VIII. Monseigneur in the Country
A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant.Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peasand beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. Oninanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalenttendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--a dejecteddisposition to give up, and wither away.
Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have beenlighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged upa steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis wasno impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it wasoccasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control--the settingsun.
The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when itgained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. "It willdie out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, "directly."
In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When theheavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid downhill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departedquickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glowleft when the drag was taken off.
But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little villageat the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, achurch-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with afortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objectsas the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who wascoming near home.
The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poortannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poorfountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. Allits people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors,shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at thefountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings ofthe earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor,were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the taxfor the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to bepaid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, untilthe wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed.
Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women,their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on the lowestterms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill;or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag.
Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions'whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, asif he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up inhis travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by thefountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him.He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slowsure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make themeagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive thetruth through the best part of a hundred years.
Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces thatdrooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped beforeMonseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, that these facesdrooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled menderof the roads joined the group.
"Bring me hither that fellow!" said the Marquis to the courier.
The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed roundto look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain.
"I passed you on the road?"
"Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road."
"Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?"
"Monseigneur, it is true."
"What did you look at, so fixedly?"
"Monseigneur, I looked at the man."
He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under thecarriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage.
"What man, pig? And why look there?"
"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe--the drag."
"Who?" demanded the traveller.
"Monseigneur, the man."
"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? Youknow all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?"
"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Ofall the days of my life, I never saw him."
"Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?"
"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur.His head hanging over--like this!"
He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with hisface thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recoveredhimself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.
"What was he like?"
"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust,white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!"
The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but alleyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieurthe Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on hisconscience.
"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that suchvermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accompanying my carriage,and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, MonsieurGabelle!"
Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionaryunited; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at thisexamination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in anofficial manner.
"Bah! Go aside!" said Monsieur Gabelle.
"Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your villageto-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle."
"Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders."
"Did he run away, fellow?--where is that Accursed?"
The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozenparticular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Somehalf-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, andpresented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis.
"Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?"
"Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, asa person plunges into the river."
"See to it, Gabelle. Go on!"
The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among thewheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were luckyto save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, orthey might not have been so fortunate.
The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up therise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually,it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the manysweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamergnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended thepoints to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; thecourier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance.
At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground,with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poorfigure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he hadstudied the figure from the life--his own life, maybe--for it wasdreadfully spare and thin.
To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long beengrowing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. Sheturned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, andpresented herself at the carriage-door.
"It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition."
With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face,Monseigneur looked out.
"How, then! What is it? Always petitions!"
"Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester."
"What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. Hecannot pay something?"
"He has paid all,
Monseigneur. He is dead."
"Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?"
"Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poorgrass."
"Well?"
"Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?"
"Again, well?"
She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionategrief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands togetherwith wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door--tenderly,caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected tofeel the appealing touch.
"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died ofwant; so many die of want; so many more will die of want."
"Again, well? Can I feed them?"
"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My petition is,that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be placedover him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quicklyforgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, Ishall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, theyare so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur!Monseigneur!"
The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken intoa brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left farbehind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidlydiminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him andhis chateau.
The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, asthe rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn groupat the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aidof the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon hisman like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as theycould bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkledin little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and morestars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of havingbeen extinguished.
The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees,was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchangedfor the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great doorof his chateau was opened to him.
"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?"
"Monseigneur, not yet."