantry. The
darling of the parsonage, where the child fluttered
about her great uncle the abbe as she did in her home,
bringing clouds and sunshine with her, she grew to
love Mademoiselle Arsene, the pretty servant whom
the old abbe engaged in 1789. Arsene was the niece
of his housekeeper, whose place the girl took by re¬
quest of the latter on her deathbed.
In 1791, just about the time that the Abbe Niseron
offered his house as an asylum to Rigou and his
brother Jean, the little girl played one of her mischiev¬
ous but innocent tricks. She was playing with Arsene
and some other children at a game which consists in hid¬
ing an object which the rest seek, and crying out, " You
burn!" or "You freeze!" according as the searchers
approach or leave the hidden article. Little Genevieve
took it into her head to hide the bellows in Arsene's
bed. The bellows could not be found, and the game
came to an end; Genevieve was taken home by her
mother and forgot to put the bellows back on the nail.
Arsene and her aunt searched more than a week for
them; then they stopped searching and managed to
do without them, the old abbe blowing his fire with
270
Sons of the Soil.
an air-cane made in the days when air-canes were
the fashion, — a fashion which was no doubt intro¬
duced b}7 some courtier of the reign of Henri III. At
last, about a month before her death, the house¬
keeper, after a dinner at which the Abbe Mouchon, the
Niseron family, and the curate of Soulanges were
present, returned to her jeremiades about the loss of
the bellows.
'' Why ! they 've been these two weeks in Arsene's
bed! " cried the little one, with a peal of laughter.
" Great lazy thing! if she had taken the trouble to
make her bed she would have found them."
As it was 1791 everybody laughed ; but a dead silence
succeeded the laugh.
" There is nothing laughable in that," said the house¬
keeper; "since I have been ill Arsene sleeps in my
room."
In spite of this explanation the Abbe Niseron looked
thunderbolts at Madame Niseron and his nephew,
thinking they were plotting mischief against him. The
housekeeper died. Rigou contrived to work up the
abbe's resentment to such a pitch that he made a will
disinheriting Jean-Francis Niseron in favor of Arsene
Pichard.
In 1823 Rigou, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude,
still blew the Are with an air-cane, and left the bellows
hanging to the screw.
Madame Niseron, idolizing her daughter, did not
long survive her. Mother and child died in 1794.
The old abbe, too, was dead, and citizen Rigou took
charge of Arsene's affairs by marrying her. A former
convert in the monastery, attached to Rigou as a dog
is to his master, became the groom, gardener, herds-
jSons of the Soil.
271
man, valet, and steward of the sensual Harpagon.
Arsene Rigou, the daughter, married in 1821 without
dowry to the prosecuting-attorney, inherited something
of her mother's rather vulgar beauty, together with the
crafty mind of her father.
Now about sixty-seven years of age, Rigou had
never been ill in his life, and nothing seemed able to
lessen his aggressively good health. Tall, lean, with
brown circles round his eyes, the lids of which were
nearly black, any one who saw him of a morning, when
as he dressed he exposed the wrinkled, red, and granu¬
lated skin of his neck, would have compared him to a
condor, — all the more because his long nose, sharp at
the tip, increased the likeness by its sanguineous color.
His head, partly bald, would have frightened phren¬
ologists by the shape of its skull, which was like an
ass's backbone, an indication of despotic will. His
grayish eyes, half-covered by filmy, red-veined lids,
were predestined to aid hypocrisy. Two scanty locks
of hair of an undecided color overhung the large ears,
which were long and without rim, a sure sign of cruelty,
but cruelty of the moral nature onhr, unless where it
means actual insanity. The mouth, very broad, with
thin lips, indicated a sturdy eater and a determined
drinker by the drop of its corners, which turned down¬
ward like two commas, from which drooled gravy when
he ate and saliva when he talked. Heliogabalus must
have been like this.
His dress, which never varied, consisted of a long
blue surtout with a military collar, a black cravat, with
waistcoat and trousers of black cloth. His shoes, very
thick soled, had iron nails outside, and inside woollen
linings knit by his wife in the winter evenings. An-
272
Sons of the Soil.
nette and her mistress also knit the master's stockings.
Rigou's name was Gregoire.
Though this sketch gives some idea of the man's
character, no one can imagine the point to which, in
his private and unthwarted life, the ex-Benedictine had
pushed the science of selfishness, good living, and sen¬
suality. In the first place, he dined alone, waited upon
by his wife and Annette, who themselves dined with
Jean in the kitchen, while the master digested his meal
and disposed of his wine as he read "the news."
In the country the special names of journals are
never mentioned; they are all called by the general
name of " the news."
Rigou's dinner, like his breakfast and supper, was
always of choice delicacies, cooked with the art which
distinguishes a priest's housekeeper from all other cooks.
Madame Rigou made the butter herself twice a week.
Cream was a concomitant of many sauces. The vege¬
tables came at a jump, as it were, from their frames to
the saucepan. Parisians, who are accustomed to eat the
fruits of the earth after they have had a second ripen¬
ing in the sun of a city, infected by the air of the streets,
fermenting in close shops, and watered from time to
time by the market-women to give them a deceitful
freshness, have little idea of the exquisite flavors of
really fresh produce, to which nature has lent fugitive
but powerful charms when eaten as it were alive.
The butcher of Soulanges brought his best meat
under fear of losing Rigou's custom. The poultry,
raised on the premises, was of the finest quality.
This system of secret pampering embraced everything
in which Rigou was personally concerned. Though the
slippers of the knowing Thelemist were of stout leather
Sons of the Soil.
they were lined with lamb's wool. Though his coat
was of rough cloth it did not touch his skin, for his
shirt, washed and ironed at home, was of the finest
Frisian linen. His wife, Annette, and Jean drank the
common wine of the country, the wine he reserved from
his own vineyards; but in his private cellar, as well
stocked as the cellars of Belgium, the finest vintages of
Burgundy rubbed sides with those of Bordeaux, Cham¬
pagne, Roussillon, not to speak of Spanish and Rhine
wines, all bought ten years in advance of use and bot¬
tled by Brother Jean. The liqueurs in that cellar were
those of the Isles, and came originally from Madame
Amphoux. Rigou had laid in a supply to last him the
rest of his days, at the national sale of a chateau in
Burgundy.
The ex-monk ate and drank like Louis XIV. (one
of the greatest consumers of food and drink ever
known), which reveals the costs of a life that was
more than voluptuous. Careful and very shrewd in
managing his secret prodigalities, he disputed all pur¬
chases as only churchmen can dispute. Instead of
taking infinite precautions against being cheated, the
sly monk kept patterns and samples, had the agree¬
ments reduced to writing, and warned those who for¬
warded his wines or his provisions that if they fell
short of the mark in any way he should refuse to
accept their consignments.
Jean, who had charge of the fruit-room, was trained
to keep fresh the finest fruits grown in the department;
so that Rigou ate pears and apples and sometimes
grapes, at Easter.
No prophet regarded as a God was ever more blindly
obeyed than was Rigou in his own home. A mere mo-
274
Sons of the Soil.
tion of his black eyelashes could plunge his wife, An¬
nette, and Jean into the deepest anxiety. He held his
three slaves by the multiplicity of their man}' duties,
which were like a chain in his hands. These poor
creatures were under the perpetual yoke of some or¬
dered duty, with an eye always on them ; but they had
come to take a sort of pleasure in accomplishing these
tasks, and did not suffer under them. All three had
the comfort and well-being of that one man before their
minds as the sole end and object of all their thoughts.
Annette was (since 1795) the tenth pretty girl in
Rigou's service, and he expected to go down to his
grave with relays of such servants. Brought to him at
sixteen, she would be sent away at nineteen. All these
girls, carefully chosen at Auxerre, Clamecy, or in the
Morvan, were enticed by the promise of future pros¬
perity ; but Madame Rigou persisted in living. So at
the end of every three years some quarrel, usually
brought about by the insolence of the servant to the
poor mistress, caused their dismissal.
Annette, who was a picture of delicate beauty, ingen¬
uous and sparkling, deserved to be a duchess. Rigou
knew nothing of the love affair between her and Jean-
Louis Tonsard, which proves that he had let himself be
fooled by the girl, — the only one of his many servants
whose ambition had taught her to flatter the lynx as the
only way to blind him.
This uncrowned Louis XV. did not keep himself
wholly to his pretty Annette. Being the mortgagee of
lands bought by peasants who were unable to pay for
them, he kept a harem in the valley, from Soulanges to
five miles beyond Conches on the road to La Brie,
without making other payments than " extension of
Sons of the Soil.
275
time," for those fugitive pleasures which eat into the
fortunes of so many old men>
This luxurious life, a life like that of Bouret, cost
Rigou almost nothing. Thanks to his white slaves, he
could cut and mow down and gather in his wood, hay,
and grain. To the peasant manual labor is a small
matter, especially if it serves to postpone the payment
of interest due. And so Rigou, while requiring little
premiums on each month's delay, squeezed a great deal
of manual labor out of his debtors, — positive drudgery,
to which they submitted thinking they gave little be¬
cause nothing left their pockets. Rigou sometimes
obtained in this way more than the principal of a debt.
Deep as a monk, silent as a Benedictine in the throes
of writing history, sly as a priest, deceitful as all misers,
carefully keeping within the limits of the law, the man
might have been Tiberius in Rome, Richelieu under
Louis XIII., or Fouche, had the ambition seized him
to go to the Convention; but, instead of all that, Rigou
had the common sense to remain a Lucullus without
ostentation, in other words, a parsimonious voluptuary.
To occupy his mind he indulged a hatred manufactured
out of the whole cloth. He harassed the Comte de
Montcornet. He worked the peasants like puppets by
hidden wires, the handling of which amused him as
though it were a game of chess where the pawns were
alive, the knights caracoled, the bishops, like Fourchon,
gabbled, the feudal castles shone in the sun, and the
queen maliciously checkmated the king. Every day,
when he got out of bed and saw from his window the
proud towers of Les Aigues, the chimneys of the pavil¬
ions. and the noble gates, he said to himself: "They
shall fall! I'll dry up the brooks, I'll chop down the
276
Sons of the Soil.
woods." But he had two victims in mind, a chief one
and a lesser one. Though he meditated the dismem¬
berment of the chateau, the apostate also intended to
make an end of the Abbe Brossette by pin-pricks.
To complete the portrait of the ex-priest it will suffice
to add that he went to mass regretting that his wife
still lived, and expressed the desire to be reconciled
with the Church as soon as he became a widower. He
bowed deferentially to the Abbe Brossette whenever
he met him, and spoke to him courteously and without
heat. As a general thing all men who belong to the
Church, or who have come out of it, have the patience
of insects; they owe this to the obligation they have
been under, ecclesiastically, to preserve decorum, — a
training which has been lacking for the last twenty
years to the vast majority of the French nation, even
those who think themselves well-bred. All the monks
which the Revolution brought out of their monasteries
and forced into business, public or private, showed in
their coldness and reserve the great advantage which
ecclesiastical discipline gives to the sons of the Church,
even those who desert her.
Gaubertin had understood Rigou from the days when
the Abbe Niseron made his will and the ex-monk mar¬
ried the heiress; he fathomed the craft hidden behind
the jaundiced face of that accomplished hypocrite ; and
he made himself the man's fellow-worshipper before the
altar of the Golden Calf. When the banking-house of
Leclercq was first started he advised Rigou to put fifty
thousand francs into it, guaranteeing their security
himself. Rigou was all the more desirable as an in¬
vestor, or sleeping partner, because he drew no interest
but allowed his capital to accumulate. At the period
Sons of the Soil.
277
of which we write it amounted to over a hundred thou¬
sand francs, although in 1816 he had taken out one
hundred and eighty thousand for investment in the
Public Funds, from which he derived an income of
seventeen thousand francs. Lupin the notary had cog¬
nizance of at least one hundred thousand francs which
Rigou had lent on small mortgages upon good estates.
Ostensibly, Rigou derived about fourteen thousand francs
a year from landed property actually owned by him.
But as to his amassed hoard, it was represented by an
x which no rule of equations could evolve, just as the
devil alone knew the secret schemes he plotted with
Langlume.
This dangerous usurer, who proposed to live a score
of years longer, had established fixed rules to work
upon. He lent nothing to a peasant who bought less
than seven acres, and who could not pay one-half of the
purchase-money down. Rigou well understood the de¬
fects of the law of dispossession when applied to small
holdings, and the danger both to the Public Treasury
and to land-owners of the minute parcelling out of the
soil. How can jtou sue a peasant for the value of one
row of vines when he owns only five ? The bird's-eye
view of self-interest is always twenty-five years ahead
of the perceptions of a legislative body. What a lesson
for a nation ! Law will ever emanate from one brain,
that of a man of genius, and not from the nine hundred
legislative heads, which, great as they may be in them¬
selves, are belittled and lost in a crowd. Rigou's law
contains the essential element which has yet to be found
and introduced into public law to put an end to the
absurd spectacle of landed property reduced to halves,
quarters, tenths, hundredths, — as in the district of
278
Sons of the Soil.
Argenteuil, where there are thirty thousand plots of
land.
Such operations as those Rigou was concerned in
require extensive collusion, like those we have seen
existing in this arrondissement. Lupin, the notary,
whom Rigou employed to draw at least one third of the
deeds annually entrusted to his notarial office, was de¬
voted to him. This shark could thus include in the
mortgage note (signed alwaj^s in presence of the wife,
when the borrower was married) the amount of the
illegal interest. The peasant, delighted to feel he had
to pay only his five per cent interest annually, alwa}rs
imagined he should be able to meet the payment by
working doubly hard or by improving the land and
getting double returns upon it.
Hence the deceitful hopes excited by what imbecile
economists call '' small farming," — a political blunder
to which we owe such mistakes as sending French
money to Germany to buy horses which our own land
has ceased to breed; a blunder which before long will
reduce the raising of cattle until meat will be unattain¬
able not only by the people, but by the lower middle
classes (see " Le Cure de Village.")
So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between
Conches and Ville-aux-Fayes to Rigou's profit, all be¬
ing willing to give it; whereas the labor dearly paid
for by the general, the only man who did spend money
in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which
were showered upon him simply because he was rich.
How could such facts be understood unless we had pre¬
viously taken that rapid glance at the Mediocracy.
Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the
position of the former lords. The small land-owners,
Sons of the Soil.
279
of whom Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mort¬
main of a Tiberius in the valley of the Avonne, just
as, in Paris, traders without money are the peasantry
of the banking system.
Soudry followed Rigou's example from Soulanges to
a distance of fifteen miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes.
These two usurers shared the district between them.
Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere,
not only did not compete against that of his associates,
but he prevented all other capital in Ville-aux-Fayes
from being employed in the same fruitful manner. It
is easy to imagine what immense influence this trium¬
virate — Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin — wielded in
election periods over electors whose fortunes depended
on their good-will.
Hate, intelligence, and means at command, such were
the three sides of the terrible triangle which describes
the general's closest enemy, the spy ever watching Les
Aigues, — a shark having constant dealings with sixty
to eighty small land-owners, relations or connections of
the peasantry, who feared him as such men always fear
their creditor.
Rigou was in his way another Tonsard. The one
throve on thefts from nature, the other waxed fat on
legal plunder. Both liked to live well. It was the
same nature in two species, —the one natural, the other
whetted by his training in a cloister.
It was about four o'clock when Vaudoyer left the
tavern of the Grand-I-Vert to consult the former mayor.
Rigou was at dinner. Finding the front door locked,
Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and called
out: —
" Monsieur Rigou, it is I, —Vaudoyer."
280
Sons of the Soil.
Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to
Vaudoyer: —
" Come into the garden ; Monsieur has company."
The company was Sibilet, who, under pretext of dis¬
cussing the verdict Brunet had just handed in, was talk¬
ing to Rigou of quite other matters. He had found the
usurer finishing his dessert. On a square dinner-table
covered with a dazzling white cloth — for, regardless of
his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou ex¬
acted clean table-linen every day — the steward noted
strawberries, apricots, peaches, figs, and almonds, all
the fruits of the season in profusion, served in white
porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les
Aigues.
Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of
the inside double-doors, which were added to the other
doors as much to stifle sounds as to keep out the cold
air, and asked him what pressing business brought him
there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to
confer together at night.
"The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the
Keeper of the Seals ; he is capable of doing you a great
deal of harm; he may ask for the dismissal of your
son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at Ville-aux-
Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered
in your favor. He has turned at bay; he is shrewd,
and he has an adviser in that abbe, who is quite able
to tilt with you and Gaubertin. Priests are powerful.
Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe
Brossette. Madame la comtesse talks of going herself
to her cousin the prefect, the Comte de Casteran,
about Nicolas. Michaud begins to see into our game."
" You are frightened," said Rigou, softly, casting a
Sons of the Soil.
281
look on Sibilet which suspicion made less impassive
than usual, and which was therefore terrific. "You
are debating whether it would not be better on the
whole to side with the Comte de Montcornet."
" I don't see where I am to get the four thousand
francs I save honestly and invest every year, after you
have cut up and sold Les Aigues," said Sibilet, shortly.
"Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many fine
promises; but the crisis is coming on; there will be
fighting, surely. Promising before victory and keeping
a promise after it are two very different things."
" I will talk to him about it," replied Rigou, imper-
turbably. " Meantime this is what I should say to you
if I were in his place : ' For the last five years you have
taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a j7ear, and
that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent;
which makes your property in his hands at this moment
over twenty-seven thousand francs, as you have not
drawn the interest. But there exists a private signed
agreement between yom and Rigou, and the Shopman
will dismiss his steward whenever the Abbe Brossette
lays that document before his eyes ; the abbe will be able
to do so after receiving an anonymous letter which
will inform him of your double-dealing. You would
therefore do better for yourself by keeping well with
us instead of clamoring for your pay in advance, — all
the more because Monsieur Rigou, who is not legally
bound to give you seven and a half per cent and the
interest on your interest, will make you in coilrt a legal
tender of your twenty thousand francs, and you will not
be able to touch that money until your suit, prolonged
by legal trickery, shall be decided by the court at Ville-
aux-Fayes. But if you act wisely you will find that
282
Sons of the Soil.
when Monsieur Rigou gets possession of your pavilion
at Les Aigues, you will have very nearly thirty thousand
francs in his hands and thirty thousand more which
the said Rigou may entrust to you, — which will be all
the more advantageous to you then because the peas¬
antry will have flung them themselves upon the estate
of Les Aigues, divided into small lots like the poverty
of the world.' That's what Monsieur Gaubertin might
say to you. As for me, I have nothing to say, for it is
none of my business. Gaubertin and I have our own
quarrel with that son of the people who is ashamed of
his own father, and we follow our own course. If my
friend Gaubertin feels the need of using you, I don't;
I need no one, for everybody is at my command. As
to the Keeper of the Seals, that functionary is often
changed ; whereas we — we are always here, and can
bide our time."
"Well, I've warned 3rou," returned Sibilet, feeling
like a donkey under a pack-saddle.
" Warned me of what? " said Rigou, artfully.
" Of what the Shopman is going to do," answered
the steward, humbly. "He started for the Prefecture
in a rage."
'' Let him go! If the Montcornets and their kind
did n't use wheels, what would become of the carriage-
makers ? "
"I shall bring you three thousand francs to-night,"
said Sibilet, " but you ought to make over some of
your maturing mortgages to me, — say, one or two that
would secure to me good lots of land."
" Well, there's that of Courtecuisse. I myself want
to be easy on him because he is the best shot in the
canton; but if I make over his mortgage to you, you
Sons of the Soil.
283
will seem to be harassing him on the Shopman's ac¬
count, and that will be killing two birds with one stone ;
when Courtecuisse finds himself a beggar, like Fourchon,
he '11 be capable of anything. Courtecuisse has ruined
himself on the Bachelerie; he has cultivated all the
land, and trained fruit on the walls. The little property
is now worth four thousand francs, and the count will
gladly pay you that to get possession of the three acres
that jut right into his land. If Courtecuisse were not
such an idle hound he could have paid his interest with
the game he might have killed there."
"Well, transfer the mortgage to me, and I'll make
my butter out of it; the count shall buy the three acres,
and I shall get the house and garden for nothing."
" What are you going to give me out of it? "
"Good heavens! you'd milk an ox!" exclaimed
Sibilet, — " when I have just done you such a service,
too. I have at last got the .Shopman to enforce the
laws about gleaning — "
"Have you, my dear fellow?" said Rigou, who a
few days earlier had suggested this means of exasperat¬
ing the peasantry to Sibilet, telling him to advise the
general to try it. '' Then we've got him ; he's lost!
But it is n't enough to hold him with one string; we
must wind it round and round him like a roll of tobacco.
Slip the bolts of the door, my lad ; tell my wife to bring
my coffee and the liqueurs, and tell Jean to harness up.
I'm off to Soulanges ; will see you to-night! — Ah!
Vaudoyer, good afternoon," said the late mayor as his
former field-keeper entered the room. "What's the
news ? "
Vaudoyer related the talk which had just taken place
at the tavern, and asked Rigou's opinion as to the
284
Sons of the Soil.
legality of the rules which the general thought of
enforcing.
" He has the law with him," said Rigou, curtly. " We
have a hard landlord; the Abbe Brossette is a malig¬
nant priest; he advises all such measures because you
don't go to mass, jTou miserable unbelievers. I go;
there's a God, I tell you. You peasants will have to
bear everything, for the Shopman will always get the
better of you — ''
"We shall glean," said Vaudoyer, in that determined
tone which characterizes Burgundians.
"Without a certificate of pauperism?" asked the
usurer. " They say the Shopman has gone to the Pre¬
fecture to ask for troops so as to force you to keep the
law."
"We shall glean as we have always gleaned," repeated
Vaudoyer.
" Well, glean then! Monsieur Sarcus will decide
whether you have the right to," said Rigou, seeming to
promise the help of the justice of the peace.
"We shall glean, and we shall do it in force, or Bur¬
gundy won't be Burgundy any longer," said Vaudoyer.
" If the gendarmes have sabres we have scythes, and
we '11 see what comes of it! "
At half-past four o'clock the great green gate of the
former parsonage turned on its hinges, and the bay
horse, led by Jean, was brought round to the front door.
Madame Rigou and Annette came out on the steps and
looked at the little wicker carriage, painted green, with
a leathern hood, where their lord and master was com¬
fortably seated on good cushions.
"Don't be late home, monsieur," said Annette, with
a little pout.
Sons of the Soil.
285
The village folk, already informed of the measures
the general proposed to take, were at their doors or
standing in the main street as Rigou drove by, believ¬
ing that he was going to Soulanges in their defence.
" Well, Madame Courtecuisse, so our mayor is on his
way to protect us," remarked an old woman as she
knitted; the question of depredating in the forest was
of great interest to her, for her husband sold the stolen
wood at Soulanges.
" Ah! the good man, his heart bleeds to see the way
we are treated; he is as unhappy as we are about it,"
replied the poor woman, who trembled at the very
name of her husband's creditor, and praised him out
of fear.
" And he himself, too, — they've shamefully ill-used
him ! Good-day, Monsieur Rigou," said the old knitter
to the usurer, who bowed to her and to his debtor's
wife.
As Rigou crossed the Thune, fordable at all seasons,
Tonsard came out of the tavern and met him on the
high-road.
"Well, Pere Rigou," he said, "so the Shopman
means to make dogs of us?"
"We'll see about that," said the usurer, whipping
up his horse.
" He '11 protect us," said Tonsard, turning to a group
of women and children who were near him.
"Rigou is thinking as much about you as a cook
thinks of the gudgeons he is frying in his pan," called
out Fourchon.
" Take the clapper out of your throat when you are
drunk," said Mouche, pulling his grandfather by the
blouse, and tumbling him down on a bank under a pop-
286
Sons of the Soil.
lar tree. " If that hound of a mayor heard you say
that, he'd never buy any more of your tales.
The truth was that Rigou was hurrying to Soulanges
in consequence of the warning given him by the steward
of Les Aigues, which, in his heart, he regarded as
threatening the secret coalition of the valley.
Sons of the Soil.
287
SECOND PART.
I.
THE LEADING SOCIETY OF SOULANGES.
About six kilometres (speaking legally) from Blangy,
and at the same distance from Ville-aux-Fayes, on an
elevation radiating from the long hillside at the foot of
which flows the Avonne, stands the little town of Sou-
langes, surnamed La Jolie, with, perhaps, more right
to that title than Mantes.
At the foot of the hill, the Thune broadens over a
clay bottom to a space of some seventy acres, at the
end of which the Soulanges mills, placed on numerous
little islets, present as graceful a group of buildings as
any landscape architect could devise. After watering
the park of Soulanges, where it feeds various other
streams and artificial lakes, the Thune falls into the
Avonne through a fine broad channel.
The chateau of Soulanges, rebuilt under Louis XIV.
from designs of Jules Mansart, and one of the finest in
Burgundy, stands facing the town; so that Soulanges
and its chateau mutually present to each other a charm¬
ing and even elegant vista. The main road winds
between the town and the pond, called by the country
people, rather pompously, the lake of Soulanges.
The little town is one of those natural compositions
which are extremely rare in France, whereprettiness of
288
Sons of the- Soil.
its own kind is absolutely wanting. Here you would
indeed find, as Blondet said in his letter, the charm of
Switzerland, the prettiness of the environs of Neuf-
chatel; while the bright vineyards which encircle Sou-
langes complete the resemblance, — leaving out, be it
said, the Alps and the Jura. The streets, placed one
above another on the slope of the hill, have but few
houses ; for each house stands in its own garden, which
produces a mass of greenery rarety seen in a town. The
roofs, red or blue, rising among flower-gardens, trees,
and trellised terraces, present an harmonious variety
of aspects.
The church, an old Middle-Age structure, built of
stone, thanks to the munificence of the lords of Sou-
langes, who reserved for themselves first a chapel
near the chancel, then a crypt as their necropolis, has,
by way of portal, an immense arcade, like that of the
church at Lonjumeau, and is bordered by flower-beds
adorned with statues, and flanked on either side by
columns with niches, which terminate in spires. This
portal, often seen in churches of the same period when
chance has saved them from the ravages of Calvinism,
is surmounted by a triglyph, above which stands a
statue of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus. The
sides of the structure are externally of five arches, de¬
fined b}r stone ribs and lighted by windows "with small
panes. The apse rests on arched abutments that are
worthy of a cathedral. The clock-tower, placed in a
transept of the cross, is square and surmounted by a
belfry. The church can be seen from a great distance,
for it stands at the top of the great square, at the lower
end of which the high-road passes through the town.
This square, large for the size of the town, is sur-
Sons of the Soil.
289
rounded by very original buildings, all of different
epochs. Many, half-wood, half-brick, with their timbers
faced with slate, date back to the Middle Ages. Others,
of stone, with balconies, show the form of gable so dear
to our ancestors, which belongs to the twelfth century.
Several charm the eye with those old projecting beams,
carved with grotesque faces, which form the roof of a
sort of shed, and recall the days when the middle
classes were exclusively commercial. The finest house
among them was that of the chief magistrate of former
days,— a house with a sculptured front on a line with
the church, to which it forms a fine accompaniment.
Sold as national property, it was bought in by the com¬
mune, which turned it into a town-hall and court-house,
where Monsieur Sarcus had presided ever since the
establishment of municipal judges.
This slight sketch will give an idea of the square of
Soulanges, adorned in the centre with a charming foun¬
tain brought from Italy in 1520 by the Marechal de
Soulanges, which was not unworthy of a great capital.
An unfailing jet of water, coming from a spring higher
up the hill, was shed by four Cupids in white marble,
bearing shells in their arms and baskets of grapes upon
their heads.
Literary travellers who may pass this way (should
any such follow Emile Blondet) might imagine the
spot to have inspired Moliere and the Spanish drama,
which held its footing so long on French boards, show¬
ing that comedy is native to warm countries where so
much of life is passed in the public streets. The square
of Soulanges is all the more a reminder of that classic
stage because the two principal streets, opening just on
ja line with the fountain, afford the exit and entrances so
290
Sons of the Soil.
necessary for the dramatic masters and valets whose
business it is either to meet or to avoid each other. At
the corner of one of these streets, called the rue de la
Fontaine, shone the notarial escutcheon of Maitre Lu¬
pin. The houses of Messieurs Sarcus, Guerbet the col¬
lector, Brunet, Gourdon, clerk of the court, and that of
his brother the doctor, also that of old Monsieur Gen-
drin-Vatebled, the keeper of the forests and streams, —
all these houses, kept with extreme neatness by their
owners, who held firmty to the flattering surname of
their native town, stand in the neighborhood of the
square and form the aristocratic quarter of Soulanges.
The house of Madame Soudry — for the powerful
individuality of Mademoiselle Laguerre's former wait¬
ing-maid took the lead of her husband in the commu¬
nity— was modern, having been built by a rich wine
merchant, born in Soulanges, who, after making his
money in Paris, returned there in 1793 to buy wheat
for his native town. He was slain as an " accapareur,"
a monopolist, by the populace, instigated by a mason,
the uncle of Godain, with whom he had had some quar¬
rel about the building of his ambitious house. The
settlement of his estate, sharply contested by collateral
heirs, dragged slowly along until, in 1798, Soudry, who
had then returned to Soulanges, was able to buy the
wine-merchant's palace for three thousand francs in
specie. He then let it, in the first instance, to the
government for the headquarters of the gendarmerie.
