Page 43 of The False Chevalier


  CHAPTER XLII

  A HARD SEASON

  The first few days by Germain and Cyrene, after the death of deBailleul, were spent in genuine sorrow. Their thoughts were recalled tothose dear and delicious weeks at Fontainebleau, and they decided thatGermain should revisit Eaux Tranquilles and prepare it for their bridal.Wishing to do so undisturbed by business he sent no word to hisintendant, but set out on the journey mounted on a good horse, along theroad by Bicetre and Corbeil. It was the beginning of March, the end of awinter so severe as to have surpassed the memory of living men. TheSeine had been frozen over from Havre to Paris for the first time since1709; and, added to the horrors of famine arising from destruction ofthe last summer's harvest by hail, the icy fields and gleaming river nowhad a terrible aspect to the shivering poor; and even to him, Canadianthough he was, accustomed to think of winter as a time of merriment, forhe thought of the misery of the people.

  Towards evening he was forced by a hail storm to stop at the inn ofGrelot, a hamlet which adjoined the park of Eaux Tranquilles.

  In the morning he was roused by voices in the village street, and saw bythe sunlight pouring in at the window that the day was well up and thestorm over. The number of voices, though not many, seemed to himunusual for such a somnolent place at Grelot, so that he rose, took uphis clothing, which had been dried over night by the host and thrust inat the door at daybreak, partly dressed himself, sat down at the windowand looked out from behind the shutters.

  On the opposite side of the road he saw, sitting under a spreading oakon a bench, the persons who were talking. The long boughs of the treewere gnarled and leafless, but they overspread most of the littlethree-cornered space which constituted the village green, and the sunupon their interlacing surfaces cheerfully suggested the coming ofspring. Three famished peasants sat on the bench. The bones protruded ontheir hollow faces, and their eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. Theywere all over fifty; one was much older, and leaned feebly on a cudgel.Their dress was mean and patched; their battered sabots stuffed withstraw and wool. One was whittling with a curved knife. He was asabot-maker.

  "It is not possible to live this way," he protested. "People will notbuy sabots nor bucket-yokes."

  "They need food before sabots," remarked the old man.

  "But I too must have food. Are we never to have good bread again? Threeyears ago we had good bread."

  "This barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour," said theold man, trembling with weakness. "To make bread of it, my woman isobliged to work it over several times, and each time there seems solittle left that she weeps. We must soon die."

  "Yet there is always a fight for it at the wickets, when it isdistributed," said the third man.

  "And one must fight to keep his share. I go to the wickets with my bigknife out," the sabot-maker added fiercely.

  "And when one eats it, it gives him inflammation and pains," continuedthe old man. "I have seen many years of famine, but never so littlebread, and that so hard and stinking."

  "As for me I have found a secret," gravely said the third man, whosehollow countenance displayed an unnatural pallor. "Over in theSeigneur's park, above the little spring of water, there is a ledge ofrock. Below that ledge there lies plenty of white clay. That clay isgood to eat. You are hungry no more when you have taken breakfast ofthat."

  "My God! is our parish reduced to eating earth?" exclaimed the oldest ofthe men. "What is to become of France? Heaven is against us."

  "I came here before my children woke, because it pierces my heart tolisten to their crying," the sabot-maker said dejectedly.

  "Yet everybody knows there is so much good grain in the barns of the newSeigneur," the earth-eater said in a whining voice.

  "While Monsieur the Chevalier lived none starved, at least," the old mansaid, his head bowed in despair upon the top of his staff. "What is tobecome of us now?"

  "It is the fault of the bad people about our King," remarked theearth-eater.

  Every syllable sank into Germain's heart, for _he_ was the new Seigneur.

  A loud clattering sound as of some person running rapidly up the streetarrested the conversation of the trio. A countryman, a clumsy, frowsyfellow, in a terrible fright, stopped under Germain's window out ofbreath and turned at bay on his pursuer. The pursuer, likewise out ofbreath, was also clumsy, but rather from stoutness than stupidity; hewas a short man of about forty, and his dress was that of one in thelower ranks of the law. Everybody in the place ran out of doors to seewhat the race was about.

