The mayor of the district of Blangy, formerly a Benedictine, named Rigou, had married, in the first year of the Republic, the servant-woman of the late priest of Blangy. In spite of the repugnance which a married monk excited at the Prefecture, he had continued 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 opposition not unnaturally broke out between the old apostate and the young ecclesiastic, whose character is already known to us. The war which was then and there declared between the mayor's office and the parsonage increased the popularity of the magistrate, who had hitherto been more or less despised. Rigou, whom the peasants had disliked for usurious dealings, now suddenly represented their political and financial interests, 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 persons. 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 Francois 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 dark, lest he should stumble into pitfalls where he would seem to have been killed by accident! Persecute 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 credulous, and as sillily perfidious as every audience made up 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 Bonapartist 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 general, 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 Gaubertin. 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 his marriage that he had never remembered Rigou, 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 perfectly 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 naturally, 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 penniless. 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 simultaneously, and the general gave, as may be supposed, very firm instructions to his subordinate.

Vaudoyer, the displaced keeper, a peasant on the Ronquerolles estate, was only fit, like most field-keepers, to stalk about, and gossip, and let himself be petted by the poor of the district, who asked nothing better than to corrupt at 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 Vaudoyer 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 every 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'll 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 fagots to sell make people buy ours; don't let them buy of Les Aigues. You'll 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 you know that that Shopman called me a thief, me!—son of the stanchest and most incorruptible of republicans; me!—the son in law of Mouchon, that famous representative of the people, who died without leaving me 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 vineyard. 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 respected, 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 playing a fair game, this enemy of traitors came at last to hate these people, so treacherous in their conspiracies, and so clever in their thefts that they mortified his self-esteem. He soon observed that the depredations were committed only at Les Aigues; all the other estates were respected. At first he despised a peasantry ungrateful enough to pillage a general of the Empire, 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 the enemy pillaged everywhere that he was not. Groison made the general understand that it was necessary to organize the defence on a war footing, and proved to him the insufficiency of his own devoted efforts 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 no 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 disastrous. Not only were the interests of mayor and miller diametrically opposed, but Langlume 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 Frenchmen are suspected of loving change. Acting by Rigou's advice, he played a part of great devotion to the general; 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 in 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 uncommon. Michaud picked out from among his friends and acquaintances, three other men fit to be his helpers, 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 obey, passively and absolutely. Nothing hindered him in the performance of his duty; he would have collared an emperor or a pope if such were his orders. He ignored danger. Perfectly fearless, he had never received the smallest scratch during his sixteen years' campaigning. 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 wrangling 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.

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 indifferent 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 obeying 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 instance 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 sheriff's officer, delighted 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 property of any 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 by his satellites, Vermichel and 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 of 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 cavalry was ever known to indulge in, Courtecuisse entered 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 general, 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 straight through your lies? Out of my sight, or I'll strike you flat!"

At the mere look of the general's purple face and before that warrior could get out the last words, Courtecuisse 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."

Four hours later the whole country-side was gossiping 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 summon 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 until 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 authorities at Ville-aux-Fayes, the forest of Les Aigues was shamefully devastated by the peasantry, who took advantage 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 capable 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 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 proclamation 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 brigadier, 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 country," 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 by the colonel of the gendarmerie, 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, complained bitterly, and Gaubertin managed to get him appointed mayor, which put the gendarmerie under his orders. An outcry was made about tyranny. Montcornet 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 Courtecuisse by paying him all he demanded. The man then purchased, 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 possessors of the estate, but he now took malicious pleasure in selling it, at fifty per cent discount, to Courtecuisse; 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 guerrillas. 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 the various villages of the district, and knew the individuals 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 resistance 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 by Sibilet (who secretly 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 functionaries was satisfactory to the general. Michaud's hatred led him to watch 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 anything from him beyond an extreme politeness which the loyal soldier established between them as a barrier.

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.



CHAPTER 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 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 you?" 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 prosecuting 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 you 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 material only, Monsieur le comte would find his wall would cost him a third of the whole value 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, "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'll do it; I'll go 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 enforce the necessary measures to repress the abuse of gleaning?" he said, respectfully. "The harvest is coming on, and if we are to publish the statutes about certificates of pauperism and the prevention of paupers from other districts gleaning 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 anger caused by Vatel'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 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 you. And yet, I have no ground of complaint against Sibilet. He is honest and punctual in all his dealings; he hasn'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 you, 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 isn't laying by his money to buy a bit of the estate. Fourchon confided to me that Tonsard has already put in his claim. The idea that you 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 Gaubertin. What you have just said about the attorney-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 you mention incendiarism, let me beg of you to insure all your buildings, and all your farmhouses."