In 1811 Mademoiselle Cochet, whom Soudry consulted
about all his affairs, strongly objected to the renewal
of the lease, making the house uninhabitable, she de¬
clared, with barracks. The town of Soulanges, assisted
by the department, then erected a building for the gen-
Sons of the Soil.
291
darmerie in a street running at right angles from the
town-hall. Thereupon Soudry cleaned up his house and
restored its primitive lustre, not a little dimmed by the
stabling of horses and the occupancy of gendarmes.
The house, only one story high, with projecting
windows in the roof, has a view on three sides; one to
the square, another to a lake, the third to a garden.
The fourth side looks on a courtyard which separates
the Soudrys from the adjoining house occupied by a
grocer named Wattebled, a man of the second-class
society of Soulanges, father of the beautiful Madame
Plissoud, of whom we shall presently have occasion to
speak.
All little towns have a renowned beauty, just as they
have a Socquard and a Cafe de la Pais.
It will be apparent to every one that the frontage of
the Soudry mansion on the lake must have a terraced
garden confined by a stone balustrade which overlooks
both the lake and the main road. A flight of steps
leads down from the terrace to the road, and on it an
orange-tree, a pomegranate, a myrtle, and other orna¬
mental shrubs are placed, necessitating a greenhouse.
On the side toward the square the house is entered
from a portico raised several steps above the level of
the street. According to the custom of small towns
the gate of the courtyard, used only for the service
of the house or for any unusual arrival, was seldom
opened. Visitors, who mostly came on foot, entered
by the portico.
The style of the Hotel Soudry is plain. The courses
are indicated by projecting lines; the windows are
framed by mouldings alternately broad and slender, like
those of the Gabriel and Perronnet pavilion in the place
292
Sons of the Soil.
Louis XV. These ornaments in so small a town give
a certain solid and monumental air to the building
which has become celebrated.
Opposite to this house, in another angle of the square
stands the famous Cafe de la Paix, the characteristics
of which, together with the fascinations of its Tivoli,
will require, somewhat later, a less succinct description
than that we have given of the Soudry mansion.
Rigou very seldom came to Soulanges ; everybody was
in the habit of going to him, — Lupin and Gaubertin,
Soudry and Gendrin, — so much were they afraid of him.
But we shall presently understand why any educated
man, such as the ex-Benedictine, would have done as
Rigou did, and kept away from the little town, after
reading the following sketch of the personages who
composed what was called in those parts " the leading
society of Soulanges."
Of its principal figures, the most original, as you
have already suspected, was that of Madame Soudry,
whose personally, to be duly rendered, needs a minute
and careful brush.
Madame Soudry, respectfully imitating Mademoiselle
Laguerre, began by allowing herself a " mere touch of
rouge; " but this delicate tint had changed through
force of habit to those vermilion patches picturesquely
described by our ancestors as '' carriage-wheels." The
wrinkles growing deeper and deeper, it occurred to the
ex-lady's-maid to fill them up with paint. Her forehead
becoming unduly yellow, and the temples too shiny,
she " laid on" a little white, and renewed the veins of
her youth with a tracery of blue. All this color gave
an exaggerated liveliness to her eyes which were already
tricksy enough, so that the mask of her face would seein
Sons of the Soil.
293
to a stranger even more than fantastic, though her
friends and acquaintance, accustomed to this fictitious
brilliancy, actually declared her handsome.
This ungainly creature, always decolletee, showed a
bosom and a pair of shoulders that were whitened and
polished by the same process employed upon her face ;
happily, for the sake of exhibiting her magnificent laces,
she partially veiled the charms of these chemical pro¬
ducts. She always wore the body of her dress stiffened
with whalebone and made in a long point and garnished
with knots of ribbon, even on the point! Her petticoats
gave forth a creaking noise, — so much did the silk and
the furbelows abound.
This attire, which deserves the name of apparel (a
word that before long will be inexplicable), was, on
the evei ing in question, of costly brocade, —for Ma¬
dame Soudry possessed over a hundred dresses, each
richer than the others, the remains of Mademoiselle
Laguerre's enormous and splendid wardrobe, made
over to fit Madame Soudry in the last fashion of the
year 1808. Her blond wig, frizzed and powdered,
sustained a superb cap with knots of cherry satin ribbon
matching those on her dress. If you will kindly im¬
agine beneath this ultra-coquettish cap the face of a
monkey of extreme ugliness, on which a flat nose, flesh-
less as that of Death, is separated by a strong hairy
line from a mouth filled with false teeth, whence issue
sounds like the confused clacking of hunting-horns, you
will have some difficulty in understanding why the
leading societj' of Soulanges (all the town, in fact)
thought this quasi-queen a beauty, — unless, indeed,
you remember the succinct statement recently made ex
professo, by one of the cleverest women of our time,
294
Sons of the Soil.
on the art of making her sex beautiful by surrounding
accessories.
As to accessories, in the first place, Madame Soudry
was surrounded by the magnificent gifts accumulated
by her late mistress, which the ex-Benedictine called
fructus belli. Then she made the most of her ugliness
by exaggerating it, and by assuming that indescribable
air and manner which belongs only to Parisian women,
the secret of which is known even to the most vulgar
among them, — who are always more or less mimics.
She laced tight, wore an enormous bustle, also diamond
earrings, and her fingers were covered with rings. At
the top of her corsage, between two mounds of flesh
well plastered with pearl-white, shone a beetle made
of topaz with a diamond head, the gift of dear mis¬
tress, — a jewel renowned throughout the department.
Like the late dear mistress, she wore short sleeves and
bare arms, and flirted an ivory fan, painted by Boucher
with two little rose-diamonds in the handle.
When she went out Madame Soudry carried a
parasol of the true eighteenth-centur}* style; that is
to say, a tall cane at the end of which opened a green
sun-shade with a green fringe. When she walked
about the terrace a stranger on the high-road, seeing
her from afar, might have thought her one of Watteau's
dames.
In her salon, hung with red damask, with curtains
of the same lined with white silk, a fire on the hearth,
a mantel-shelf adorned with bibelots of the good time
of Louis XV., and bearing candelabra in the form of
lilies upheld by Cupids — in this salon, filled with fur¬
niture in gilded wood of the pied de biche pattern, it
is not impossible to understand why the people of
Sons of the Soil.
295
Soulanges called the mistress of the house, " The
beautiful Madame Soulanges." The mansion had ac¬
tual^ become the civic pride of this capital of a
canton.
If the leading society of the little town believed in
its queen, the queen as surely believed in herself. By
a phenomenon not in the least rare, which the vanity
of mothers and authors carries on at all moments under
our very eyes in behalf of their literary works or their
marriageable daughters, the late Mademoselle Cochet
was, at the end of seven years, so completely buried
under Madame Soudry, the mayoress, that she not
only did not remember her past, but she actually be¬
lieved herself a well-bred woman. She had studied
the airs and graces, the dulcet tones, the gestures, the
ways of her mistress, so long that when she found her¬
self in the midst of an opulence of her own she was
able to practice the natural insolence of it. She knew
her eighteenth century, and the tales of its great lords
and all their belongings, by heart. This back-stairs
erudition gave to her conversation a flavor of oeil-de-
bcenf; her soubrette gossip passed muster for courtly
wit. Morally, the mayoress was, if you wish to say
so, tinsel; but to savages paste diamonds are as good
as real ones.
The woman found herself courted and worshipped by
the society in which she lived, just as her mistress had
been worshipped in former days. She gave weekly
dinners, with coffee and liqueurs to those who came in
after the dessert. No female head could have resisted
the exhilarating force of such continual adulation. In
Winter the warm salon, always well-lighted with wax
candles, was well-filled with the richest people of
296
Sons of the Soil.
Soulanges, who paid for the good liqueurs and the fine
wines which came from dear mistress's cellars, with
flatteries to their hostess. These visitors and their
wives had a life-interest, as it were, in this luxury;
which was to them a saving of lights and fuel. Thus
it came to pass that in a circuit of fifteen miles and
even as far as Ville-aux-Fayes, every voice was ready
to declare: "Madame Soudry does the honors admi¬
rably. She keeps open house; every one enjoys her
salon ; she knows how to carry herself and her fortune;
she always says the witty thing, she makes you laugh.
And what splendid silver! There is not another house
like it short of Paris — "
The silver had been given to Mademoiselle Laguerre
by Bouret. It was a magnificent service made by the
famous Germain, and Madame Soudry had literally
stolen it. At Mademoiselle Laguerre's death she
merely took it into her own room, and the heirs, who
knew nothing of the value of their inheritance, never
claimed it.
For some time past the twelve or fifteen personages
who composed the leading society of Soulanges spoke
of Madame Soudry as the intimate friend of Mademoi¬
selle Laguerre, recoiling at the term " waiting-woman,"
and making believe that she had sacrificed herself to
the singer as her friend and companion.
Strange yet true ! all these illusions became realities,
and spread even to the actual regions of the heart;
Madame Soudry reigned supreme, in a way, over her
husband.
The gendarme, required to love a woman ten years
older than himself who kept the management of her
fortune in her own hands, behaved to her in the spirit
Sons of the Soil.
297
of the ideas she had ended by adopting about her
beauty. But sometimes, when persons envied him or
talked to him of his happiness, he wished they were in
his place, for, to hide his peccadilloes, he was forced
to take as many precautions as the husband of a young
and adoring wife; and it was not until very recently
that he had been able to introduce into the family a
pretty servant-girl.
This portrait of the Queen of Soulanges may seem a
little grotesque, but many specimens of the same kind
could be found in the provinces at that period, — some
more or less noble in blood, others belonging to the
higher banking-circles, like the widow of a receiver-
general in Touraine who still puts slices of veal upon
her cheeks. This portrait, drawn from nature, would
be incomplete without the diamonds in which it is set;
without the surrounding courtiers, a sketch of whom
is necessary, if only to explain how formidable such
Liliputians are, and who are the makers of public
opinion in remote little towns. Let no one mistake
me, however; there are many localities which, like
Soulanges, are neither hamlets, villages, nor little towns,
which have, nevertheless, the characteristics of all.
The inhabitants are very different from those of the
large and busy and vicious provincial cities. Country
life influences the manners and morals of the smaller
places, and this mixture of tints will be found to
produce some truly original characters.
The most important personage after Madame Sou-
dry was Lupin, the notary. Though forty-five springs
had bloomed for Lupin, he was still fresh and rosy,
thanks to the plumpness which fills out the skin of
sedentary persons ; and he still sang ballads. Also, he
298
Sons of the Soil.
retained the elegant evening dress of society warblers.
He looked almost Parisian in his carefully-varnished
boots, his sulphur-yellow waistcoats, his tight-fitting
coats, his handsome silk cravats, his fashionable trou¬
sers. His hair was curled by the barber of Soulanges
(the gossip of the town), and he maintained the attitude
of a man a bonne fortunes by his liaison with Madame
Sarcus, wife of Sarcus the rich, who was to his life,
without too close a comparison, what the campaigns of
Italy were to Napoleon. He alone of the leading society
of Soulanges went to Paris, where he was received by
the Soulanges family. It was enough to hear him talk
to imagine the supremacy he wielded in his capacity
as dandy and judge of elegance. He passed judgment
on all things by the use of three terms : " out of date,"
"antiquated," "superannuated."1 A man, a woman,
or a piece of furniture might be " out of date ;" next,
by a greater degree of imperfection, " antiquated; " but
as to the last term, it was the superlative of contempt.
The first might be remedied, the second was hopeless,
but the third, — oh, better far never to have left the
void of nothingness ! As to praise, a single word suf¬
ficed him, doubly and trebly uttered: "Charming!"
was the positive of his admiration. "Charming,
charming! " made you feel you were safe; but after
" Charming, charming, charming!" the ladder might be
discarded, for the heaven of perfection was attained.
The tabellion, — he called himself tabellion, petty
notary, and keeper of notes (making fun of his calling
in order to seem above it), — the tabellion was on
1 Croute, crouton, and croute-au-pot, untranslatable, and without
equivalent in English. A croute is the slang term for a man be¬
hind the age. — Tr.
/Sons of the Soil.
299
terms of spoken gallantry with Madame Soudry, who
had a weakness for Lupin, though he was blond and
wore spectacles. Hitherto the late Cochet had loved
none but dark men, with moustachios and hairy hands,
of the Alcides type. But she made an exception in fa¬
vor of Lupin on account of his elegance, and, moreover,
because she thought her glory at Soulanges was not
complete without an adorer; but, to Soudry's despair,
the queen's adorers never carried their adoration so
far as to threaten his rights.
Lupin's voice was a counter-tenor; he gave speci¬
mens of it occasional^ in the corners of the salon or on
the terrace,—just enough to remind the compan}* of
his talent for making himself agreeable, — a rock against
which all agreeable men are apt to split, and, alas ! men
of genius also.
Lupin had married an heiress in wooden shoes and
blue woollen stockings, the only daughter of a salt-
dealer, who made his money during the Revolution, —
a period when contraband salt-traders made enormous
profits by reason of the reaction that set in against the
gabelle. He prudently left his wife at home, where
Bebelle, as he called her, was supported under his ab¬
sence by a platonic passion for a handsome clerk who
had no other means than his salary, — a young man
named Bonnac, belonging to the second-class society,
where he played the same role that his master, the
notary, played in the first.
Madame Lupin, a woman without any education
whatever, appeared on great occasions onty, under the
form of an enormous Burgundian barrel dressed in vel¬
vet and surmounted by a little head sunken in shoulders
of a questionable color. No efforts could retain her waist-
300
/Sons of the Soil.
belt in its natural place. " Bebelle " candidly admitted
that prudence forbade her wearing corsets. The im¬
agination of a poet or, better still, that of an inventor,
could not have found on Bebelle's back the slightest
trace of that seductive sinuosity which the vertebrae of
all women who are women usually produce. Bdbelle,
round as a tortoise, belonged to the genus of inverte¬
brate females. This alarming development of cellular
tissue no doubt reassured Lupin on the subject of the
platonic passion of his fat wife, whom he boldly called
Bebelle without raising a laugh.
" Your wife, what is she?" said Sarcus the rich, one
day when unable to digest the fatal word " superannu¬
ated," applied to a piece of furniture he had just bought
at a bargain.
" My wife is not like yours," replied Lupin ; " she is
not defined as yet."
Beneath his rosy exterior the notary possessed
a subtle mind, and he had the sense to say nothing
about his property, which was fully as large as that of
Kigou.
Monsieur Lupin's son, Amaury, was a great trouble
to his father. An only son, and one of the Don Juans of
the valley, he utterly refused to follow the paternal pro¬
fession. He took advantage of his position as only son
to bleed the strong-box cruelly, without, however, ex¬
hausting the patience of his father, who would say after
every escapade, "Well, I was like that in my 3Toung
days." Amaury never came to Madame Soudry's ; he
said she bored him; for, with a recollection of her early
days, she attempted to "educate" him, as she called it,
whereas he much preferred the pleasures and billiards
of the Cafe de la Paix. Pie frequented the worst com-
Sons of the Soil.
301
pany of Soulanges, even down to Bonnebault. He
continued sowing his wild oats, as Madame Soudry re¬
marked, and replied to all his father's remonstrances
with one perpetual request: " Send me back to Paris,
for I am bored to death here."
Lupin ended, alas ! like other gallants, by an attach¬
ment that was semi-conjugal. His known passion, in
spite of his former liaison with Madame Sarcus, was for
the wife of the under-sheriff of the municipal court, —
Madame Euphemie Plissoud, daughter of Wattebled
the grocer, who reigned in the second-class society as
Madame Soudry did in the first. Monsieur Plissoud,
a competitor of Brunet, belonged to the under-world of
Soulanges on account of his wife's conduct, which it
was said he authorized, —a report that drew upon him
the contempt of the leading society.
If Lupin was the musician of the leading society,
Monsieur Gourdon, the doctor, was its man of science.
The town said of him, "We have here in our midst
a scientific man of the first order." Madame Soudry
(who believed she understood music because she had
ushered in Piccini and Gluck and had dressed Made¬
moiselle Laguerre for the Opera) persuaded society,
and even Lupin himself, that he might have made his
fortune by his voice, and, in like manner, she was
always regretting that the doctor did not publish his
scientific ideas.
Monsieur Gourdon merely repeated the ideas of
Cuvier and Buffon, which might not have enabled him
to pose as a scientist before the Soulanges world; but
besides this he was making a collection of shells, and
he possessed an herbarium, and he knew how to stuff
birds. He lived upon the glory of having bequeathed
302
Sons of the Soil.
his cabinet of natural history to the town of Soulanges.
After this was known he was considered throughout
the department as a great naturalist and the successor
of Buffon. Like a certain Genevese banker, whose
pedantry, coldness, and puritan propriety he copied,
without possessing either bis money or his shrewdness,
Monsieur Gourdon exhibited with great complacency
the famous collection, consisting of a bear and a mon¬
key (both of which died on their way to Soulanges),
all the rodents of the department, mice and field-mice
and dormice, rats, muskrats, and moles, etc.; all the
interesting birds ever shot in Burgundy, and an Alpine
eagle caught in the Jura. Gourdon also possessed a
collection of lepidoptera, — a word which led society
to hope for monstrosities, and to say, when it saw them,
"Why, they are only butterflies!" Besides these
things he had a fine array of fossil shells, mostly the
collections of his friends which they bequeathed to
him, and all the minerals of Burgundy and the Jura.
These treasures, laid out on shelves with glass doors
(the drawers beneath containing the insects), occupied
the whole of the first floor of the doctor's house, and
produced a certain effect through the oddity of the
names on the tickets, the magic effect of the colors,
and the gathering together of so many things which
no one pays the slightest attention to when seen in na¬
ture, though much admired under glass. Society took
a regular day to go and look at Monsieur Gourdon's
collection.
"I have," he said to all inquirers, "five hundred
ornithological objects, two hundred mammifers, five
thousand insects, three thousand shells, and seven
thousand specimens of minerals."
Sons of the Soil.
303
" What patience you have had! " said the ladies.
" One must do something for one's country," replied
the collector.
He drew an enormous profit from his carcasses by
the mere repetition of the words, " I have bequeathed
everything to the town by my will." Visitors lauded
his philanthropy; the authorities talked of devoting
the second floor of the town hall to the " Gourdon
Museum," after the collector's death.
" I rely upon the gratitude of my fellow-citizens to
attach my name to the gift," he replied; " for I dare
not hope they would place a marble bust of me — "
"It would be the very least we could do for you,"
they rejoined ; " are you not the glory of our town ? "
Thus the man actually came to consider himself one
of the celebrities of Burgundy. The surest incomes
are not from consols after all; those our vanity ob¬
tains for us have better security. This man of science
was, to employ Lupin's superlatives, happy! happy! I
happy!!!
Gourdon, the clerk of the court, brother of the doctor,
was a pitiful little creature, whose features all gathered
about his nose, so that the nose seemed the point of
departure for the forehead, the cheeks, and the mouth,
all of which were connected with it just as the ravines
of a mountain begin at the summit. This pinched
little man was thought to be one of the greatest poets
in Burgundy, — a Piron, it was the fashion to say. The
dual merits of the two brothers gave rise to the re¬
mark : "We have the brothers Gourdon at Soulanges,
two very distinguished men; men who would hold
their own in Paris."
Devoted to the game of cup-and-ball, the clerk of the
804
Sons of the Soil.
court became possessed by another mania, — that of
composing an ode in honor of an amusement which
amounted to a passion in the eighteenth century.
Manias among mediocrats often run in couples. Gour-
don junior gave birth to his poem during the reign of
Napoleon. That fact is sufficient to show the sound
and healthy school of poesy to which he belonged;
Luce de Lancival, Parny, Saint-Lambert, Rouch£,
Vigee, Andrieux, Berchoux were his heroes. Delille
was his god, until the day when the leading society of
Soulanges raised the question as to whether Gourdon
were not superior to Delille; after which the clerk of
the court always called his competitor " Monsieur
l'Abbe Delille," with exaggerated politeness.
The poems manufactured between 1780 and 1814
were all of one pattern, and the one which Gourdon
composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an idea of
them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in
the art. "The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abor¬
tive generation of jocular poems, all in four cantos
or thereabouts, for it was generally admitted that six
would wear the subject threadbare.
Gourdon's poem entitled " Ode to the Cup-and-Ball"
obeyed the poetic rules which governed these works,
rules that were invariable in their application. Each
poem contained in the first canto a description of the
object sung, preceded (as in the case of Gourdon) by
a species of invocation, of which the following is a
model: —
I sing the good game that belongeth to all,
The game, be it known, of the Cup and the Ball;
Dear to little and great, to the fools and the wise;
Charming game! where the cure of all tedium lies;
Sons of the Soil.
205
When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick
Falamedus himself might have envied the trick;
0 Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games,
Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims,
1 have ruled ofE this paper in syllable squares.
Come, help me —
After explaining the game and describing the hand¬
somest cup-and-balls recorded in history, after relating
what fabulous custom it had formerly brought to the
Singe-Vert and to all dealers in toys and turned ivories,
and finally, after proving that the game attained to
the dignity of statics, Gourdon ended the first canto
with the following conclusion, which will remind the
erudite reader of all the conclusions of the first cantos
of all these poems : —
'Tis thus that the arts and the sciences, too,
Find wisdom in things that seemed silly to you.
The second canto, invariably employed to depict
the manner of using the object, explaining how to ex¬
hibit it in society and before women, and the benefit
to be derived therefrom, will be readily conceived by
the friends of this virtuous literature from the following
quotation, which depicts the player going through his
performance under the eyes of his chosen lady: —
Now look at the player who sits in your midst,
On that ivory ball how his sharp eye is fixt;
He waits and he watches with keenest attention,
Its least little movement in all its precision;
The ball its parabola thrice ha3 gone round,
At the end of the string to which it is bound.
Up it goes! but the player his triumph has missed,
For the disc has come down on his maladroit wrist;
But little he cares for the sting of the ball,
A smile from his mistress consoles for it all.
306
Sons of the Soil.
It was this delineation, worthy of Virgil, which first
roused a doubt as to Delille's superiority over Gourdon.
The word disc, contested by the opinionated Brunei;,
gave matter for discussions which lasted eleven months ;
in fact, until Gourdon the scientist, one evening when
all present were on the point of getting seriously angry,
annihilated the anti-discers by observing: —
"The moon, called a disc by poets, is undoubtedly
a ball."
" How do you know that?" retorted Brunei;. "We
have never seen but one side."
The third canto told the regulation story, — in this in¬
stance, the famous anecdote of the cup-and-ball which
all the world knows by heart, concerning a celebrated
minister of Louis XVI. According to the sacred formula
delivered by the " Debats" from 1810 to 1814, in praise
of these glorious works, Gourdon's ode " borrowed fresh
charms from poesy to embellish the tale."
The fourth canto summed up the whole, and con¬
cluded with these daring words, — not published, be it
remarked, from 1810 to 1814; in fact, the}7 did not
see the light till 1824, after Napoleon's death: —
'T was thus that I sang in the time of alarms.
Oh, if kings would consent to bear no other arms,
And people enjoyed what was best for them all,
The sweet little game of the Cup and the Ball,
Our Burgundy then might be free of all fear,
And return to the good days of Saturn and Khea.
These fine verses were published in a first and only
edition from the press of Bournier, printer of Ville-aux-
Fayes. One hundred subscribers, in the sum of three
francs, guaranteed the dangerous precedent of immor¬
tality to the poem, — a liberality that was all the greater
Sons of the Soil.
307
because these hundred persons had heard the poem
from beginning to end a hundred times over.
Madame Soudry had lately suppressed the cup-and-
ball, which usually lay on a pier-table in the salon and
for the last seven years had given rise to endless quo¬
tations, for she finally discovered in the toy a rival to
her own attractions.
As to the author, who boasted of future poems in
his desk, it is enough to quote the terms in which he
mentioned to the leading society of Soulanges a rival
candidate for literary honors.
" Have you heard a curious piece of news?" he had
said, two years earlier. "There is another poet in
Burgundy! Yes," he added, remarking the astonish¬
ment on all faces, "he comes from Magon. But you
could never imagine the subjects he takes up, — a per¬
fect jumble, absolutely unintelligible, — lakes, stars,
waves, billows! not a single philosophical image, not
even a didactic effort! he is ignorant of the very mean¬
ing of poetry. He calls the sky by its name. He says
' moon,' bluntly, instead of naming it ' the planet of
night.' That's what the desire to be thought original
brings men to," added Gourd on, mournfulty. "Poor
young man! A Burgundian, and sing such stuff as
that!—the pity of it! If he had only consulted me,
I would have pointed out to him the noblest of all
themes, wine, — a poem to be called the Baccheide ; for
Which, alas ! I now feel mj-self too old."
This great poet is still ignorant of his finest triumph
(though he owes it to the fact of being a Burgundian),
namely, that of living in the town of Soulanges, so
rounded and perfected within itself that it knows noth¬
ing of the modern Pleiades, not even their names.
308
&'ons of the Soil.
A hundred Gourdons made poetry under the Empire,
and yet they tell us it was a period that neglected liter¬
ature ! Examine the " Journal de la Librairie " and you
will find poems on the game of draughts, on backgam¬
mon, on tricks with cards, on geography, typography,
comedy, etc., — not to mention the vaunted masterpieces
of Delille on Piety, Imagination, Conversation; and those
of Berchoux on Gastromania and Dansomania, etc.
Who can foresee the chances and changes of taste, the
caprices of fashion, the transformations of the human
mind ? The generations as they pass along sweep out
of sight the last fragments of the idols they found on
their path and set up other gods,—to be overthrown
like the rest.
Sarcus, a handsome little man with a dapple-gray
head, devoted himself in turn to Themis and to Flora,
— in other words, to legislation and a greenhouse. For
the last twelve years he had been meditating a book on
the History of the Institution of Justices of the Peace,
"whose political and judiciary role," he said, "had
already passed through several phases, all derived from
the Code of Brumaire, year IV.; and to-day that insti¬
tution, so precious to the nation, had lost its power
because the salaries were not in keeping with the im¬
portance of its functions, which ought to be performed
by irremovable officials." Rated in the community as an
able man, Sarcus was the accepted statesman of Ma¬
dame Soudry's salon ; jrou can readily imagine that he
was the leading bore. They said he talked like a book.
Gaubertin prophesied he would receive the cross of
the Legion of honor, but not until the day when, as
Leclercq's successor, he should take his seat on the
benches of the Left Centre.
Sons of the Soil.
309
Guerbet, the collector, a man of parts, a heavy, fat,
individual with a buttery face, a toupet on his bald
spot, gold earrings, which were always in difficulty with
his shirt-collar, had the hobby of pomology. Proud of
possessing the finest fruit-garden in the arrondissement,
he gathered his first crops a month later than those of
Paris ; his hot-beds supplied him with pine-apples, nec¬
tarines, and peas, out of season. He brought bunches
of strawberries to Madame Soudry with pride when the
fruit could be bought for ten sous a basket in Paris.
Soulanges possessed a pharmaceutist named Vermut,
a chemist, who was more of a chemist than Sarcus was
a statesman, or Lupin a singer, or Gourdon the elder a
scientist, or his brother a poet. Nevertheless, the lead¬
ing society of Soulanges did not take much notice of
Vermut, and the second-class society took none at all.
The instinct of the first may have led them to perceive
the real superiority of this thinker, who said little but
smiled at their absurdities so satirically that they first
doubted his capacity and then whispered tales against
it; as for the other class they took no notice of him
one way or the other.
Vermut was the butt of Madame Soudry's salon. No
society is complete without a victim, — without an ob¬
ject to pity, ridicule, despise, and protect. Vermut, full
of his scientific problems, often came with his cravat
untied, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his little green
surtout spotted.
The little man, gifted with the patience of a chemist,
could not enjoy (that is the term employed in the pro¬
vinces to express the abolition of domestic rule) Ma¬
dame Vermut,—a charming woman, a lively woman,
capital company (for she could lose forty sous at cards
310
Sons of the Soil.
and sa}T nothing), a woman who railed at her husband,
annoyed him with epigrams, and declared him to be an
imbecile unable to distil anything but dulness. Madame
Vermut was one of those women who in the society of
a small town are the life and soul of amusement and
who set things going. She supplied the salt of her little
world, kitchen-salt, it is true; her jokes were some¬
what broad, but society forgave them ; though she was
capable of saying to the cure Taupin, a man of seventy
years of age, with white hair, "Hold your tongue,
my lad."
The miller of Soulanges, possessing an income of fifty
thousand francs, had an only daughter whom Lupin
desired for his son Amaury, since he had lost the
hope of marrying him to Gaubertin's daughter. This
miller, a Sarcus-Taupin, was the Nucingen of the little
town. He was supposed to be thrice a millionaire; but
he never transacted business with others, and thought
only of grinding his wheat and keeping a monopoly of
it; his most noticeable point was a total absence of
politeness and good manners.
