This examination being made, he went home, went to bed, and slept with his fists clenched. The next morning he received, on getting up, the following memoranda, which came from the Nancy police:

"Clementine Pichon, aged eighteen, minor daughter of Auguste Pichon, hotel-keeper, and Leonie Francelot, was married, in this town, January 11, 1814, to Louis Antoine Langevin; profession not stated.

"The name of Langevin is as rare in this department, as the name of Pichon is common. With the exception of the Hon. M. Victor Langevin, Counsellor to the Prefecture at Nancy, there is only known Langevin (Pierre), usually called Pierrot, miller in the commune of Vergaville, canton of Dieuze."

Fougas jumped nearly to the ceiling, crying,

"I have a son!"

He called the hotel-keeper, and said to him:

"Make out my bill, and send my baggage to the depot. Take my ticket for Nancy; I shall not stop on the way. Here are two hundred francs, with which I want you to drink to the health of my son! He is called Victor, after me! He is counsellor of the Prefecture! I'd rather he were a soldier; but never mind! Ah! first get somebody to show me the way to the bank! I must go and get a million for him!"

As there is no direct connection between Dantzic and Nancy, he was obliged to stop at Berlin. M. Hirtz, whom he met accidentally, told him that the scientific societies of the city were preparing an immense banquet in his honor; but he declined positively.

"It's not," said he, "that I despise an opportunity to drink in good company, but Nature has spoken: her voice draws me on! The sweetest intoxication to all rightly constituted hearts is that of paternal love!"

To prepare, his dear child for the joy of a return so little expected, he enclosed his million in an envelope addressed to M. Victor Langevin, with a long letter which closed thus:

"A father's blessing is more precious than all the gold in the world!

"VICTOR FOUGAS."

The infidelity of Clementine Pichon touched his amour-propre a little, but he soon consoled himself for it.

"At least," thought he, "I'll not have to marry an old woman, when there's a young one waiting for me at Fontainebleau. And, moreover, my son has a name, and a very presentable name. Fougas would be a great deal better, but Langevin is not bad."

He arrived, on the 2d of September, at six o'clock in the evening, at that large and beautiful but somewhat stupid city which constitutes the Versailles of Lorraine. His heart was beating fit to burst. To recuperate his energies, he took a good dinner. The landlord, when catechized at dessert, gave him the very best accounts of M. Victor Langevin: a man still young, married for the past six years, father of a boy and a girl, respected in the neighborhood, and prosperous in his affairs.

"I was sure of it!" said Fougas.

He poured down a bumper of a certain kirsch-wasser from the Black Forest, which he fancied delicious with his maccaroni.

The same evening, M. Langevin related to his wife how, on returning from the club at ten o'clock, he had been brutally accosted by a drunken man. He at first took him for a robber, and prepared to defend himself; but the man contented himself with embracing him, and then ran away with all his might. This singular accident threw the two spouses into a series of conjectures, each less probable than the preceding. But as they were both young, and had been married barely seven years, they soon changed the subject.

The next morning, Fougas, laden down like a miller's ass with bon-bons, presented himself at M. Langevin's. In order to make himself welcome to his two grandchildren, he had skimmed the shop of the celebrated Lebegue—the Boissier of Nancy. The servant who opened the door for him asked if he were the gentleman her master expected.

"Good!" said he; "my letter has come?"

"Yes, sir; yesterday morning. And your baggage?"

"I left it at the hotel."

"Monsieur will not be satisfied at that. Your room is ready, up stairs."

"Thanks! thanks! thanks! Take this hundred franc note for the good news."

"Oh, monsieur! it was not worth so much."

"But where is he? I want to see him—to embrace him—to tell him——"

"He's dressing, monsieur; and so is madame."

"And the children—my dear grandchildren?"

"If you want to see them, they're right here, in the dining room."

"If I want to! Open the door right away!"

He discovered that the little boy resembled him, and was overjoyed to see him in the dress of an artillerist playing with a sabre. His pockets were soon emptied on the floor; and the two children, at the sight of so many good things, hung about his neck.

"O philosophers!" cried the Colonel, "do you dare to deny the existence of the voice of Nature?"

A pretty little lady (all the young women are pretty in Nancy) ran in at the joyous cries of the little brood.

"My daughter-in-law!" cried Fougas, opening his arms.

The lady of the house modestly recoiled, and said, with a slight smile:

"You are mistaken, sir; I am not your daughter-in-law;[9] I am Madame Langevin."

"What a fool I am!" thought the Colonel. "Here I was going to tell our family secrets before these children. Mind your manners, Fougas! You are in fine society, where the ardor of the sweetest sentiments is hidden under the icy mask of indifference."

"Be seated," said Mme. Langevin. "I hope that you have had a pleasant journey?"

"Yes, madame. Only steam seemed too slow for me!"

"I did not know that you were in such a hurry to get here."

"You did not, then, appreciate that I was fairly burning to be with you?"

"I am glad to hear it; it is a proof that Reason and Family Affection have made themselves heard at last."

"Was it my fault that family ties did not speak effectually sooner?"

"Well, after all, the main thing is that you have listened to them. We will exert ourselves to prevent your finding Nancy uninteresting."

"How could I, since I am to live with you?"

"Thank you! Our house will be yours. Try to imagine yourself entirely at home."

"In imagination, and affection too, madame."

"And you'll not think of Paris again?"

"Paris!—— I don't care any more for it than I do for doomsday!"

"I forewarn you that people are not in the habit of fighting duels here."

"What? You know already——"

"We know all about it, even to the history of that famous supper with those rather volatile ladies."

"How the devil did you hear of that? But that time, believe me, I was very excusable."

M. Langevin here made his appearance, freshly shaven and rubicund—a fine specimen of the sub-prefect in embryo.

"It's wonderful," thought Fougas, "how well all our family bear their years! One wouldn't call that chap over thirty-five, and he's forty-six if he's a day. He doesn't look a bit like me, by the way; he takes after his mother!"

"My dear!" said Mme. Langevin, "here's a tough subject, who promises to be wiser in future."