"Michaud, do you know whom they mean by 'Shopman'? Yesterday, 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 you, 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 upholsterer; the countess doesn't know it. Oh! that I should ever—well! after all, I have waltzed with queens and empresses. I'll tell her this very night," he cried, after a pause.

"They also call you a coward," continued Michaud.

"Ha!"

"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 policies 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 bourgeois of Soulanges, and their peasantry! We are in the enemy's country, therefore prudence! Tell the foresters 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 manufactures 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 distinctly throughout all ages. Is there any historian ignorant enough to assert that the decrees of the most vigilant of powers were ever enforced throughout France?—for instance, that the requisitions of the Convention for men, commodities, and money were obeyed in Provence, in the depths of Normandy, on the borders of Brittany, as they were at the great centres of social life? What philosopher dares deny that a head falls to-day in such or such department, while in a neighboring department another head stays on its shoulders 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 governmental. 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 general 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 to press, this dumb resistance, which opposed Louis XIV. 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. 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 manner 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 capitalists, against abuses of power, which may be merely the inevitable galling of the social yoke, called Compact by Rousseau, 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 way for the juggling dominion of the middle classes, and delivered the nation into their hands without escape. The portrayal 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 recognize the truth of this picture; many persons secretly and silently crushed by this tyranny will find in these words an obituary, as it were, which may half console them for their hidden woes.

At the very moment when the general imagined himself 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 department 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 Gaubertin. 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. 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. Parsimonious 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 Gendrin as counsellor whenever the latter should retire from the profession. Gendrin's only son was commissioner 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 marrying him to Rigou's only daughter. The united fortunes of the Soudrys and the ex-monk, which would come eventually to the attorney, made that young man one of the most important personages of the department.

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-Fayes, in 1819. If it had not been for his social position, 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 himself 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 sufficient to insure, if only through private dealing, the constant appointment of Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the patron of the Mouchon family. The voters of Ville-aux-Fayes lent their support to the prefect, on condition 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 his 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 obtained 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 Chambers, and in the chief ministerial department, Gaubertin could rely on an influence that was powerful and also active, and which he was careful not to weary with unimportant 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 deputies, 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 "distinguished" 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 individual, father of six children, was cousin of the father of Gaubertin through his wife, a Gaubertin-Vallat. Eighteen months previously the united efforts of the two deputies, Monsieur de Soulanges and Gaubertin, had created the place of commissary of police for the sheriff's second son.

Sibilet's eldest daughter married Monsieur Herve, a school-master, whose school was transformed into a college as a result of this marriage, so that for the past year Soulanges had rejoiced in the presence of a professor.

The sheriff's youngest son was employed on the government domains, with the promise of succeeding the clerk of registrations so soon as that officer had completed 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-Vallat, 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 Comte de Soulanges, through Sarcus, justice of the peace, through Guerbet, the collector, through Gourdon, the doctor, who had married a Gendrin-Vatebled. He governed Blangy through Rigou, Conches through the post-master, the despotic ruler of his own district.

Gaubertin's influence was so great and powerful that even the investments and the savings of Rigou, Soudry, 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 constituents (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 displaying it having arisen, the bourgeoisie of Ville-aux-Fayes contented themselves with boasting that no strangers intermeddled in their affairs and they believed themselves 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 Montcornet had no suspicion of it. The prefect boasted of the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes and its arrondissement; even the minister of the interior was heard to remark: "There's a model sub-prefecture, which runs on wheels; we should be lucky indeed if all were like it." Family designs were so involved with local interests 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 complaint 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 eyes of his fellow-citizens and neighbors. What does all this lead to? To the fact that local interests supersede all questions of public interest; the centralized will of Paris is frequently overthrown in the provinces, the truth of things is disguised, and country communities 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 tendency 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.

The monarchical and imperial systems, 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 surely it would be safer to allow open and avowed privileges than those which are underhand, based on trickery, subversive of what should be public spirit, and continuing the work of despotism to a lower and baser level than heretofore. 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, 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 position 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.

The attorney-general, Baron Bourlac (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 implacably 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, perfectly charming in manner and ways.

The general explained his position and the fears of his bailiff, and spoke of the necessity of making an example and enforcing the rights of property.

The high functionaries listened gravely, making, however, no reply beyond mere platitudes, such as, "Undoubtedly, 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 government officials were already aware of the difficulties of that problem which modern society will be forced to solve.