The elder Guerbet, brother of the post-master at
Conches, possessed an income of ten thousand francs,
besides his salary as collector. The Gourdons were
rich ; the doctor had married the only daughter of old
Monsieur Gendrin-Vatebled, keeper of the forests and
streams, whom the family were now expecting to die,
while the poet had married the. niece and sole heiress
of the Abbe Taupin, the curate of Soulanges, a stout
priest who lived in his cure like a rat in his cheese.
This clever ecclesiastic, devoted to the leading so¬
ciety, kind and obliging to the second, apostolic to the
poor and unfortunate, made himself beloved by the
Sons of the Soil.
311
whole town. He was cousin of the miller and cousin
of the Sarcuses, and belonged therefore to the neigh¬
borhood and to its mediocracy. He always dined out
and saved expenses; he went to weddings but came
away before the ball; he paid the costs of public wor¬
ship, saying, " It is my business." And the parish let
him do it, with the rfemark, "We have an excellent
priest." The bishop, who knew the Soulanges people
and was not at all misled as to the true value of the
abbe, was glad enough to keep in such a town a man
who made religion acceptable, and who knew how to
fill his church and preach to sleepy heads,
t It is unnecessary to remark that not only each of
these worthy burghers possessed some one of the spe¬
cial qualifications which are necessary to existence in
the provinces, but also that each cultivated his field in
the domain of vanity without a rival. Pere Guerbet
understood finance, Soudry might have been minister
of war; if Cuvier had passed that way incognito, the
leading society of Soulanges would have proved to him
that he knew nothing in comparison with Monsieur
Gourdon the doctor. " Adolphe Nourrit with his
thread of a voice," remarked the notary with patroniz¬
ing indulgence, " was scarcely worthy to accompany
the nightingale of Soulanges." As to the author of the
" Cup-and-Ball" (which was then being printed at
Bournier's), society was satisfied that a poet of his force
could not be met with in Paris, for Delille was now
dead.
This provincial bourgeoisie, so comfortably satisfied
with itself, took the lead through the various superiori¬
ties of its members. Therefore the imagination of
those who oyer resided, even for a short time, in a
312
Sons of the Soil.
little town of this kind can conceive the air of profound
satisfaction upon the faces of these people, who he--
lieved themselves the solar plexus of France, all of them
armed with incredible dexterity and shrewdness to do
mischief, — all, in their wisdom, declaring that the hero
of Essling was a coward, Madame de Montcornet a
manoeuvring Parisian, and the Abbe Brossette an ambi¬
tious little priest.
If Bigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin had lived at Ville-
aux-Fayes, they would have quarrelled ; their various
pretensions would have clashed; but fate ordained that
the Lucullus of Blangy felt too strongly the need of soli¬
tude, in which to wallow at his ease in usury and sen¬
suality, to live anywhere but at Blangy ; that Madame
Soudry had sense enough to see she could reign no¬
where except at Soulanges; and that Ville-aux-Fayes
was Gaubertin's place of business. Those who enjoy
studying social nature will admit that General Mont¬
cornet was pursued by special ill-luck in this accidental-
separation of his dangerous enemies, who thus accom¬
plished the evolutions of their individual power and
vanity at such distances from each other that neither
star interfered with the orbit of the other, — a fact which
doubled and trebled their powers of mischief.
Nevertheless, though all these worthy bourgeois,
proud of their accomplishments, considered their so¬
ciety as far superior in attractions to that of Ville-aux-
Fayes, and repeated with comic pomposity the local-
dictum, " Soulanges is a town of society and social-
pleasures," it must not be supposed that Ville-aux-
Fayes accepted this supremacy. The Gaubertin salon
ridiculed {in petto) the salon Soudry. By the manner
in which Gaubertin remarked, " We are a financial
Sone of the Soil.
313
community, engaged in actual business; we have the
folly to fatigue ourselves in making fortunes," it was
easy to perceive a latent antagonism between the earth
and the moon. The moon believed herself useful to the
earth, and the earth governed the moon. Earth and
moon, however, lived in the closest intimacy. At the
carnival the leading society of Soulanges went in a body
to four balls given by Gaubertin, Gendrin, Leclercq, and
Soudry, junior. Every Sunday the latter, his wife,
Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Elise Gaubertin
dined with the Soudrys at Soulanges. When the sub-
prefect was invited, and when the postmaster of Conches
arrived to take pot-luck, Soulanges enjoyed the sight of
four official equipages drawn up at the door of the
Soudry mansion.
814
Sons of the Soil
II.
THE CONSPIRATORS IN THE QUEEN'S SALON.
Reaching Sonlanges about half-past five o'clock,
Rigou was sure of finding the usual party assembled at
the Soudrys'. There, as everywhere else in town, the
dinner-hour was three o'clock, according to the custom
of the last century. From five to nine the notables of
Soulanges met in Madame Soudry's salon to exchange
the news, make their political speeches, comment upon
the private lives of every one in the valley, and talk
about Les Aigues, which latter topic kept the conversa¬
tion going for at least an hour every day. It was every¬
body's business to learn at least something of what was
going on, and also to pay their court to the mistress of
the house.
After this preliminary talk they played at boston,
the only game the queen understood. When the fat
old Guerbet had mimicked Madame Isaure, Gaubertin's
wife, laughed at her languishing airs, imitated her thin
voice, her pinched mouth, and her juvenile ways ; when
the Abbe Taupin had related one of the tales of his
repertory; when Lupin had told of some event at Ville-.
aux-Fayes, and Madame Soudry had been deluged with
compliments ad nauseam, the company would say:
" We have had a charming game of boston."
Too self-indulgent to be at the trouble of driving over
to the Soudrys' merely to hear the vapid talk of its visi-
Sons of the Soil.
315
tors and to see a Parisian monkey in the guise of an
old woman, Rigou, far superior in intelligence and edu¬
cation to this petty society, never made his appearance
unless business brought him over to meet the notary.
He excused himself from visiting on the ground of his
occupations, his habits, and his health, which latter did
not allow him, he said, to return at night along a road
which led by the foggy banks of the Thune.
The tall, stiff usurer always had an imposing effect
upon Madame Soudry's company, who instinctively rec¬
ognized in his nature the cruelty of the tiger with steel
claws, the craft of a savage, the wisdom of one born in
a cloister and ripened by the sun of gold, — a man to
whom Gaubertin had never yet been willing to fully
commit himself.
The moment the little green carriole and the bay
horse passed the Cafe de la Paix, Urbain, Soudry's
man-servant, who was seated on a bench under the
dining-room windows, and was gossipping with the
tavern-keeper, shaded his eyes with his hand to see who
was coming.
" It's Pere Rigou," he said. " I must go round and
open the door. Take his horse, Socquard." And
Urbain, a former trooper, who could not get into the
gendarmerie and had therefore taken service with Sou-
dry, went round the house to open the gates of the
courtyard.
Socquard, a famous personage throughout the valley,
was treated, as you see, with very little ceremony by
the valet. But so it is with many illustrious people
who are so kind as to walk and to sneeze and to sleep
and to eat precisely like common mortals.
Socquard, born a Hercules, could carry a weight of
316
Sons of the Soil.
eleven hundred pounds ; a blow of his fist applied on a
man's back would break the vertebral column in two;
he could bend an iron bar, or hold back a carriage
drawn by one horse. A Milo of Crotona in the valley,
his fame had spread throughout the department, where
all sorts of foolish stories were current about him, as
about all celebrities. It was told how he had once car¬
ried a poor woman and her donkey and her basket on
his back to market; how he had been known to eat a
whole ox and drink the fourth of a hogshead of wine in
one day, etc. Gentle as a marriageable girl, Socquard,
who was a stout, short man, with a placid face, broad
shoulders, and a deep chest, where his lungs played like
the bellows of a forge, possessed a flute-like voice, the
limpid tones of which surprised all those who heard
them for the first time.
Like Tonsard, whose renown released him from the
necessity of giving proofs of his ferocity, in fact, like all
other men who are backed by public opinion of one kind
or another, Socquard never displayed his extraordinary
muscular force unless asked to do so by friends. He
now took the horse as the usurer drew up at the steps
of the portico.
"Are you all well at home, Monsieur Rigou?" said
the illustrious innkeeper.
" Pretty well, my good friend," replied Rigou. " Do
Plissoud and Bonnebault and Viollet and Amaury still
continue good customers ? "
The question, uttered in a tone of good-natured inter¬
est, was by no means one of those empty speeches which
superiors are apt to bestow upon inferiors. In his leisure
moments Rigou thought over the smallest details of " the
affair," and Fourchon had already warned him that there
Sons of the Soil.
317
was something suspicious in the intimacy between
Plissoud, Bonnebault, and the brigadier, Viollet.
Bonnebault, in payment of a few francs lost at cards,
might very likely tell the secrets he heard at Tonsard's
to Viollet; or he might let them out over his punch
without realizing the importance of such gossip. But
as the information of the old otter man might be in¬
stigated by thirst, Rigou paid no attention except so
far as it concerned Plissoud, whose situation was likely
to inspire him with a desire to counteract the coalition
against Les Aigues, if only to get his paws greased by
one or the other of the two parties.
Plissoud combined with his duties of under-sheriff
other occupations which were poorly remunerated, that
of agent for insurance (a new form of enterprise just
beginning to show itself in France), agent, also, of a
society providing against the chances of recruitment.
His insufficient pay and a love of billiards and boiled
Wine made his future doubtful. Like Fourchon, he cul¬
tivated the art of doing nothing, and expected his for¬
tune through some lucky but problematic chance. He
hated the leading society, but he had measured its
power. He alone knew the middle-class coalition or¬
ganized by Gaubertin to its depths; and he continued
to sneer at the rich men of Soulanges and Ville-aux-
Fayes, as if he alone represented the opposition. With¬
out money and not respected, he did not seem a person
to be feared professionally, and so Brunei, glad to have
a despised competitor, protected him and helped him
along, to prevent his selling his business to some eager
young man, like Bonnac for instance, who might force
him, Brunei, to divide the patronage of the canton
between them.
818
Sons of the Soil.
" Thanks to those fellows, we keep the ball a-rolling,"
said Socquard. "But folks are trying to imitate my
boiled wine."
" Sue them," said Rigou, sententiously.
" That would lead too far," replied the innkeeper.
" Do your clients get on well together?"
" Tolerably, yes ; sometimes they '11 have a row, but
that's only natural for players."
All heads were at the window of the Soudry salon
which looked to the square. Recognizing the father
of his daughter-in-law, Soudry came to the portico to
receive him.
" Well, comrade," said the mayor of Soulanges, "is
Annette ill, that you give us }~our company of an
evening?"
Through an old habit acquired in the gendarmerie
Soudry alwa}Ts went direct to the point.
"No,— There's trouble brewing," replied Rigou,
touching his right fore-finger to the hand which Sou-
dry held out to him. '' I came to talk about it, for it
concerns our children in a way—"
Soudry, a handsome man dressed in blue, as though he
were still a gendarme, with a black collar, and spurs at
his heels, took Rigou by the arm and led him up to his
imposing better-half. The glass door to the terrace was
open, and the guests were walking about enjoying the
summer evening, which brought out the full beauty of
the glorious landscape which we have already described.
" It is a long time since we have seen you, my dear
Rigou," said Madame Soudry, taking the arm of the
ex-Benedictine and leading him out upon the terrace.
"My digestion is so troublesome!" he replied;
" see! my color is almost as high as yours."
Sons of the Soil.
819
Rigou's appearance on the terrace was the sign for
an explosion of jovial greetings on the part of the
assembled company.
" And how may the lord of Blangy be? " said little
Sarcus, justice of the peace.
" Lord!" replied Rigou, bitterly, " I am not even
cock of my own village now."
" The hens don't say so, scamp ! " exclaimed Madame
Soudry, tapping her fan on his arm.
" All well, my dear master? " said the notary, bow¬
ing to his chief client.
" Pretty well," replied Rigou, again putting his fore¬
finger into his interlocutor's hand.
This gesture, by which Rigou kept down the process
of hand-shaking to the coldest and stiffest of demon¬
strations would have revealed the whole man to any
observer who did not already know him.
" Let us find a corner where we can talk quietly," said
the ex-monk, looking at Lupin and at Madame Soudry.
" Let us return to the salon," replied the queen.
" What has the Shopman done now? " asked Soudry,
sitting down beside his wife and putting his arm about
her waist.
Madame Soudry, like other old women, forgave a
great deal in return for such public marks of tenderness.
" Why," said Rigou, in a low voice, to set an exam¬
ple of caution, " he has gone to the Prefecture to
demand the enforcement of the penalties ; he wants the
help of the authorities."
"Then he's lost," said Lupin, rubbing his hands;
" the peasants will fight."
"Fight!" cried Soudry, "that depends. If the
prefect and the general, who are friends, send a
320
Sons of the Soil.
squadron of cavalry the peasants can't fight. They
might at a pinch get the better of the gendarmes, but
as for resisting a charge of cavalry! — "
" Sibilet heard him say something much more dan¬
gerous than that," said Rigou; " and that's what brings
me here."
"Oh, my poor Sophie!" cried Madame Soudry,
sentimentally, alluding to her friend, Mademoiselle
Laguerre, "into what hands Les Aigues has fallen!
This is what we have gained by the Revolution! — a
parcel of swaggering epaulets! We might have fore¬
seen that whenever the bottle was turned upside down
the dregs would spoil the wine!"
" He means to go to Paris and cabal with the Keeper
of the Seals and others to get the whole judiciary
changed down here," said Rigou.
" Ha! " cried Lupin, " then he sees his danger."
" If they appoint my son-in-law attorney-general we
can't help ourselves ; the general will get him replaced
by some Parisian devoted to his interests," continued
Rigou. "If he gets a place in Paris for Gendrin and
makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre,
he '11 knock down our skittles ! The gendarmerie is
on his side now, and if he gets the courts as well, and
keeps such advisers as the abbe and Michaud we shan't
dance at the wedding; he '11 play us some scurvy trick
or other."
"How is it that in all these five years you have
never managed to get rid of that abbe?" said Lupin.
"You don't know him; he's as suspicious as a
blackbird," replied Rigou. " He is not a man at all;
that priest; he does n't care for women; I can't find
out that he has any passion ; there's no point at which
Sons of the Soil.
321
one can attack him. The general lays himself open by
his temper. A man with a vice is the servant of his
enemies if they know how to pull its string. There are
no strong men but those who lead their vices instead of
being led by them. The peasants are all right; their
hatred, against the abbe keeps up; but we can do
nothing as yet. He's like Michaud, in his way; such
men are too good for this world, — God ought to call
them to himself."
" It would be a good plan to find some pretty
servant-girl to scrub his staircase," remarked Ma¬
dame Soudry. The words caused Rigou to give the
little jump with which crafty natures recognize the craft
of others.
"The Shopman has another vice," he said; "he
loves his wife; we might get hold of him that way."
. " We ought to find out how far she really influences
him," said Madame Soudry.
" There's the rub ! " said Lupin.
. " As for you, Lupin," said Rigou, in a tone of au¬
thority, " be off to the Prefecture and see the beautiful
Madame Sarcus at once ! You must get her to tell you
all the Shopman says and does at the Prefecture."
" Then I shall have to stay all night," replied Lupin.
" So much the better for Sarcus the rich; he '11 be
the gainer," said Rigou. " She is not yet out of date,
"Madame Sarcus — "
"Oh! Monsieur Rigou," said Madame Soudry, in a
mincing tone, "are women ever out of date?"
"You may be right about Madame Sarcus; she
does n't paint before the glass," retorted Rigou, who
was always disgusted by the exhibition of the Cochet's
ancient charms,
322
Sons of the Soil.
Madame Soudry, who thought she used only a " sus¬
picion " of rouge, did not perceive the sarcasm and
hastened to say : —
" Is it possible that women paint? "
" Now, Lupin," said Rigou, without replying to this
naivete, " go over to Gaubertin's to-morrow morning.
Tell him that my fellow-mayor and I" (striking Soudry
on the thigh) " will break bread with him at breakfast
somewhere about midday. Tell him everything, so
that we may all have thought it over before we meet,
for now's the time to make an end of that damned
Shopman. As I drove over here I came to the con¬
clusion it would be best to get up a quarrel between
the courts and him, so that the Keeper of the Seals
would be wary of making the changes he may ask in
their members."
"Bravo for the son of the Church!" cried Lupin,
slapping Rigou on the shoulder.
Madame Soudry was here struck by an idea which
could come only to a former waiting-maid of an Opera
divinity.
" If," she said, " one could only get the Shopman to
the fete at Soulanges, and throw some fine girl in his
way who would turn his head, we could easily set his
wife against him by letting her know that the son of
an upholsterer has gone back to the style of his early
loves."
"Ah, my beauty!" said Soudry, "you have more
sense in your head than the Prefecture of police in
Paris."
" That's an idea which proves that Madame reigns by
mind as well as by beauty," said Lupin, who was re¬
warded by a grimace which the leading society of Sou-
Sons of the Soil.
323
langes were in the habit of accepting without protest
for a smile.
" One might do better still," said Rigou, after some
thought; " if we could only turn it into a downright
scandal."
" Complaint and indictment! affair in the police
court! " cried Lupin. "Oh! that would be grand ! "
" Glorious ! " said Soudry, candidly. " What happi¬
ness to see the Comte de Montcornet, grand cross of
the Legion of honor, commander of the Order of Saint
Louis, and lieutenant-general, accused of having at¬
tempted, in a public resort, the virtue—just think
of it! "
"He loves his wife too well," said Lupin, reflec¬
tively. "He couldn't be got to that."
"That's no obstacle," remarked Rigou; "but I
don't know a single girl in the whole arrondissement
who is capable of making a sinner of a saint. I have
been looking out for one for the abbe."
" What do you say to that handsome Gatienne
Giboulard, of Auxerre, whom Sarcus, junior, is mad
after?" asked Lupin.
"That's the only one," answered Rigou, "but she
is not suitable; she thinks she has only to be seen to
be admired ; she's not complying enough; we want a
witch and a sly-boots, too. Never mind, the right one
will turn up sooner or later."
"Yes," said Lupin, " the more pretty girls he sees
the greater the chances are."
" But perhaps }'0U can't get the Shopman to the
fair," said the ex-gendarme. "And if he does come,
will he go to the Tivoli ball ? "
''The reason that has always kept him away from
324
Sons of the Soil,
the fair does n't exist this year, my love," said Madame
Soudry.
" What reason, dearest? " asked Soudry.
"The Shopman wanted to marry Mademoiselle de
Soulanges," said the notary. " The family replied that
she was too young, and that mortified him. That is
why Monsieur de Soulanges and Monsieur de Mont-
cornet, two old friends who both served in the Imperial
Guard, are so cool to each other that they never speak.
The Shopman does n't want to meet the Soulanges at
the fair; but this jrear the family are not coming."
Usually the Soulanges party stayed at the chateau
from July to October, but the general was then in
command of the artillery in Spain, under the Due d'An-
gouleme, and the countess had accompanied him. At
the siege of Cadiz the Comte de Soulanges obtained, as
every one knows, the marshal's baton, which he kept
till 1826.
"Very true," cried Lupin. "Well, it is for }rou,
papa," he added, addressing Rigou, " to manoeuvre
the matter so that we can get him to the fair; once
there, we ought to be able to entrap him."
The fair of Soulanges, which takes place on the 15th
of August, is one of the features of the town, and
carries the palm over all other fairs in a circuit of
sixty miles, even those of the capital of the department.
Ville-aux-Fayes has no fair, for its fete-day, the Saint-
Sylvestre, happens in winter.
From the 12th to the 15th of August all sorts of mer¬
chants abounded at Soulanges, and set up their booths
in two parallel lines, two rows of the well-known gray
linen huts, which gave a lively appearance to the usually
deserted streets. The two weeks of the fair brought in
Sons of the Soil.
825
a sort of harvest to the little town, for the festival has
the authority and prestige of tradition. The peasants,
as old Fourchon said, flocked in from the districts to
which labor bound them for the rest of the year. The
wonderful show on the counters of the improvised shops,
the collection of all sorts of merchandise, the coveted
objects of the wants or the vanities of these sons of the
soil, who have no other shows or exhibitions to enjoy,
exercise a periodical seduction over the minds of all,
especially the women and children. So, after the first
of August the authorities posted advertisements signed
by Soudry, throughout the whole arrondissement, offer¬
ing protection to merchants, jugglers, mountebanks,
prodigies of all kinds, and stating how long the fair
would last, and what would be its principal attractions.
On these posters, about which it will be remembered
Madame Tonsard inquired of Yermichel, there was al¬
ways, on the last line, the following announcement:
" Tivoli will be illuminated with colored-glass lamps."
The town had adopted as the place for public balls a
dance-ground created by Socquard out of a stony gar¬
den (stony, like the rest of the hill on which Sou-
langes is built, where the gardens are of made land),
and called by him a Tivoli. This character of the soil
explains the peculiar flavor of the Soulanges wine, —a
white wine, dry and spirituous, very like Madeira or
the Vouvray wine, or Johannisberger, — three vintages
which resemble one another.
The powerful effect produced by the Socquard ball
upon the imaginations of the whole country-side made
the inhabitants thereof very proud of their Tivoli.
Such as had ventured as far as Paris declared that the
Parisian Tivoli was superior to that of Soulanges only
326
Sons of the Soil.
in size. Gaubertin boldly declared that, for his part,
he preferred the Socquard ball to the Parisian ball.
"Well, we'll think it all over," continued Rigou.
" That Parisian fellow, the editor of a newspaper, will
soon get tired of his present amusement and be glad
of a change; perhaps we could through the servants
give him the idea of coming to the fair, and he'd bring
the others ; I '11 consider it. Sibilet might — although,
to be sure, his influence is devilishly decreased of late
—but he might get the general to think he could curry
popularity by coming."
" Find out if the beautiful countess keeps the gen¬
eral at arm's length," said Lupin; "that's the point
if you want him to fall into the farce at Tivoli."
" That little woman," cried Madame Soudry, " is too
much of a Parisian not to know how to run with the
hare and hold with the hounds."
" Fourchon has got his granddaughter1 Catherine on
good terms, he tells me, with Charles, the Shopman's
groom. That gives us one ear more in Les Aigues —
Are you sure of the Abbe Taupin," he added, as the
priest entered the room from the terrace.
" We hold him and the Abbe Moucheron, too, just
as I hold Soudry," said the queen, stroking her hus¬
band's chin; '' you are not unhappy, dearest, are
you?" she said to Soudry.
"If I can plan a scandal against that Tartufe of a
a Brossette we can win," said Rigou, in a low voice.
" But I am not sure if the local spirit can succeed
against the Church spirit. You don't realize what that
is. I, myself, who am no fool, I can't say what I '11
do when I fall ill. I believe I shall try to be reconciled
with the Church."
■Sons of the Soil.
827
"Suffer me to hope it," said the Abbe Taupin, for
whose benefit Rigou had raised his voice1 on the last
words.
"Alas! the wrong I did in marrying prevents it,"
replied Rigou. " I cannot kill off Madame Rigou."
"Meantime, let us think of Les Aigues," said Ma¬
dame Soudry.
" Yes," said the ex-monk. " Do you know, I begin
to think that our associate at Ville-aux-Fayes may be
cleverer than the rest of us. I fancy that Gaubertin
wants Les Aigues for himself, and that he means to
trick us in the end."
" But Les Aigues will not belong to any one of us ;
it will have to come down, from roof to cellar," said
Soudry.
"I shouldn't be surprised if there were treasure
buried in those cellars," observed Rigou, cleverly.
" Nonsense! "
" Well, in the wars of the olden time the great lords,
who were often besieged and surprised, did bury their
gold until they should be able to recover it; and you
know that the Marquis de Soulanges-Hautemer (in
whom the younger branch came to an end) was one of
the victims of the Biron conspiracy. The Comtesse de
Moret received the property from Henri IV. when it
was confiscated."
" See what it is to know the history of France!"
said Soudry. "You are right. It is time to come to
an understanding with Gaubertin."
"If he shirks," said Rigou, " we must smoke him
out."
"He is rich enough now," said Lupin, "to be an
,honest man."
328
Sons of the Soil.
"I'll answer for him as I would for myself," said
Madame Soudry; "he's the most lo}7al man in the
kingdom."
" We all believe in his loyalty," said Rigou, " but
nevertheless nothing should be neglected, even among
friends — By the bye, I think there is some one in
Soulanges who is hindering matters."
"Who's that?" asked Soudry.
" Plissoud," replied Rigou.
" Plissoud ! " exclaimed Soudry. " Poor fool! Bru¬
nei holds him by the halter, and his wife by the gullet;
ask Lupin."
" What can he do? " said Lupin.
" He means to warn Montcornet," replied Rigou,
"and get his influence and a place —"
" It would n't bring him in more than his wife earns
for him at Soulanges," said Madame Soudry.
" He tells everything to his wife when he is drunk,"
remarked Lupin. " We shall know it all in good
time."
"The beautiful Madame Plissoud has no secrets
from 3'ou," said Rigou; "we maybe easy about that."
"Besides, she's as stupid as she is beautiful," said
Madame Soudry. "I would n't change with her; for
if I were a man I'd prefer an ugly woman who has
some mind, to a beauty who can't say two words."
" Ah! " said the notary, biting his lips, " but she
can make others say three."
" Puppy!" cried Rigou, as he made for the door.
" Well, then," said Soudry, following him to the
portico, "to-morrow, early."
"I'11 come and fetch you— Ha! Lupin," he said
to the notary, who came out with him to order his
Sons of the Soil.
329
horse, " try to make sure that Madame Sarcus hears
all the Shopman says and does against us at the
Prefecture."
" If she does n't hear it, who will? " replied Lupin.
" Excuse me," said Rigou, smiling blandly, " but
there are such a lot of ninnies in there that I forgot
there was one clever man."
"The wonder is that I don't grow rusty among
them," replied Lupin, naively.
" Is it true that Soudry has hired a pretty servant?"
" Yes," replied Lupin ; "for the last week our wor¬
thy mayor has set the charms of his wife in full relief
by comparing her with a little peasant-girl about the
age of an old ox ; and we can't yet imagine how he set¬
tles it with Madame Soudrj', for, would you believe it,
he has the audacity to go to bed early."
" I '11 find out to-morrow," said the village Sardana-
palus, tiying to smile.
The two plotters shook hands as they parted.
Rigou, who did not like to be on the road after dark
for, notwithstanding his present popularity, he was
cautious, called to his horse, " Get up, Citizen," — a
joke this son of 1793 was fond of letting fly at the Revo¬
lution. Popular revolutions have no more bitter enemies
than those they have trained themselves.
" Pere Rigou's visits are pretty short," said Gourdon
the poet to Madame Soudry.
"They are pleasant, if they are short," she an¬
swered.
" Like his own life," said the doctor; " his abuse of
pleasures will cut that short."
"So much the better," remarked Soudry, " my son
will step into the property."
330
Sons of the Soil.
"Did he bring you any news about Les Aigues?"
asked the Abbe Taupin.
" Yes, my dear abbe," said Madame Soudry, " Those
people are the scourge of the neighborhood. I can't
comprehend how it is that Madame de Montcornet, who
is certainly a well-bred woman, does n't understand their
interests better."
" And yet she has a model before her eyes," said the
abbe.
" Who is that? " asked Madame Soudry, smirking.
" The Soulanges."
" Ah, yes ! " replied the queen after a pause.
" Here I am ! " cried Madame Vermut, coming into
the room; "and without my re-active, — for Vermut
is so inactive in all that concerns me that I can't call
him an active of an}* kind."
" What the devil is that cursed old Rigou doing
there ? " said Soudry to Guerbet, as they saw the green
chaise stop before the gate of the Tivoli. "He is one
of those tiger-cats whose every step has an object."
"You may well say cursed," replied the fat little;
collector."
" He has gone into the Cafe de la Paix," remarked
Gourdon, the doctor.
"And there's some trouble there," added Gourdou
the poet; "I can hear them yelping fro in here."
"That cafe," said the abb£, "is like the temple of
Janus; it was called the Cafe de la Guerre under the
Empire, and then it was peace itself; the most respect- .
able of the bourgeoisie met there for conversation — "
" Conversation!" interrupted the justice of the peace.
" What kind of conversation was it which produced all
the little Bourniers?"
Sons of the Soil.
331
" —but ever since it has been called, in honor of the
Bourbons, the Cafe de la Paix, fights take place there
every day," said Abbe Taupin, finishing the sentence
which the magistrate had taken the liberty of inter¬
rupting.
This idea of the abbe was, like the quotations from
" The Cup-and-Ball," of frequent recurrence.
" Do you mean that Burgundy will always be the
land of fisticuff's?" asked Pere Guerbet.
"That's not ill said," remarked the abbe; "not at
all; in fact it's almost an exact history of our country."
" I don't know auditing about the history of France,"
blurted Soudry ; " and before I try to learn it, it is more
important for me to know why old Rigou has gone into
the Cafe de la Paix with Socquard."
"Oh!" returned the abbe, "wherever he goes and
wherever he stays, you may be quite certain it is for no
charitable purpose."
"That man gives me goose-flesh whenever I see
him," said Madame Yermut.
" He is so much to be feared," remarked the doctor,
"that if he had a spite against me I should have no
peace till he was dead and buried; he would get out of
his coffin to do you an ill-turn."
