The Mysteries of Paris, illustrated with etchings, Vol. 1
by Eugène Sue · English · Gutenberg #33800 · 597,263 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Mysteries of Paris, illustrated with etchings, Vol. 1
Author: Eugène Sue
Release date: September 22, 2010 [eBook #33800]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33800
Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Christine Aldridge and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(Stanford University, SUL Books in the Public Domain)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS, ILLUSTRATED WITH ETCHINGS, VOL. 1 ***
Produced by David Edwards, Christine Aldridge and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(Stanford University, SUL Books in the Public Domain)
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Passages in Gothic Bold are surrounded by +plus+ signs.
3. Other transcription notes appear at the end of this e-text.
[Illustration: _Portrait of Eugene Sue_
Etching by Bicknell, from a portrait]
+The Mysteries of Paris.+
_ILLUSTRATED WITH ETCHINGS
BY MERCIER, BICKNELL, POITEAU,
AND ADRIAN MARCEL._
_BY EUGENE SUE_
_IN SIX VOLUMES
VOLUME I._
_PRINTED FOR
FRANCIS A. NICCOLLS & CO.
BOSTON_
_EDITION DE LUXE._
_Limited to One Thousand Copies._
No. _____
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE TAPIS-FRANC 11
II. THE OGRESS 19
III. HISTORY OF LA GOUALEUSE 31
IV. THE CHOURINEUR'S HISTORY 47
V. THE ARREST 59
VI. THOMAS SEYTON AND THE COUNTESS SARAH 67
VII. "YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE" 74
VIII. THE WALK 80
IX. THE SURPRISE 90
X. CASTLES IN THE AIR 99
XI. MURPHY AND RODOLPH 119
XII. THE RENDEZVOUS 137
XIII. PREPARATIONS 150
XIV. THE BLEEDING HEART 157
XV. THE VAULT 166
XVI. THE SICK-NURSE 172
XVII. THE PUNISHMENT 189
XVIII. THE ISLE ADAM 206
XIX. RECOMPENSE 212
XX. THE DEPARTURE 221
XXI. RESEARCHES 225
XXII. HISTORY OF DAVID AND CECILY 246
XXIII. A HOUSE IN THE RUE DU TEMPLE 258
XXIV. THE FOUR STORIES 292
XXV. TOM AND SARAH 302
XXVI. THE BALL 323
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF EUGENE SUE _Frontispiece_
THE CHOURINEUR, RODOLPH, AND LA GOUALEUSE 22
"SHE PROFFERED TO RODOLPH THE BOUQUET" 89
"'AH, HERE IS THE DARLING ONE!'" 158
"RODOLPH ADDRESSED THE SCHOOLMASTER." 190
"THIS INDIVIDUAL WAS SEATED BY THE STOVE" 260
"'THIS, I SUPPOSE, IS THE WORK OF M. CABRION'" 296
THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE TAPIS-FRANC.[1]
It was on a cold and rainy night, towards the end of October, 1838, that
a tall and powerful man, with an old broad-brimmed straw hat upon his
head, and clad in a blue cotton carter's frock, which hung loosely over
trousers of the same material, crossed the Pont au Change, and darted
with a hasty step into the Cité, that labyrinth of obscure, narrow, and
winding streets which extends from the Palais de Justice to Notre Dame.
[1] _Tapis-franc_: literally, a "free carpet;" a low haunt
equivalent to what in English slang is termed "a boozing ken."
Although limited in space, and carefully watched, this quarter serves as
the lurking-place, or rendezvous, of a vast number of the very dregs of
society in Paris, who flock to the _tapis-franc_. This word, in the
slang of theft and murder, signifies a drinking-shop of the lowest
class. A returned convict, who, in this foul phraseology, is called an
"ogre," or a woman in the same degraded state, who is termed an
"ogress," generally keep such "cribs," frequented by the refuse of the
Parisian population; freed felons, thieves, and assassins are there
familiar guests. If a crime is committed, it is here, in this filthy
sewer, that the police throws its cast-net, and rarely fails to catch
the criminals it seeks to take.
