comfortable than on our straw. You are our masters, and
you mean to remain so ; we shall always be enemies, to-day as
for these last thirty years. You have everything, we have
nothing, so you cannot expect us to be your friends yet."
"That is what is called a declaration of war," said the Gen-
eral.
<r When the Aigues belonged to the poor lady that is gone
(the Lord have mercy on her. soul, for she was a wanton singer
in her youth) we were well off, your lordship. Her let us pick
up a living in her fields, and take our firing in her forests ; her
was none the poorer for that! And you, that are at least
as rich as she was, hunt us down like wild beasts, nor more
nor less, and drag the poor people before the magistrate. Ah,
82 THE PEASANTRY
well ! no good will come of that. You will have some ugly
doings laid at your door. I have just seen your forester, that
curmudgeon of a Vatel, all but kill a poor old woman about
a stick of firewood. They will make an enemy of the people
of you; they will grow bitter against you at 'up-sittings' as
they work and talk; they will curse you as heartily as they
used to bless madame that is gone. The poor man's curse
grows, your lordship; it grows higher than the biggest of
your oak-trees, and the oak-tree grows into the gallows-tree.
. . . Nobody here tells you the truth; this is truth that
I am telling you ! Death may come to me any morning ; I
have not much to lose by letting you have the truth for less
than market price. ... I play tunes along with Ver-
michel for the peasants ho dance ho at the Cafe de la Paix
at Soulanges; I hear their talk. Well, then, there is a bad
feeling towards you ; they will make, the country too hot to
hold you. If your damned Michaud doesn't turn over a new
leaf, they will force you to turn him away ! There, now ! the
advice and the otter are cheap at twenty francs "
As old Fourchon delivered himself of these final remarks,
a man's footsteps sounded outside, and the object of his men-
aces suddenly appeared unannounced. It was easy to see
that the threat had reached Michaud's ears from the look
which he gave the orator of the poor. Old Fourchon's im-
pudence forsook him; he looked like a thief confronted with
the policeman. He knew that he had made a mistake, and
that Michaud had, as it were, a right to call him to account,
for an outpouring evidently meant to intimidate the dwellers
at the Aigues.
"Behold the minister of war," said the General, addressing
Blondet, with a gesture that indicated Michaud.
"I beg your pardon, madame, for coming into the room
without asking your leave," remarked the minister, "but I
must speak to the General on urgent business."
While Michaud made his apologies he watched Sibilet. The
joy of the man's heart at Fourchon's bold tone expanded over
his visage, unnoticed by any of those who sat at the table,
THE PEASANTRY 83
who were interested in no small degree by the otter hunter.
But Michaud, who, for reasons of his own, was always on the
watch with Sibilet, was struck with the expression of the
steward's face.
"He has certainly earned his twenty francs, as he says,
M. le Comte," cried Sibilet ; "the otter is not dear."
"Give him twenty francs," said the General, addressing
his valet.
"Are you really taking it from me ?" Blondet asked him.
"I will have the animal stuffed," cried the Count.
"Oh ! your lordship, that kind gentleman would have let
me have the skin !" protested old Fourchon.
"Very well," said the Countess. "You shall have five
francs for the skin, but you can go now '
The strong, rank odor of the two dwellers on the highroad
tainted the air of the room, and so offended Mme. de Mont-
cornet's delicate senses, that if the pair had stayed there much
longer the lady would have been obliged to go. It was solely
to this inconvenient quality that Fourchon owed his twenty-
five francs. He went out, still eying Michaud fearfully,
and making him obeisances without end.
"What I have been telling his lordship, Mosieur Michaud,"
said he, "was for your good."
"Or for the good of them that you take pay of," said Mi-
chaud, looking him through and through.
"Bring coffee and leave us," the General ordered; "and
before all things, shut the doors."
Blondet had not yet seen the head-forester at the Aigues;
his first impression was very different from that just made
upon him by Sibilet. Michaud inspired confidence and es-
teem as great as the repulsion excited by Sibilet.