"If any one can force the Shopman to come to the
fair, and manage to catch him in a trap, it'll be Rigou,"
said Soudr}rto his wife, in a low tone.
" Especially," she replied, in a loud one, "if Gauber-
tin and you, my love, help him."
" There ! did n't I tell you so? " cried Guerbet, pok¬
ing the justice of the peace. " I knew he would find
some pretty girl at Socquard's, —> there he is, putting
her into his carriage."
332
Sons of the Soil.
"You-are quite wrong, gentlemen," said Madame
Soudry; "Monsieur Rigou is thinking of nothing but
the great affair; and if I'm not mistaken, that girl is
onty Tonsard's daughter."
"He is like the chemist who lays in a stock of vipers,"
said old Guerbet.
" One would think you were intimate with Monsieur
Yermut to hear you talk," said the doctor, pointing to the
little apothecary, who was then crossing the square.
" Poor fellow ! " said the poet, who was suspected of
occasionally sharpening his wit with Madame Vermut;
"just look at that waddle of his! and the}- say he is
learned! "
" Without him," said the justice of the peace, " we
should be hard put to it about post-mortems ; he found
poison in poor Pigeron's stomach so cleverly that the
chemists of Paris testified in the court at Auxerre that
they could n't have done better — "
"He didn't find anything at all," said Soudry;
" but, as President Gendrin says, it is a good thing to
let people suppose that poison will always be found —"
" Madame Pigeron was very wise to leave Auxerre,"
said Madame Vermut; " she was silly and wicked
both. As if it were necessary to have recourse to drugs
to annul a husband! Are not there other waj's quite
as sure, but innocent, to rid ourselves of that incum¬
brance ? I would like to have a man dare to question
my conduct! The worthy Monsieur Vermut does n't
hamper me in the least, — but he has never been ill yet.
As for Madame de Montcornet, just see how she walks
about the woods and the hermitage with that journalist
whom she brought from Paris at her own expense, and
how she pets him under the very eyes of the general! "
Sons of the Soil.
333
"At her own expense !" cried Madame Soudry.
"Are you sure ? If we could only get proof of it,
what a fine subject for an anonymous letter to the
general!"
"The general!" cried Madame Vermut, "he won't
interfere with things; he plays his part."
" What part, my dear? " asked Madame Soudry.
" Oh ! the paternal part."
" If poor little Pigeron had had the wisdom to play
it, instead of harassing his wife, he'd be alive now,"
said the poet.
Madame Soudry leaned over to her neighbor, Mon¬
sieur Guerbet, and made one of those apish grimaces
which she had inherited from dear mistress, together
with her silver, by right of conquest, and twisting her
face into a series of them she made him look at Madame
Vermut, who was c<M[uetting with the author of "The
Cup-and-Ball." *
" What shocking style that woman has! what talk,
what manners!" she said. "I really don't think I
can admit her any longer into our society, — espe¬
cially," she added, "when Monsieur Gourdon, the poet,
is present."
" There's social morality ! " said the abbe, who had
heard and observed all without saying a word.
After this epigram, or rather, this satire on the com¬
pany, so true and so concise that it hit every one, the
usual game of boston was proposed.
Is not this a picture of life as it is at all stages of
what we agree to call society ? Change the stj'le, and
you will find that nothing more and nothing less is
said in the gilded salons of Paris.
334
Sons of the Soil.
III.
THE CAFfc DE LA PAIX.
It was about seven o'clock when Rigou drove by the
Cafe de la Paix. The setting sun, slanting its beams
across the little town, was diffusing its ruddy tints, and
the clear mirror of the lake contrasted with the flashing
of the resplendent window-panes, which originated the
strangest and most improbable colors.
The deep schemer, who had grown pensive as he
revolved his plots, let his horse proceed so slowly that
in passing the Cafe de la Paix he heard his own name
banded about in one of those noisy disputes which, ac¬
cording to the Abbe Taupin, madfe the name of the
establishment a gain-saying of its customary condition.
For a clear understanding of the following scene we
must explain the topography of this region of plenty
and of misrule, which began with the cafe on the
square, and ended on the country road with the famous
Tivoli where the conspirators proposed to entrap the
general. The ground-floor of the cafe, which stood at
the angle of the square and the road, and was built in
the style of Rigou's house, had three windows on the
road and two on the square, the latter being separated
by a glass door through which the house was entered.
The cafe had, moreover, a double door which opened
on a side alley that separated it from the neighboring
house (that of Vallet the Soulanges mercer), which led
to an inside courtyard.
Sons of the Soil.
335
The house, which was painted wholly in yellow, ex¬
cept the blinds, which were green, is one of the few
houses in the little town which has two stories and an
attic. And this is why: Before the astonishing rise
in the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes the first floor of
this house, which had four chambers, each containing
a bed and the meagre furniture thought necessary
to justify the term "furnished lodgings," was let to
strangers who were obliged to come to Soulanges on
matters connected with the courts, or to visitors who
did not sleep at the chateau; but for the last twenty-
five years these rooms had had no other occupants than
the mountebanks, the merchants, the vendors of quack
medicines who came to the fair, or else commercial
travellers. During the fair-time they were let for four
francs a day; and brought Socquard about two hun¬
dred and fifty francs, not to speak of the profits on the
consumption of food which the guests took in his cafe.
The front of the house on the square was adorned
with painted signs; on the spaces that separated the
windows from the glass door billiard-cues were repre¬
sented, lovingly tied together with ribbons, and above
these bows were depicted smoking bowls of punch, the
bowls being in the form of Greek vases. The words
"Cafe de la Paix" were over the door,brilliantly painted
in yellow on a green ground, at each end of which rose
pyramids of tricolorecl billiard-balls. The window-sashes,
painted green, had small panes of the commonest glass.
A dozen arbor-vitas, which ought to be called cafe-
trees, stood to the left and right in pots, and pre¬
sented their usual pretentious and sickly appearance.
Awnings, with which shopkeepers of the large cities
protect their windows from the heat of the sun, were
336
Sons of the Soil.
as yet an unknown luxury in Soulanges. The benefi¬
cent liquids in the bottles which stood on boards just
behind the window-panes went through a periodic
cooking. When the sun concentrated its rays through
the lenticular knobs in the glass it boiled the Madeira,
the syrups, the liqueurs, the preserved plums, and the
cherry-brandy set out for show; for the heat was so
great that Aglae, her father, and the waiter were
forced to sit outside on benches poorly shaded by the
wilted shrubs, — which Mademoiselle kept alive with
water that was almost hot. All three, father, daughter,
and servant, might be seen at certain hours of the day
stretched out there, fast asleep, like domestic animals.
In 1804, the period when "Paul and Virginia" was
the rage, the inside of the cafe was hung with a paper
which represented the chief scenes of that romance.
There could be seen negroes gathering the coffee-crop,
though coffee was seldom seen in the establishment,
not twenty cups of that beverage being served in a
month. Colonial products were of so little account in
the consumption of the place that if a stranger had
asked for a cup of chocolate Socquard would have been
hard put to it to serve him. Still, he would have don<i
so with a nauseous brown broth made from tablets in
which there were more flour, crushed almonds, and
brown sugar than pure sugar and cacao, concoctions
which were sold at two sous a cake by village grocers,
and manufactured for the purpose of ruining the sale of
the Spanish commodity.
As for coffee, iPere Socquard simply boiled it "in a
utensil known to all such households as the '' big brown
pot;" he let the dregs (that were half chicory) settle,
and served the decoction, with a coolness worthy of a
Sons of the Soil.
337
Parisian waiter, in a china cup which, if flnng to the
ground, would not have cracked.
At this period the sacred respect felt for sugar under
the Emperor was not yet dispelled in the town of Sou-
langes, and Aglae Socquard boldly served three bits of
it of the size of hazel-nuts to a foreign merchant who
had rashly asked for the literary beverage.
The wall decoration of the cafe, relieved by mirrors
in gilt frames and brackets on which the hats were
hung, had not been changed since the days when all
Soulanges came to admire the romantic paper, also a
counter painted like mahogany with a Sainte-Anne
marble top, on which shone vessels of plated metal and
lamps' with double burners, which were, rumor said,
given to the beautiful Madame Socquard by Gaubertin.
A sticky coating of dirt covered everything, like that
found on old pictures put away and long forgotten in a
garret.. The tables painted to resemble marble, the
benches covered with red Utrecht velvet, the hanging
glass lamp full of oil, which fed two lights, fastened
by a chain to the ceiling and adorned with glass pen¬
dants, were the beginning of the celebrity of the then
Cafe cle la Guerre.
There, from 1802 to 1804, all the bourgeois of Sou-
langes played at dominoes and a game of cards called
" hrelan," drank tiny glasses of liqueur or boiled wine,
and ate brandied fruits and biscuits; for the clearness
of colonial products had banished coffee, sugar, and
chocolate. Punch was a great luxury; so was "
roise." These infusions were made with a sugary sub¬
stance resembling molasses, the name of which is now
lost, but which, at the time, made the fortune of its
inventor.
838
Sons of the Soil.
These succinct details will recall to the memory of
all travellers many others that are analogous ; and those
persons who have never left Paris can imagine the ceil¬
ing blackened with smoke and the mirrors specked with
millions of spots, showing in what freedom and inde¬
pendence the whole order of diptera lived in the Cafe
de la Paix.
The beautiful Madame Socquard, whose gallant ad-
Ventures surpassed those of. the mistress of the Grand-
I-Vert, sat there, enthroned, dressed in the last fashion.
She affected the style of a sultana, and wore a turban.
Sultanas, under the Empire, enjoyed a vogue equal to
that of the "angel" of to-day. The whole valley took
pattern from the turbans, the poke-bonnets* the fur
caps, the Chinese head-gear of the handsome Socquard,
to whose luxury the big-wigs of Soulanges contributed.
With a waist beneath her arm-pits, after the fashion of
our mothers, who were proud of their imperial,graces,
Junie (she was named Junie!) made the fortune of the
housq of Socquard. Her husband owed to her the
ownership of a vineyard, of the house they lived in,
and also the Tivoli. The father of Monsieur Lupin was
said to have committed some follies for the handsome
Madame Socquard ; and Gaubertin, who had taken her
from him, certainly owed him the little Bournier.
These details, together with the deep mysteiy with
which Socquard manufactured his boiled wine, are suffi¬
cient to explain why his name and that of the Caff de
la Paix were popular; but there were other reasons for
their renown. Nothing better than wine could be got
at Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley ; from
Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, in a circumference of
twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard was the only place
Sons of the Soil.
339
where the guests could play billiards ana drink the punch
so admirably concocted by the proprietor. There alone
could be found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs,
and brandied fruits. Its name resounded daily through-
Out the vallejq accompanied bj^ ideas of superfine sen¬
sual pleasures such as men whose stomachs are more
sensitive than their hearts dream about. To all these
causes of popularity was added that of being an integral
part of the great festival of Soulanges. The Cafe de la
Paix was to the town, in a superior degree, what the
tavern of the Grand-I-Vert was to the peasantry,—a
centre of venom; it was the point of contact and trans¬
mission between the gossip of Ville-aux-Faj^es and that
of the valley. The Grand-I-Vert supplied the milk and
the Cafe de la Paix the cream, and Tonsard's two daugh¬
ters were in daily communication between the two.
To Socquard's mind the square of Soulanges was
merely an appendage to his cafe. Hercules went from
door to door, talking with this one and that one, and
wearing in summer no other garment than a pair of
trousers and a half-buttoned waistcoat. If any one
entered the tavern, the people with whom he gossiped
warned him, and he slowly and reluctantly returned.
Rigou stopped his horse, and getting out of the
chaise, fastened the bridle to one of the posts near the
gate of the Tivoli. Then he made a pretext to listen
to what was going on without being noticed, and placed
himself between two windows through one of which he
could, by advancing his head, see the persons in the
room, watch their gestures, and catch the louder tones
which came through the glass of the windows and
which the quiet of the street enabled him to hear.
" If I were to tell old Rigou that your brother Nicolas
340
Sons of the Soil.
is after La Pechina," cried an angry voice, " and that
he waylays her, he'd rip the entrails out of every one
of you, — pack of scoundrels that you are at the Grand-
I-Vert! "
" If you play me such a trick as that, Aglae," said
the shrill voice of Marie Tonsard, " you sha'n't tell any¬
thing more except to the worms in your coffin. Don't
meddle with my brother's business or with mine and
Bonnebault's either."
Marie, instigated by her grandmother, had, as we see,
followed Bonnebault; she had watched him through the
very window where Rigou was now standing, and had
seen him displaying his graces and paying compliments
so agreeable to Mademoiselle Socquard that she was
forced to smile upon him. That smile had brought
about the scene in the midst of which the revelation
that interested Rigou came out.
" Well, well, Pere Rigou, what are you doing here?"
said Socquard, slapping the usurer on the shoulder;
he was coming from a barn at the end of the garden,
where he kept various contrivances for the public games,
such as weighing-machines, merry-go-rounds, see-saws,
all in readiness for the Tivoli when opened. Socquard
stepped noiselessly, for he was wearing a pair of those
yellow leather slippers which cost so little by the gross
that they have an enormous sale in the provinces.
" If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of
lemonade," said Rigou; " it is a warm evening."
" Who is making that racket? " said Socquard, look¬
ing through the window and seeing his daughter and
Marie Tonsard.
"They are quarrelling for Bonnebault," said Rigou,
sardonically.
Sons of the Soil.
341
The anger of the father was at once controlled by the
interest of the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper judged
it prudent to listen outside, as Rigou was .doing; the
father was inclined to enter and declare that Bonnebault,
possessed of admirable qualities in the eyes of a tavern-
keeper, had none at all as son-in-law to one of the
notables of Soulanges. And yet Pere Socquard had
received but few offers for his daughter. At twenty-
two Aglae already rivalled in size and weight Madame
Yermichel, whose agility seemed phenomenal. Sitting
behind a counter increased the adipose tendency which
she derived from her father.
" What devil is it that gets into girls ? " said Socquard
to Rigou.
" Ha! " replied the ex-Benedictine, " of all the devils,
that's the one the Church has most to do with."
Just then Bonnebault came out of the billiard-room
with a cue in his hand, and struck Marie sharply,
saying: —
" You've made me miss my stroke ; but I '11 not miss
you, and I '11 give it to you till you muffle that clapper
of yours."
Socquard and Rigou, who now thought it wise to in¬
terfere, entered the cafe by the front door, raising such
a crowd of flies that the light from the windows was
obscured ; the sound was like that of the distant prac¬
tising of a drum-corps. After their first excitement was
over, the big flies with bluish bellies, accompanied by
the stinging little ones, returned to their quarters in the
windows, where on three tiers of planks, the paint of
which was indistinguishable under the fly-specks, were
rows of viscous bottles ranged like soldiers.
Mario was crying. To be struck before a rival by the
342
Sons of the Soil.
man she loves is one of those humiliations that no
woman can endure, no matter what her place on the
social ladder may be ; and the lower that place is, the
more violent is the expression of her wrath. The Ton-
sard girl took no notice of Rigou or of Socquard ; she
flung herself on a bench, in gloomy and sullen silence,
which the ex-monk carefully watched.
"Get a fresh lemon, Aglae," said Pere Socquard,
"and go and rinse that glass yourself."
" You did right to send her away," whispered Rigou,
" or she might have been hurt;" and he glanced signifi¬
cantly at the hand with which Marie grasped a stool
she had caught up to throw at Aglae's head.
"Now, Marie," said Socquard, standing before her,
" people don't come here to fling stools; if you were
to break one of my mirrors, the milk of your cows
wouldn't pay for the damage."
"Pere Socquard, your daughter is a reptile; I'm
worth a dozen of her, I'd have you know. If 3*ou don't
want Bonnebault for a son-in-law, it is high time for
you to tell him to go and play billiards somewhere else;
he's losing a hundred sous every minute."
In the middle of this flux of words, screamed rather
than said, Socquard took Marie round the waist and
flung her out of the door, in spite of her cries and resist¬
ance. It was none too soon; for Bonnebault rushed
out of the billiard-room, his eyes blazing.
" It sha'n't end so !" cried Marie Tonsard.
" Begone! " shouted Bonnebault, whom Viollet held
back round the body lest he should do the girl some
hurt. "Go to the devil, or I will never speak to you
or look at 3*011 again ! "
"You!" said Marie, flinging him a furious glance,
/S"<ms of the Soil.
343
" Give me back my money, and I '11 leave you to Made¬
moiselle Socquard if she is rich enough to keep you."
Thereupon Marie, frightened when she saw that
even Socquard-Alcides could scarcely hold Bonne-
bault, who sprang after her like a tiger, took to flight
along the road.
Rigou followed, and told her to get into his carriole
to escape Bonnebault, whose shouts reached the hotel
Soudry; then, after hiding Marie under the leather
curtains, he came back to the cafe to drink his lemon¬
ade and examine the group it now contained, composed
of Plissoud, Amaury, Viollet, and the waiter, who were
all trying to pacify Bonnebault.
" Come, hussar, it's your turn to play," said Amaury,
a small, fair young man, with a dull eye.
" Besides, she's taken herself off," said Viollet.
If any one ever betrayed astonishment it was Plis¬
soud when he beheld the usurer of Blangy sitting at
one of the tables, and more occupied in watching him,
Plissoud, than in noticing the quarrel that was going
on. In spite of himself, the sheriff allowed his face to
show the species of bewilderment which a man feels at
an unexpected meeting with a person whom he hates
and is plotting against, and he speedily withdrew into
the billiard-room.
" Adieu, Pere Socquard," said Rigou.
" I '11 get your carriage," said the innkeeper; " take
your time."
" How shall I find out what those fellows have been
saying over their pool?" Rigou was asking himself,
when he happened to see the waiter's face in the mirror
beside him.
The waiter was a jack at all trades; he cultivated
344]
Sons of the Soil*
Socquard's vines, swept out the cafe and the billiard-
room, kept the garden in order, and watered the
Tivoli, all for fifty francs a year. He was always with¬
out a jacket, except on grand occasions; usually his
sole garments were a pair of blue linen trousers, heavy
shoes, and a striped velvet waistcoat, over which he
wore an apron of homespun linen when at work in the
cafe or billiard-room. This apron, with strings, was
the badge of his functions. The fellow had been
hired by Socquard at the last annual fair; for in this
valley, as throughout Burgundy, servants are hired in
the market-place by the year, exactly as one buys
horses.
" What's your name ? " said Rigou.
" Michel, at your service," replied the waiter.
" Does n't old Fourchon come here sometimes?"
"Two or three times a week, with Monsieur Ver-
michel, who gives me a couple of sous to warn him if
his wife's after them."
"He's a fine old fellow, Pere Fourchon; knows a
great deal and is full of good sense," said Rigou, pay¬
ing for his lemonade and leaving the evil-smelling place
when he saw Pere Socquard leading his horse round.
Just as he was about to get into the carriage, Rigou
noticed the chemist crossing the square and hailed him
with a "Ho, there, Monsieur Vermut!" Recognizing
the rich man, Vermut hurried up. Rigou joined him,
and said in a low voice: —
" Are there any drugs that can eat into the tissue of
the skin so as to produce a real disease, like a whitlow
on the finger, for instance ? "
"If Monsieur Gourdon would help, yes," answered
the little chemist.
Sons of the Soil.
345
" Vermut, not a word of all this, or you and I will
quarrel; but speak of the matter to Monsieur Gourdon,
and tell him to come and see me the day after to-morrow.
I may be able to procure him the delicate operation of
cutting off a forefinger."
Then, leaving the little man thoroughly bewildered,
Rigou got into the carriole beside Marie Tonsard.
"Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the
arm when he had fastened the reins to a hook in front
of the leathern apron which closed the carriole and the
horse had started on a trot, " do you think you can
keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence ? If
you were a wise girl you would promote his marriage
with that hogshead of stupidity and take your revenge
afterwards."
Marie could not help smiling as she answered : —
" Ah, how bad you are ! you are the master of us all
in wickedness."
" Listen to me, Marie; I like the peasants, but it
won't do for any one of you to come between my teeth
and a mouthful of game. Your brother Nicolas, as
Aglae said, is after La Pechina. That must not be;
I protect her, that girl. She is to be my heiress for
thirty thousand francs, and I intend to marry her well.
I know that Nicolas, helped by your sister Catherine,
came near killing the little thing this morning. You
are to see your brother and sister at once, and say to
them: ' If }'ou let La Pechina alone, Pere Rigou will
save Nicolas from the conscription."
"You are the devil incarnate ! " cried Marie. " They
do say you've signed a compact with him. Is that
true ?"
" Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.
346
Sons of the Soil.
" I heard it, but I did n't believe it."
" He has guaranteed that no attacks aimed at me
Shall hurt me; that I shall never be robbed; that I
shall live a hundred years and succeed in everything
I undertake, and be as young to the day of my death as
a two-year old cockerel — "
"Well, if that's so," said Marie, "it must be
devilishly easy for you to save my brother from the
conscription — "
"If he chooses, that's to sa3r. He'11 have to lose
a finger," returned Rigou. " I '11 tell him how."
"Look out, you are taking the upper road! "ex¬
claimed Marie.
" I never go b}T the lower at night," said the ex-
monk.
"On account of the cross?" said Marie, naively.
"That's it, sly-boots," replied her diabolical com¬
panion.
They had reached a spot where the high-road cuts
through a slight elevation of ground, making on each
side of it a rather steep slope, such as we often see
on the mail-roads of France. At the end of this little
gorge, which is about a hundred feet long, the roads
to Ronquerolles and to Cerneux meet and form an open
space, in the centre of which stands a cross. From
either slope a man could aim at a victim and kill him
at close quarters, with all the more ease because the
little hill is covered with vines, and the evil-doer could
lie in ambush among the briers and brambles that over¬
grow them. We can readily imagine why the usurer
did not take that road after dark. The Thune flows
round the little hill; and the place is called the Close
of the Cross. No spot was ever more adapted for re-
Sons of the Soil.
847
venge or murder, for the road to Ronquerolles con¬
tinues to the bridge over the Avonne in front of the
pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux
leads off above the mail-road; so that between the four
roads, — to Les Aigues, Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles,
and Cerneux, — a murderer could choose his line of re¬
treat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.
"I shall drop 3*ou at the entrance of the village,"
said Rigou when they neared the first houses of
Blangy.
"Because you are afraid of Annette, old coward!"
cried Marie. " When are you going to send her away?
you have had her now three years. What amuses me
is that your old woman still lives; the good God
knows how to revenge himself,"
348
jSons of the Soil.
IV.
THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-AUX-FAYES.
The cautious usurer compelled his wife and Jean to
go to bed and to rise by da}-light; assuring them that
the house would never be attacked if he sat up till mid¬
night, and he never himself rose till late. Not only
had he thus secured himself from interruption between
seven at night and five the next morning but he had
accustomed his wife and Jean to respect his morning
sleep and that of Hagar, whose room was directly
behind his.
So, on the following morning, about half past six,
Madame Rigou, who herself took care of the poultry-
yard with some assistance from Jean, knocked timidly
at her husband's door.
" Monsieur Rigou," she said, " you told me to wake
you."
The tones of that voice, the attitude of the woman,
her frightened air as she obeyed an order the execu¬
tion of which might be ill-received, showed the utter
self-abnegation in which the poor creature lived, and
the affection she still bore to her petty tyrant.
" Very good," replied Rigou.
" Shall I wake Annette?" she asked.
" No, let her sleep ; she has been up half the night,"
he replied, gravel}'.
The man was always grave, even when ho allowed
himself to jest. Annette had in fact opened the door
Sons of the Soil.
349
secretly to Sibilet, Fourckon, and Catherine Tonsard,
"who all came at different hours between eleven and two
o'clock.
Ten minutes later Rigou, dressed with more care
than usual, came downstairs and greeted his wife with
a " Good-morning, my old woman," which made her
happier than if counts had knelt at her feet.
"Jean," he said to the ex-lay-brother, " don't leave
the house ; if any one robs me it will be worse for you
than for me."
By thus mingling mildness and severity, hopes and
rebuffs, the clever egoist kept his three slaves faithful
and close at his heels, like dogs.
Taking the upper road, so-called, to avoid the Close
of the Cross, Rigou reached the square of Soulanges
about eight o'clock.
Just as he was fastening his rein to the post nearest
the little door with three steps, a blind opened and
Soudry showed his face, pitted with the small-pox,
which the expression of his small black eyes rendered
crafty.
" Let's begin by taking a crust here before we start,"
he said; "we sha'n't get breakfast at Ville-aux-Fayes
before one o'clock."
Then he softly called a servant-girl, as young and
pretty as Annette, who came down noiselessly, and
received his order for ham and bread; after which he
went himself to the cellar and fetched some wine.
Rigou contemplated for the hundredth time the
well-known dining-room, floored in oak, with stuccoed
ceiling and cornice, its high wainscot and handsome
cupboards finely painted, its porcelain stone and mag-
nificent tall clock, — all the property of Mademoiselle
350
Sons of the Soil.
Laguerre. The chair-backs were in the form of lyres,
painted white and highly varnished; the seats were of
green morocco with gilt nails. A massive mahogany
table was covered with green oilcloth, with large squares
of a deeper shade of green, and a plain border of the
lighter. The flooi', laid in Hungarian point, was care¬
fully waxed by Urbain and showed the care which
ex-waiting-women know how to exact out of their
servants.
"Bah! it cost too much," thought Rigou for the
hundredth time. '' I can eat as good a dinner in my
room as here, and I have the income of the mone}' this
useless splendor would have wasted. Where is Madame
Soudry?" he asked, as the mayor returned armed with
a venerable bottle.
" Asleep."
"And you no longer disturb her slumbers?" said
Rigou.
The ex-gendarme winked with a knowing air, and
pointed to the ham which Jeannette, the pretty maid,
was just bringing in.
"That will pick you up, a pretty bit like that," he
said. " It was cured in the house; we cut into it only
yesterday."
" Where did you find her?" said the ex-Benedictine
in Soudry's ear.
"She is like the ham," replied the ex-gendarme,
winking again; "I have had her only a week."
Jeannette, still in her night-cap, with a short petti¬
coat and her bare feet in slippers, had slipped on a
boddice made with straps over the arms in true peasant
fashion, over which she had crossed a neckerchief which
did not entirely hide her fresh and youthful attractions,
iSons of the Soil.
351
which were at least as appetizing as the ham she carried.
Short and plump, with bare arms mottled red, ending
in large, dimpled hands with short but well-made fingers,
she was a picture of health. The face was that of a
true Burgundian, — ruddy, but white about the temples,
throat, and ears; the hair was chestnut; the corners
of the eyes turned up towards the top of the ears ; the
nostrils were wide, the mouth sensual, and a little down
lay along the cheeks; all this, together with a jaunty
expression, tempered however by a deceitfully modest
attitude, made her the model of a roguish servant-
girl.
"On my honor, Jeannette is as good as the ham,"
said Rigou. "If I hadn't an Annette I should want
a Jeannette."
" One is as good as the other," said the ex-gendarme,
for your Annette is gentle and fair and delicate.
" How is Madame Rigou,—is she asleep?" added Sou-
dry,- roughly, to let Rigou see he understood his joke.
" She wakes with the cock, but she goes to roost with
the hens," replied Rigou. "As for me, I sit up and
read the ' Constitutional.' My wife lets me sleep at
night and in the morning too; she would n't come into
my room for all the world."
"It's just the other way here," replied Jeannette.
"Madame sits up with the companj'- playing cards;
sometimes there are sixteen of them in the salon;
Monsieur goes to bed at eight o'clock, and we get up
at daylight — "
"You think that's different," said Rigou, "but it
comes to the same thing in the end. Well, my dear,
you come to me and I '11 send Annette here, and that
will be the same thing and different too."
852
Sons of the Soil.
"Old scamp, you'll make lier asliamed," said
Soudry.
'' Ha! gendarme ; you want your field to yourself!
Well, we all get our happiness where we can find it."
Jeannette, hy her master's order, disappeared to lay
out his clothes.
"You must have promised to marry her when your
wife dies," said Eigou.
"At your age and mine," replied Soudry, "there's
no other way."
'' With girls of any ambition it would be one way
to become a widower," added Eigou; "especially if
Madame Soudry found fault with Jeannette for her
way of scrubbing the staircase."
The remark made the two husbands pensive. When
Jeannette returned and announced that all was ready,
Soudry said to her, " Come and help me!" — a precau¬
tion which made the ex-monk smile.
" There's a difference, indeed ! " said he. " As for
me, I'd leave you alone with Annette, my good
friend."
A quarter of an hour later Soudry, in his best clothes,
got into the wicker carriage, and the two friends drove
round the lake of Soulanges to Ville-aux-Fayes.
"Look at it!" said Eigou, as they reached an emi¬
nence from which the chateau of Soulanges could be
seen in profile.
The old revolutionary' put into the tone of his words
all the hatred which the rural middle classes feel to the
great chateaus and the great estates.
" Yes, but I hope it will never be destroyed as long
as I live," said Soudry. "The Comte de Soulanges
was my general; he did me kindness ; he got my pen-
Sons of the Soil.
353
sion, and he allows Lupin to manage the estate. After
Lupin some of us will have it, and as long as the Sou-
langes family exists they and their property will he
respected. Such folks are large-minded ; they let every
one make his profit, and they find it pays."
