given to the Emperor. Having learned through Bibiaine, whose tongue is as long as a viper’s, all that has passed at the presbytery, between you, Monsieur Lacheneur, and the duke, he came and proclaimed it in the market-place. When they heard it, all who had purchased national lands were frightened. Chupin had counted on this, and soon he began telling the poor fools that they must burn powder under the duke’s nose if they wished him to confirm their titles to their property.”
“And did they believe him?”
“Implicitly. It did not take them long to make their preparations. They went to the town hall and took the firemen’s rifles, and the guns used for firing a salute on fete days; the mayor gave them the powder, and you heard——
“When I left Sairmeuse there were more than two hundred idiots before the presbytery, shouting:
“Vive Monseigneur! Vive le Duc de Sairmeuse!”
It was as d’Escorval had thought.
“The same pitiful farce that was played in Paris, only on a smaller scale,” he murmured. “Avarice and human cowardice are the same the world over!”
Meanwhile, Chanlouineau was going on with his recital.
“To make the fete complete, the devil must have warned all the nobility in the neighborhood, for they all came running. They say that Monsieur de Sairmeuse is a favorite with the King, and that he can get anything he wishes. So you can imagine how they all greeted him! I am only a poor peasant, but never would I lie down in the dust before any man as these old nobles who are so haughty with us, did before the duke. They kissed his hands, and he allowed them to do it. He walked about the square with the Marquis de Courtornieu——”
“And his son?” interrupted Maurice.
“The Marquis Martial, is it not? He is also walking before the church with Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu upon his arm. Ah! I do not understand how people can call her pretty—a little bit of a thing, so blond that one might suppose her hair was gray. Ah! how those two laughed and made fun of the peasants. They say they are going to marry each other. And even this evening there is to be a banquet at the Chateau de Courtornieu in honor of the duke.”
He had told all he knew. He paused.
“You have forgotten only one thing,” said M. Lacheneur; “that is, to tell us how your clothing happened to be torn, as if you had been fighting.”
The young farmer hesitated for a moment, then replied, somewhat brusquely:
“I can tell you, all the same. While Chupin was preaching, I also preached, but not in the same strain. The scoundrel reported me. So, in crossing the square, the duke paused before me and remarked: ‘So you are an evil-disposed person?’ I said no, but that I knew my rights. Then he took me by the coat and shook me, and told me that he would cure me, and that he would take possession of his vineyard again. Saint Dieu! When I felt the old rascal’s hand upon me my blood boiled. I pinioned him. Fortunately, six or seven men fell upon me, and compelled me to let him go. But he had better make up his mind not to come prowling around my vineyard!”
He clinched his hands, his eyes blazed ominously, his whole person breathed an intense desire for vengeance.
And M. d’Escorval was silent, fearing to aggravate this hatred, so imprudently kindled, and whose explosion, he believed, would be terrible.
M. Lacheneur had risen from his chair.
“I must go and take possession of my cottage,” he remarked to Chanlouineau; “you will accompany me; I have a proposition to make to you.”
M. and Mme. d’Escorval endeavored to detain him, but he would not allow himself to be persuaded, and he departed with his daughter.
But Maurice did not despair; Marie-Anne had promised to meet him the following day in the pine-grove near the Reche.
CHAPTER VII
The demonstrations which had greeted the Duc de Sairmeuse had been correctly reported by Chanlouineau.
Chupin had found the secret of kindling to a white heat the enthusiasm of the cold and calculating peasants who were his neighbors.
He was a dangerous rascal, the old robber, shrewd and cautious; bold, as those who possess nothing can afford to be; as patient as a savage; in short, one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever existed.
The peasants feared him, and yet they had no conception of his real character.
All his resources of mind had, until now, been expended in evading the precipice of the rural code.
To save himself from falling into the hands of the gendarmes, and to steal a few sacks of wheat, he had expended treasures of intrigue which would have made the fortunes of twenty diplomats.
Circumstances, as he always said, had been against him.
So he desperately caught at the first and only opportunity worthy of his talent, which had ever presented itself.
Of course, the wily rustic had said nothing of the true circumstances which attended the restoration of Sairmeuse to its former owner.
From him, the peasants learned only the bare fact; and the news spread rapidly from group to group.
“Monsieur Lacheneur has given up Sairmeuse,” said he. “Chateau, forests, vineyards, fields—he surrenders everything.”
This was enough, and more than enough to terrify every land-owner in the village.
If Lacheneur, this man who was so powerful in their eyes, considered the danger so threatening that he deemed it necessary or advisable to make a complete surrender, what was to become of them—poor devils—without aid, without counsel, without defence?
They were told that the government was about to betray their interests; that a decree was in process of preparation which would render their title-deeds worthless. They could see no hope of salvation, except through the duke’s generosity—that generosity which Chupin painted with the glowing colors of the rainbow.
When one is not strong enough to weather the gale, one must bow like the reed before it and rise again after the storm has passed; such was their conclusion.
And they bowed. And their apparent enthusiasm was all the more vociferous on account of the rage and fear that filled their hearts.
A close observer would have detected an undercurrent of anger and menace in their shouts.
Each man also said to himself:
“What do we risk by crying, ‘Vive le Duc?’ Nothing; absolutely nothing. If he is contented with that as a compensation for his lost property—good! If he is not content, we shall have time afterward to adopt other measures.”
So they shouted themselves hoarse.
And while the duke was sipping his coffee in the little drawing-room of the presbytery, he expressed his lively satisfaction at the scene without.
He, this grand seigneur of times gone by, this man of absurd prejudices and obstinate illusions; the unconquerable, and the incorrigible—he took these acclamations, “truly spurious coin,” as Chateaubriand says, for ready money.
“How you have deceived me, cure,” he was saying to Abbe Midon. “How could you declare that your people were unfavorably disposed toward us? One is compelled to believe that these evil intentions exist only in your own mind and in your own heart.”
Abbe Midon was silent. What could he reply?
He could not understand this sudden revolution in public opinion—this abrupt change from gloom and discontent