The head-forester's face caught your attention at once by
its shapely outlines the oval contours were as delicately
moulded as the profile, a regularity of feature seldom found
in an ordinary Frenchman. Yet, in spite of this regularity
of feature, the face was not lacking in character, perhaps
by reason of its harmonious coloring, in which red and tawny
84 THE PEASANTRY
tints prevailed, indications of physical courage. The clear,
brown eyes were bright and keen, unfaltering in the expres-
sion of thought, and looked you straight in the face. The
broad, open brow was set still further in relief by thick, black
hair. There was a wrinkle here and there, traced by the pro-
fession of arms, on the fine face lit up by loyalty, decision,
and self-reliance. If any doubt or suspicion entered his mind,
it could be read there at once. His figure, still slender and
shapely, as is the case with the men picked out for a crack
regiment of cavalry, was such that the head-forester might
be described as a strapping fellow. Michaud kept his mous-
taches, whiskers, and a beard beneath the chin ; altogether, he
recalled a military type which a deluge of patriotic prints and
pictures has made almost ridiculous. The defect of the type
is its over-abundance in the French army; but perhaps this
uniformity of physiognomy has its origin in the continuity of
emotions, the hardships of camp life, from which no rank is
exempt, and the fact that the same efforts are made on the
field of battle by officers and men alike.
Michaud was dressed in dark blue from head to foot; he
still wore the black satin stock and soldiers' boots, just as
he held himself somewhat stiffly, with his shoulders set back
and chest expanded, as if he still bore arms. The red ribbon
of the Legion of Honor adorned his buttonhole. And (to
add a final trait of character to a sketch of the mere outside
of the man) while the steward, since he had come into office,
had never omitted the formula "Monsieur le Comte" in ad-
dressing his patron, Michaud had never called his master by
any name but "the General."
Once again Blondet exchanged a significant glance with
the Abbe Brossette. "What a contrast !" he seemed to say,
as he looked from the steward to the head-forester. Then,
that he might learn whether the man's character, thoughts,
and words were such as his face and stature might lead you
to expect, he looked full at Michaud, saying:
"I say ! I was out early this morning, and found your for-
esters still abed !"
THE PEASANTRY 85
"At what time ?" asked the old soldier uneasily.
"At half-past seven."
Michaud gave his General an almost mischievous glance.
"And through which gate did you go out ?" asked Michaud.
"The Conches gate. The keeper in his shirt took a look
at me from the window/' answered Blondet.
"Gaillard had just gone to bed, no doubt," replied Michaud.
"When you told me that you had gone out early, 1
thought that you were up before sunrise, and if my forester
had gone home so early, he must have been ill; but at half-
past seven he would be going to bed. We are up all night,"
Michaud added, after a pause, by way of answer to a look of
astonishment from the Countess; "but this vigilance of ours
is always at fault. You have just given twenty-five francs
to a man who a few minutes ago was quietly helping to hide
the 'traces of a theft committed on your property this very
morning. In fact, as soon as the General is ready, we must
talk it over, for something must be done
"You are always full of your rights, my dear Michaud, and
summum jus, summa injuria. If you do not concede a point,
you will make trouble for yourself," said Sibilet. "I could
have liked you to hear old Fourchon talking just now when
wine had loosened his tongue a little."
"He frightened me !" exclaimed the Countess.
"He said nothing that I have not known for a long time,"
said the General.
"Oh ! the rascal was not drunk, he played a part, for whose
benefit? Perhaps you know?" Michaud suggested, looking
steadily at Sibilet. The steward reddened under his gaze.
"0 rus!" cried Blondet, looking out of the corner of his eye
at the Abbe.
"The poor people suffer," said the Countess; "there was
some truth in what old Fourchon has just shrieked at us, for
it cannot be said that he spoke."
"Madame," answered Michaud, "do you think that the Em-
peror's soldiers lay in roses for fourteen years? The General
is a count, he is a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, he
86 THE PEASANTRY
has had grants of land made him; do I show any jealousy
of him, I that have fought as he has? Have I any wish tc
cavil at his fame, to steal his land, or to refuse him the honor
due to his rank? The peasant ought to obey as the soldier
obeys ; he should have a soldier's loyalty, his respect for privi-
leges won by other men, and try to rise to be an officer, by
fair means, by his own exertions, and not by knavery The
sword and the ploughshare are twin brothers. And in the
soldier's lot there is one thing that the peasant has not : death
hovering overhead at every hour."
"That is what I should like to tell them from the pulpit,"
cried the Abbe Brossette.