"You are welcome, young man!" said the Counsellor, offering his hand to Fougas.

This reception appeared cold to our poor hero. He had been dreaming of a shower of kisses and tears, and here his children contented themselves with offering their hands.

"My chi—— monsieur," said he to Langevin, "there is one person still needed to complete our reunion. A few mutual wrongs, and those smoothed over by time, ought not to build an insurmountable barrier between us. May I venture to request the favor of being presented to your mother?"

M. Langevin and his wife opened their eyes in astonishment.

"How, monsieur?" said the husband. "Paris life must have affected your memory. My poor mother is no more. It is now three years since we lost her!"

The good Fougas burst into tears.

"Forgive me!" said he; "I didn't know it. Poor woman!"

"I don't understand you! You knew my mother?"

"Ingrate!"

"Why, you're an amusing fellow! But your parents were invited to the funeral, were they not?"

"Whose parents?"

"Your father and mother!"

"Eh! What's this you're cackling to me about? My mother was dead before yours was born!"

"Your mother dead?"

"Yes, certainly; in '89!"

"What! Wasn't it your mother who sent you here?"

"Monster! It was my fatherly heart that brought me!"

"Fatherly heart?—— Why, then you're not young Jamin, who has been cutting up didoes in the capital, and has been sent to Nancy to go through the Agricultural School?"

The Colonel answered with the voice of Jupiter tonans:

"I am Fougas!"

"Very well!"

"If Nature says nothing to you in my behalf, ungrateful son, question the spirit of your mother!"

"Upon my soul, sir," cried the Counsellor, "we can play at cross purposes a good while! Sit down there, if you please, and tell me your business—Marie, take away the children."

Fougas did not require any urging. He detailed the romance of his life, without omitting anything, but with many delicate touches for the filial ears of M. Langevin. The Counsellor heard him patiently, with an appearance of perfect disinterestedness.

"Monsieur," said he, at last, "at first I took you for a madman; but now I remember that the newspapers have contained some scraps of your history, and I see that you are the victim of a mistake. I am not forty-six years old, but thirty-four. My mother's name was not Clementine Pichon, but Marie Herval. She was not born at Nancy, but at Vannes, and she was but seven years old in 1813. Nevertheless, I am happy to make your acquaintance."

"Ah! you're not my son!" replied Fougas, angrily. "Very well! So much the worse for you! No one seems to want a father of the name of Fougas! As for sons by the name of Langevin, one only has to stoop to pick them up. I know where to find one who is not a Counsellor of the Prefecture, it is true, and who does not put on a laced coat to go to mass, but who has an honest and simple heart, and is named Pierre, just like me! But, I beg your pardon, when one shows gentlemen the door, one ought at least to return what belongs to them."

"I don't prevent your collecting the bon-bons which my children have scattered over the floor."

"Yes, I'm talking about bon-bons with a vengeance! My million, sir!"

"What million?"

"Your brother's million!—— No! The million that belongs to him who is not your brother—to Clementine's son, my dear and only child, the only scion of my race, Pierre Langevin, called Pierrot, a miller at Vergaville!"

"But I assure you, monsieur, that I haven't your million, or anybody's else."

"You dare to deny it, scoundrel, when I sent it to you by mail, myself!"

"Possibly you sent it, but I certainly have not received it!"

"Aha! Defend yourself!"

He made at his throat, and perhaps France would have lost a Counsellor of Prefecture that day, if the servant had not come in with two letters in her hand. Fougas recognized his own handwriting and the Berlin postmark, tore open the envelope, and displayed the check.

"Here," said he, "is the million I intended for you, if you had seen fit to be my son! Now it's too late for you to retract. The voice of Nature calls me to Vergaville. Your servant, sir!"

On the 4th of September, Pierre Langevin, miller at Vergaville, celebrated the marriage of Cadet Langevin, his second son. The miller's family was numerous, respectable, and in comfortable circumstances. First, there was the grandfather, a fine, hale old man, who took his four meals a day, and doctored his little ailings with the wine of Bar or Thiaucourt. The grandmother, Catharine, had been pretty in her day, and a little frivolous; but she expiated by absolute deafness the crime of having listened too tenderly to gallants. M. Pierre Langevin, alias Pierrot, alias Big Peter, after having sought his fortune in America (a custom becoming quite general in the rural districts), had returned to the village in pretty much the condition of the infant Saint John, and God only knows how many jokes were perpetrated over his ill luck. The people of Lorraine are terrible wags, and if you are not fond of personal jokes, I advise you not to travel in their neighborhood. Big Peter, stung to the quick, and half crazed at having run through his inheritance, borrowed money at ten per cent., bought the mill at Vergaville, worked like a plough-horse in heavy land, and repaid his capital and the interest. Fortune, who owed him some compensations, gave him gratis pro Deo, a half dozen superb workers—six big boys, whom his wife presented him with, one annually, as regularly as clock-work. Every year, nine months, to a day, after the fete of Vergaville, Claudine (otherwise known as Glaudine) presented one for baptism. At last she died after the sixth, from eating four huge pieces of quiche before her churching. Big Peter did not marry again, having concluded that he had workers enough, and he continued to add to his fortune nicely. But, as standing jokes last a long time in villages, the miller's comrades still spoke to him about those famous millions which he did not bring back from America, and Big Peter grew very red under his flour, just as he used to in his earlier days.

On the 4th of September, then, he married his second son to a good big woman of Altroff, who had fat and blazing cheeks: this being a kind of beauty much affected in the country. The wedding took place at the mill, because the bride was orphaned of father and mother, and had previously lived with the nuns of Molsheim.

A messenger came and told Pierre Langevin that a gentleman wearing decorations had something to say to him, and Fougas appeared in all his glory. "My good sir," said the miller, "I am far from being in a mood to talk business, as we just took a good pull at white wine before mass; but we are going to drink some red wine that's by no means bad, at dinner, and if your heart prompts you, don't be backward! The table is a long one. We can talk afterwards. You don't say no? Then that's yes."