On the night in question, the wind howled fiercely in the dark and dirty
gullies of the Cité; the blinking and uncertain light of the lamps which
swung to and fro in the sudden gusts were dimly reflected in pools of
black slush, which flowed abundantly in the midst of the filthy
pavement.
The murky-coloured houses, which were lighted within by a few panes of
glass in the worm-eaten casements, overhung each other so closely that
the eaves of each almost touched its opposite neighbour, so narrow were
the streets. Dark and noisome alleys led to staircases still more black
and foul, and so perpendicular that they could hardly be ascended by the
help of a cord fixed to the dank and humid walls by holdfasts of iron.
Stalls of charcoal-sellers, fruit-sellers, or venders of refuse meat
occupied the ground floor of some of these wretched abodes.
Notwithstanding the small value of their commodities, the fronts of
nearly all these shops were protected by strong bars of iron,--a proof
that the shopkeepers knew and dreaded the gentry who infested the
vicinity.
The man of whom we have spoken, having entered the Rue aux Fêves, which
is in the centre of the Cité, slackened his pace: he felt he was on his
own soil. The night was dark, and strong gusts of wind, mingled with
rain, dashed against the walls. Ten o'clock struck by the distant dial
of the Palais de Justice. Women were huddled together under the vaulted
arches, deep and dark, like caverns; some hummed popular airs in a low
key; others conversed together in whispers; whilst some, dumb and
motionless, looked on mechanically at the wet, which fell and flowed in
torrents. The man in the carter's frock, stopping suddenly before one of
these creatures, silent and sad as she gazed, seized her by the arm, and
said, "Ha! good evening, La Goualeuse."[2]
[2] Sweet-throated: in reference to the tone of her voice.
The girl receded, saying, in a faint and fearful tone, "Good evening,
Chourineur.[3] Don't hurt me."
[3] One who strikes with the knife; the stabber, or slasher.
This man, a liberated convict, had been so named at the hulks.
"Now I have you," said the fellow; "you must pay me the glass of 'tape'
(_eau d'aff_), or I'll make you dance without music," he added, with a
hoarse and brutal laugh.
"Oh, Heaven! I have no money," replied Goualeuse, trembling from head to
foot, for this man was the dread of the district.
"If you're stumped, the ogress of the _tapis-franc_ will give you tick
for your pretty face."
"She won't; I already owe her for the clothes I'm wearing."
"What, you want to shirk it?" shouted the Chourineur, darting after La
Goualeuse, who had hid herself in a gully as murk as midnight.
"Now, then, my lady, I've got you!" said the vagabond, after groping
about for a few moments, and grasping in one of his coarse and powerful
hands a slim and delicate wrist; "and now for the dance I promised you."
"No, it is _you_ who shall dance!" was uttered by a masculine and deep
voice.
"A man! Is't you, Bras Rouge? Speak, why don't you? and don't squeeze so
hard. I am here in the entrance to your 'ken,' and you it must be."
"'Tis not Bras Rouge!" said the voice.
"Oh! isn't it? Well, then, if it is not a friend, why, here goes at
you," exclaimed the Chourineur. "But whose bit of a hand is it I have
got hold of? It must be a woman's!"
"It is the fellow to this," responded the voice.
And under the delicate skin of this hand, which grasped his throat with
sudden ferocity, the Chourineur felt himself held by nerves of iron.
The Goualeuse, who had sought refuge in this alley, and lightly ascended
a few steps, paused for an instant, and said to her unknown defender,
"Thanks, sir, for having taken my part. The Chourineur said he would
strike me because I could not pay for his glass of brandy; but I think
he only jested. Now I am safe, pray let him go. Take care of yourself,
for he is the Chourineur."
"If he be the Chourineur, I am a bully boy who never knuckles down,"
exclaimed the unknown.