"Concessions?" the head-forester went on, in answer to
Sibilet's challenge. "I would concede quite ten per cent
on the gross returns from the Aigues, but the way things go
now, the General loses thirty per cent; and if M. Sibilet is
paid so much per cent on the receipts, I do not understand
his concessions, for he pretty benevolently submits to a loss
of ten or twelve hundred francs a year."
"My dear M. Michaud," retorted Sibilet in a surly tone,
"I have told M. le Comte that I would rather lose twelve hun-
dred francs than my life. Think it seriously over ; I keep on
telling you '
"Life!" cried the Countess; "can it be a question of any
one's life?"
"We ought not to discuss affairs of the State here," said the
General, laughing. "All this means, madame, that Sibilet,
in his quality of finance minister, is timid and cowardly, while
my minister of war is brave, and, like his General, fears
nothing."
"Say prudent, M. le Comte ?" cried Sibilet.
"Come, now, are we really surrounded by snares set for us
by savages like the heroes of Fenimore Cooper's novels in the
backwoods of America ?"
"Come ! your statesmanship, gentlemen, consists in under-
standing how to govern without alarming us by the creaking
of- the machinery of Government," said Mme. de Montcornet.
THE PEASANTRY 87
"Ah! Mme. la Comtesse, perhaps it is a needful thing
that you should know what one of your pretty caps costs in
sweat here," said the cure.
"No, for then I might very well do without them, look re-
spectfully at a five-franc piece, and grow a miser, as all coun-
try people do, and I should lose too much by it," said the
Countess, laughing. "Here, my dear Abbe, give me your
arm; let us leave the General with his two ministers, and go
to the Avonne gate to see Mme. Michaud. I have not made
a call upon her since I came; it is time to look after my little
protegee."
And the pretty woman went for thick shoes and a hat;
Sibilet's fears, Mouche and Fourchon, their rags, and the hate
in their eyes, were already forgotten.
The Abbe Brossette and Blondet, obedient to the mistress
of the house, followed her out of the room, and waited for her
on the terrace in front of the chateau.
"What do you think of all this?" Blondet asked his com-
panion.
"I am a pariah. I am watched by spies as the common
enemy. Every moment I am obliged to keep the ears and
eyes of prudence wide open, or I should fall into some of the
snares they set so as to rid themselves of me," said the officiat-
ing priest. "Between ourselves, it has come to this, I ask
myself whether they will not shoot me down "
"And you stay on ?" asked Blondet.
"A man no more deserts the cause of God than the cause
of the Emperor!" the priest answered with a simplicity
which impressed Blondet. He grasped the priest's hand cor-
dially.
"So you must see," the Abbe continued, "that I am not in
a position to know anything of all that is brewing. Still it
seems to me that the people here have 'a spite against' the
General, as they say in Artois and Belgium."
Something must here be said about the cure of Blangy.
The Abbe", the fourth son of a good middle-class family
in Autun, was a clever man, carrying his head high on the
88 THE PEASANTRY
score of his cloth. Short and thin though he was, he re-
deemed the insignificance of his appearance by that air of
hard-headedness which sits not ill on a Burgundian. He had
accepted a subordinate position through devotion, for his re-
ligiouj conviction had been backed by political conviction.
There was something in him of the priest of other times ; he
had a passionate belief in the Church and his order ; he looked
at things as a whole, his ambition was untainted by selfishness.
Serve was his motto, to serve the Church and the Monarchy
at the point where danger threatens most, to serve in the
ranks, like the soldier who feels within himself that his desire
to acquit himself well and his courage must bring him sooner
or later a General's command. He faltered in none of his
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, acquitting himself
in these respects, as in all the other duties of his position,
with a simplicity and cheerfulness that is the unmistakable
sign of an upright nature, in which natural instincts make for
right as well as strong and'earnest religious conviction.
This remarkable churchman saw at the first glance that
Blondet was attracted to the Countess, saw also that with a
daughter of the house of Troisville, and a man of letters, who
supported the Monarchy, it behooved him to show himself a
man of the world, for the dignity of the cloth. He came
to make a fourth at whist almost every evening. Emile Blon-
det was able to appreciate the Abbe Brossette, and paid him
marked deference, so that the two men felt attracted to each
other ; for every clever man is delighted to meet with an equal,
or, if you prefer it, an audience, and there is a natural affinity
between sword and scabbard.
"But now, M. 1'Abbe, you whose earnestness has placed
you below your propel level, what, in your opinion, has
brought about this state of things ?"