"For once," thought Fougas, "I am not mistaken. This is surely the voice of Nature! I would have liked a soldier better, but this genial rustic, so comfortably rounded, satisfies my heart. I cannot be indebted to him for many gratifications of my pride; but never mind! I am sure of his good-will."

Dinner was served, and the table more heavily laden with viands than the stomach of Gargantua. Big Peter, as proud of his big family as of his little fortune, made the Colonel stand by as he enumerated his children. And Fougas was joyful at learning that he had six welcome grandchildren.

He was seated at the right of a little stunted old woman who was presented to him as the grandmother of the youngsters. Heavens! how changed Clementine appeared to him. Save the eyes which were still lively and sparkling, there was no longer anything about her that could be recognized. "See," thought Fougas, "what I would have been like to-day, if the worthy John Meiser had not desiccated me!" He smiled to himself on regarding Grandfather Langevin, the reputed progenitor of this numerous family. "Poor old fellow," murmured Fougas, "you little think what you owe to me!"

They dine boisterously at village weddings. This is an abuse which, I sincerely hope, Civilization will never reform. Under cover of the noise, Fougas entered into conversation, or thought he did, with his left-hand neighbor. "Clementine!" he said to her. She raised her eyes, and her nose too, and responded:

"Yes, monsieur."

"My heart has not deceived me, then?—you are indeed my Clementine!"

"Yes, monsieur."

"And you have recognized me, noble and excellent woman!"

"Yes, monsieur."

"But how did you conceal your emotion so well?—— How strong women are!—— I fall from the skies into the midst of your peaceful existence, and you see me without moving a muscle!"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Have you forgiven me for a seeming injury for which Destiny alone is responsible?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Thanks! A thousand thanks!—— What a charming family you have about you! This good Pierre, who almost opened his arms on seeing me approach, is my son, is he not?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Rejoice! He shall be rich! He already has happiness; I bring him fortune. His portion shall be a million. Oh, Clementine! what a commotion there will be in this simple assembly, when I raise my voice and say to my son: 'Here! this million is for you!' Is it a good time now? Shall I speak? Shall I tell all?"

"Yes, monsieur."

Fougas immediately arose, and requested silence. The people thought he was going to sing a song, and all kept quiet.

"Pierre Langevin," said he with emphasis, "I have come back from the other world, and brought you a million."

If Big Peter did not want to get angry, he at least got red, and the joke seemed to him in bad taste. But when Fougas announced that he had loved the grandmother in her youth, grandfather Langevin no longer hesitated to fling a bottle at his head. The Colonel's son, his splendid grandchildren, and even the bride all jumped up in high dudgeon and there was a very pretty scrimmage indeed.

For the first time in his life, Fougas did not get the upper hand. He was afraid that he might injure some of his family. Paternal affection robbed him of three quarters of his power.

But having learned during the clamor that Clementine was called Catharine, and that Pierre Langevin was born in 1810, he resumed the offensive, blacked three eyes, broke an arm, mashed two noses, knocked in four dozen teeth, and regained his carriage with all the honors of war.

"Devil take the children!" said he, while riding in a post-chaise toward the Avricourt station. "If I have a son, I wish he may find me!"



CHAPTER XIX.

HE SEEKS AND BESTOWS THE HAND OF CLEMENTINE.

On the fifth of September, at ten o'clock in the morning, Leon Renault, emaciated, dejected and scarcely recognizable, was at the feet of Clementine Sambucco in her aunt's parlor. There were flowers on the mantel and flowers in all the vases. Two great burglar sunbeams broke through the open windows. A million of little bluish atoms were playing in the light, crossing each other and getting fantastically mixed up, like the ideas in a volume of M. Alfred Houssaye. In the garden, the apples were falling, the peaches were ripe, the hornets were ploughing broad, deep furrows in the duchesse pears; the trumpet-flowers and clematis-vines were in blossom, and to crown all, a great mass of heliotropes, trained over the left window, was flourishing in all its beauty. The sun had given all the grapes in the arbor a tint of golden bronze; and the great Yucca on the lawn, shaken by the wind like a Chinese hat, noiselessly clashed its silver bells. But the son of M. Renault was more pale and haggard than the white lilac sprays, more blighted than the leaves on the old cherry-tree; his heart was without joy and without hope, like the currant bushes without leaves and without fruit!

To be exiled from his native land, to have lived three years in an inhospitable climate, to have passed so many days in deep mines, so many nights over an earthenware stove in the midst of an infinity of bugs and a multiplicity of serfs, and to see himself set aside for a twenty-five-louis Colonel whom he himself had brought to life by soaking him in water!

All men are subject to disappointments, but surely never had one encountered a misfortune so unforeseen and so extraordinary. Leon knew that Earth is not a valley flowing with chocolate and soup a la reine. He knew the list of the renowned unfortunates beginning with Abel slain in the garden of Paradise, and ending with Rubens assassinated in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris. But history, which seldom instructs us, never consoles us. The poor engineer in vain repeated to himself that a thousand others had been supplanted on the day before marriage, and a hundred thousand on the day after. Melancholy was stronger than Reason, and three or four soft locks were beginning to whiten about his temples.

"Clementine!" said he, "I am the most miserable of men. In refusing me the hand which you have promised, you condemn me to agony a hundred times worse than death. Alas! What would you have me become without you? I must live alone, for I love you too well to marry another. For four long years, all my affections, all my thoughts have been centred upon you; I have become accustomed to regard other women as inferior beings, unworthy of attracting the interest of a man! I will not speak to you of the efforts I have made to deserve you; they brought their reward in themselves, and I was already too happy in working and suffering for you. But see the misery in which your desertion has left me! A sailor thrown upon a desert island has less to deplore than I: I will be forced to live near you, to witness the happiness of another, to see you pass my windows upon the arm of my rival! Ah! death would be more endurable than this constant agony. But I have not even the right to die! My poor old parents have already sorrows enough. What would it be, Great God! if I were to condemn them to bear the loss of their son?"