All was then silent for a moment, and then were heard for several
seconds, in the midst of the pitchy darkness, sounds of a fierce
struggle.
"Who the devil is this?" then said the ruffian, making a desperate
effort to free himself from his adversary, whose extraordinary power
astonished him. "Now, then, now you shall pay both for La Goualeuse and
yourself!" he shouted, grinding his teeth.
"Pay! yes, I will pay you, but it shall be with my fists; and it shall
be cash in full," replied the unknown.
"If," said the Chourineur, in a stifled voice, "you do but let go my
neckcloth, I will bite your nose off."
"My nose is too small, my lad, and you haven't light enough to see it."
"Come under the 'hanging glim'[4] there."
[4] Under the lamp, called _reverbère_.
"That I will," replied the unknown, "for then we may look into the
whites of each other's eyes."
He then made a desperate rush at the Chourineur, whom he still held by
the throat, and forced him to the end of the alley, and then thrust him
violently into the street, which was but dimly lighted by the suspended
street-lamp. The bandit stumbled; but, rapidly recovering his feet, he
threw himself furiously upon the unknown, whose slim and graceful form
appeared to belie the possession of the irresistible strength he had
displayed. After a struggle of a few minutes, the Chourineur, although
of athletic build, and a first-rate champion in a species of pugilism
vulgarly termed the _savate_, found that he had got what they call his
master. The unknown threw him twice with immense dexterity, by what is
called, in wrestling, the leg-pass, or crook. Unwilling, however, to
acknowledge the superiority of his adversary, the Chourineur, boiling
with rage, returned again to the charge. Then the defender of La
Goualeuse, suddenly altering his mode of attack, rained on the head and
face of the bandit a shower of blows with his closed fist, as hard and
heavy as if stricken by a steel gauntlet. These blows, worthy of the
admiration of Jem Belcher, Dutch Sam, Tom Cribb, or any other celebrated
English pugilist, were so entirely different from the system of the
_savate_, that the Chourineur dropped like an ox on the pavement,
exclaiming, as he fell, "I'm floored!" (_Mon linge est lavé!_)
"_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ Have pity on him!" exclaimed La Goualeuse, who,
during the contest, had ventured on the threshold of the alley, adding,
with an air of astonishment, "But who are you, then? Except the
Schoolmaster and Skeleton, there is no one, from the Rue Saint Eloi to
Notre Dame, who can stand against the Chourineur. I thank you very, very
much, sir, for, indeed, I fear that, without your aid, he would have
beaten me."
The unknown, instead of replying, listened with much attention to the
voice of this girl. Perhaps a tone more gentle, sweet, and silvery never
fell on human ear. He endeavoured to examine the features of La
Goualeuse; but the night was too dark, and the beams of the street-lamp
too flickering and feeble. After remaining for some minutes quite
motionless, the Chourineur shook his legs and arms, and then partly rose
from the ground.
"Pray be on your guard!" exclaimed the Goualeuse, retreating again into
the dark passage, and taking her champion by the arm; "take care, or he
will have his revenge on you."
"Don't be frightened, my child; if he has not had enough, I have more
ready for him."
The brigand heard these words.
"Thanks," he murmured; "I'm half throttled, and one eye is closed,--that
is quite enough for one day. Some other time, perhaps, when we may meet
again--"
"What! not content yet,--grumbling still?" said the unknown, with a
menacing tone.
"No, no,--not at all; I do not grumble in the least. You have regularly
served me out,--you are a lad of mettle," said the Chourineur, in a
coarse tone, but still with that sort of deference which physical
superiority always finds in persons of his grade. "You are the better
man, that's clear. Well, except the Skeleton, who seems to have bones of
iron, he is so thin and powerful, and the Schoolmaster, who could eat
three Herculeses for his breakfast, no man living could boast of having
put his foot on my neck."
"Well, and what then?"