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 necessity 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 subordinate, 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 prosecuting in person you might get a few years' imprisonment for the actual murderers. Better shut our eyes than open them, if by opening them we bring on a collision 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 victory which will only 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 study. 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 to Montcornet was wise, and whether in conforming to it the count and Les Aigues were enabled to escape the "Evil grudge."

Some minds, eager for mere amusement, will complain 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 imposed 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 impossible 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 simply telling you of a suicide, five hundred of which occur 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.

Remember 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-day threatens every man, the man of genius, the statesman, the modern agriculturalist,—in short, all innovators.

This last explanation not only gives a true presentation 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 interests are now marshalling.



CHAPTER 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.

Whose 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 balustrade 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 murmurs 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 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 flowerbeds 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 landscape, if they represent it truly, 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 spectator confines it. When Poussin, the Raffaelle of France, made a landscape accessory to his Shepherds of Arcadia he perceived plainly enough that man becomes diminutive 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 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, he 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 Alencon, 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 parents 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 by 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 bearing 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; 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 condition 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 they 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.

"I wish I were a gate-keeper at Les Aigues," said Blondet, smiling. "Why! what troubles you?" 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 you," 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 woman understands her thoughts. In fact, though wearing a rose-colored dress, with her hair carefully braided about her head, the bailiff's wife was thinking of matters 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 sometimes on the ground at her feet, sometimes on the foliage around, evidently seeing nothing, betrayed some deep anxiety,—all the more unconsciously because she supposed herself alone.

"Just as I was envying her! What can have saddened 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 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, Olympe, 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 completely.

"My dear," said Emile Blondet, in a fatherly 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, 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, monsieur," 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 Emile, 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 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, because 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 Madame 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! They want for nothing, those others! the wife of that scoundrel of a Michaud will be taken care of, I warrant you!' And then, Madame, they said such horrible things of me and of you and of Monsieur le 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 the 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 motherhood. Hence a certain melancholy, a certain inexplicable 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 ostensible 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), 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 ceilings. 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 discarded 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 oriental luxury. Singular to say, they, more than anything 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 himself, "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 decoration 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 sergeant. Above, under the roof, the bedrooms of the cook, the man-of-all-work, and La Pechina had benefited 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 abbe 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?"

"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," said 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 slowness of a tortoise when she is obliged to obey 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 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 here) 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 attracts 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 persecuting such a little fright, it is quite certain that Nicolas Tonsard is. Justin told me so. It would be a dreadful fate, for the people of this valley 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."

"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 countess, with a glance that made Olympe blush; "but I regret it no longer, for I see you happy. What a sublime 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.

"As honest as I am myself, madame."

"Discreet?"

"As the grave."

"Grateful?"

"Ah! madame; she has moments of humility and gentleness towards me which seem to show an angelic nature. She will kiss my hands and say the most upsetting things. 'Can we die of love?' she asked me yesterday. 'Why do you ask me that?' I said. 'I 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; "she appears to know much more than I do."

"Do you think, my dear, that she could take your 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; but 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 herself 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 swallows—her mother's blood counts for a good deal in what she is."

"Who was her mother?"

"Doesn't madame know the story?" said Olympe. "Well, the son of the old sexton at Blangy, a splendid 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, captivated a Montenegrin girl of Zahara among the mountains, who was not averse to the French garrison. This lost her the good-will of her compatriots, and life in her own town became impossible after the departure of the French. Zena Kropoli, called in derision the Frenchwoman, 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 marriage 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. Registered 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 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 money 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'll go and meet her with those gentlemen," said Madame de Montcornet, going downstairs.

Just as the countess opened her parasol, Michaud 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, laughing, "we should not be in the land of the living, for nothing would be easier than to make away with us. The peasant's grumble, that is 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 nothing," 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 effectiveness 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 region than La 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 voice of the revelation that had just been made to the countess of the state of the country.

"Perhaps it is providential," said the abbe; "for if madame is willing, we might, perhaps, by dint of benefits and constant consideration of their wants, change the hearts of these people."

At about six hundred feet from the pavilion and below the brooke, 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 returning 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 Michaud; "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 abbe ran towards the pavilion, examining the state of the road, while 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 footsteps 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 Blondet.

"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 Pechina 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."

"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 fiften years of age whom you may protect at the chateau is saved from that monster," said the abbe. "In trying to get possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought to satisfy both his lust and his vengeance. 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 hatred 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 pursuit of Nicolas is the result of some infernal collusion with Rigou, who thinks he can do as he likes with these people."

"Doesn't he fear the law?"

"In the first place, he is father-in-law of the prosecuting-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 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 valley, 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.