This complaint, punctuated with sighs and tears, lacerated the heart of Clementine. The poor child wept too, for she loved Leon with her whole soul, but she was interdicted from telling him so. More than once, on seeing him half dying before her, she felt tempted to throw her arms about his neck, but the recollection of Fougas paralyzed all her tender impulses.

"My poor friend," said she, "you judge me very wrongfully if you think me insensible to your sufferings. I have known you thoroughly, Leon, and that too since my very childhood. I know all that there is in you of devotion, delicacy and precious and noble virtues. Since the time when you carried me in your arms to the poor, and put a penny in my hand to teach me to give alms, I have never heard benevolence spoken of without involuntarily thinking of you. When you whipped a boy twice your size for taking away my doll, I felt that courage was noble and that a woman would be happy in being able to lean on a brave man. All that I have ever seen you do since that time, has only redoubled my esteem and my sympathy. Believe me that it is neither from wickedness or ingratitude that I make you suffer now. Alas! I no longer belong to myself, I am under external control; I am like those automatons that move without knowing why. Yes, I feel an impulse within me more powerful than my self control, and it is the will of another that leads me."

"If I could but be sure that you will be happy! But no! This man, before whom you immolate me, will never know the worth of a soul as delicate as yours. He is a brute, a swash-buckler, a drunkard."

"I beseech you, Leon, remember that he has a right to my unreserved respect!"

"Respect! For him! And why? I ask of you, in Heaven's name, what you find respectable in the character of Mister Fougas? His age? He is younger than I. His talents? He never shows them anywhere but at the table. His education? It's lovely! His virtues? I know what is to be thought of his refinement and gratitude!"

"I have respected him, Leon, since I first saw him in his coffin. It is a sentiment stronger than all else; I cannot explain it, I can but submit to it."

"Very well! Respect him as much as you please! Yield to the superstition that enchains you. See in him a miraculous being, consecrated, rescued from the grip of Death to accomplish something great on earth! But this itself, Oh my dear Clementine, is a barrier between you and him! If Fougas is outside of the conditions of humanity, if he is a phenomenon, a being apart, a hero, a demigod, a fetich, you cannot seriously think of becoming his wife. As for me, I am but a man like others, born to work, to suffer and to love. I love you! Love me!"

"Scoundrel!" cried Fougas, opening the door.

Clementine uttered a cry, Leon sprung up quickly, but the Colonel had already seized him by the most practicable part of his nankeen suit, before he had even time to think of a single word in reply. The engineer was lifted up, balanced like an atom in one of the sunbeams, and flung into the very midst of the heliotropes. Poor Leon! Poor heliotropes!

In less than a second, the young man was on his feet. He dusted the earth from his knees and elbows, approached the window, and said in a calm but resolute voice: "Mister Colonel, I sincerely regret having brought you back to life, but possibly the folly of which I have been guilty is not irreparable. I hope soon to have an opportunity to find out if it be! As for you, Mademoiselle, I love you!"

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders and put himself at the young girl's feet on the very cushion which still bore the impression left by Leon. Mlle. Virginie Sambucco, attracted by the noise, came down stairs like an avalanche and heard the following conversation.

"Idol of a great soul! Fougas returns to thee like the eagle to his eyrie. I have long traversed the world in pursuit of rank, fortune and family which I was burning to lay at thy feet. Fortune has obeyed me as a slave: she knows in what school I learned the art of controlling her. I have gone through Paris and Germany like a victorious meteor led by its star. I have everywhere associated as an equal with the powers of Earth, and made the trumpet of truth resound in the halls of kings. I have put my foot on the throat of greedy Avarice, and snatched from him a part, at least, of the treasures which he had stolen from too-confiding Honor. One only blessing is denied me: the son I hoped to see has escaped the lynx-eyes of paternal love. Neither have I found the ancient object of my first affections. But what matters it? I shall feel the want of nothing, if you fill for me the place of all. What do we wait for now? Are you deaf to the voice of Happiness which calls you? Let us go to the temple of the laws, then you shall follow me to the foot of the altar; a priest shall consecrate our bonds, and we will go through life leaning on one another, I like the oak sustaining weakness, thou like the graceful ivy ornamenting the emblem of strength."[10]

Clementine remained a few moments without answering, as if stunned by the Colonel's vehement rhetoric. "Monsieur Fougas," she said to him, "I have always obeyed you, I promise to obey you all my life. If you do not wish me to marry poor Leon, I will renounce him. I love him devotedly, nevertheless, and a single word from him arouses more emotion in my heart than all the fine things you have said to me."

"Good! Very good!" cried the Aunt. "As for me, sir, although you have never done me the honor to consult me, I will tell you my opinion. My niece is not at all the woman to suit you. Were you richer than M. de Rothschild and more illustrious than the Duke of Malakoff, I would not advise Clementine to marry you."

"And why, chaste Minerva?"

"Because you would love her fifteen days, and then, at the first sound of cannon, be off to the wars! You would abandon her, sir, just as you did that unhappy Clementine whose misfortunes have been recounted to us!"

"Zounds! Lady Aunt! I do advise you to bestow your pity on her! Three months after Leipzic, she married a fellow named Langevin at Nancy."

"What do you say?"

"I say that she married a military commissary named Langevin."

"At Nancy?"

"At that identical town."

"This is strange!

"It's outrageous!

"But this woman—this young girl—her name?

"I've told you a hundred times: Clementine!"

"Clementine what?

"Clementine Pichon."

"Gracious Heavens! My keys! Where are my keys? I'm sure I put them in my pocket! Clementine Pichon! M. Langevin! It's impossible! My senses are forsaking me! Come, my child, bestir yourself! The happiness of your whole life is concerned. Where did you poke my keys? Ah! Here they are!"

Fougas bent over to Clementine's ear, and said:

"Is she subject to these attacks? One, would suppose that the poor old girl had lost her head!"

But Virginie Sambucco had already opened a little rosewood secretary. Her unerring glance discovered in a file of papers, a sheet yellow with age.