"Why, now I have found my master, that's all; you will find yours some
day sooner or later,--everybody does. One thing, however, is certain;
now that you are a better man than the Chourineur, you may 'go your
length' in the Cité. All the women will be your slaves; ogres and
ogresses will give you credit, if it is only for fear; you may be a king
in your way! But who and what are you? You 'patter flash' like a family
man! If you are a 'prig' I'll have nothing to do with you. I have used
the knife, it is true, because, when the blood comes into my eyes, I see
_red_, and I must strike, in spite of myself; but I have paid for my
slashing, by going to the hulks for fifteen years. My time is up, and I
am free from surveillance. I can now live in the capital, without fear
of the 'beaks;' and I have never prigged,--have I, La Goualeuse?"
"No, he was never a thief," said the girl.
"Come along, then, and let us have a glass of something together, and
I'll tell you who I am," said the unknown. "Come, don't let us bear
malice."
"Bear malice! Devil a bit! You are master,--I confess it. You do know
how to handle your fists; I never knew anything like it. Thunder and
lightning! how your thumps fell on my sconce,--I never felt anything
like it. Yours is a new game, and you must teach it to me."
"I will recommence whenever you like."
"Not on me, though, thank ye,--not on me," exclaimed the Chourineur,
laughing; "your blows fell as if from a sledge-hammer; I am still giddy
from them. But do you know Bras Rouge, in whose passage you were?"
"Bras Rouge?" said the unknown, who appeared disagreeably surprised at
the question; adding, however, with an indifferent air, "I do not know
Bras Rouge. Is he the only person who inhabits this abode? It rained in
torrents, and I took shelter in the alley. You meant to beat this poor
girl, and I have thrashed you,--that's all."
"You're right; I have nothing to do with your affairs. Bras Rouge has a
room here, but does not occupy it often. He is usually at his
_estaminet_ in the Champs Elysées. But what's the good of talking about
him?" Then turning to the Goualeuse, "On my word, you are a good wench,
and I would not have beaten you; you know I would not harm a child,--it
was only my joke. Never mind; it was very good of you not to set on this
friend of yours against me when I was down, and at his mercy. Come and
drink with us; he pays for all. By the way, my trump," said he to the
unknown, "what say you, instead of going to tipple, shall we go and have
a crust for supper with the ogress at the White Rabbit? It is a
_tapis-franc_."
"With all my heart. I will pay for the supper. You'll come with us,
Goualeuse?" inquired the unknown.
"Thanks, sir," she replied, "but, after having seen your struggle, it
has made my heart beat so that I have no appetite."
"Pooh! pooh! one shoulder of mutton pokes the other down," said the
Chourineur; "the cookery at the White Rabbit is first-rate."
The three personages then, in perfect amity, bent their steps together
towards the tavern.
During the contest between the Chourineur and the unknown, a
charcoal-seller, of huge size, ensconced in another passage, had
contemplated with much anxiety the progress of the combat, but without
attempting to offer the slightest assistance to either antagonist. When
the unknown, the Chourineur, and the Goualeuse proceeded to the
public-house, the charcoal-man followed them.
The beaten man and the Goualeuse first entered the _tapis-franc_; the
unknown was following, when the charcoal-man accosted him, and said, in
a low voice, in the German language, and in a most respectful tone of
remonstrance, "Pray, your highness, be on your guard."
The unknown shrugged his shoulders, and rejoined his new companion. The
charcoal-dealer did not leave the door of the cabaret, but listened
attentively, and gazed from time to time through a small hole which had
been accidentally made in the thick coat of whitening, with which the
windows of such haunts as these are usually covered on the inside.
CHAPTER II.
THE OGRESS.
The White Rabbit is situated in the centre of the Rue aux Fêves. This
tavern occupies the ground floor of a lofty house, the front of which is
formed by two windows, which are styled "a guillotine." Hanging from the
front of the door leading to a dark and arched passage, was an oblong
lamp, on the cracked panes of which were written, in red letters,
"Nightly Lodgings Here."