" Yes, but the Comte de Soulanges has three children,
who, at his death, may not agree," replied Rigou. " The
husband of his daughter and his sons may go to law,
and end by selling the lead and iron mines to manu¬
facturers, from whom we shall manage to get them
back."
The chateau just then showed up in profile, as if to
defy the ex-monk.
" Ah! look at it; in those days they built well," cried
Soudry. " But just now Monsieur le Comte is econo¬
mizing, so as to make Soulanges the entailed estate of
his peerage."
"My dear friend," said Rigou, "entailed estates
won't exist much longer."
When the topic of public matters was exhausted, the
worthy pair began to discuss the merits of their pretty
maids in terms too Burgundian to be printed here.
That inexhaustible subject carried them so far that
before they knew it they saw the capital of the arron-
dissement over which Gaubertin reigned, and which
we hope excites enough curiosity in the reader's mind
to justify a short digression.
The name of Ville-aux-Fayes, singular as it is, is
explained as the corruption of the words (in low
Latin) Villa in Fago, — the manor of the woods.
This name indicates that a forest once covered the
delta formed by the Avonne before it joins its con¬
fluent the Yonne, Some Frank doubtless built a
854
Sons of the Soil.
fortress on the hill which slopes gently to the long
plain. The savage conqueror separated his vantage-
ground from the delta by a wide and deep moat and
made the position a formidable one, essentially seign-
orial, convenient for enforcing tolls across the bridges
and for protecting his rights of profit on all grains
ground in the mills.
That is the history of the beginning of Ville-aux-
Fayes. Wherever feudal or ecclesiastical dominion
established itself there we find gathered together inter¬
ests, inhabitants, and, later, towns when the localities
were in a position to maintain them and to found and
develop great industries. The method of floating tim¬
ber discovered by Jean Bouvet in 1549, which required
certain convenient stations to intercept it, was the
making of Ville-aux-Fayes, which, up to that time,
had been, compared to Soulanges, a mere village.
Ville-aux-Fayes became a storage place for timber,
which covered the shores of the two rivers for a dis¬
tance of over thirty miles. The work of taking out
of the water, computing the lost logs, and making the
rafts which the Yonne carried down to the Seine,
brought together a large concourse of workmen. Such
a population increased consumption and encouraged'
trade. Thus Ville-aux-Fayes, which had but six hun¬
dred inhabitants at the end of the seventeenth century,
had two thousand in 1790, and Gaubertin had now raised
the number to four thousand, by the following means.
When the legislative assembly decreed the new laying
out of territory, Ville-aux-Fayes, which was situated
where, geographically, a sub-prefecture was needed,
was chosen instead of Soulanges as chief town or cap¬
ital of the arrondissement, The increased population
Sons of the Soil.
855
of Paris, by increasing the demand for and the value
of wood as fuel, necessarily increased the commerce of
Ville-aux-Fayes. Gaubertin had founded his fortune,
after losing his stewardship, on this growing business,
estimating the effect of peace on the population of
Paris, which did actually increase by over one-third
between 1815 and 1825.
The shape of Ville-aux-Fayes followed the conforma¬
tion of the ground. Each side of the promontory was
lined with wharves. The dam to stop the timber from
floating further down was just below a hill covered by
the forest of Soulanges. Between the dam and the town
lay a suburb. The lower town, covering the greater
part of the delta, came down to the shores of the lake
of the Avonne.
Above the lower town some five hundred houses with
gardens, standing on the heights, were grouped round
three sides of the promontory, and enjoyed the varied
scene of the diamond waters of the lake, the rafts in
construction along its edge, and the piles of wood upon
the shores. The waters, laden with timber from the
river and the rapids which fed the mill-races and the
sluices of a few manufactories, presented an animated
scene, all the more charming because inclosed in the
greenery of forests, while the long valley of Les Aigues
offered a glorious contrast to the dark foil of the heights
above the town itself.
Gaubertin had built himself a house on the level of
the delta, intending to make a place which should im¬
prove the locality and render the lower town as desir¬
able as the upper. It was a modern house built of
stone, with a balcony of iron railings, outside blinds,
painted windows, and no ornament but a line of fret-
356
Sons of the Soil.
work under the eaves, a slate roof, one story in height
with a garret, a fine courtyard, and behind it an English
garden bathed by the waters of the Avonne. The ele¬
gance of the place compelled the department to build
a fine edifice nearly opposite to it for the sub-prefecture,
provisional^' lodged in a mere kennel. The town itself
also built a town-hall. The law-courts had lately been
installed in a new edifice ; so that Ville-aux-Fayes owed
to the active influence of its present mayor a number
of really imposing public buildings. The gendarmerie
had also built barracks which completed the square
formed by the market-place.
These changes, on which the inhabitants prided them¬
selves, were due to the impetus given by Gaubertin,
who within a day or two had received the cross of the
Legion of honor, in anticipation of the coming birth¬
day of the king. In a town so situated and so modern
there was of course, neither aristocracy nor nobility.
Consequently, the rich merchants of Ville-aux-Fayes,
proud of their own independence, willingly espoused
the cause of the peasantry against a count of the Em¬
pire who had taken sides with the Restoration. To
them the oppressors were the oppressed. The spirit
of this commercial town was so well known to the gov¬
ernment that they sent there as sub-prefect a man with a
conciliatory temper, a pupil of his uncle, the well-known
des Lupeaulx, one of those men, accustomed to com¬
promise, who are familiar with the difficulties and neces¬
sities of all administrations, but whom puritan politicians,
doing infinitely worse things, call corrupt.
The interior of Gaubertin's house was decorated with
the unmeaning commonplaces of modern luxury. Rich
papers with gold borders, bronze chandeliers, mahog-
Sons of the Soil.
357
any furniture of a new pattern, astral lamps, round
tables with marble tops, white china with gilt lines for
dessert, red morocco chairs and mezzo-tint engravings
in the dining-room, and blue cashmere furniture in the
salon,—all details of a chilling and perfectly unmean¬
ing character, but which to the eyes of Ville-aux-
Fayes seemed the last efforts of Sardanapalian luxury.
Madame Gaubertin played the role of elegance with
great effect; she assumed little airs and was lackadaisi¬
cal at forty-five years of age, as though certain of the
homage of her court.
We ask those who really know France, if these houses
— those of Eigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin — are not a
perfect presentation of the village, the little town, and
the seat of a sub-prefecture ?
Without being a man of mind, or a man of talent,
Gaubertin had the appearance of being both. He owed
the accuracy of his perception and his consummate art
to an extreme keenness after gain. He desired wealth,
not for his wife, not for his children, not for himself,
not for his family, not for the reputation that money
gives ; after the gratification of his revenge (the hope of
which kept him alive) he loved the touch of money, like
Nucingen, who, it was said, kept fingering the gold in
his pockets. The rush of business was Gaubertin's
wine ; and though he had his belly full of it, he had all
the eagerness of one who was empty. As with valets
of the drama, intrigues, tricks to plajr, mischief to or¬
ganize, deceptions, commercial over-reachings, accounts
to render and receive, disputes, and quarrels of self-
interest, exhilarated him, kept his blood in circulation,
and his bile flowing. He went and came on foot, on
horseback, in a carriage, by water; he was at all auc^
24
858
Sons of the Soil,
tions and timber sales in Paris, thinking of everything,
keeping hundreds of wires in his hands and never get¬
ting them tangled.
Quick, decided in his movements as in his ideas,
short and squat in figure, with a thin nose, a fiery e3*e,
an ear on the qui vive, there was something of the
hunting-dog about him. His brown face, very round
and sunburned, from which the tanned ears stood out
prominently,—for he always wore a cap,—was in
keeping with that character. His nose turned up; his
tightly-closed lips could never have opened to say a
kindly thing. His bush}'" whiskers formed a pair of
black and shiny tufts beneath the highly-colored
cheek-bones, and were lost in his cravat. Hair that
was pepper-and-salt in color and frizzled naturally in
stages like those of a judge's wig, seeming scorched
by the fury of the fire which heated his brown skull
and gleamed in his gray eyes surrounded by circular
wrinkles (no doubt from a habit of always blinking
when he looked across the country in full sunlight),
completed the characteristics of his physiognomy. His
lean and vigorous hands were hairy, knobbed, and claw¬
like, like those of men who do their share of labor.
His personality was agreeable to those with whom he
had to do, for he wrapped it in a misleading gayety;
he knew how to talk a great deal without saying a
word of what he meant to keep unsaid. He wrote
little, so as to deny anything that escaped him which
might prove unfavorable in its after effects upon his
interests. His books and papers were kept by a
cashier, — an honest man, whom men of Gaubertin's
stamp always seek to get hold of, and whom they
make, in their own selfish interests, their first dupe.
Sons of the Soil.
359
When Rigou's little green chaise appeared, towards
twelve o'clock, in the broad avenue which skirts the
river, Gaubertin, in cap, boots, and jacket, was return¬
ing from the wharves. He hastened his steps, — feeling
very sure that Rigou's object in coming over could
only be " the great affair."
" Good morning, gendarme; good morning, paunch
of gall and wisdom," he said, giving a little slap to
the stomachs of his two visitors. " We have business
to talk over, and, faith! we '11 do it glass in hand;
that's the true way to take things."
" If you do your business that way, you ought to
be fatter than you are," said Rigou.
"I work too hard; I'm not like you two, confined
to the house and bewitched there, like old dotards.
Well, well, after all that's the best way ; you can do your
business comfortably in an arm-chair, with your back
to the fire and your belly at table; custom goes to you,
I have to go after it. But now, come in, come in! the
house is yours for the time you stay."
A servant, in blue livery edged with scarlet, took
the horse by the bridle and led him into the courtyard,
where were the offices and the stable.
Gaubertin left his guests to walk about the garden
for a moment, while he went to give his orders and
arrange about the breakfast.
" Well, my wolves," he said, as he returned, rubbing
his hands, "the gendarmerie of Soulanges were seen
this morning at daybreak, marching towards Conches;
no doubt they mean to arrest the peasants for depreda¬
tions ; ha, ha! things are getting warm, warm! By
this time," he added, looking at his watch, "those fel¬
lows may have been arrested."
360
Sons of the Soil.
" Probabh'," said Rigou.
"Well, what do you all say over there? Has any¬
thing been decided?"
"What is there-to decide?" asked Rigou. "We
have no part in it," he added, looking atlSoudry.
"How do you mean nothing to decide? If Res'
Aigues is sold as the result of our coalition,, who is'to
gain five or six hundred thousand francs, out of it?
Do you expect me to, all alone? No, my inside is not
strong enough to spit up two millions, with three chil¬
dren to establish, and a wife who has n't the first idea
of the value of money; no, I must have associates.
Here's the gendarme, he has plenty of funds all ready.
I know he does n't hold a single mortgage that is n't
ready to mature; he only lends now on notes at sight
which I endorse. I'll go into this thing to the amount
of eight hundred thousand francs; my son, the judge,
two hundred thousand; and I count on the gendarme
for two hundred thousand more; now, how much will
you put in, skull-cap?"
" All the rest," replied Rigou, stiffly.
" The devil! well, I wish I had my hand where your
heart is ! " exclaimed Gaubertin. " Now what are you
going to do?"
"Whatever you do; tell your plan."
"My plan," said Gaubertin, "is to take double, and
sell half to the Conches, and Cerneux, and Blangy
folks who want to buy. Soudry has his clients, and you
yours, and I, mine. That's not the difficulty. The
thing is, how are we going to arrange among ourselves?
How shall we divide up the great lots ? "
" Nothing, easier," said Rigou. " We '11 each take
what we like best, I, for Que, shall stand in nobody's
Sons of the Soil.
361
way ; I'll take the woods in common with Soudry and
my son-in-law; the timber has been so injured that you
won't care for it now, and you may have all the rest.
Faith, it is worth the money you '11 put into it! "
" Will you sign that agreement?" said Soudry.
" A written agreement is worth nothing," replied
Gaubertin. " Besides, you know I am playing above
board ; I have perfect confidence in Bigou, and he shall
be the purchaser."
" That will satisfy me," said Bigou.
" I will make Only one condition," added Gaubertin.
" I must have the pavilion of the Bendezvous, with all
its appurtenances, and fifty acres of the surrounding
land. I shall make it my country-house, and it will
be near my woods. Madame Gaubertin — Madame
Isaure, for that's what she wants people to call her —
says she shall make it her villa."
r " I'm willing," said Bigoiu
" Well, now, between ourselves," continued Gau¬
bertin, after looking about him on all sides and making
sure that no one could overhear him, " do you think
they are capable of striking a blow ? "
" Such as?" asked Bigou, who never allowed him¬
self to understand a hint.
" Well, if the worst of the band, the best shot, sent
a ball whistling round the ears of the count—just to
frighten him?"
" He's a man to rush at an assailant and collar him."
" Michaud, then."
" Miehaud"would do nothing at the moment, but he'd
watch and spy till he found out the man and those who
instigated him."
" You are right," said Gaubertin^ " those peasants
362
Sons of the Soil.
must make a riot and a few must be sent to the galleys.
"Well, so much the better for us; the authorities will
catch the worst, whom we shall want to get rid of after
they've done the work. There are those blackguards,
the Tonsards and Bonnebault — "
" Tonsard is ready for mischief," said Soudry, "I
know that; and we '11 work him up by Vaudoyer and
Courtecuisse."
" I '11 answer for Courtecuisse," said Eigou.
" And I hold Vaudoyer in the hollow of my hand."
"Be cautious!" said Eigou; "before everything
else be cautious."
"Now, papa skull-cap, do you mean to tell me that
there's any harm in speaking of things as they are ?
Is it we who are indicting and arresting, or gleaning or
depredating ? If Monsieur le comte knows what he's
about and leases the woods to the receiver-general it is
all up with our schemes, —' Farewell baskets, the vintage
is o'er;' in that case j^ou will lose more than I. What
we say here is between ourselves and for ourselves; for
I certainly would n't say a word to Vaudoyer that I
could n't repeat to God and man. But it is not for¬
bidden, I suppose, to profit by any events that may
take place. The peasantry of this canton are hot¬
headed ; the general's exactions, his severity, Michaud's
persecutions, and those of his keepers have exasperated
them ; to-day things have come to a crisis and I '11 bet
there's a rumpus going on now with the gendarmerie.
And so, let's go and breakfast."
Madame Gaubertin came into the garden just then.
She was a rather fair woman with long curls, called
English, hanging down her cheeks, who played the style
of sentimental virtue, pretended never to have known
Sons of the Soil.
363
love, talked platonics to all the men about her, and
kept the prosecuting-attorney at her beck and call. She
was given to caps with large bows, but preferred to
wear only her own liah\ She danced, and at forty-
five years of age had the mincing manners of a girl;
her feet, however, were large and her hands frightful.
She wished to be called Isaure, because among her
other oddities and absurdities she had the taste to
repudiate the name of Gaubertin as vulgar. Her eyes
were light and her hair of an undecided color, some¬
thing like dirty nankeen. Such as she was, she was
taken as a model by a number of young ladies, who
stabbed the skies with their glances, and posed as
angels.
" "Well, gentlemen," she said, bowing, " I have some
strange news for you. The gendarmerie have returned."
" Did they make any prisoners? "
" None; the general, it seems, had previously ob¬
tained the pardon of the depredators. It was given in
honor of this happy anniversary of the king's restoration
to France."
The three associates looked at each other.
" He is cleverer than I thought for, that big cuiras¬
sier!" said Gaubertin. "Well, come to breakfast.
After all, the game is not lost, only postponed; it is
your affair now, Rigou."
Soudry and Rigou drove back disappointed, not
being able as yet to plan any other catastrophe to serve
their ends and relying, as Gaubertin advised, on what
might turn up. Like certain Jacobins at the outset of
the Revolution who were furious with Louis XVI.'s con¬
ciliations, and who provoked severe measures at court
in the hope of producing anarchy, which to them meant
864
Sons of the Soil.
fortune and power, the formidable enemies of General
Montcornet staked their present hopes on the severity
which Michaud and his keepers were likely to employ
against future depredators. Gaubertin promised them
his assistance, without explaining who were his co-
operators, for he did not wish them to know about his
relations with Sibilet. Nothing can equal the prudence
of a man of Gaubertin's stamp, unless it be that of an
ex-gendarme or an unfrocked priest. This plot could
not have" been brought to a successful issue, -—a suc¬
cessfully, evil issue,—-unless by three such men as
these, steeped in hatred and self-interest.
Sons of the Soil.
365
Y.
VICTORY WITHOUT A FIGHT.
Madame Michaud's fears were the effect of that
second sight which conies of true passion. Exclu¬
sively absorbed by one. only being, the soul finally
grasps the whole moral world which surrounds that
being; it sees clearly. A woman when she loves feels
the same presentiments which disquiet her later when a
mother,
While the poor young woman, listened to the confused
voices coming from afar across an unknown space, a
scene was really happening in the tavern of the Grand-
I-Vert which threatened her husband's life.
About five o'clock that morning early risers had seen
the gendarmerie of Soulanges on its way to Conches.
The news circulated rapidly ; and those whom it chiefly
interested were much surprised to learn from others, who
lived on high ground, that a detachment commanded by
the lieutenant of Ville-aux-Fayes had marched through
the forest of Les Aigues. As it was a Monday, there
were already good reasons why the peasants should be
at the tavern ; but it was also the eve of the anniversaiy
of the restoration of the Bourbons, and though the fre¬
quenters of Tonsard's den had no need of that " august
cause" (as they said in those clays) to explain their
presence at the Grand-I-Vert, they did not fail to make
the most of it if the mere shadow of an official func¬
tionary appeared.
366
Sons of the Soil.
Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard and his family,
Godain, and an old vine-dresser named Laroche, were
there early in the morning. The latter was a man who
scratched a living from day to day; he was one of the
delinquents collected in Blangy under the sort of con¬
scription invented by Sibilet and Courtecuisse to dis¬
gust the general by the results of his indictments.
Blangy had supplied three men, twelve women, also
eight girls and five bo}Ts for whom parents were an¬
swerable, all of whom were in a condition of pauperism;
but they were the only ones who could be found that
were so. The year 1823 had been a very profitable one
to the peasantry, and 1826 was likely, through the enor¬
mous quantity of wine yielded, to bring them in a good
deal of money; add to this the works at Les Aigues,
undertaken by the general, which had put a great deal
more in circulation throughout the three districts which
bordered on the estate. It had therefore been quite
difficult to find in Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, one
hundred and twent}r indigent persons against whom to
bring the suits; and in order to do so, they had taken
old women, mothers, and grandmothers of those who
owned property but who possessed nothing of their
own, like Tonsard's mother. Laroche, an old laborer,
possessed absolutely nothing; he was not, like Ton-
sard, hot-blooded and vicious, — his motive-power was
a cold, dull hatred; he toiled in silence with a sullen
face; work was intolerable to him, but he had to work
to live ; his features were hard and their expression re¬
pulsive. Though sixty years old, he was still strong,
except that his back was bent; he saw no future before
him, no spot that he could call his own, and he envied
those who possessed the land; for this reason he had
Sons of the Soil.
867
no pity on the forests of Les Aigues, and took pleasure
in despoiling them uselessly.
" Will they be allowed to put us in prison?" he was
saying. " After Conches they '11 come to Blangy. I'm
an old offender, and I shall get three months."
" What can we do against the gendarmerie, old
drunkard?" said Vaudoyer.
" Why! cut the legs of their horses with our scythes.
That '11 bring them down; their muskets are not loaded,
and when they find us ten to one against them they '11
decamp. If the three villages all rose and killed two
or three gendarmes, they could n't guillotine the whole
of us. They'd have to give way, as they did on the
other side of Burgundy, where they sent a regiment.
Bah! that regiment came back again, and the peasants
cut the woods just as much as they ever did."
"If we kill," said Vaudoyer; "it is better to kill
one man ; the question is, how to do it without danger
and frighten those Arminacs so that they '11 be driven
out of the place."
" Which one shall we kill?" askedLaroche.
" Michaud," said Courtecuisse. " Vaudoyer is right,
he's perfectly right. You'll see that when a keeper is
sent to the shades there won't be one of them willing
to stay even in broad dajdight to watch us. Now
they 're there night and day, — demons ! "
"Wherever one goes," said old Mother Tonsard,—
who was seventy-eight years old, and presented a
parchment face honey-combed with the small-pox,
lighted by a pair of green eyes, and framed with
dirty-white hair, which escaped in strands from a red
handkerchief, — "wherever one goes, there they are!
they stop us, they open our bundles, and if there's a
368
Sons of the Soil.
single branch, a single twig of a miserable hazel, they
seize the whole bundle, and they say they'll arrest us.
Ha, the villains! there's no deceiving them; if they
suspect you, you've got to undo the bundle. Dogs!
all three are not worth a farthing! Yes, kill 'em, and
it won't ruin France, I tell you ! "
" Little Vatel is not so bad," said Madame Tonsard.
. "He!" said Laroch'e, " he does his business, like
the others ; when there's a joke going he'll joke with
you, but you are none the better with him for that.
He's worse than the rest, — heartless to poor folks, like
Mickaud himself."
"Michaud has got a pretty wife, though," said
Nicolas Tonsard.
" She's with young," said the old woman; " and if
this thing goes on there '11 be a queer kind of baptism
for the little one when she calves."
"■Oh! those Arminacs! " cried Marie Tonsard;
"there's no laughing with them; and if you did,
they'd threaten to arrest you."
"You've tried your hand at cajoling them, have
you?" said Courtecuisse.
" You may bet on that."
" Well," said Tonsard, with a determined air, " they
are men like Other men, and they can be got rid of."
"But I tell you," said Marie, continuing her topic,
"they won't be cajoled ; I don't know what's the mat¬
ter with them; that bully at the pavilion, he's married,
but Vatel, Gaillard, and Steingel are not; they've not
a woman belonging to them; Indeed, there's not a
woman in the place who would marry them."
" Well, we shall see how things go at the harvest
and the vintage," said Tonsard.
Sons of the Soil.
369
" They can't stop the gleaning," said the old woman.
" I don't know that," remarked Madame Tonsard.
"Groison said that the mayor was going to publish a
•notice that no one should glean without a certificate of
pauperism; and who's to give that certificate ? Him¬
self, of course. He won't give many, I tell you ! And
they say he is going to issue an order that no one shall
enter the fields till the carts are all loaded."
"Why, the fellow's a pestilence!" cried Tonsard,
beside himself with rage.
"I heard that only yesterday," said Madame Ton¬
sard. "I offered Groison a glass of brandy to get
something out of him."
"Groison! there's another lucky fellow!" said
Vaudoyer, " they've built him a house and given him
a good wife, and he's got an income and clothes fit for
a king. There was I, field-keeper for twenty years,
and all I got was the rheumatism."
"Yes, he's very lucky," said Godain, "he owns
property — "
"And we go without, like the fools that we are,"
said Vaudoyer. " Come, let's be off and find out
what's going on at Conches; they are not so patient
over there as we are."
" Come on," said Laroche, who was none too steady
on his legs. "If I don't exterminate one or two of
those fellows may I lose my name."
"You!" said Tonsard, "you'd let them put the
whole district in prison ; but I •— if they dare to touch
my old mother, there's my gun and it never misses."
" Well," said Laroche to Vaudoyer, " I tell you that
if they make a single prisoner at Conches one gendarme
Shall fail."
n
370
Sons of the Soil.
'' He has said it, old Laroche ! " cried Courtecuisse.
"He has said it," remarked Vaudoyer, "but he
has n't done it and he won't do it. "What good would
it do to get yourself guillotined for some gendarme or
other? No, if you kill, I say, kill Michaud."
During this scene Catherine Tonsard stood sentinel
at the door to warn the drinkers to keep silent if any
one passed. In spite of their half-drunken legs they
sprang rather than walked out of the tavern, and their
bellicose temper started them at a good pace on the
road to Conches, which led for over a mile along the
park wall of Les Aigues.
Conches was a true Burgundian village, with one
street, which was crossed by the main road. The.
houses were built either of brick or of cobblestones, and
were squalid in aspect. Following the mail-road from
Ville-aux-Fayes, the village was seen from the rear and
there it presented rather a picturesque effect. Between
the road and the Ronquerolles woods, which continued
those of Les Aigues and crowned the heights, flowed a
little river, and several houses, rather prettily grouped,
enlivened the scene. The rchurch and the parsonage
stood alone and were seen from the park of Les Aigues,
which came nearty up to them. In front of the church
was a square bordered by trees, where the conspirators
of the Grand-I-Vert saw the gendarmerie and imme¬
diately hastened their already hasty steps. Just then
three men on horseback rode rapidly out of the park of
Les Aigues and the peasants at once recognized the
general, his groom, and Michaud the bailiff, who came
at a gallop into the square. Tonsard and his party
arrived a minute or two after them. The delinquents,
men and women, had made no resistance, and were
Sons of the Soil.
871
standing between five of the Soulanges gendarmes and
fifteen of those from Ville-aux-Fayes. The whole vil¬
lage had assembled. The fathers, mothers, and children
of the prisoners were going and coming and bringing
them what they might want in prison. It was a curious
scene, that of a population one and all exasperated, but
nearly all silent, as though they had made up their
minds to a course of action. The old women and the
young ones alone spoke. The children, boys and girls,
were perched on piles of wood and heaps of stones to
get a better sight of what was happening.
"They have chosen their time, those hussars of the
guillotine," said one old woman; "they are making a
fete of it."
" Are you going to let 'em carry off your man like
that ? How shall you manage to live for three months ?
— the best of the year, too, when he could earn so
much."
" It's they who rob us," replied the woman, looking
at the gendarmes with a threatening air.
" What do you mean by that, old woman?" said the
sergeant. " If you insult us it won't take long to settle
you."
" I meant nothing," said the old woman, in a humble
and piteous tone.
" I heard you say something just now you may have
cause to repent of."
" Come, come, be calm, all of you," said the mayor
of Conches, who was also the postmaster. " What the
devil is the use of talking? These men, as you know
very well, are under orders and must obey."
"That's true; it's the owner of Les Aigues who
persecutes us — But patience ! "
372
Sons of the Soil.
Just then the general rode into the square and his
arrival caused a few groans which did not trouble him
in the least. He rode straight up to the lieutenant in
command, and after saying a few words gave him a-
paper; the officer then turned to his men and said:.
"Release your prisoners; the general has obtained
their pardon."
- General Montcornet was then speaking to the mayor;
after a few moments' conversation in a low tone, the
latter, addressing the delinquents, who expected to sleep
in prison and were a good deal surprised to find them-,
selves free, said to them : —
"My friends, thank Monsieur le comte. You owe
your release to him. He went to Paris and obtained
your pardon in honor of the anniversary of the king's
restoration. I hope that in future you will conduct
yourself properly to a man who has behaved so well
to you, and that you will in future respect his property -
Long live the King! "
The peasants shouted " Long live the King! " with
enthusiasm, to avoid shouting, " Hurrah for the Comte
de Montcornet! "
The scene was a bit of policy arranged between the
general, the prefect, and the attorney-general; for they
were all anxious, while showing enough firmness to
keep the local authorities up to their duty and awe the
country-people, to be as gentle as possible, fully realiz¬
ing as they did the difficulties of the question. In fact,
if resistance had occurred, the government would have
been in a tight place. As Laroche truly said, they could
not guillotine or even convict a whole community.
The general invited the mayor of Conches, the lieu¬
tenant, and the sergeant to breakfast. The conspirators
Sons of the Soil.
373
of the Grand-I-Vert adjourned to the tavern of Conches,
where the delinquents spent in drink the money their
relations had given them to take to prison, sharing it
with the Blangy people, who were naturally part of the
wedding,—the word " wedding " being applied indis¬
criminately in Burgundy to all such rejoicings. To
drink, quarrel, fight, eat, and go home drunk and sick,
— that is a wedding to these peasants.
The general, who had come by the park, took his
guests back through the forest that they might see for
themselves the injury done to the timber, and so judge
of the importance of the question.
Just as Kigou and Soudry were on their way back to
Blangy, the count and countess, Emile Blondet, the
lieutenant of gendarmerie, the sergeant, and the mayor
of Conches were finishing their breakfast in the splen¬
did dining-room where Bouret's luxury had left the
delightful traces already described by Blondet in his
letter to Nathan.
" It would be a terrible pity to abandon this beauti¬
ful home," said the lieutenant, who had never before
been at Les Aigues, and who was glancing over a glass
of champagne at the circling nymphs that supported
the ceiling.
" We intend to defend it to the death," said Blondet.
" If I say that," continued the lieutenant, looking at
his sergeant as if to enjoin silence, "it is because the
general's enemies are not only among the peasantry — "
The worth}7 man was quite moved by the excellence
of the breakfast, the magnificence of the silver service,
the imperial luxury that surrounded him, and Blondet's
clever talk excited him as much as the champagne he
had imbibed.
25
374
Sons of the Soil.
" Enemies ! have I enemies? " said the general, sur¬
prised.
" He, so kind! " added the countess.
" But you are on bad terms with our mayor, Monsieur
Gaubertin," said the lieutenant. "It would be wise,
for the sake of the future, to be reconciled with him."