  "Monsieur Pioche--I--only--want--your--vote," the Attorney panted,closing up with his victim.

  "Let me go, Master Populus," the peasant cried, clasping his hands andfalling on his knees. "Faith of God! I can swear that I have none ofthat. I never saw one, I assure you, Monsieur. Search my person and seeif you find one of those things. No, Monsieur Populus, I am only a poorlittle bit of a cottager, I have never broken the laws in my life. Iassure you I have no such thing on me. I never saw one, Monsieur."

  "My good Pioche--_Monsieur_ Pioche, citizen of the bailiwick ofGrelot--do not go on your knees to one whose only aim is to be theservant of our citizens."

  A suspicious, defensive look was the only expression on the rustic'sface as he rose and peered furtively round to calculate his chances ofescape. A little crowd was meanwhile closing up.

  "Know, sir," continued Populus, "that the King, in the plentitude of hisgoodness, has learned of the misery of his people and desires to heartheir grievances and set them right. He has ordained that the grievancesof Grelot be set forth for him in due form, and I undertake, sir, to actin this operation as the humble mouthpiece of my native place. Moreparticularly his Majesty decrees that the august people do declare itswill upon the formation of a constitution and other grave matters, byappointing representatives of the Third Estate to the Assembly of theEstates-General."

  "I don't understand anything about all that."

  "My dear Monsieur Pioche, that does not matter in the slightest. It isthe best of reasons why you should appoint me your representative."

  "I do not understand," the rustic persisted stolidly.

  "_Mon Dieu!_ Monsieur Pioche," Master Populus continued, "it is verysimple; promise me your vote. See what I can do for you. You pay theSeigneur twenty-six livres annual feudal rent of your holding."

  "No, twenty-seven."

  "Well, say twenty-seven. Now I am the intendant of this new young foolof a Seigneur, who is away all the time at Versailles. I have the solecontrol. Let us strike a bargain. Give me your vote and I will quietlylet you off ten livres of rental. If I wish, I can find some reason forreporting you at seventeen."

  Pioche's eyes assumed an uncertain light of cunning and greed.

  "Don't do it, Pioche," cried a one-eyed cobbler. "Notary Mule offers toabolish all these Seigneur's rights if we elect _him_ to theStates-General."

  "Shut up, you tan-smelling bow-legs!" the enraged Populus retorted at ashout. "Who is this Mule, that he should represent the majesty of thebailiwick of Grelot? A cur whose very name is enough to relegate him tolimbo; whose deeds are atrocities in ink, whose----"

  "Nevertheless he is going to lift our dues. Master Mule is the people'sman," the cobbler returned valiantly.

  "What, Mule!" cried Populus with still greater scorn. "Where has he thepower? Am I not the intendant? Is it not I who alone control the dues inmy own person? Yes, gentlemen, who will deny that I hold, so to speak,the keys of heaven and earth in Grelot, and whom I bind shall be boundand whom I loose shall be loosed, notwithstanding the impotent cajoleryof all the long-eared Mules in the kingdom?"

  The whole population of the village were by this time gaping around him.

  "What, you clapper-jawed thief," a voice thundered from behind, "youventure to malign my name--the honourable appellation of a respectablefamily! Know, sir, that I spit upon you, I strike you, I say bah to yourface!"

  Maitre Mule was a little round-faced man, forced by his physicalinferiorit
y to Populus to take out his valour by word of mouth.

  The two went at it with recriminations, from which Germain learnt muchof his own affairs. The noise of the pair shouting and threatening tofight together, and the riotous cries of the crowd, "No dues!" "Notary,give us bread!" grew at length so great that the innkeeper rushed outexclaiming, "Peace, Messieurs, peace. I have a gentleman from Parissleeping upstairs. See, there is the baker's shop just open."

  The word "baker" operated better than magic. The rioters rushed over tothe wicket, which was fixed in the door of the shop, and fought andsnarled with each other for their slender purchases of the bread offamine.

  Such were the daily incidents which were leading men on to revolution.

 
W. D. Lighthall's Novels