The Chourineur, the unknown, and the Goualeuse entered into a large but
low apartment, with the ceiling smoked, and crossed by black rafters,
just visible by the flickering light of a miserable suspended lamp. The
cracked walls, formerly covered with plaster, were now ornamented in
places with coarse drawings, or sentences of flash and obscenity.
The floor, composed of earth beaten together with saltpetre, was thick
with dirt; an armful of straw--an apology for a carpet--was placed at
the foot of the ogress's counter, which was at the right hand of the
door, just beneath the dim lantern.
On each side of this room there were six tables, one end of each of
which was nailed to the wall, as well as the benches on either side of
them. At the farther end was a door leading to a kitchen; on the right,
near the counter, was a passage which led into a den where persons slept
for the night at three halfpence a head.
A few words will describe the ogress and her guests. The lady was called
Mother Ponisse; her triple trade consisted in letting furnished
apartments, keeping a public-house, and _lending_ clothes to the
miserable creatures who infest these foul streets.
The ogress was about forty years of age, bulky, fat, and heavy. She had
a full colour, and strong symptoms of a beard. Her deep voice, her
enormous arms, and coarse hands betokened uncommon strength. She wore on
her cap a large red and yellow handkerchief; a shawl of rabbit-skin was
crossed over her bosom, and tied behind; her woollen gown fell upon
black wooden shoes, scorched almost black by the small stove at which
she warmed her feet; and, to crown her beauty, she had a copper
complexion, which the use of strong liquors had materially tended to
heighten.
The counter, covered with lead, was decked with jugs with iron hoops,
and various pewter measures. In an open cupboard, fastened to the wall,
there were several flasks of glass, so fashioned as to represent the
pedestrian figure of the Emperor. These bottles contained sundry
cordials, red and green in colour, and known by the names of "Drops for
the Brave," "Ratafia of the Column," etc., etc.
A large black cat, with green eyes, was sitting near the ogress, and
seemed the familiar demon of the place. Then, in strange contrast, a
holy branch of boxwood, bought at church by the ogress, was suspended at
the back of an old cuckoo clock.
Two marvellously ill-favoured fellows, with unshaven beards, and their
garb all in tatters, hardly tasted of the pitcher of wine before them,
and conversed together in low voices, and with uneasy aspect. One of the
two, very pale and livid, pulled, from time to time, his shabby
skull-cap over his brows, and concealed as much as possible his left
hand, and, even when compelled to use it, he did so with caution.
Further on there was a young man, hardly sixteen years of age, with
beardless chin, and a countenance wan, wrinkled, and heavy, his eye
dull, and his long black hair straggling down his neck. This youthful
rake, the emblem of precocious vice, was smoking a short black pipe. His
back was resting against the wall, and his two hands were in the pockets
of his blouse, and his legs stretched along the bench. He did not cease
smoking for a moment, unless it was to drink from a cannikin of brandy
placed before him.
The other inmates of the _tapis-franc_, men and women, presented no
remarkable characteristics. There was the ferocious or embruted
face,--the vulgar and licentious mirth; but from time to time there was
a deep and dull silence. Such were the guests of the _tapis-franc_ when
the unknown, the Chourineur, and the Goualeuse entered.
These three persons play such important parts in our recital, that we
must put them in relief.
The Chourineur was a man of lofty stature and athletic make, with hair
of a pale brown, nearly white; thick eyebrows, and enormous whiskers of
deep red. The sun's rays, misery, and the severe toil of the galleys had
bronzed his skin to that deep and olive hue which is peculiar to
convicts. In spite of his horrible nickname, his features did not
express ferocity, but a sort of coarse familiarity and irrepressible
audacity. We have said already that the Chourineur was clothed in
trousers and frock of blue cotton, and on his head he had one of those
large straw hats usually worn by workmen in timber-yards, and
barge-emptiers.