"I do not like to give you platitudes after that flattering
parenthesis," said the Abbe, smiling. "The things that are
happening in this valley are happening everywhere in France.
It is all the outcome of the hopes and tendencies of 1789;
they have filtered clown, sc to speak, into the peasants' minds.
The Revolution affected some districts much more deeply than
THE PEASANTRY 89
others ; and in this strip of Burgundy lying so near to Paris,
the significance of that movement was felt to be the triumph
of the Gaul over the Frank. Historically, the peasants are
still on the morrow of the Jacquerie; their defeat sank
deeply into their minds. The facts have been long for-
gotten, but the idea has become instinctive in them. It is as
much in the blood of the peasant as pride of birth was once
in the blood of the noble. So the Devolution of 1789 was
the revenge of the vanquished. The peasants have entered
upon the ownership of the soil, a possession forbidden to them
by feudal law for twelve hundred years. Hence their love
of the land ; they divide it up among them till a single furrow
is cut in half. It not seldom happens that they pay no taxes,
for the property is so exceedingly small that it will not cover
the costs of prosecution for arrears."
"Their wrongheadedness, their suspiciousness, if you will,"
Blondet broke in upon the Abbe, "in this respect is so great
that in a thousand cantons out of three thousand in France,
it is impossible for a rich man to buy land of a peasant. They
will let or sell their bits of ground among themselves, but
they will not give it up to a well-to-do farmer on any consider-
ation whatever. The more the great landowner offers, the more
their vague suspicions increase. Expropriation is the only
means by which the peasant's holdings can be bought under
the common law of the land. Plenty of people have noticed
this fact, but they see no reason for it."
"This is the reason," said the Abbe Brossette, rightly con-
sidering that with Blondet a pause was a sort of interrogation.
"Twelve centuries are as nothing to a caste which has never
been diverted from its principal idea by the historical specta-
cle of civilization, a caste which still proudly wears the noble's
broad-brimmed silk-bound hat since the day when it fell out
of fashion and was abandoned to the peasants. The enthu-
siasm in the depths of the hearts of the people, which cen-
tered itself passionately on the figure of Napoleon (who never
understood the secret of it as thoroughly as he imagined),
sprang solely from this idea, which may perhaps explain the
portent of his return in 1815 Napoleon, bound to the people
90 THE PEASANTRY
by a million of common soldiers (first and last), is even yet,
in their eyes, the king of the people, sprung from the loins
of the Ee solution, the man who confirmed them in the pos-
session of the National lands. The oil at his coronation
was saturated with this idea "
"An idea which the year 1814 disturbed with unfortunate
results, an idea which the Monarchy should regard as sacred,"
Blondet said quickly; "for the people may find beside the
throne a prince to whom his father left the head of Louis
XVI. as part of his inheritance."
"Hush, here comes the Countess," said the Abbe Brossette.
"Fourchon frightened her, and we must keep her here in the
interests of religion, of the throne, nay, of the country itself."
Michaud, as head-forester, had doubtless come to report the
injury done to Vatel's eyes. But before reporting the delib-
erations of the Council of State, the reader must be put in
possession of a sequence of facts, a concise account of the cir-
cumstances under which the General bought the Aigues, and
of the weighty reasons which determined Sibilet's appoint-
ment to the stewardship of the fine estate, together with an
explanation of Michaud's installation as head-forester; in
short, of all the antecedent facts that have brought people's
minds into their present attitude, and given rise to the fears
expressed by Sibilet.
There will be a further advantage in this rapid sketch, in
that it will introduce several of the principal actors of the
drama, give an outline of their interests, and set forth the
dangers of the Comte de Montcornet's position.
VI
A TALE OF ROBBERS
IN 1791, or thereabouts, Mile. Laguerre came on a visit to
her country house, and accepted as her new agent the son of
an ex-steward of the neighboring manor of Soulanges.
THE PEASANTRY 91
The little town of Soulanges at this day is simply the
market-town of the district, though it was once the capital of
a considerable county in the days when the House of Bur-
gundy waged war against the House of France. Ville-aux-
Fayes, now the seat of the sub-prefecture, was a mere petty
fief in those days, a dependency of Soulanges like the Aigues,
Eonquerolles, Cerneux, Conches, and fifteen hamlets besides;
but the Soulanges still bear a count's coronet, while the Ron-
querolles of to-day styles himself "Marquis," thanks to the
intrigues of a court which raised the son of a Captain du
Plessis to a dukedom over the heads of the first families of
the Conquest. Which shows that towns, like families, have
their vicissitudes.