"With him!" cried the count. "Then you don't
know that he was my former steward, and a swindler! "
" A swindler no longer," said the lieutenant, " for he
is mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes."
" Ha, ha! " laughed Blondet, " the lieutenant's wit is
keen; evidently a mayor is essentially an honest man."
The lieutenant, convinced by the count's words that
it was useless to attempt to enlighten him, said no more
on that subject, and the conversation changed.
Sons of the Soil.
375
VI.
THE FOREST AND THE HARVEST.
The scene at Conches had, apparently, a good effect
on the peasantry ; on the other hand, the count's faith¬
ful keepers were more than ever watchful that only dead
wood should be gathered in the forest of Les Aigues.
But for the last twenty years the woods had been so
thoroughly cleared out that very little else than live
wood was now there; and this the peasantry set about
killing, in preparation for winter, by a simple process,
the results of which could only be discovered in the
course of time. Tonsard's mother went daily into the
forest; the keepers saw her enter: knew where she
would come out; watched for her and made her open
her bundle, where, to be sure, were only fallen branches,
dried chips, and broken and withered twigs. The old
woman would whine and complain at the distance she
had to go at her age to gather such a miserable bundle
of fagots. But she did not tell that she had been in
the thickest part of the wood and had removed the earth
at the base of certain young trees, round which she had
then cut off a ring of bark, replacing the earth, moss,
and dead leaves just as they were before she touched
them. It was impossible that any one could discover
this annular incision, made, not like a cut, but more
like the ripping or gnawing of animals or those destruc¬
tive insects called in different regions borers, or turks,
or white worms, which are the first stage of cockchafers.
376
Sons of the Soil.
These destructive pests are fond of the bark of trees;
they get between the bark and the sap-wood and eat their
way round. If the tree is large enough for the insect to
pass into its second state (of larvae, in which it remains
dormant till its second metamorphose) before it has
gone round the trunk, the tree lives, because so long as
even a small bit of the sap-wood remains covered by
the bark, the tree will still grow and recover itself. To
realize to what a degree entomology affects agriculture,
horticulture, and all earth products, we must know that
naturalists like Latreille, the Comte Dejean, Klugg of
Berlin, Gene of Turin, etc., find that the vast majority
of all known insects live at the sacrifice of vegetation ;
that the coleoptera (a catalogue of which has lately
been published by Monsieur Dejean) have twenty-seven
thousand species, and that, in spite of the most earnest
research on the part of entomologists of all countries,
there is an enormous number of species of whom they
cannot trace the triple transformations which belong to
all insects ; that there is, in short, not only a special
insect to every plant, but that all terrestrial products,
however much they may be manipulated by human in¬
dustry-, have their particular parasite. Thus flax, after
covering the human body and hanging the human being,
after roaming the world on the back of an army, be¬
comes writing-paper; and those who write or who read
are familiar with the habits and morals of an insect
Called the paper-louse," an insect of really marvellous
celerity and behavior; it undergoes its mysterious
transformations in a ream of white paper which you
have carefully put away; you see it gliding and frisk¬
ing along in its shining robe, that looks like isinglass
or mica, — truly a little fish of another element.
Sons of the Soil.
377
The borer is the despair of the land-owner; he works
underground; no Sicilian vespers for him until he be¬
comes a cockchafer! . If the populations only realized-
with what untold disasters they are threatened in case
they let the cockchafers and the caterpillars get the-
upper hand, they would pay more attention than they
do to municipal regulations..
Holland came near perishing; its dikes were under¬
mined by the teredo, and science is unable to discover
the insect from which that mollusk derives, just as
science still remains ignorant of the metamorphoses of
the cochineal. The ergot, or spur, of rye is apparently
a population of insects where the genius of science has
been able, so far, to discover only one slight movement.
Thus, while awaiting the harvest and the gleaning, fifty
old women imitated the borer at the feet of five or six
hundred trees which were fated to become skeletons and
to put forth no more leaves in the spring. They were
carefully chosen in the least accessible places, so that
the surrounding branches concealed them.
Who conveyed the secret information by which this-
was done? No one. Courtecuisse happened to com¬
plain in Tonsard's tavern of having found a tree wilting
in his garden; it seemed he said, to have a disease, and-
he suspected a borer; for he, Courtecuisse, knew what
borers were, and if they once circled a tree just below
the ground, the tree died. Thereupon he explained the
process. The old women at once set to work at the
same destruction, with the mystery and cleverness of
gnomes; and their efforts were doubled by the rules
now enforced by the mayor of Blangy and necessarily
followed by the mayors of the adjoining districts.
The great land-owners of the department applauded
378
Sons of the Soil.
General de Montcornet's course; and the prefect in
Ms private drawing-room declared that if, instead of
living in Paris, other land-owners would come and live
on their estates and follow such a course together, a
solution of the difficulty could be obtained; for cer¬
tain measures, added the prefect, ought to be taken,
and taken in concert, modified by benefactions and
by an enlightened philanthropy, such as every one
could see actuated General Montcornet.
The general and his wife, assisted by the abbe, tried
the effects of such benevolence. They studied the sub¬
ject, and endeavored to show by incontestable results
to those who pillaged them that more money could be
made by legitimate toil. They supplied flax and paid
for the spinning; the countess had the thread woven
into linen suitable for towels, aprons, and coarse nap¬
kins for kitchen use, and for underclothing for the very
poor. The general began improvements which needed
many laborers, and he employed none but those in the
adjoining districts. Sibilet was in charge of the works
and the Abbd Brossette gave the countess lists of the
most needy, and often brought them to her himself.
Madame de Montcornet attended to these matters per¬
sonally in the great antechamber which opened upon
the portico. It was a beautiful waiting-room, floored
with squares of white and red marble, warmed by a
porcelain stove, and furnished with benches covered
with red plush.
It was there that one morning, just before harvest,
old Mother Tonsard brought her granddaughter
Catherine, who had to make, she said, a dreadful con¬
fession, — dreadful for the honor of a poor but honest
family. While the old woman addressed the countess
Sons of the Soil.
379
Catherine stood in an attitude of conscious guilt.
Then she related on her own account the unfortunate
"situation" in which she was placed, which she had
confided to none but her grandmother; for her mother,
she knew, would turn her out, and her father, an honor¬
able man, might kill her. If she only had a thousand
francs she could be married to a poor laborer named
Godain, who Tcnew all, and who loved her like a
brother; he could buy a poor bit of ground and build
a cottage if she had that sum. It was very touching.
The countess promised the money; resolving to devote
the price of some fancy to this marriage. The happy
marriages of Michaud and Groison encouraged her.
Besides, such a wedding would be a good example to
the people of the neighborhood and stimulate to virtu¬
ous conduct. The marriage of Catherine Tonsard and
Godain was accordingly arranged by means of the
countess's thousand francs.
Another time a horrible old woman, Mother Bonne-
bault, who lived in a hut between the gate of Conches
and the village, brought back a great bundle of skeins
of linen thread.
" Madame la comtesse has done wonders," said the
abbe, full of hope as to the moral progress of his
savages. "That old woman did immense damage to
your woods, but now she has no time for it; she stays
at home and spins from morning till night; her time
is all taken up and well paid for."
Peace reigned everywhere. Groison made very
satisfactory reports; depredations seemed to have
ceased, and it is even possible that the state of the
neighborhood and the feeling of the inhabitants might
really have changed if it had not been for the revenge-
880
Sons of the Soil.
ful eagerness of Gaubertin, the cabals of the leading
society of Soulanges, and the intrigues of Rigou, who
one and all, with "the affair" in view, blew the embers
of hatred and crime in the hearts of the peasantry of
the valley des Aigues.
The keepers still complained of finding a great many
branches cut with shears in the deeper parts of the
wood and left to dry, evidently as a provision for win¬
ter. They watched for the delinquents without ever
being able to catch them. The count, assisted by
Groison, had given certificates of pauperism to only
thirty or forty of the real poor of the district; but the
other two mayors had been less strict. The more
clement the count showed himself in the affair at
Conches the more determined he was to enforce the
laws about gleaning, which had now degenerated into
theft. He did not interfere with the management of
three of his farms which were leased to tenants, nor with
those whose tenants worked for his profit, of which he
had a number ; but he managed six farms himself, each
of about two hundred acres, and he now published a
notice that it was forbidden, under pain of being ar¬
rested and made to pay the fine imposed by the courts,
to enter those fields before the crop was carried away.
The order concerned only his own immediate property.
Rigou, who knew the country well, had let his farm¬
lands in portions and on short leases to men who knew
how to get in their own crops, and who paid him in
grain; therefore gleaning did not affect him. The other
proprietors were peasants, and no nefarious gleaning
was attempted on their land.
When the harvest began the count went himself with
Michaud to see how things were going on. Groison,
Sons of the Soil.
381
who advised him to do this, was to be present himself at
the gleaning of each particular field. The inhabitants of
cities can have no idea what gleaning is to the inhabi¬
tants of the country ; the passion of these sons of the
soil for it seems inexplicable; there are women who
will give up well-paid employments to glean. The
wheat they pick up seems to them sweeter than any
other; and the provision they thus make for their chief
and most substantial food has to them an extraordinary
attraction. Mothers take their babes and their little
girls and boys ; the feeblest old men drag themselves
into the wheat-fields; and even those who own prop¬
erty are paupers for the nonce. All gleaners appear
in rags.
The count and Michaud were present on horseback
when the first tattered batch entered the first fields
from which the wheat had been carried. It was ten
o'clock in the morning. August had been a hot
month, the sky was cloudless, blue as a periwinkle;
the earth was baked, the wheat flamed, the harvestmen
worked with their faces scorched by the reflection of
the sun-raj's on the hard and arid earth. All were
silent, their shirts wet with perspiration; while from
time to time, they slaked their thirst with water from
round, earthenware jugs, furnished with two handles
and a mouth-piece stoppered with a willow stick.
At the farther end of the stubble-field stood the
carts which contained the sheaves, and near them a
group of at least a hundred beings who far exceeded
the hideous conceptions of Murillo and Teniers, the
boldest painters of such scenes, or of Callot, that poet
of the fantastic in poverty. The pictured bronze legs,
the bare heads, the ragged garments so curiously
382
Sons of the Soil.
faded, so damp with grease, so darned and spotted
and discolored, in short, the painters' ideal of the
material of abject poverty was far surpassed by this
scene; while the expression on those faces, greedy,
anxious, doltish, idiotic, savage, showed the everlast¬
ing advantage which nature possesses over art by its
comparison with the immortal compositions of those
princes of color. There were old women with necks
like turkeys, and hairless, scarlet eyelids, who stretched
their heads forward like setters before a partridge;
there were children, silent as soldiers under arms, little
girls who stamped like animals waiting for their food;
the natures of childhood and old age were crushed be¬
neath the fierceness of a savage greed, —greed for the
property of others now their own by long abuse. All
eyes were savage, all gestures menacing; but every one
kept silence in presence of the count, the field-keeper,
and the bailiff. At this moment all classes were repre¬
sented, — the great land-owners, the farmers, the work¬
ing men, the paupers ; the social question was defined
to the e}Te; hunger had convoked the actors in the
scene. The sun threw into relief the hard and hollow
features of those faces; it burned the bare feet dusty
with the soil; children were present with no clothing
but a torn blouse, their blond hair tangled with straw
and chips; some women brought their babes just able
to walk, and left them rolling in the furrows.
The gloomy scene was harrowing to the old soldier,
whose heart was kind, and he said to Michaud: "-It
pains me to see it. One must know the importance of
these measures to be able to insist upon them."
" If every land-owner followed 3'our example, lived
on his property, and did the good that you and yours
Sons of the Soil.
388
are doing, genera], there would be, I won't say no
poor, for they are always with us, but no poor man
who could not live by his labor."
" The mayors of Conches, Cerneux, and Soulanges
have sent us all their paupers," said Groison, who had
now. looked at the certificates ; " they had no right to
do so."
" No, but our people will go to their districts," said
the general. "For the time being we have done
enough by preventing the gleaning before the sheaves
were taken away; we had better go step by step," he
added, turning to leave the field.
"Did you hear him?" said Mother Tonsard to the
old Bonnebault woman, for the general's last words
were said in a rather louder tone than the rest, and
reached the ears of the two old women who were posted
in the road which led beside the field.
" Yes, yes ! we have n't got to the end yet, — a tooth
to-day and to-morrow an ear; if they could find a sauce
for our livers they'd eat 'em as they do a calf's !" said
old Bonnebault, whose threatening face was turned in
profile to the general as he passed her, though in the
twinkling of an eye she changed its expression to one
of hypocritical softness and submission as she hastened
to make him a profound curtsey.
" So you are gleaning, are you, though my wife helps
you to earn so much money?"
" Hey! my dear gentleman, may God preserve }tou
in good health! but, don't you see, my grandson
squanders all I earn, and I'm forced to scratch up a
little wheat to get bread in the winter, — yes, yes, I
glean just a bit; it all helps."
The gleaning proved of little profit to the gleaners.
384
Sons of the Soil.
The farmers and tenant-farmers, finding themselves
backed up, took care that their wheat was well reaped,
and superintended the making of the sheaves and their
safe removal, so that little or none of the pillage of
former years could take place.
Accustomed to get a good proportion of wheat in
their gleaning, the false as well as the true poor, for*
getting the count's pardon at Conches, now felt a deep
but silent anger against him, which was aggravated by
the Tonsards, Courtecuisse, Bonn£bault, Laroche, Vau-
doyer, Godain, and their adherents. Matters went
worse still after the vintage; for the gathering of the
refuse grape was not allowed until Sibilet had exam¬
ined the vines with extreme care. This last restriction
exasperated these sons of the soil to the highest pitch;
but when so great a social distance separates the an¬
gered class from the threatened class, words and threats
are lost; nothing comes to the surface or is perceived
but facts ; meantime the malcontents work underground
like moles.
The fair of Soulanges took place as usual quite peace*
fully, except for certain jarrings between the leading
society and the second-class society of Soulanges,
brought about by the despotism of the queen, who
could not tolerate the empire founded and established
over the heart of the brilliant Lupin by the beautiful
Euphemie Plissoud, for she herself laid permanent claim
to his fickle fervors.
The count and countess did not appear at the fair
nor at the Tivoli fSte ; and that, again, was counted a
wrong by the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, and their ad¬
herents ; it was pride, it was disdain, said the Soudry
salon. During this time the countess was filling the
Sons of the Soil.
385
toid caused by Emile's return to Paris with the im¬
mense interest and pleasure all fine souls take in the
good they are doing, or think they do; and the count,
for his part, applied himself no less zealously to changes
and ameliorations in the management of his estate,
which he expected and believed would modify and
benefit the condition of the people and hence their char¬
acters. Madame de Montcornet, assisted by the advice
and experience of the Abbd Brossette, came, little by
little, to have a thorough and statistical knowledge of
all the poor families of the district, their respective con¬
dition, their wants, their means of subsistence, and the
sort of help she must give to each to obtain work so
as not to make them lazy or idle.
The countess had placed Genevieve Niseron, La
Pechina, in a convent at Auxerre, under pretext of
having her taught to sew that she might employ her
in her own house, but really to save her from the
shameful attempts of Nicolas Tonsard, whom Rigou
had managed to save from the conscription. The coun¬
tess also believed that a religious education, the cloister,
and monastic supervision, would subdue the ardent pas¬
sions of the precocious little girl, whose Montenegrin
blood seemed to her like a threatening flame which
might one day set fire to the domestic happiness of her
faithful Olympe.
So all was peace at the chateau des Aigues. The
count, misled by Sibilet, reassured by Michaud, con¬
gratulated himself on his firmness, and thanked his
wife for having contributed by her benevolence to
the immense comfort of their tranquillity. The ques¬
tion of the sale of his. timber was laid aside till he
should go to Paris and arrange with the dealers. He
386
Sons of the Soil.
had not the slightest notion of how to do business,
and he was in total ignorance of the power wielded
by Gaubertin over the current of the Yonne,—the
main line of conveyance which supplied the timber of
the Paris market.
iSons of the Soil.
387
VII.
THE GREYHOUND.
Towards the middle of September Emile Blondet,
who had gone to Paris to publish a book, returned to
refresh himself at Les Aigues and to think over the
work he was planning for the winter. At Les Aigues,
the loving and sincere qualities which succeed adoles¬
cence in a young man's soul reappeared in the used-up
journalist.
" What a fine soul!" was the comment of the count
and the countess when they spoke of him.
Men who are accustomed to move among the abysses
of social nature, to understand all and to repress noth¬
ing, make themselves an oasis in the heart, where they
forget their perversities and those of others; they be¬
come within that narrow and sacred circle, — saints ;
there, they possess the delicacy of women, they give
themselves up to a momentary realization of their
ideal, they become angelic for some one being who
adores them, and they are not playing comedy; they
join their soul to innocence, so to speak; they feel
the need to brush off the mud, to heal their sores, to
bathe their wounds. At Les Aigues Emile Blondet
was without bitterness, without sarcasm, almost with¬
out wit; he made no epigrams, he was gentle as a
lamb, and platonically tender.
" He is such a good young fellow that I miss him
terribly when he is not here," said the general. " I do
'888
Sons of the Soil.
wish he could make a fortune and not lead that Paris
life of his."
Never did the glorious landscape and park of Les
Aigues seem as luxuriantly beautiful as it did just then.
The first autumn days were beginning, when the earth,
languid from her procreations and delivered of her pro¬
ducts, exhales the delightful odors of vegetation. At this
time the woods, especially, are delicious ; they begin to
take the russet warmth of Sienna earth, and the green-
bronze tones which form the lovely tapestry beneath
which they hide from the cold of winter.
Nature, having shown herself in springtime jaunty
and joyous as a brunette glowing with hope, becomes
in autumn sad and gentle as a blonde full of pensive
memories ; the turf yellows, the last flowers unfold their
pale corollas, the white-eyed daisies are fewer in the
grass, only their crimson calices are seen. Yellows
abound; the shady places are lighter for lack of leafage,
but darker in tone ; the sun, already oblique, slides its
furtive orange rays athwart them, leaving long lumi¬
nous traces which rapidly disappear, like the train of
a woman's gown as she bids adieu.
On the morning of the second day after his arrival,
Emile was at a window of his bedroom, which opened
upon a terrace with a balustrade from which a noble
view could be seen. This balcony ran the whole
length of the apartments of the countess, on the side of
the chateau towards the forests and the Blangy land¬
scape. The pond, which would have been called a lake
were Les Aigues nearer Paris, was partly in view, so
was the long canal; the Silver-spring, coming from
above the pavilion of the Rendezvous, crossed the lawn
with its sheeny ribbon, reflecting the yellow sand.
Sons of the Soil.
Beyond the park, between the village and the walls,
lay the cultivated parts of Blangy, — meadows where
the cows were grazing, small properties surrounded by
hedges, filled with fruit of all kinds, nut and apple
trees. By way of frame, the heights on which the
noble forest-trees were ranged, tier above tier, closed
in the scene. The countess had come out in her slip¬
pers to look at the flowers in her balcony, which were
sending up their morhing fragrance; she wore a cam¬
bric dressing-gown, beneath which the rosy tints of her
white shoulders could be seen; a coquettish little cap
was placed in a bewitching manner on her hair, which
escaped it recklessly ; her little feet showed their warm
flesh color through the transparent stockings; the
cambric gown, unconfined at the waist, floated open as
the breeze took it, and showed an embroidered petticoat.
"Oh! are you there?" she said.
" Yes."
" What are you looking at?"
"A pretty question! You have torn me from the
Contemplation of Nature. Tell me, countess, will you
go for a walk in the woods this morning before break¬
fast? "
44 What an idea! You know I have a horror of
walking."
"We will only walk a little way; I'll drive you in
the tilbury and take Joseph to hold the horses. You
have never once set foot in your forest; and I have just
noticed something very curious, a phenomenon; there
are spots where the tree-tops are of the color of Floren¬
tine bronze, the leaves are dried — "
"Well, I'11 dress."
" Oh, if you do, we can't get off for two hours. Take
26
890
Sons of the Soil.
a shawl, put on a bonnet, and boots ; that's all you want.
I shall tell them to harness."
"You alwaj's make me do what you want; I'll be
ready in a minute."
" General," said Blondet, waking the count, who
grumbled and turned'over, like a man who wants his
morning sleep. "We are going for a drive ; won't }'OU
come ? "
A quarter of an hour later the tilbury was slowly roll¬
ing along the park avenue, followed by a liveried groom
on horseback.
The morning was a September morning. The dark
blue of the sky burst forth here and there from the gray
of the clouds, which seemed the sky itself, the ether seem¬
ing to be the accessory ; long lines of ultramarine' lay
Upon the horizon, but ill Strata, which alternated with
other lines like sand-bars; these tones changed and
grew green at the level of the forests. The earth be¬
neath this overhanging mantle was moistly warm, like
a woman when she rises; it exhaled sweet, luscious
odors, which yet were wild, not civilized,—the scent
of cultivation was added to the scents of the woods.
Just then the Angelus was ringing at Blangy, and
the sounds of the bell, mingling with the wild con¬
cert of the forest, gave harmony to the silence. Here
and there were rising vapors, white, diaphanous,
Seeing these loveh* preparations of Nature, the fancy
had seized Olympe Michaud to accompan}7 her husband,
who had to give an order to a keeper whose house was
not far off. The Soulanges doctor advised her to walk
as long as she could do so without fatigue; she was
afraid of the midday heat and went out only in the
early morning or evening. Michaud now took her with
Sons of the Soil.
891
him, and they were followed by the dog he loved best*
— a handsome greyhound, mouse-colored with white
spots, greedy, like all greyhounds, and as full of vices
as most animals who know they are loved and petted.
So, when the tilbury reached the pavilion of the
Rendezvous, the countess, who stopped to ask how
Madame Michaud felt, Was told she had gone into the
forest with her husband.
" Such weather inspires everybody,"- said Blondet,
turning his horse at hazard into one of the six avenues
of the forest; "Joseph, you know the woods, don't
you?"
"Yes, monsieur."
And away they went. The avenue they took hap¬
pened to be one of the most delightful in the forest; it
soon turned and grew narrower, and presently became
a winding Way, on which the sunshine flickered through
rifts in the leafy roof, and where the breeze brought
Odors of lavender, and thyme, and the wild mint, and
that of falling leaves, which sighed as the}7 fell. Dew-
drops On the trees and on the grass were scattered like
seeds by the passing of the light carriage; the occu¬
pants as they rolled along caught glimpses of the m}'s-
terious visions of the Woods, — those cool depths, where
the verdure is moist and dark, where the light softens
as it fades ; those white-birch glades o'ertopped by some
centennial tree, the Hercules of the forest; those glori¬
ous assemblages of knotted, mossy trunks, whitened and
furrowed, and the banks of delicate wild plants and fra¬
gile flowers which grow between a woodland road and
the forest. The brooks sang. Truly there is a name¬
less pleasure in driving a woman along the ups and
downs of a slippery way carpeted with moss, where she
m
Sons of the Soil.
pretends to be afraid or really is so, and you are con¬
scious that she is drawing closer to you, letting you
feel, voluntarily or involuntarily, the cool moisture of
her arm, the weight of her round, white shoulder, though
she merely smiles when told that she hinders you in
driving. The horse seems to know the secret of these
interruptions, and he looks about him from right to left.
It was a new sight to the countess; this nature so
vigorous in its effects, so little seen and yet so grand,
threw her into a languid revery ; she leaned back in the
tilbury and yielded herself up to the pleasure of being
there with Emile; her eyes were charmed, her heart
spoke, she answered to the inward voice that harmon¬
ized with hers. He, too, glanced at her furtively; he
enjoyed that dreamy meditation, while the ribbons of
the bonnet floated on the morning breeze with the silky
oui'ls of the golden hair. In consequence of going they
knew not where, they presently came to a locked gate, of
Which they had not the key. Joseph was called up, but
neither had he a key.
"Never mind, let us walk; Joseph can take care of
the tilbury; we shall easily find it again."
Emile and the countess plunged into the forest, and
soon reached a small interior cleared space, such as is
often met with in the woods. Twenty years earlier the
charcoal-burners had made it their kiln, and the place
still remained open, quite a large circumference having
been burned over. But during those twenty years Na¬
ture had made herself a garden of flowers, a blooming
parterre for her own enjoyment, just as an artist gives
himself the delight of painting a picture for his own hap¬
piness. The enchanting spot was surrounded by fine
trees, whose tops hung over like vast fringes and made
Sons of the Soil.
393
a dais above this flowery couch where slept the goddess.
The charcoal-burners had followed a path to a pond, al¬
ways full of water. The path is there still; it invites
you to step into it by a turn full of mystery; then sud¬
denly it stops short and you come upon a bank where a
thousand roots run down to the water and make a sort
of canvas in the air. This hidden pond has a narrow
grassy edge, where a few willows and poplars lend their
fickle shade to a bank of turf which some lazy or pen¬
sive charcoal-burner must have made for his enjoyment.
The frogs hop about, the teal bathe in the pond, the
water-fowl come and go, a hare starts; you are the
master of this delicious bath, decorated with iris and
bulrushes. Above your head the trees take many at¬
titudes ; here the trunks twine down like boa-constric¬
tors, there the beeches stand erect as a Greek column.
The snails and the slugs move peacefully about. A
tench shows its gills, a squirrel looks at }'ou ; and at
last, after Emile and the countess, tired with her walk,
were seated, a bird, but I know not what bird it was,
sang its autumn song, its farewell song, to which the
other songsters listened, —a song welcome to love, and
heard by every organ of the being.
"What silence!" said the countess, with emotion
and in a whisper, as if not to trouble this deep peace.
They looked at the green patches on the water,—
worlds where life was organizing; they pointed to the
lizard playing in the sun and escaping at their ap¬
proach, — behavior which has won him the title of " the
friend of man." " Proving, too, how well he knows
him," said Emile. They watched the frogs, who, less
distrustful, returned to the surface of the pond, winking
their carbuncle eyes as they sat upon the water-cresses.
894
Sons of the Soil,
The sweet and simple poetry of Nature permeated these
two souls surfeited with the conventional things of
life, and filled them with contemplative emotion. Sud¬
denly Blondet shuddered. Turning to the countess he
said, —
4' Did you hear that ? "
" What ? " she asked.
44 A curious noise."
44 Ah, you literary men who live in your studies and
know nothing of the country! that is only a wood¬
pecker tapping a tree. I dare say you don't even know
the most curious fact in the history of that bird. As
soon as he has given his tap, and he gives millions to
pierce an oak, he flies behind the tree to see if he is
yet through it; and he does this every instant,"
44 The noise I heard, dear instructress of natural his¬
tory, was not a noise made by an animal; there was
evidence of mind in it, and that proclaims a man."
The countess was seized with a panic, and she darted
back through the wild flower-garden, seeking the path
by which to leave the forest.
44 What is the matter ?" cried Blondet, rushing after
her.
441 thought I saw eyes," she said, when they re¬
gained the path through which they had reached the
charcoal-burner's open.
Just then they heard the low death-rattle of a creat¬
ure whose throat was suddenly cut, and the countess,
with her fears redoubled, fled so quickly that Blondet
could scarcely follow her. She ran like a will-o'-the-
wisp, and did not listen to Blondet who called to her,
44 You are mistaken." On she ran, and Simile with her,
till they suddenly came upon Micliaud and his wife,
Sons of the Soil.
39 q
who were walking along arm-in-arm. Emile was pant'
ing and the countess out of breath, and it was some
time before they could speak; then they explained.
Michaud joined Blondet in laughing at the countess's
terror; then the bailiff showed the two wanderers the
way to find the tilbury. When they reached the gate
Madame Michaud called, " Prince ! "
" Prince ! Prince ! " called the bailiff; then he whis¬
tled, — but no greyhound.
j&mile mentioned the curious noise that began their
adventure.
"My wife heard that noise," said Michaud, " and I
laughed at her."
" They have killed Prince ! " exclaimed the countess.
"Iam sure of it; they killed him by cutting his throat
at one blow. What I heard was the groan of a dying
animal."
" The devil! " cried Michaud ; " the matter must be
cleared up."
Emile and the bailiff left the two ladies with Joseph
and the horses, and returned to the wild garden of the
open. They went down the bank to the pond; looked
everywhere along the slope, but found no clue. Blondet
jumped back first, and as he did so he saw, in a thicket
which stood on higher ground, one of those trees he had
noticed in the morning with withered heads. He showed
it to Michaud, and proposed to go to it. The two sprang
forward in a straight line across the forest, avoiding the
trunks and going round the matted tangles of brier and
holly until they found the tree.
"It is a fine elm," said Michaud, "but there's a
worm in it, — a worm which gnaws round the bark close
to the roots."
396
Sons of the Soil.
He stopped and took up a bit of the bark, saying:
See how the}' work."
"You have a great many worms in this forest,"
said Blondet.
Just then Michaud noticed a red spot; a moment
more and he saw the head of his greyhound. He
sighed.
" The scoundrels ! " he said. " Madame was right."
Michaud and Blondet examined the body and found,
just as the countess had said, that some one had cut the
greyhound's throat. To prevent his barking he had
been decoyed with a bit of meat, which was still be¬
tween his tongue and his palate.