"I've got it!" said she with a cry of joy. "Marie Clementine Pichon, legitimate daughter of August Pichon, hotel keeper, rue des Merlettes, in this town of Nancy; married June 10th, 1814, to Joseph Langevin, military sub-commissary. Is it surely she, Monsieur? Dare to say it isn't she!"

"Well! But how do you happen to have my family papers?"

"Poor Clementine! And you accuse her of unfaithfulness! You do not understand then that you had been taken for dead! That she supposed herself a widow without having been a wife; that—"

"It's all right! It's all right! I forgive her. Where is she? I want to see her, to embrace her, to tell her—"

"She is dead, Monsieur! She died three months after she was married,"

"Ah! The Devil!"

"In giving birth to a daughter—"

"Where is my daughter? I'd rather have had a son, but never mind! Where is she? I want to see her, to embrace her, to tell her—"

"Alas! She is no more! But I can conduct you to her tomb."

"But how the Devil did you know her?"

"Because she married my brother!"

"Without my consent? But never mind! At least she left some children, didn't she?"

"Only one."

"A son! He is my grandson!"

"A daughter."

"Never mind! She is my granddaughter! I'd rather have had a grandson, but where is she? I want to see her, to embrace her, to tell her—"

"Embrace away, Monsieur! Her name is Clementine: after her grandmother, and there she is!"

"She! That accounts for the resemblance! But then I can't marry her! Never mind! Clementine! Come to my arms! Embrace your grandfather!"

The poor child had not been able entirely to comprehend this rapid conversation, from which events had been falling like tiles, upon the head of the Colonel. She had always heard M. Langevin spoken of as her maternal grandfather, and now she seemed to hear that her mother was the daughter of Fougas. But she knew at the first words, that it was no longer possible for her to marry the Colonel, and that she would soon be married to Leon Renault. It was, therefore, from an impulse of joy and gratitude that she flung herself into the arms of the young-old man.

"Ah, Monsieur!" said she, "I have always loved and respected you like a grandfather!"

"And I, my poor child, have always behaved myself like an old beast! All men are brutes, and all women are angels. You divined with the delicate instinct of your sex, that you owed me respect, and I, fool that I am, didn't divine anything at all! Whew! Without the venerable Aunt there, I'd have made a pretty piece of work!"

"No," said the aunt. "You would have found out the truth in going over our family papers."

"Would that I could have seen them and nothing more! Just to think that I went off to seek my heirs in the department of Meurthe, when I had left my family in Fontainebleau! Imbecile! Bah! But never mind. Clementine! You shall be rich, you shall marry the man you love! Where is he, the brave boy? I want to see him, to embrace him, to tell him—"

"Alas, Monsieur; you just threw him out of the window."

"I? Hold on, it is true. I had forgotten all about it. Fortunately he's not hurt, and I'll go at once and make amends for my folly. You shall get married when you want to; the two weddings shall come off together.—But in fact, no! What am I saying? I shall not marry now! It will all be well soon, my child, my dear granddaughter. Mademoiselle Sambucco you're a model aunt; embrace me!"

He ran to M. Renault's house, and Gothon, who saw him coming, ran down to shut him out.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself," said she, "to act this way with them as brought you to life again? Ah! If it had to be done over again! We wouldn't turn the house upside down again for the sake of your fine eyes! Madame's crying, Monsieur is tearing his hair, M. Leon has just been sending two officers to hunt you up. What have you been at again since morning?"

Fougas gave her a twirl on her feet and found himself face to face with the engineer. Leon had heard the sound of a quarrel, and on seeing the Colonel excited, with flashing eyes, he expected some brutal aggression and did not wait for the first blow. A struggle took place in the passage amid the cries of Gothon, M. Renault and the poor old lady, who was screaming: "Murder!" Leon wrestled, kicked, and from time to time launched a vigorous blow into the body of his antagonist. He had to succumb, nevertheless; the Colonel finished by upsetting him on the ground and holding him there. Then he kissed him on both cheeks and said to him:

"Ah! You naughty boy! Now I'm pretty sure to make you listen to me! I am Clementine's grandfather, and I give her to you in marriage, and you can have the wedding to-morrow if you want to! Do you hear? Now get up, and don't you punch me in the stomach any more. It would be almost parricide!"

Mlle. Sambucco and Clementine arrived in the midst of the general stupefaction. They completed the recital of Fougas, who had gotten himself pretty badly mixed up in the genealogy. Leon's seconds appeared in their turn. They had not found the enemy in the hotel where he had taken up his quarters, and came to give an account of their mission. A tableau of perfect happiness met their astonished gaze, and Leon invited them to the wedding.

"My friends," said Fougas, "you shall see undeceived Nature bless the chains of Love."



CHAPTER XX.

A THUNDERBOLT FROM A CLEAR SKY.

"Mlle. Virginie Sambucco has the honor to announce to you the marriage of Mlle. Clementine Sambucco, her niece, to M. Leon Renault, civil engineer.

"M. and Mme. Renault have the honor to announce to you the marriage of M. Leon Renault, their son, to Mlle. Clementine Sambucco;

"And invite you to be present at the nuptial benediction which will be given them on the 11th of September, 1859, in the church of Saint Maxcence, in their parish, at eleven o'clock precisely."

Fougas absolutely insisted that his name should figure on the cards. They had all the trouble in the world to cure him of this whim. Mme. Renault lectured him two full hours. She told him that in the eyes of society, as well as in the eyes of the law, Clementine was the granddaughter of M. Langevin; that, moreover, M. Langevin had acted very liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own; finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a young man, and the obstinacy of an old one:

"Nature has her rights; they are anterior to the conventions of society, and a thousand times more exalted. The honor of her I called my AEgle, is dearer to me than all the treasures of the world, and I would cleave the soul of any rash being who should attempt to tarnish it. In yielding to the ardor of my vows, she but conformed to the custom of a great epoch when the uncertainty of life and the constant existence of war simplified all formalities. And in conclusion, I do not wish that my grandchildren, yet to be born, should be ignorant that the source of their blood is in the veins of Fougas. Your Langevin is but an intruder who covertly slipped into my family. A commissary! It's almost a sutler! I spurn under foot the ashes of Langevin!"