The ex-steward's son, a penniless bachelor, succeeded an
agent enriched by the spoils of thirty years of office. The
agent had decided that a third share in the firm of Minoret
would suit him better than the stewardship of the Aigues.
The future victualler had recommended as his successor a
young man who had been his responsible assistant for five
years. Frangois Gaubertin should cover his retreat, and, in-
deed, his pupil undertook (out of gratitude for his training)
to obtain the late agent's discharge from Mile. Laguerre, when
he saw how the lady went in terror of the Eevolution.
Gaubertin senior, ex-steward of the manor of Soulanges,
and public accuser of the department, took the timorous
operatic singer under his protection. She was "suspect" on
the face of it, after her relations with the aristocracy ; so the
local Fouquier-Tinville got up a little comedy, an explosion of
feeling against the stage-queen, in order to give his son a
chance to play the part of deliverer. By these means, the
young man obtained his predecessor's discharge, and cito-
yenne Laguerre made Frangois Gaubertin her prime minister,
partly out of gratitude, partly from policy.
The future victualler of the armies of the Republic had
not spoiled Mademoiselle. He annually remitted about thirty
thousand livres to her in Paris, whereas the Aigues must have
brought in forty thousand at the very least. When, therefore,
VOL. 10 32
92 THE PEASANTRY
Frangois Gaubertin promised her thirty-six thousand francs,
the ignorant opera-girl was amazed.
If the fortune subsequently amassed by Francois Gaubertin
is to be justified before the tribunal of probability, its history
must be traced from the beginning. First of all, young Gau-
bertin obtained the post of mayor of Blangy through his
father's influence ; and thenceforward, in spite of the law, he
demanded that all payments should be made to him in coin.
It was in his power to strike any one down by the ruinous
requisitions of the Eepublic, and he used his power to "ter-
rorize" his debtors (to use the language of the time). Then
the steward punctually remitted his mistress' dues in as-
signats, so long as assignats were legal tender. If the finances
of the country were the worse for the paper currency, at any
rate it laid the foundation of many a private fortune.
In three years, between 1792 and 1795, young Gaubertin
made a hundred and fifty thousand francs out of the Aigues,
and speculated on the Paris money market. Mile. Laguerre,
embarrassed with her assignats, was obliged to coin money
with her diamonds, hitherto useless. She sent them to Gau-
bertin, who sold them for her, and punctually remitted the
money in coin. Mile. Laguerre was so much touched by this
piece of loyalty, that from that time forth her belief in Gau-
bertin was as firm as her belief in Piccini.
In 1796, at the time of his marriage with cityonne Isaure
Mouchon (a daughter of one of his father's old friends of
the Convention), young Gaubertin possessed three hundred
and fifty thousand francs in coin; and as the Directory
seemed to him to be likely to last, he determined that Mile.
Laguerre should pass the accounts of his five years' steward-
ship before he married, finding an excuse in that event in his
life for the request.
"I shall be the father of a family," he said ; "you know the
sort of character an agent gets ; my father-in-law is a Repub-
lican of Roman probity, and a man of influence moreover;
I should like to show him that I am not unworthy of him."
THE PEASANTRY 93
Mile. Laguerre expressed her satisfaction with Gaubertin's
accounts in the most flattering terms.
At first the steward tried to check the peasants' depreda-
tions, partly to inspire confidence in Mile. Laguerre, partly
because he feared (and not without reason) that the returns
would suffer, and that there would be a serious falling of!
in the timber merchant's tips. But by that time the sovereign
people had learned to make pretty free everywhere; and the
lady of the manor, beholding her kings at such close quarters,
felt somewhat overawed by majesty, and signified to her Eich-
elieu that, before all things, she most particularly desired to
die in peace. The prima donna's income was so far too large
for her needs, that she suffered the most disastrous precedents.
For instance, rather than take law proceedings, she allowed
her neighbors to enqroach upon her proprietor's rights. She
never looked beyond the high walls of her park; she knew
that nothing would pass them to trouble her felicity; she
wished for nothing but a quiet life, like the true philosopher
that she was. What were a few thousand livres of income,