'' Poor brute ; he died of self-indulgence."
" Like all princes," said Blondet.
" Some one, whoever it is, has just gone, fearing that
we might catch him. or her," said Michaud. "A serious
offence has been committed. But for all that, I see no
branches about and no lopped trees."
Blondet and the bailiff began a cautious search, look¬
ing at each spot where they set their feet before setting
them. Presently Blondet pointed to a tree beneath
which the grass was flattened down and two hollows
made.
" Some one knelt there, and it must have been a
woman, for a man would not have left such a quantity
of flattened grass around the impression of his two
knees ; }'es, see ! that is the outline of a petticoat."
The bailiff, after examining the base of the tree, found
the beginning of a hole beneath the bark; but he did
not find the worm with the tough skin, shiny and squa¬
mous, covered with brown specks, ending in a tail not
unlike that of a cockchafer, and having also the latter's
Sons of the Soil,
397
liead, antennae, and the two vigorous hooks or shears
with which the creature cuts into the wood.
"My dear fellow," said Blondet, " now I understand
the enormous number of dead trees that I noticed this
morning from the terrace of the chateau, and which
brought me here to find out the cause of the phenome¬
non. Worms are at work; but they are no other than
your peasants.
The bailiff gave vent to an oath and rushed off, fol¬
lowed by Blondet, to rejoin the countess, whom he re¬
quested to take his wife home with her. Then he
jumped on Joseph's horse, leaving the man to return
on foot, and disappeared with great rapidity to cut off
the retreat of the woman who had killed his dog, hop¬
ing to catch her with the bloody bill-hook in her hand
and the tool used to make the incisions in the bark of
the tree.
"Let us go and tell the general at once, before he
breakfasts," cried the countess; "he might die of
anger."
" I '11 prepare him," said Blondet.
"They have killed the dog," said Olympe, in tears.
"You loved the poor greyhound, dear, enough to
weep for him ?" said the countess.
"I think of Prince as a warning; I fear some dan¬
ger to my husband."
" How they have ruined this beautiful morning for
us," said the countess, with an adorable little pout.
" How they have ruined the country," said Olympe,
gravely.
They met the general near the chateau.
" Where have j'ou been?" be asked.
" You shall know in a minute," said Blondet, myste«
398
/Sons of the Soil.
riously, as he helped the countess and Madame Mich a ml
to alight. A moment more and the two gentlemen were
alone on the terrace of the apartments.
"You have plenty of moral strength, general; 3*011
won't put }rourself in a passion, will you ? "
" No," said the general; " but come to the point or
I shall think 3rou are making fun of me."
" Do you see those trees with dead leaves?"
" Yes."
" Do you see those others that are wilting?"
"Yes."
" Well, every one of them has been killed by the
peasants you think you have won over by your benefits."
And Blondet related the events of the morning.
The general was so pale that Blondet was frightened.
"Come, curse, swear, be furious! your self-control
may hurt you more than anger! "
"I'll go and smoke," said the general, turning
toward the kiosk.
During breakfast Michaud came in; he had found
no one. Sibilet, whom the count had sent for, came
also.
" Monsieur Sibilet, and 37ou, Monsieur Michaud, are
to make it known, cautiousty, that I will pa}T a thou¬
sand francs to whoever will arrest in the act the person
or persons who are killing my trees; they must also
discover the instrument with which the work is done,
and where it was bought. I have settled upon a plan."
" Those people never betray one another," said Sibi¬
let, " if the crime done is for their benefit and pre¬
meditated. There is no denying that this diabolical
business has been planned, carefully planned and
contrived."
Sons of the Soil.
399
" Yes, but a thousand francs means a couple of acres
of land."
" We can try," said Sibilet; " fifteen hundred francs
might buy you a traitor, especially if you promise
secrecy."
" Very good; but let us act as if we suspected
nothing, I especially; if not, we shall be the victims
of some collusion; one has to be as wary with these
brigands as with the enemy in war."
" But the enemy is here," said Blondet.
Sibilet threw him the furtive glance of a man who
understood the meaning of the words, and then he
withdrew.
"I don't like your Sibilet," said Blondet, when he
had seen the steward leave the house. "That man is
playing false."
" Up to this time he has done nothing I could com¬
plain of," said the general.
Blondet went off to write letters. He had lost the
careless gayety of his first arrival, and was now uneasy
and preoccupied; but he had no vague presentiments
like those of Madame Michaud ; he was, rather, in full
expectation of certain foreseen misfortunes. He said
to himself, '' This affair will come to some bad end;
and if the' general does not take decisive action and
will not abandon a battle-field where he is overwhelmed
by numbers there must be a catastrophe ; and who knows
who will come out safe and sound, — perhaps neither he
nor his wife. Good God ! that adorable little creature !
so devoted, so perfect! how can he expose her thus?
He thinks he loves her ! Well, I'll share their danger,
and if I can't save them I '11 suffer with them."
400
Sons of the Soil.
VIII.
RURAL VIRTUE.
That night Marie Tonsard was stationed on tlie road
to Soulanges, sitting on the rail of a culvert waiting for
Bonnebault, who had spent the day, as usual, at the
Cafe de la Paix. She heard him coming at some dis¬
tance, and his step told her that he was drunk, and she
knew also that he had lost money, for he always sang
if he won.
" Is that you, Bonnebault? "
" Yes, my girl."
" What's the matter? "
" I owe twenty-five francs, and they may wring my
neck twenty-five times before I can pay them."
" Well, I know how you can get five hundred," she
said in his ear.
" Oh ! by killing a man ; but I prefer to live."
"Hold your tongue. Vaudoyer will give us five
hundred francs if you will let him catch your mother at
a tree."
" I'd rather kill a man than sell my mother. There's
your old grandmother; why don't you sell her? "
" If I tried to, my father would get angry and stop
the trick."
" That's true. Well, anyhow, my mother sha'n't go
to prison, poor old thing! She cooks my food and
keeps me in clothes, I'm sure I don't know how. Go
Sons of the Soil.
401
to prison,—and through me! I shouldn't have any
bowels within me ; no, no ! And for fear any one else
should sell her, I '11 tell her this very night not to kill
any more trees."
" "Well, my father may say ahd do what he likes, but
I shall tell him there are five hundred francS to be had,
and perhaps he '11 ask my grandmother if she '11 earn
them. They '11 never put an old woman seventy-eight
years of age in prison, — though, to be sure, she'd be
better off there than in her garret."
" Five hundred francs ! well, yes ; I '11 speak to fny
mother," said Bonnebault, '' and if it suits her to give
'em to me, I'll let her have part to take to prison.
She could knit, and amuse herself; and she'd be well
fed and lodged, and have less trouble than she has
at Conches. Well, to-morrow, my girl, I'll see you
about it; I have n't time to stop now."
The next morning at daybreak Bonnebault and his
old mother knocked at the door of the Grand-I-Vert.
Mother Tonsard was the only person up.
"Marie!" called Bonnebault, "that matter is
settled."
" You mean about the trees? " said Mother Tonsard;
" yes, it is all settled; I've taken it."
"Nonsense!" cried Mother Bonnebault, "my son
has got the promise of an acre of land from Monsieur
Rigou — "
The two old women squabbled as to which of them
should be sold by her children. The noise of the quar¬
rel woke up the household. Tonsard and Bonnebault
took sides for their respective mothers.
" Pull straws," suggested Tonsard's wife.
The short straw gave it in favor of the taverrh
402
Sons of the Soil.
Three days later, in the forest of Ville-aux-Faj'es at
daybreak, the gendarmes arrested old Mother Tonsard
caught in flagrante delicto by the bailiff, his assistants,
and the field-keeper, with a rusty file which served to
tear the tree, and a chisel, used by the delinquent to
scoop round the bark just as the insect bores its way.
The indictment stated that sixty trees thus destroyed
were found within a radius of five hundred feeti The
old woman was sent to Auxerre, the case coming under
the jurisdiction of the assize-court.
Michaud could not refrain from saying when he
discovered Mother Tonsard at the foot of the tree i
" These are the persons on whom the general and
Madame la comtesse have showered benefits! Faith,
if Madame would only listen to me, she would n't give
that dowry to the Tonsard girl, who is more worthless
than her grandmother."
The old Woman raised her gray eyes and darted a
venomous look at Michaud. When the count learned
who the guilty person was, he forbade his wife to give
the money to Catherine Tonsard.
" Monsieur le comte is perfectly right," said Sibilet.
" I know that Godain bought that land three days
before Catherine came to speak to Madame. She is
quite capable, that girl, of pretending she is with child,
to get the money ; veiy likely Godain has had "nothing
to do with it."
"What a community !" said Blondet; " the scoun¬
drels of Paris are saints by comparison."
" Ah, monsieur," said Sibilet, "self-interest makes
people guilty of horrors everywhere. Do you know who
betrayed the old woman? "
" No."
Sons of the Soil.
403
" Her granddaughter Marie ; she was jealous of her
sister's marriage, and to get the money for her own — "
"It is awful!" said the count. "Why! they'd
murder!"
" Oh yes," said Sibilet, " for a very small sum. They
care so little for life, those people ; they hate to have to
work all their lives. Ah monsieur, queer things happen
in country places, as queer as those of Paris, — but you
will never believe it."
" Let us be kind and benevolent," said the countess.
The evening after the arrest Bonnebault came to the
tavern of the Grand-I-Vert, where all the Tonsard
family were in great jubilation. " Oh yes, }res ! " said
he, " make the most of your rejoicing \ but I've just
heard from Yaudoyer that the countess, to punish you,
withdraws the thousand francs promised to Godain ; her
husband won't let her give them."
" It's that villain of a Michaud that has put him up
to it," said Tonsard. "My mother heard him say he
would ; she told me at Ville-aux-Fayes where I went to
carry her some money and her clothes. Well; let that
countess keep her money! our five hundred francs
shall help Godain buy the land; and we '11 revenge
ourselves for this thing. Ha ! Michaud meddles with
our private matters, does he? it will bring him more
harm than good. What business is it of his, I'd like
to know ? let him keep to the woods ! It's he who is
at the bottom of all this trouble — he found the clue
that day my mother cut the throat of his dog. Suppose
I were to meddle in the affairs of the chateau? Sup-,
pose I were to tell the general that his wife is off walk¬
ing in the woods before he is up in the morning, with a
young man."
m
Sons of the Soil.
" The general, the general! " sneered CoUrtectiisse;
" they can do what they like with him. But it's Mi-
chaud who stirs him up, the mischief-maker! a fellow
who don't know his business; in my day, things went
differentl}'."
"Ah!" said Tonsard, "those were tire good days
for all of us—weren't they, Vaudoyer?"
" Yes," said the latter, " and the fact is that if Mb
chaud were got rid of we should be left in peace."
"Enough said," replied Tonsard. "We'll talk of
that later — by moonlight —in the Open field."
Towards the end of October the countess returned td
Paris, leaving the general at Les Aigues. He Was not
to rejoin her until some time later, but she did not wish
to lose the first night of the Italian Opera, and moreover
she was lonely and bored ; she missed Emile, who was
recalled by his avocations, for he had helped her to
pass the hours when the general was scouring the
country or attending to business.
November was a true winter month, gray and gloomy,
a mixture of snow and rain, frost and thaw. The trial
of Mother Tonsard had required witnesses at Auxerre,
and Michaud had given his testimony. Monsieur Rigou
had interested himself for the old woman, and employed
a lawyer on her behalf who relied in his defence on the
absence of disinterested witnesses; but the testimonj'
of Michaud and his assistants and the field-keeper was
found to outweigh this objection. Tonsard's mother was
sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the lawyer
said to her son: —
" It was Michaud's testimony which got her that,"
Sons of the Soil.
405
IX.
THE CATASTROPHE.
One Saturday evening, Courtecuisse, Bonn6bault,
.Godain, Tonsard, his daughters, wife, and Pere Four-
chon, also Yaudoyer and several mechanics were sup¬
ping at the tavern. The moon was at half-full, the
first snow had melted, and frost had just stiffened the
ground so that a man's step left no traces. They were
eating a stew of hare caught in a trap ; all were drink¬
ing and laughing. It was the day after the wedding of
Catherine and Godain, and the wedded pair were to be
conducted to their new home, which was not far from
that of Courtecuisse; for when Rigou sold an acre of
land it was sure to be isolated and close to the woods.
Courtecuisse and Yaudoyer had brought their guns to
accompany the bride. The neighborhood was other¬
wise fast asleep ; not a light was to be seen ; none but
the wedding party were awake, but they made noise
enough. In the midst of it the old Bonn^bault woman
entered, and every one looked at her.
"I think she is going to lie-in," she whispered in
Tonsard's ear. '' He has saddled his horse and is
going for the doctor at Soulanges."
" Sit down," said Tonsard, giving her his place at
the table, and going himself to lie on a bench.
Just then the gallop of a horse passing rapidly along
the read was heard. Tonsard, Courtecuisse, and Yau-
27
406
Sons of the Soil.
doyer went out hurriedly, and saw Michaud on his way
to the village.
"He knows what he's about," said Courtecuisse;
" he came down by the terrace and he means to go by
Blangy and the road, — it's the safest way."
" Yes," said Ton sard, " but he will bring the doctor
back with him."
" He won't find him," said Courtecuisse, " the doctor
has been sent for to Conches for the postmistress."
" Then he'll go from Soulanges to Conches by the
mail-road ; that's shortest."
" And safest too,for us," said Courtecuisse, " there's
a fine moon, and there are no keepers on the road as
there are in the woods; one can hear much farther;
and down there, by the pavilions, behind the hedges,
just where they join the little wood, one can aim at
a man from behind, like a rabbit, at five hundred
feet."
" It will be half-past eleven before he comes past
there," said Tonsard, " it will take him half an hour
to go to Soulanges and as much more to get back, —
but look here! suppose Monsieur Gourdon were on
the road ?"
" Don't trouble about that," said Courtecuisse, " I'll
stand ten minutes awa}- from you to the right on the
road towards Blangy, and Vaudoyer will be ten minutes
away on }'our left towards Conches ; if anything comes
along, the mail, or the gendarmes, or whatever it is,
we'll fire a shot into the ground,—a muffled sound,
you'll know it."
" But suppose I miss him?" said Tonsard.
"He's right," said Courtecuisse, "I'm the best
shot; Vaudoyer, I'll go with you; Bonnebauit may
. Sons of the Soil.
407
watch in my place; he can give a cry; that's easier
heard and less suspicious."
All three returned to the tavern and the wedding
festivities went on ; but about eleven o'clock Vaudoyer,
Courtecuisse, Tonsard, and Bonnebault went out, carry¬
ing their guns, though none of the women took any
notice of them. They came back in about three-
quarters of an hour, and sat drinking till past one
o'clock. Tonsard's girls and their mother and the old
Bonnebault woman had plied the miller, the mechanics,
and the two peasants, as well as Fourchon, with so
much drink that they were all on the ground and snor¬
ing when the four men left the tavern; on their return,
the sleepers were shaken and roused, and every one
seemed to them, as before, in his place.
"While this orgy was going on Michaud's household
was a scene of mortal anxiety. Olympe had felt false
pains, and her husband, thinking she was about to be
delivered, rode off instantly in haste for the doctor.
But the poor woman's pains ceased as soon as she
realized that Michaud was gone ; for her mind was so
preoccupied by the danger her husband ran at that
hour of the night, in a lawless region filled with de¬
termined foes, that the anguish of her soul was power¬
ful enough to deaden and momentarily subdue those of
the body. In vain her servant-woman declared her
fears were imaginary; she seemed not to comprehend
a word that was said to her, and sat by the fire
in her bed-chamber listening to every sound. In her
terror, which increased every moment, she had the man
wakened, meaning to give him some order which still
she did not give. At last, the poor woman wandered
up and down, coming and going in feverish agitation;
408
Sons of the Soil.
she looked out of all the windows and opened them in
spite of the cold; then she went downstairs and opened
the door into the courtyard, looking out and listening.
"Nothing! nothing!" she said. Then she went up
again in despair. About a quarter past twelve, she
cried out: '' Here he is ! I hear the horse! " Again she
went down, followed by the man who went to open
the iron gate of the courtyard. " It is strange," she
said, '' that he should return by the Conches woods ! "
As she spoke she stood still, horrorstruck, motion¬
less, voiceless. The man shared her terror, for, in the
furious gallop of the horse, the clang of the empty
stirrups, the neigh of the frightened animal, there was
something, they scarcely knew what, of unspeakable
warning. Soon, too soon for the unhappy wife, the
horse reached the gate, panting and sweating, but
alone ; he had broken the bridle, no doubt by entang¬
ling it. Olympe gazed with haggard eyes at the ser¬
vant as he opened the gate; she saw the horse, and
then, without a word, she ran to the chateau like a mad¬
woman ; when she reached it she fell to the ground
beneath the general's windows crying out: '' Monsiejir,
they have murdered him! "
The cry was so terrible it awoke the count; he rang
violentty, bringing the whole household to their feet;
and the groans of Madame Michaud, who as she lay on
the ground, gave birth to a child that died in being
born, brought the general and all the servants about
her. They raised the poor dying woman, who expired,
saying to the general: " They have murdered him!"
"Joseph!" cried the count to his valet, " go for
the doctor; there may yet be time to save her. No,
better bring the curate; the poor woman is dead, and
Sons of the Soil.
409
her child too. My God ! my God ! how thankful I am
that my wife is not here. And you," he said to the
gardener, "go and find out what has happened."
" I can tell you," said the pavilion servant, coming
up, " Monsieur Michaud's horse has come back alone,
the reins broken, his legs bloody; and there's a spot
of blood on the saddle."
"What can be done at this time of night?" cried the
count. " Call up Groison, send for the keepers, saddle
the horses ; we '11 beat the country."
By daybreak, eight persons — the count, Groison, the
three keepers, and two gendarmes sent from Soulanges
with their sergeant — searched the country. It was not
till the middle of the morning that they found the body
of the bailiff in a copse between the mail-road and the
smaller road leading to Ville-aux-Fayes, at the end of
the park of Les Aigues, not far from Conches. Two
gendarmes started, one to Ville-aux-Fayes for the pros¬
ecuting attorney, the other to Soulanges for the justice
of the peace. Meantime the general, assisted by the ser¬
geant, noted down the facts. The}' found on the road,
just above the two pavilions, the print of the stamping
of the horse's feet as he reared, and the traces of his
frightened gallop from there to the first opening into
the woods above the hedge. The horse, no longer
guided, turned into the wood-path. Michaud's hat was
found there. The animal evidently took the nearest
way to reach his stable. The bailiff had a ball through
his back which broke the spine.
Groison and the sergeant studied the ground around
the spot where the horse reared (which might be
called, in judicial language, the theatre of the crime)
with remarkable sagacity, but without obtaining any
410
(Sons of the kSoil.
clue. The earth was too frozen to show the footprints
of the murderer, and all they found was the paper of a
cartridge. When the attorney and the judge and Mon¬
sieur Gourdon, the doctor, arrived and raised the body
to make the autopsy, it was found that the ball, which
corresponded with the fragments of the wad, was an am¬
munition ball, evidently from a military musket; and no
such musket existed in the district of Blangy. The judge
and Monsieur Soudry the attorney, who came that even¬
ing to the chateau, thought it best to collect all the facts
and await events. The same opinion was expressed by
the sergeant and the lieutenant of the gendarmerie.
"It is impossible that it can be anything but a
planned attack on the part of the peasants," said the
sergeant; "but there are two districts, Conches and
Blangj', in each of which there are five or six persons
capable of being concerned in the murder. The one
that I suspect most, Tonsard, passed the night carous¬
ing in the Grand-I-Vert; but your assistant, general,
the miller Langlume, was there, and he says that Ton-
sard did not leave the tavern. They were all so drunk
they could not stand; they took the bride home at
half-past one; and the return of the horse proves
that Michaud was murdered between eleven o'clock and
midnight. At a quarter past ten Groison saw the
whole company assembled at table, and Monsieur
Michaud passed there on his way to Soulanges, which
he reached at eleven. His horse reared between the
two pavilions on the mail-road ; but he majr have been
shot before reaching Blangy and yet have staj'ed in the
saddle for some little time. We should have to issue
warrants for at least twenty persons and arrest them;
but I know those peasants, and so do these gentlemen;
Sons of the Soil.
411
you might keep them a year in prison and you would
get nothing out of them but denials. What could you
do with all those who were at Tonsard's ? "
They sent for Langlume, the miller, and the assistant
of General Montcornet as mayor; he related what had
taken place in the tavern, and gave the names of all
present; none had gone out except for a minute or two
into the courtyard. He had left the room for a moment
with Tonsard about eleven o'clock ; they had spoken of
the moon and the weather, and heard nothing. At two
o'clock the whole party had taken the bride and bride¬
groom to their own house.
The general arranged with the sergeant, the lieuten¬
ant, and the civil authorities to send to Paris for the
cleverest detective in the service of the police, who
should come to the chateau as a workman, and behave
so ill as to be dismissed; he should then take to drink¬
ing and frequent the Grand-I-Vert and remain in the
neighborhood in the character of an ill-wisher to the
general. The best plan they could follow was to watch
and wait for a momentary revelation, and then make
the most of it.
" If I have to spend twenty thousand francs I '11 dis¬
cover the murderer of my poor Michaud," the general
was never weary of saying.
He went off with that idea in his head, and returned
from Paris in the month of January with one of the
shrewdest satellites of the chief of the detective police,
who was brought down ostensibly to do some work to
the interior of the chateau. The man was discovered
poaching. He was arrested, and turned off, and soon
after — early in February — the general rejoined his
wife in Paris.
412
/Sons of the Soil.
X.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE VANQUISHED.
One evening in the month of May, when the fine
weather had come and the Parisians had returned to
Les Aigues, Monsieur de Troisville,—who had been
persuaded to accompany his daughter, — Blondet, the
Abbe Brossette, the general, and the sub-prefect of
Ville-aux-Fayes, who was on a visit to the chateau,
were all playing either whist or chess. It was about
half-past eleven o'clock when Joseph entered and told
his master that the worthless poaching workman who
had been dismissed wanted to see him, — something
about a bill which he said the general still owed him.
"He is very drunk," added Joseph.
" Very good, I '11 go and speak to him."
The general went out upon the lawn to some dis¬
tance from the house.
"Monsieur le comte," said the detective, " nothing
will ever be got out of these people. All that I have
been able to gather is that if you continue to stay in
this place and try to make the peasants renounce the
pilfering habits which Mademoiselle Laguerre allowed
them to acquire, the}' will shoot you as well as your
bailiff. There is no use in my staying here; for they
distrust me even more than they do the keepers."
The count paid his spy, who left the place the next
day, and his departure justified the suspicions enter-
Sons of the Soil.
413
tained about him by the accomplices in the death of
Michaud.
When the general returned to the salon there were
such signs of emotion upon his face that his wife asked
him, anxiously, what news he had just heard.
" Dear wife," he said, " I don't want to frighten you,
and 3ret it is right you should know that Michaud's
death was intended as a warning to us to leave this
part of the country."
"If I were in your place,"'said Monsieur de Trois-
ville, " I would not leave it. I myself have had just such
difficulties in Normand}*, only under another form ; I
persisted in my course, and now everything goes well."
" Monsieur le marquis," said the sub-prefect, " Nor¬
mandy and Burgundy are two very different regions.
The grape heats the blood far more than the apple.
We know much less of law and legal proceedings ; we
live among the woods ; the large industries are un¬
known among us; we are still savages. If I might
give my advice to Monsieur le comte it would be to sell
this estate and put the money in the Funds ; he would
double his income and have no anxieties. If he likes
living in the country he could buy a chateau near Paris
with a park as beautiful as that of Les Aigues, sur¬
rounded by walls, where no one can annoy him, and
where he can let all his farms and receive the money
in good bank-bills, and have no law suits from one
year's end to another. He could come and go in three
or four hours, and Monsieur Blondet and Monsieur
le marquis would not be so often away from you,
Madame la comtesse."
"I, retreat before the peasantiy when I did not
l'ecoil before the Danube!" cried the general.
414
Sons of the Soil.
" Yes, but what became of your cuirassiers? " asked
Blondet.
" Such a fine estate!"
" It will sell to-day for over two millions."
" The chateau alone must have cost that," remarked
Monsieur de Troisville.
" One of the best properties in a circumference of
sixty miles," said the sub-prefect; " but }'pu can find a
better near Paris."
" How much income does one get from two mil¬
lions?" asked the countess.
" Now-a-days, about eighty thousand francs," replied
Blondet.
" Les Aigues does not bring in, all told, more than
thirty thousand," said the countess; "and lately you
have been at such immense expense, — you have sur¬
rounded the woods this j*ear with ditches.
"You could get," added Blondet, " a royal chateau
for four hundred thousand francs near Paris. In these
days people bu}' the follies of others."
"I thought you cared for Les Aigues!" said the
count to his wife.
" Don't you feel that I care a thousand times more
for your life?" she replied. "Besides, ever since the
death of my poor Olympe and Michaud's murder the
country is odious to me; all the faces I meet seem to
wear a treacherous or threatening expression."
The next evening the sub-prefect, having ended his
visit at the chateau, was welcomed in the salon of Mon¬
sieur Gaubertin at Ville-aux-Fayes in these words: —
"Well, Monsieur des Lupeaulx, so you have returned
from Les Aigues?"
"Yes," answered the sub-prefect with a little air of
Sons of the Soil.
415
triumph and a look of tender regard at Mademoiselle
illise, " and I am very much afraid we may lose the
general; he talks of selling his property —"
" Monsieur Gaubertin, I speak for my pavilion.
I can no longer endure the noise, the dust of Ville-aux-
Fayes; like a poor imprisoned bird I gasp for the air
of the fields, the woodland breezes," said Madame
Isaure, in a lackadaisical voice, with her eyes half-closed
and her head bending to her left shoulder as she played
carelessly with the long curls of her blond hair.
" Pray be prudent, madame!" said her husband in
a low voice; "your indiscretions will not help me to
buy the pavilion. Then, turning to the sub-prefect,
he added, "Haven't they jmt discovered the men who
were concerned in the murder of the bailiff ?"
" It seems not," replied the sub-prefect.
" That will injure the sale of Les Aigues," said Gau¬
bertin to the company generally, "I know very well
that I would not buy the place. The peasantry over
there are such a bad set of people; even in the days
of Mademoiselle Laguerre I had trouble with them, and
God knows she let them do as they liked."
At the end of the month of May the general still
gave no sign that he intended to sell Les Aigues; in
fact, he was undecided. One night, about ten o'clock,
he was returning from the forest through one of the six
avenues that led to the pavilion of the Rendezvous.
He dismissed the keeper who accompanied him, as he
was then so near the chateau. At a turn of the road
a man armed with a gun came from behind a bush.
" General," he said, " this is the third time I have
had 3'ou at the end of my barrel, and the third time
that I give you your life."
416
Sons of the Soil.
"Wlydo you want to kill xne, Bonnebault?" said
the general, without showing the least emotion.
"Faith, if I don't, somebody else will; but I, you
see, I like the men who served the Emperor, and I
can't make up my mind to shoot you like a partridge.
Don't question me, for I '11 tell you nothing ; but you've
got enemies, powerful enemies, cleverer than you, and
they '11 end by crushing you. I am to have a thousand
crowns if I kill you, and then I can many Marie Ton-
sard. "Well, give me enough to buy a few acres of land
and a bit of a cottage, and I'll keep on saying, as I
have done, that I've found no chance. That will give
you time to sell your property and get away ; but make
haste. I'm an honest lad still, scamp as I am; but
another fellow won't spare you."
" If I give you what you ask, will you tell me who
offei'ed 3-ou those three thousand francs ?" said the
general.
" I don't know myself; and the person who is urging
me to do the thing is some one I love too well to tell of.
Besides, even if you did know it was Marie Tonsard, that
would n't help you ; Marie Tonsard would be as silent
as that wall, and I should deny every word I've said."
" Come and see me to-morrow," said the general.
" Enough," replied Bonnebault; " and if they begin
to say I'm too dilatoiy, I '11 let you know in time."
A week after that singular conversation the whole,
arrondissement, indeed the whole department, was cov¬
ered with posters, advertising the sale of Les Aigues at
the office of Maitre Corbineau, the notary of Soulanges.
All the lots were knocked down to Rigou, and the price
paid amounted to two millions five hundred thousand
francs. The next dajr Rigou had the names changed ;
Sons of the Soil.
417
Monsieur Gaubertin took the woods, Rigou and Soudry
the vineyards and the farms. The chateau and park
were sold over again in small lots among the sons of
the soil, the peasantry, — excepting the pavilion, its de¬
pendencies, and fifty surrounding acres, which Monsieur
Gaubertin retained as a gift to his poetic and sentimen¬
tal spouse.