His obstinacy would not yield to the arguments of Mme. Renault, but it succumbed to the entreaties of Clementine. The young creole twisted him around her finger with irresistible grace.

"My good Grandpa this, my pretty little Grandpa that; my old baby of a Grandpa, we'll send you off to college if you're not reasonable!"

She used to seat herself familiarly on Fougas' knee, and give him little love pats on the cheeks. The Colonel would assume the gruffest possible voice, and then his heart would overflow with tenderness, and he would cry like a child.

These familiarities added nothing to the happiness of Leon Renault; I even think that they slightly tempered his joy. Yet he certainly did not doubt either the love of his betrothed or the honor of Fougas. He was forced to admit that between a grandfather and his granddaughter such little liberties are natural and proper and could justly offend no one. But the situation was so new and so unusual that he needed a little time to adapt his feelings to it, and forget his chagrin. This grandfather, for whom he had paid five-hundred francs, whose ear he had broken, for whom he had bought a burial-place in the Fontainebleau cemetery: this ancestor younger than himself, whom he had seen drunk, whom he had found agreeable, then dangerous, then insupportable: this venerable head of the family who had begun by demanding Clementine's hand and ended by pitching his future grandson into the heliotropes, could not all at once obtain unmingled respect and unreserved affection.

M. and Mme. Renault exhorted their son to submission and deference. They represented M. Fougas to him as a relative who ought to be treated with consideration.

"A few days of patience!" said the good mother. "He will not stay with us long; he is a soldier and can't live out of the army any better than a fish out of water."

But Leon's parents, in the bottom of their hearts, held a bitter remembrance of so many pangs and mortifications. Fougas had been the scourge of the family; the wounds which he had made could not heal over in a day. Even Gothon bore him ill will without confessing it. She heaved great sighs while preparing for the wedding festivities at Mlle. Sambucco's.

"Ah! my poor Celestin!" said she to her acolyte. "What a little rascal of a grandfather we're going to have to be sure!"

The only person who was perfectly at ease was Fougas. He had passed the sponge over his pranks; out of all the evil he had done, he retained no ill will against any one. Very paternal with Clementine, very gracious with M. and Mme. Renault, he evinced for Leon the most frank and cordial friendship.

"My dear boy," said he to him, "I have studied you, I know you, and I love you thoroughly; you deserve to be happy, and you shall be. You shall soon see that in buying me for twenty-five napoleons, you didn't make a bad bargain. If gratitude were banished from the universe, it would find a last abiding place in the heart of Fougas!"

Three days before the marriage, M. Bonnivet informed the family that the colonel had come into his office to ask for a conference about the contract. He had scarcely cast his eyes on the sheet of stamped paper, when Rrrrip! it was in pieces in the fireplace.

"Mister Note-scratcher," he said, "do me the honor of beginning your chef-d'oeuvre over again. The granddaughter of Fougas does not marry with an annuity of eight thousand francs. Nature and Friendship give her a million. Here it is!"

Thereupon he took from his pocket a bank check for a million, paced the study proudly, making his boots creak, and threw a thousand-franc note on a clerk's desk, crying in his clearest tones:

"Children of the Law! Here's something to drink the health of the Emperor and the Grand Army with!"

The Renault family strongly remonstrated against this liberality. Clementine, on being told of it by her intended, had a long discussion, in the presence of Mlle. Sambucco, with the young and terrible grandpapa; she tried to impress upon him that he was but twenty-four years old, that he would be getting married some day, and that his property belonged to his future family.

"I do not wish," said she, "that your children should accuse me of having robbed them. Keep your millions for my little uncles and aunts!"

But for once, Fougas would not yield an inch.

"Are you mocking me?" he said to Clementine. "Do you think that I will be guilty of the folly of marrying now? I do not promise you to live like a monk of La Trappe, but at my age, a man put together like I am can find enough to talk to around the garrisons without marrying anybody. Mars does not borrow the torch of Hymen to light the little aberrations of Venus! Why does man ever tie himself in matrimonial bonds?... For the sake of being a father. I am one already, in the comparative degree, and in a year, if our brave Leon does a man's part, I shall assume the superlative. Great-grandfather! That's a lovely position for a trooper twenty-five years old! At forty-five or fifty, I shall be great-great-grandfather. At seventy ... the French language has no more words to express what I shall become! But we can order one from those babblers of the Academy! Are you afraid that I'll want for anything in my old age? I have my pay, in the first place, and my officer's cross. When I reach the years of Anchises or Nestor, I will have my halt-pay. Add to all this the two hundred and fifty thousand francs from the king of Prussia, and you shall see that I have not only bread, but all essential fixings in the bargain, up to the close of my career. Moreover, I have a perpetual grant, for which your husband has paid in advance, in the Fontainebleau cemetery. With all these possessions, and simple tastes, one is sure not to eat up one's resources!"

Willing or unwilling, they had to concede all he required and accept his million. This act of generosity made a great commotion in the town, and the name of Fougas, already celebrated in so many ways, acquired a new prestige. The signature of the bride was attested by the Marshal the Duke of Solferino and the illustrious Karl Nibor, who but a few days before had been elected to the Academy of Sciences. Leon modestly retained the old friends whom he had long since chosen, M. Audret the architect, and M. Bonnivet the notary.

The Mayor was brilliant in his new scarf. The cure addressed to the young couple an affecting allocution on the inexhaustible goodness of Providence, which still occasionally performs a miracle for the benefit of true Christians. Fougas, who had not discharged his religious duties since 1801, soaked two handkerchiefs with tears.

"One must always part from those nearest the heart," said he on going out of church. "But God and I are made to understand each other! After all, what is God but a little more universal Napoleon!"

A Pantagruelic feast, presided over by Mlle. Virginie Sambucco in a dress of puce-colored silk, followed immediately upon the marriage ceremony. Twenty-four persons were present at this family fete, among others the new colonel of the 23d and M. du Marnet, who was almost well of his wound.

Fougas took up his napkin with a certain anxiety. He hoped that the Marshal had brought his brevet as brigadier general. His expressive countenance manifested lively disappointment at the empty plate.

The Duke of Solferino, who had been seated at the place of honor, noticed this physiognomical display, and said aloud:

"Don't be impatient, my old comrade! I know what you miss; it was not my fault that the fete was not complete. The minister of war was out when I dropped in on my way here. I was told however, at the department, that your affair was kept in suspense by a technical question, but that you would receive a letter from the office within twenty-four hours."

"Devil take the documents!" cried Fougas. "They've got them all, from my birth-certificate, down to the copy of my brevet colonel's commission. You'll find out that they want a certificate of vaccination or some such six-penny shinplaster!"

"Oh! Patience, young man! You've time enough to wait. It's not such a case as mine: without the Italian campaign, which gave me a chance to snatch the baton, they would have slit my ear like a condemned horse, under the empty pretext that I was sixty-five years old. You're not yet twenty-five, and you're on the point of becoming a brigadier: the Emperor promised it to you before me. In four or five years from now, you'll have the gold stars, unless some bad luck interferes. After which you'll need nothing but the command of an army and a successful campaign to make you Marshal of France and Senator, which may nothing prevent!"

"Yes," responded Fougas; "I'll reach it. Not only because I am the youngest of all the officers of my grade, and because I have been in the mightiest of wars and followed the lessons of the master of Bellona's fields, but above all because Destiny has marked me with her sign. Why did the bullets spare me in more than twenty battles? Why have I sped over oceans of steel and fire without my skin receiving a scratch? It is because I have a star, as He had. His was the grander, it is true, but it went out at St. Helena, while mine is burning in Heaven still! If Doctor Nibor resuscitated me with a few drops of warm water, it was because my destiny was not yet accomplished. If the will of the French people has re-established the imperial throne, it was to furnish me a series of opportunities for my valor, during the conquest of Europe which we are about to recommence! Vive l'Empereur, and me too! I shall be duke or prince in less than ten years, and ... why not? One might try to be at roll-call on the day when crowns are distributed! In that case, I will adopt Clementine's oldest son: we will call him Pierre Victor II., and he shall succeed me on the throne just as Louis XV. succeeded his grandfather Louis XIV.!"

As he was finishing this wonderful speech, a gendarme entered the dining room, asked for Colonel Fougas, and handed him a letter from the Minister of War.

"Gad!" cried the Marshal, "it would be pleasant to have your promotion arrive at the end of such a discourse. For once, we would prostrate ourselves before your star! The Magi kings would be nowhere compared with us."

"Read it yourself," said he to the Marshal, holding out to him the great sheet of paper. "But no! I have always looked Death in the face; I will not turn my eyes away from this paper thunder if it is killing me.

"COLONEL:

"In preparing the Imperial decree which elevated you to the rank of brigadier general, I found myself in the presence of an insurmountable obstacle: viz., your certificate of birth. It appears from that document that you were born in 1789, and that you have already passed your seventieth year. Now, the limit of age being fixed at sixty years for colonels, sixty-two for brigadier generals and sixty-five for generals of division, I find myself under the absolute necessity of placing you upon the retired list with the rank of colonel. I know, Monsieur, how little this measure is justified by your apparent age, and I sincerely regret that France should be deprived of the services of a man of your capacity and merit. Moreover, it is certain that an exception in your favor would arouse no dissatisfaction in the army and would meet with nothing but sympathetic approval. But the law is express, and the Emperor himself cannot violate or elude it. The impossibility resulting from it is so absolute that if, in your ardor to serve the country, you were willing to lay aside your epaulettes for the sake of beginning upon a new career, your enlistment could not be received in a single regiment of the army. It is fortunate, Monsieur, that the Emperor's government has been able to furnish you the means of subsistence in obtaining from His Royal Highness the Regent of Prussia the indemnity which was due you; for there is not even an office in the civil administration in which, even by special favor, a man seventy years old could be placed. You will very justly object that the laws and regulations now in force date from a period when experiments on the revivification of men had not yet met with favorable results. But the law is made for the mass of mankind, and cannot take any account of exceptions. Undoubtedly attention would be directed to its amendment if cases of resuscitation were to present themselves in sufficient number.

"Accept, &c."

A gloomy silence succeeded the reading. The Mene mene tekel upharsin of the oriental legends could not have more completely produced the effect of thunderbolts. The gendarme was still there, standing in the position of the soldier without arms, awaiting Fougas' receipt. The Colonel called for pen and ink, signed the paper, gave the gendarme drink-money, and said to him with ill-suppressed emotion:

"You are happy, you are! No one prevents you from serving the country. Well," added he, turning toward the Marshal, "what do you say to that?"

"What would you have me say, my poor old boy? It breaks me all up. There's no use in arguing against the law; it's express. The stupid thing on our parts was not to think of it sooner. But who the Devil would have thought of the retired list in the presence of such a fellow as you are?"

The two colonels avowed that such an objection would never have entered their heads; now that it had been suggested, however, they could not see what to rebut it with. Neither of them would have been able to enlist Fougas as a private soldier, despite his ability, his physical strength and his appearance of being twenty-four years old.

"If some one would only kill me!" cried Fougas. "I can't set myself to weighing sugar or planting cabbages. It was in the career of arms that I took my first steps; I must continue in it or die. What can I do? What can I become? Take service in some foreign army? Never! The fate of Moreau is still before my eyes.... Oh Fortune! What have I done to thee that I should be dashed so low, when thou wast preparing to raise me so high?"

Clementine tried to console him with soothing words.

"You shall live near us," said she. "We will find you a pretty little wife, and you can rear your children. In your leisure moments you can write the history of the great deeds you have done. You will want for nothing: youth, health, fortune, family, all that makes up the happiness of men, is yours. Why then should you not be happy?"