Many years after these events, during the year 1837,
one of the most remarkable political writers of the day,
Emile Blondet, reached the last stages of a poverty
which he had so far hidden beneath an outward appear¬
ance of ease and elegance. He was thinking of taking
some desperate step, realizing, as he did, that his writ¬
ings, his mind, his knowledge, his ability for the direc¬
tion of affairs, had made him nothing better than a mere
functionary, mechanically serving the ends of others;
seeing that every avenue was closed to him and all
places taken; feeling that he had reached middle-life
without fame and without fortune; that fools and
middle-class men of no training had taken the places
of the courtiers and incapables of the Restoration, and
that the government was reconstituted such as it was
before 1830. One evening, when he had come very
near committing suicide (a folly he had so often laughed
at), while his mind travelled back over his miserable
existence calumniated and worn down with toil far
more than with the dissipations charged against him,
the noble and beautiful face of a woman rose before
his eyes, like a statue rising pure and unbroken amid
the saddest ruins. Just then the porter brought him
a letter sealed with black from the Comtesse de Mont-
cornet, telling him of the death of her husband, who
418
>Sons of the Soil.
had again taken service in the army and commanded a
division. The count had left her his property, and she
had no children. The letter, though dignified, showed
Blondet very plainly that the woman of forty whom he
had loved in his youth offered him a friendly hand and
a large fortune.
A few days ago the marriage of the Comtesse de
Montcornet with Monsieur Blondet, appointed prefect
in one of the departments, was celebrated in Paris. On
their way to take possession of the prefecture, they fol¬
lowed the road which led past what had formerly been
Les Aigues. They stopped the carriage near the spot
where the two pavilions had once stood, wishing to see
the places so full of tender memories for each. The
country was no longer recognizable. The mysterious
woods, the park avenues, all were cleared away; the
landscape looked like a tailor's pattern-card. The sons
of the soil had taken possession of the earth as victors
and conquerors. It was cut up into a thousand little
lots, and the population had tripled between Conches
and Blangy. The levelling and cultivation of the noble
park, once so carefully tended, so delightful in its beauty,
threw into isolated relief the pavilion of the Rendez¬
vous, now the Villa Buen-Retiro of Madame Isaure
Gaubertin; it was the only building left standing, and
it commanded the whole landscape, or as we might
better call it, the stretch of cornfields which now con¬
stituted the landscape. The building seemed magnified
into a chateau, so miserable were the little houses which
the peasants had built around it.
" This is progress ! " cried Emile. " It is a page out
of Jean-Jacques' ' Social Compact!' and I — I am
harnessed to the social machine that works it! Good
Sons of the Soil.
419
God! what will the kings be soon ? More than that,
what will the nations themselves be fifty years hence
under this state of things?"
" But you love me ; you are beside me. I think the
present delightful. What do I care for such a distant
future?" said his wife.
"Oh yes! by 37our side, hurrah for the present!"
cried the lover, gayly, " and the devil take the future."
Then he signed to the coachman, and as the horses
sprang forward along the road, the wedded pair re¬
turned to the enjoyment of their honeymoon.
1845.
THE END.
P4.LZIEL BROTHERS, OAMPEN PRESS, LONDON, N.W,
HONORE DE BALZAC.
"Balzac is perhaps the greatest name in the post-Revolutionary litera¬
ture of France. His writings display a profound knowledge of the human
heart, with extraordinary range of knowledge. . . . Balzac holds a more
distinct and supreme place in French fiction than perhaps any English
author does in the same field of art."—Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"Balzac, though he paints human life, perhaps, too much in tints of fate
that remind us of the Greek tragedians, is far deeper and more true to
nature than George Sand or Rousseau. The teachings implied in his tales
come home closer to the conscience and heart than do their essays and
stories. There is in him more than Gallic blood. He is the greatest of
novelists, unmatched in his guild or kind as a social philosopher, and un¬
surpassed in his literary style. As a romance-writer he has no peer as yet
in the English tongue."—Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol.
" Balzac exacts more attention than most novel readers are inclined to
give; he is often repulsive, and not unfrequently dull; but the student who
has once submitted to his charm becomes spell-bound. . . . There are
some greater novelists than Balzac, but in this one quality of intense reali¬
zation of actors and scenery he is unique."—"Balzac's Novels," by Leslie
Stephen.
" Unquestionably he ranks as One of the few great geniuses who appear
by ones and twos in century after century of authorship, and who leave
their mark ineffaeeably on the literature of their age. And yet, among all
the readers—a large class—who are from various causes unaccustomed to
study French literature in its native language, there are probably very many
who have- never even heard of the name of Honore de Balzac."—Charles
Dickens : Ail the Tear Round.
2S
[From the New York Tribune of October 18,1885.]
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
PERE GORIOT. Honore de Balzac.
To understand Balzac thoroughly, indeed, he must be read in the
original and as a whole. Selected pieces from the " Comedie
Humaine " may convey a sufficiently clear apprehension, for the pub¬
lic, of his powers, but a careful study of that wonderful scheme
throughout is indispensable to a real knowledge of his aim and scope.
The " Comedie Humaine" is the most remarkable work of its kind
extant. It is not mere fiction. It is, as Balzac intended it to be, a
faithful history of the France of his time ; a history so faithful and
so detailed that were all other contemporary literature destroyed,
posterity could from this work reconstruct an exact and finished
picture of the age. In his general preface (which the publishers
have judiciously prefixed to their translation of "P&re Goriot")
the author gives some account of his plan. His aim was to do for
society what Buffon had done for the animal kingdom. Since, how¬
ever, men and women are complex creatures, and since their acts and
sufferings are caused mainly by the influence of passions whose treat¬
ment demands a profound study of psychology, it is evident that the
task of the novelist, or, as he might be better named, the social
historian, must be much more difficult than that of the naturalist.
Balzac, however, supported by that confidence in its own powers
which so often characterizes genius, grappled boldly with this arduous
undertaking. He was to write the history of his time, nothing ex¬
tenuating, and setting down naught in malice, painting in their due
proportions the vices and the virtues of the period, showing the springs
that moved society, the passions that turnished motives to actions, the
meannesses, the magnanimities, the rapacity, the self-sacrifice, the
sensuality, the purity, the piety, the heathenism of his fellow men
and women. His equipment for the work was splendid. His erudition
was both extensive and curious. He knew not only common but
recondite things, In science he had outstripped his generation. In
BALZAC-IN ENGLISH.
the " Com&lie Humaine" may be recognized the practical embodiment
of evolutionary philosophy. The influence of the environment upon
character and conduct is always insisted upon by him. And because
he never loses sight of the natural processes through which character
is moulded and changed, his characters possess a peculiar reality and
vitality. To him they were indeed living, and the rare faculty by
which, in the alembic of his mind, all the complex influences and
agencies concerned went to form, complete, and vivify these creations,
has endowed them with so strong an individuality that they live and
move still for the reader. Nothing that belonged to Balzac's time
escaped him, and he explored the obscurer lines of research as con¬
scientiously as those more open and clear. Thus it is that there is to
be found in his works references to what are now thought the super¬
natural theories of the day, and he has sounded the depths of mysti¬
cism with the same devotion shown in his pursuit of physical science.
Critics have regretted that he had no high moral aim; but this
regret seems to imply misapprehension of his purpose not less than
error as to his achievements. His aim was to describe life as it was
being lived under his eyes. That his tendencies were not debasing is
shown by the striking contrast between his work and that of Zola.
In the latter's writings the ugly, vile, and horrible is so elaborated,
exaggerated, and kept in the foreground that it colours and character¬
izes everything. In Balzac there is not less realism, and nothing more
graphic than his descriptions of the seamy side of life has ever been
written. But there is no taint of lubricity, and no suggestion of liking
for the scenes so depicted. A sombre fire runs through all the pictures
of low and vicious life, which, while enhancing the skill of the artist,
moves to pity or indignation because of the destinies so sadly fixed.
Perhaps no better example of his style than " Pere Goriot" could be
selected. Pere Goriot is the Lear of modern society ; and though the
passions which move the characters are for the most part sordid and
base, the pathos and power of the story are so great, that even in
translation the genius of the master is unmistakable. There is nothing
in fiction more pitiful than the figure of old Goriot, and the skill of
the creator, which sets down all the defects and limitations of the hero,
thereby accentuates his devotion and the ignoble tragedy of his fate.
Balzac, however, never adopted the modern vice known as the
w star system " in dramatic management. There were no " sticks " in
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
his company. Every character is complete, intelligible, consistent,
progressive. Neither does he pad. From beginning to end, save as
regards his descriptions of things and places, every sentence has direct
relation to the working out of the plot. And as to those long and
minute descriptions, which have vexed some critics, they were written
with the distinct and avowed purpose of preserving faithful likenesses
which should be of use to the historian of the future. Nor are they
tiresome, but often seem to sharpen the realization of the story, and
in all cases increase the general impression of fidelity to facts. The
style of Balzac is very remarkable for its power. It is nervous, full of
suppressed fire, suggesting a brain so prolific of thoughts that the utmost
care had to be exercised to prevent them from overcrowding one another.
The concentrated force of expression frequently reminds one of Shakespeare,
and bursts of marvellous impassioned eloquence—not of the frothy kind,
but presenting truths deep as the centre—at intervals flash out, adding to
the sense of repressed volcanic power which pervades these works.
The defects of Balzac are those of his time and country. It is
curious that while he himself finds no really lofty female characters
in English fiction, even belittling the heroines of Scott, and advancing
the strange theory that the neglect by Protestant peoples of the wor¬
ship of the Virgin has lowered their standard of womanhood, his own
most ambitious types of piety and purity in woman exhibit less of
his characteristic knowledge of human nature than any of his other
characters. This type, in fact, he appears to have described from pure
imagination, with the result that his creations of this class are cold,
unapproachable, abnormal, bloodless beings, whose goodness does not
impress us as meritorious, because they are essentially incapable of
wrong-doing. In a word, he has filled up the vacant niche with con¬
ventional angels, only removing their wings. As to the low plane of
the ambitions which move so many of his characters, no douht he
would have said that he merely took the world as he found it; that
these were the prevailing ambitions, and that he could not make
society better than it was. And doubtless there is much force in this,
though it must be acknowledged that the France of Balzac's time
afforded almost as abundant material for satire as the Rome of
Juvenal.
Taking him at his own estimate, however, and accepting his view
of the duties of the novelist under the given conditions—a view, be
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
it said, which is always open to doubt and dispute—it is impossible
not to admire the depth of his insight and the marvellous scope and
comprehensiveness of his genius. The enterprise he undertook was
gigantic, yet what he accomplished was so monumental a work as to
prove the justness of his self-appreciation. Some day, perhaps, a
complete translation of the "Comedie Humaine" will be undertaken/
" Cesar Birotteau," and one or two more of Balzac's stories, have been
put into English already, though inadequately. There ought to be,
in the United States and England, at the present time enough lovers
of good literature to make such an undertaking as a complete trans¬
lation of this author remunerative. When we consider what masses
of trash pour from modern presses, and what capital is employed in
reproductions of so-called classics which have become rare and obscure
because they deserved oblivion, it seems reasonable to expect that
Balzac would find purchasers if issued in the form suggested.
The translation of " Pere Goriot" is very good, and Balzac is not the
easiest authoi- to translate. The publishers cannot do better than to intrust
the succeeding volumes to the same capable hands, and it would be only
justice to the translator to put his or her name on the title-page; for it is
a meritorious deed to have turned into excellent, nervous English the prose
of this great Frenchman, whose fire and fervour, clear sight and powerful
description, when contrasted with the average novel of the day, shine forth
with redoubled splendour, and whose brilliant genius in the analysis of
human character casts altogether into the shade the amateurish essa/ys at
psychologic fiction which are gravely spoken of in these degenerate times as
the promising productions of a new and higher school of literacy art.
From The Art Interchange, a Household Journal, for
February 13, 1886.
THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS,
WITH
An Episode under the Terror, The Illustrious Gaudissart
A Passion in the Desert, and A Hidden Masterpiece.
By HONORE DE BALZAC.
Since tlie days when Thackeray and Dickens were issuing in num¬
bers those novels which have delighted so many readers, or George
Eliot's publishers were able to announce a new novel from her pen,
there has been no series of novels given to the public so notable and
so well worthy of wide attention on the part of adult readers as this
translation of Balzac. If it be objected, as it perhaps will be, that
there is a flavour of immorality in Balzac, and that his works are not
well adapted to general reading, it can be shown, we think, at least
so far as the charge of immorality is concerned, that the objection is
a superficial one; and that while there is much in the times and
society which form the groundwork of Balzac's marvellous stories
that is improper, and fortunately counter to our civilization, still,
Balzac's tone concerning these very things is a healthy one, and his
belief in purity and goodness, his faith in the possibilities of humanity,
is too clear to admit of a question. He gives us wonderful pictures
of the world he lived in. It was not altogether a good world. As it
was, he portrays it. Its virtues he praises, and its vices he condemns
—not by a page of mere moralizing, but by events and action, which,
swaying the ethics of society with apparent uncertainty hither and
thither, yet have an upward tread, even as they do in our world of
to-day. " The Duchesse de Langeais" is the novel of this volume.
It is from the Scenes de la Vie Parisienne of the Com^die Humaine.
The temptation and struggle of the Duchess is one which could
hardly, in our day, present itself to a pure-minded woman. In that
day and time it could, and did. In spite of her wild abandonment
to the lover who spurned her, the reader feels that Madame de
THE DUGHESSE DE LANGEA1S.
Langeais was a noble-hearted woman, purer than those who counselled
her a concealed enjoyment of her passion, nobler and better than the
society which made her what she was. With great power and pathos
is her story told. It is a very powerful scene when her lover meets
her in the convent, and very dramatic is her tortured cry to the
Mother Superior, "This man is my lover !" How strong and pitiful
the end, and the sad commitment to the waves of what was a woman
and now is nothing ! The volume also contains four short stories.
" An Episode under the Terror," from Scenes de la Vie Politique, is
a story already familiar from previous translation, which has drifted
around in English as much perhaps as any of Balzac's shorter stories.
" The Illustrious Gaudissart" is from Scenes de la Vie de Province,
an admirable example of Balzac's humour. Gaudissart is a commercial
traveller—a drummer, in familiar parlance. He might be a drummer
of to-day. If he were he could easily find employment with a high-
class house. The shrewdness and impudence of the class has not
varied much since Balzac's time. Gaudissart adds to his line a
children's magazine and the agency of a Life Insurance Company.
He is advised by the humorist of a provincial town to try his powers
of persuasion on a man who turns out to be a harmless but decided
lunatic. The scene between the two is humorous in the extreme.
When Gaudissart calls the insuring one's life for a large sum "the
discounting of future genius," he adds a persuasive phrase to the
repertoire of the life-insurance agent. " A Passion in the Desert" is
from Scenes de la Vie Militaire, and is as singular a tale as might be
imagined from the affection of a man and a tiger. The last of the
four is "The Hidden Masterpiece," from Etudes Philosophiques.
Here, to the readers of this edition, Balzac is seen in a new vein.
Here is something of the strange, weird touch of Hawthorne, some¬
thing of unreality, and the lingering vision of a possible moral. The
translation could hardly be in better hands. The English is delight¬
fully clear and nervous. Whoever reads these books will know
Balzac very well, and it is safe to assume that they will like him very
much.
ETJC3-EITIE GHE^jAlinDIET.
A GREAT NOVEL.
" Honore de Balzac wrote many books to eacb of which this title may justly
be applied. We apply it in the present instance to ' Eugenie Grandet,' one of
his very greatest works, one which—in the opinion of a large number of persons —
divides with ' Le Pere Goriot' the honour of being his masterpiece. Englishmen
are prone to hold that in English fiction there is no such beautiful and complete
embodiment of a good woman as Fielding's Amelia; Frenchmen, we should
fancy, must ascribe a similar position to Eugenie Grandet. The book of which
she is the central figure, the Rembrandt-contrast to the ignoble spirits by whom
she is surrounded, has been beyond a doubt one of the most widely-read of
French novels ; and now that it has been rendered into excellent English, and
presented in a highly attractive form, it will undoubtedly pass into the mental
experience of a multitude who would otherwise have lacked more than a hearsay
knowledge of its beauty. The translation of the novels so far published deserves
more than the mere word that can be given to it here. Although French is a
language much easier to read than German, it is a far more difficult task to
turn French prose into idiomatic English prose than to do the same by German,
and we do not remember ever to have seen any translation of French into
English which is so near being uniformly idiomatic as these versions of Balzac
now under consideration."—Boston Post.
"Not to know Balzac Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has declared to be an
ignorance ' that will soon be excuseless, and we hope rare.' Not to know Balzac
is certainly to lose one of the highest intellectual pleasures, and to shut out one
of the profoundest educational forces of literature in this century. Balzac's
work is throughout full of power. "—Brooldyn Times.
"This volume comes to us as the fourth in the series of translations of Balzac's
novels. His sketches of character are nowhere more strong and masterly than
in this book, where he depicts the miser, Grandet, in all the repulsiveness
which belongs to a narrow, grasping, and unscrupulous nature, in contrast with
his patient, long-suffering, repressed, but faithful and tender wife. Their only
child, Eugenie, is the heroine of the story ; and her strong, simple, and loving
nature which leads her to sacrifice her future for a brilliant but unworthy
cousin, who wins her heart, and then forgets her in his search for a more am¬
bitious alliance, furnishes a theme where Balzac's literary skill and keen analysis
of motives are seen at their best. We regret that the name of the translator
has not been made public, for his work is well done, and deserves special com¬
mendation in these days, when so many poor translations of foreign works are
offered to the public."—Portland Press.
The Athenazum says of the translation of Balzac which Messrs. Routledge
are publishing, that it is "very much above the average of English translation
of French."
V OOTJSI3ST JP03STS.
"It is late in the day to speak of the genius of Balzac, hut it is worth while to
commend the reader to the admirable translation of a number of his works issued by
Messrs. Routledge. The work of Miss Wormeley, whose name does not appear upon
the title-page, but who is said to be the translator, is deserving of the highest praise.
Balzac s intensely idiomatic French, as well as his occasional treatment of recondite
subjects, and his frequent elucidation of complicated business transactions, render the
translation of his works difficult; but the present translator has turned the original
into clear and fluent English, reading not at all like a translation, yet preserving
Balzac's vigorous and characteristic style. It is not only the best translation of Balzac
which we have—which would not be high praise, since English versions of his novels
have hitherto been few and fragmentary—but one of the most excellent translations
of any French author which we have met. The publishers have laid the readers under
obligation, both by undertaking the enterprise of presenting Balzac in an English
dress, and by their selection of a translator; and it is most desirable that they
should complete the work so well begun by putting within the reach of English-
speaking readers the remainder of that marvellous body of fiction, 'The Comedie
Humaine.'"—The Church Review.
'"Cousin Pons' is the latest translation in the Balzac series now being issued by
Messrs. Routledge. It is a strong story of friendship and of greed. To all intents
and purposes the narrative indicates a complete and perfect triumph of vice over virtue;
but vice is painted in such hideous colours, and virtue is shown in such effulgent beauty,
as to make the moral well-nigh awe-inspiring. Balzac does not stay the natural course
of events. He permits each character to work out its own results, and then makes the
impression desired by comparative methods. In this, as in all his works, the wonderful
writer manifests a familiarity with the ethics of life which has gained for him the eternal
remembrance and gratitude of all readers ; and it is fair to presume that the Balzac now
being translated will revive his name and bring again to his feet the world of English-
speaking people."—Springfield Republican.
"The last translation from Balzac is one of the famous Frenchman's most original
stories. It is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary and original novels ever written,
and only the mind of a genius could have conceived such a peculiar plot. The heroine
of the novel—for whom the principal character sacrifices his comfort, his pleasure,
and, indeed, his life ; for whom many other characters in the book sacrifice their
honour; and around whom all the excitement and interest centres — is, strangely
enough, not a woman ; and yet this heroine calls forth the most ardent and passionate
devotion a man is capable of, and her influence is elevating and not degrading. The
manner in which a mania of any kind can absorb a man, body and soul, is wonderfully
brought out in ' Cousin Pons'; for the heroine of the book is a collector of curios."
"Those who have formed a hasty judgment of Balzac from reading the 'Duchesse de
Langeais' would do well to read 'Cousin Pons.' Balzac sees and depicts virtue as
perfectly as vice, and it is his faculty of describing beauty as well as ugliness which has
made him famous. The delicacy of perception which enabled him to perceive and
describe every shade of feeling in 'Cousin Pons' and to appreciate the nobility of
Bchmucke's character is the chief characteristic of genius. The reader must read all the
' Scenes from Parisian Life' to have any full conception of Balzac's greatness. His
breadth of vision, his dramatic power, his searching analysis of the most transient
emotions, and his quick perceptions of beauty, are all evident in ' Cousin Pons.' It is
an interesting, exciting novel, a perfect piece of literary execution, and a story which
is if sad, neither coarse nor immoral."—Boston Transcript.
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
Modeste Mignon.
TRANSLATED BY
KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY.
"In 1 Modeste Mignon' we still have that masterly power of analysis, keen, incisive,
piercing superficiality and pretence, as a rapier pierces a doublet, but we have in addition
the purity and sweetness of a genuine light comedy,—a comedy which has for its central
object the delineation of the mysteries of a young girl's mind.
"As a whole, 'Modeste Mignon' is not only a masterpiece of French art, but a
masterpiece of that master before whom later novelists must pale their ineffectual fires.
As the different examples of Balzac's skill are brought before the public through the
excellent translations by Miss Wormeley, none competent to judge can fail to perceive
the power of that gigantic intellect which projected and carried out the scheme of the
Comedie Humaine, nor fail to understand the improvement in literature that would.result
if Balzac's methods and aims were carefully studied by all who aspire to the name of
novelist."—New York Home Journal.
The public owes a debt of gratitude to the industrious translator of Balzac's master¬
pieces. They follow one another with sufficient rapidity to stand in striking contrast
with each other. The conscientious reader of them cannot but lay down one after another
with an increasing admiration for their author's marvellous grasp upon the great social
forces which govern the thoughts and actions of men. In " Modeste Mignon," as in
" Eugenie Grandet," we find that the tremulous vibrations ot first love in the heart of a
young and pure-minded girl are not deemed unworthy of this great artist's study. The
delicate growth of a sentiment which gradually expanded into a passion, and which was
absolutely free from any taint of sensuality, is analyzed in " Modeste Mignon " with con¬
summate skill. The plot of this book is far from extraordinary. It is even commonplace.
But where in these days shall we find another author who can out of such a simple plot
make a story like the one before us ? The many-sidedness of Balzac's genius is widely
acknowledged; but there are probably few people among those whose acquaintance with
his writings has been necessarily limited to translations who could conceive of him pro¬
ducing such a bright and sparkling story, thoroughly realistic, full of vitalizing power,
keen analysis, and depth of study and reflection, brilliantly imaginative, and showing an
elasticity in its creative process which cannot fail to attract every lover of a higher and
better art in fiction.
But light and delicate as Balzac's touch generally is throughout this volume, there is
also shown a slumbering force which occasionally awakens and delivers a blow that seems
as if it had been struck by the hammer of Thor. He ranges over the whole scale of human
passion and emotion, penetrates into the very inmost chambers of the heart, apprehends
its movements, and lays bare its weakness with a firm and yet delicate touch of his scalpel.
The book has been excellently translated by Miss Wormeley. She is fully in sympathy
with the author, and has caught his spirit, and the result is a translation which preserves
the full flavour, vigour, and delicacy of the original.
BALZAC IN ENGLISH.
The Magic Skin.
(LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN.)
TRANSLATED BY
KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY.
'"The Magic Skin' is a great novel,—great in its conception, great in its execution,
and great in the impression it leaves upon the reader's mind. Those who deny that
Balzac is a moral teacher will retract their opinion after reading this powerful allegory.
It is a picturesque representation of the great moral truth that in life we have to pay for
every excess we enjoy. In the gradual shrinking of the 'Magic Skin' we see the
inevitable law that by uncontrolled dissipation of body or mind we use up our physical
strength and exhaust our vitality. , In that beautiful, cold, fascinating character, Fedora,
the writer shows us the glittering world of fashion and frivolity which men pursue vainly
and find to their cost only dust and ashes. In the gentle, loving, and devoted Pauline,
Balzac represents the lasting and pure pleasures of domestic life. But in Raphael's short
enjoyment of them we see the workings of that inflexible law, ' Whatever ye sow that
shall ye also reap.' In the vivid, striking, realistic picture of Parisian life which Balzac
presents to us in 'The Magic Skin,' the writer had a conscious moral purpose. We
know of no more awful allegory in literature."—Boston Transcript.
"The story is powerful and original; but its readers will be most affected by its
marvellous knowledge of human nature, and the deep-cutting dissection of character,
which makes the attempts of our own analytical novelists appear superficial and experi¬
mental. Life in all classes of the Paris of Louis Philippe's time is portrayed in the strongest
lights and shadows, and with continual flashes of wit, satire, and sarcasm, which spare
neither politician, philosopher, priest, poet, journalist, artist, man of the world, nor woman
of the world. Through a maze of heterogeneous personages Raphael, the hero, is carried,
pursued by the relentless Magic Skin, which drives him mercilessly to his doom. The
vices of high society are laid bare; but there is also a beautiful exposition of purity in the
humble life ot Pauline, who is the good angel of the story. In translating ' La Peau de
Chagrin' Miss Wormeley has done work that is at once skilful and discreet. It is a man's
book, virile though not vulgar, and exposing prominences in French social views such as
most writers veil in obscurities. Here all is frankly and honestly shown, but by a man of
genius, who had no more need of prudish hypocrisy than Shakespeare.
" Mr. Parson's thoughtful preface is a fitting introduction to the most wonderful of all
Balzac's romances. It is not a whit too strong for Mr. Parsons to write that, saving
Shakespeare, ' no man could have been better fitted to examine mental processes, to gauge
their effects, to estimate their significance, and to define their nature and scope' than
Balzac. If Balzac had been a German, and not a Frenchman of the French, this book of
his would be as much of an epoch-maker as Goethe's ' Faust.' It may take years before
the fuller appreciation of' La Peau de Chagrin' comes, but it is a study of life which will
be studied in centuries yet to come."—Netv York Times.
BALZAO IN ENGLISH.
THE ALKAHEST;
Or, The House of Claes.
Among the novels of Honore de Balzac "La Recherche de l'Absolu" has
always counted one of the masterpieces. The terrible dominion of a fixed idea
was never shown with more tremendous force than is depicted in the absorption of
all the powers, the mind, and body of Balthazar Claes by the desire to discover
the Absolute, the "Alkahest." The lovely old mansion at Duai, its sumptuous
furniture, its priceless pictures, its rare bric-a-brac, the pyramid of costly tulips
that glowed in the garden, are painted with a touch rich and vivid, which shows
Balzac at his best. This great novelist was always minute and exhaustive in his
descriptions ; but in this story the material in which he worked was of a sort to
arouse his enthusiasm, and he evidently revels in the attractive setting which its
events demand. The tale itself is penetrating and powerful.—Boston Courier.
The "Alkahest" is a strong story, and all through it is to be felt that sub-
current of vitalizing energy which in so many of Balzac's books seems to propel
the principal characters as in a special atmosphere, hurrying them with a kind of
fiery yet restrained impatience toward the doom assigned them. . . . The scien¬
tific and mystical features of the story are cleverly handled. Balzac made deep
inquests before writing his philosophical studies, as he called them, and he was
always rather ahead than abreast of the thoughts of his time. The central prob¬
lem dealt with here is, of course, as complete a mystery to-day as when the
" Recherche de l'Absolu " was written. . . . Miss Wormeley has made a charac¬
teristically excellent translation of a book which presents many unusual difficulties
and abstruse points. It is rarely possible to assert with any truth that an English
version of a French book may be read by the public with nearly as much profit
and apprehension as the original; but it is the simple fact in this instance, and it
is certainly remarkable enough to deserve emphasis.—New York Tribune.
He who would know the art of novel-writing may go to Balzac and find an art
that is natural, simple, and beautiful in its exercise, and is directed to both thought
and feeling in behalf of humanity, and that realizes something good and enduring.
He may look without much trouble at " The Alkahest; or, The House of Claes,"
one of the most illustrative of the author's method and aim, and excelling in
philosophical analysis and in philosophical value.
In this work Balzac has opposed the heart and intellect in a contest amid the
conditions of social life, and sought to reveal their comparative nature and influ¬
ence, siding, although a remarkable example himself of intellectual development
and force, in favour of the heart,—that Flemish heart which is ideal of all that is
powerful for good and happiness in domestic life, and determines Flemish charac¬
ter so strongly that the qualities of that character impress themselves fixedly in
Flemish painting and architecture.—Sunday Globe, Boston.
One more scene in Balzac's wonderful " Comedy of Human Life." It is " The
Alkahest; or, The House of Claes," the greatest of the "philosophical studies."
It tells of the mad, persistent, vain endeavours of Balthazar, a scientist, to dis¬
cover the Absolute. Through years he squanders his estate in fruitless experi¬
ments. It is a drama that slowly chills the blood. Then comes the finale.
" Suddenly the dying man raised himself by his wrists, and cast on his frightened
children a look which struck like lightning; the hairs that fringed the bald head
stirred, the wrinkles quivered, the features were illumined with spiritual fires, a
breath passed across that face and rendered it sublime. He raised a hand
clenched in fury, and uttered with a piercing cry the famous word of Archimedes,
'Eureka!'—I have found.'' It is the way Balthazar found the Absolute.—
Philadelphia Press.
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