Leon and his parents talked with him in the same way. Everything appertaining to the festive occasion was forgotten in the presence of an affliction so real and a dejection so profound.

He roused himself little by little, and even sang, at dessert, a little song which he had prepared for the occasion.

Here's a health to these fortunate lovers Who, on this thrice blessed day, Have singed with the torch of chaste Hymen, The wings with which Cupid doth stray. And now, little volatile boy-god, You must keep yourself quiet at home— Enchained there by this happy marriage Where Genius and Beauty are one.

He'll make it, henceforth, his endeavor To keep Pleasure in Loyalty's power, Forgetting his naughty old habit Of roaming from flower to flower. And Clementine makes the task easy, For roses spring up at her smile: From thence the young rascal can steal them As well as in Venus's isle.

The verses were loudly applauded, but the poor Colonel smiled sadly, talked but little, and did not get fuddled at all. The man with the broken ear could not at all console himself for having a slit ear.[11] He took part in the various diversions of the day, but was no longer the brilliant companion who had inspired everything with his impetuous gayety.

The Marshal buttonholed him during the evening and said: "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking of the old messmates who were happy enough to fall at Waterloo with their faces toward the enemy. That old fool of a Dutchman who preserved me for posterity, did me but a sorry service. I tell you, Leblanc, a man ought to live in his own day. Later is too late."

"Oh, pshaw, Fougas, don't talk nonsense! There's nothing desperate in the case. Devil take it! I'll go to see the Emperor to-morrow. The matter shall be looked into. It will all be set straight. Men like you! Why France hasn't got them by the dozen that she should fling them among the soiled linen."

"Thanks! You're a good old boy, and a true one. There were five hundred thousand of us, of the same, same sort, in 1812; there are but two left; say, rather, one and a half."

About ten o'clock in the evening, M. Rollon, M. du Marnet and Fougas accompanied the Marshal to the cars. Fougas embraced his comrade and promised him to be of good cheer. After the train left, the three colonels went back to town on foot. In passing M. Rollon's house, Fougas said to his successor:

"You're not very hospitable to-night; you don't even offer us a pony of that good Andaye brandy!"

"I thought you were not in drinking trim," said M. Rollon. "You didn't take anything in your coffee or afterwards. But come up!"

"My thirst has come back with a vengeance."

"That's a good symptom."

He drank in a melancholy fashion, and scarcely wet his lips in his glass. He stopped a little while before the flag, took hold of the staff, spread out the silk, counted the holes that cannon balls and bullets had made in it, and could not repress his tears. "Positively," said he, "the brandy has taken me in the throat; I'm not a man to-night. Good evening, gentlemen."

"Hold on! We'll go back with you."

"Oh, my hotel is only a step."

"It's all the same. But what's your idea in staying at a hotel when you have two houses in town at your service?"

"On the strength of that, I am going to move to-morrow."

The next morning, about eleven o'clock, the happy Leon was at his toilet when a telegram was brought to him. He opened it without noticing that it was addressed to M. Fougas, and uttered a cry of joy. Here is the laconic message which brought him so much pleasure:

"To Colonel Fougas, Fontainebleau.

"Just left the Emperor. You to be brevet brigadier until something better turns up. If necessary, corps legislatif will amend law.

"LEBLANC."

Leon dressed himself, ran to the hotel of the blue sundial, and found Fougas dead in his bed.

It is said in Fontainebleau, that M. Nibor made an autopsy, and found that serious disorders had been produced by desiccation. Some people are nevertheless satisfied that Fougas committed suicide. It is certain that Master Bonnivet received, by the penny post, a sort of a will, expressed thus:

"I leave my heart to my country, my memory to natural affection, my example to the army, my hate to perfidious Albion, fifty thousand francs to Gothon, and two hundred thousand to the 23d of the line. And forever Vive l'Empereur!

"FOUGAS."

Resuscitated on the 17th of August, between three and four in the afternoon, he died on the 17th of the following month, at what hour we shall never know. His second life had lasted a little less than thirty-one days. But it is simple justice to say that he made good use of his time. He reposes in the spot which young Renault had bought for him. His granddaughter Clementine left off her mourning about a year since. She is beloved and happy, and Leon will have nothing to reproach himself with if she does not have plenty of children.

Bourdonnel, August, 1861.

FINIS.



NOTES

TO

THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN EAR.

NOTE 1, page 69.—Black butterflies, a French expression that we might tastefully substitute for blue devils.

NOTE 2, page 72.—The 15th of August is the Emperor's birthday.

NOTE 3, page 85.—Centigrade, of course.

NOTE 4, page 101.—Fougas' surprise is explained by the well-known fact that Napoleon was obliged to forbid the playing of Partant pour la Syrie in his armies, on account of the homesickness and consequent desertion it occasioned.

NOTE 5, page 118.—Jeu de Paume (tennis-court), is the name given to the meeting of the third-estate (tiers-etat) in 1789, from the locality where it took place.

NOTE 6, page 161.—The English used by the two young noblemen is M. About's own. It is certainly such English as Frenchmen would be apt to speak, and it is as fair to attribute that fact to M. About's fine sense of the requirements of the occasion, as to lack of familiarity with our language.

NOTE 7, page 164.—It is not without interest to note that M. About used the English word gentlemen.

NOTE 8, page 166.—War against tyrants! Never, never, never shall the Briton reign in France!

NOTE 9, page 214.—The original here contains a neat little conceit, which cannot be translated, but which is too good to be lost. The French for daughter-in-law is belle fille, literally "beautiful girl." To Fougas' address "Ma belle fille!" Mme. Langevin replies: "I am not beautiful, and I am not a girl." It suggests the similar retort received by Faust from Marguerite, when he addressed her as beautiful young lady!

NOTE 10, page 230.—The Translator has intentionally used both the singular and the plural of the second person in Fougas' apostrophe to Clementine, as it seemed to him naturally required by the variations of the sentiment.

NOTE 11, page 248.—The reader will bear in mind Marshal Leblanc's allusion to condemned horses.

THE END