The Goualeuse was, perhaps, about sixteen and a half years old. A
forehead, of the purest and whitest, surmounted a face of perfect oval
and angel-like expression; a fringe of eyelids, so long that they curled
slightly, half veiled her large blue eyes, which had a melancholy
expression. The down of early youth graced cheeks lightly coloured with
a scarlet tinge. Her small and rosy mouth, which hardly ever smiled, her
nose, straight, and delicately chiselled, her rounded chin, had, in
their combined expression, a nobility and a sweetness such as we can
only find in the most beautiful of Raphael's portraits. On each side of
her fair temples was a band of hair, of the most splendid auburn hue,
which descended in luxuriant ringlets half way down her cheeks, and was
then turned back behind the ear, a portion of which--ivory shaded with
carnation--was thus visible, and was then lost under the close folds of
a large cotton handkerchief, with blue checks, tied, as it is called,
_en marmotte_. Her graceful neck, of dazzling whiteness, was encircled
by a small necklace of grains of coral. Her gown, of brown stuff, though
much too large, could not conceal a charming form, supple and round as a
cane; a worn-out small orange-coloured shawl, with green fringe, was
crossed over her bosom.
The lovely voice of the Goualeuse had made a strong impression on her
unknown defender, and, in sooth, that voice, so gentle, so deliciously
modulated and harmonious, had an attraction so irresistible that the
horde of villains and abandoned women, in the midst of whom this
unfortunate girl lived, often begged her to sing, and listened to her
with rapture.
The Goualeuse had another name, given, doubtless, to the maiden
sweetness of her countenance,--she was also called Fleur-de-Marie.
The defender of La Goualeuse (we shall call the unknown Rodolph)
appeared about thirty-six years of age; his figure, tall, graceful, and
admirably proportioned, yet did not betoken the astonishing vigour which
he had displayed in his rencounter with the Chourineur.
It would have been difficult to assign a decided character to the
physiognomy of Rodolph. Certain wrinkles in his forehead betokened a man
of meditation; and yet the firm expression of his mouth, the dignified
and bold carriage of the head, assured us of the man of action, whose
physical strength and presence of mind would always command an
ascendancy over the multitude.
[Illustration: _The Chourineur, Rodolph, and La Goualeuse_
Etching by Adrian Marcel, after the drawing by Frank T. Merrill]
In his struggle with the Chourineur, Rodolph had neither betrayed anger
nor hatred. Confident in his own strength, his address, and agility, he
had only shown a contempt for the brute beast which he subdued.
We will finish this bodily picture of Rodolph by saying that his
features, regularly handsome, seemed too beautiful for a man. His eyes
were large, and of a deep hazel, his nose aquiline, his chin rather
projecting, his hair bright chestnut, of the same shade as his eyebrows,
which were strongly arched, and his small moustache, which was fine and
silky. Thanks to the manners and the language which he assumed with so
much ease, Rodolph was exactly like the other guests of the ogress.
Round his graceful neck, as elegantly modelled as that of the Indian
Bacchus, he wore a black cravat, carelessly tied, the ends of which fell
on the collar of his blue blouse. A double row of nails decorated his
heavy shoes, and, except that his hands were of most aristocratic shape,
nothing distinguished him from the other guests of the _tapis-franc_;
though, in a moral sense, his resolute air, and what we may term his
bold serenity, placed an immense distance between them.
On entering the _tapis-franc_, the Chourineur, laying one of his heavy
hands on the shoulders of Rodolph, cried, "Hail the conqueror of the
Chourineur! Yes, my boys, this springald has floored me; and if any
young gentleman wishes to have his ribs smashed, or his 'nob in
Chancery,' even including the Schoolmaster and the Skeleton, here is
their man; I will answer for him, and back him!"
At these words, all present, from the ogress to the lowest ruffian of
the _tapis-franc_, contemplated the victor of the Chourineur with
respect and fear. Some, moving their glasses and jugs to the end of the
table at which they were seated, offered Rodolph a seat, if he were
inclined to sit near them; others approached the Chourineur, and asked
him, in a low voice, for the particulars of this unknown, who had made
his entrance into their world in so striking a manner.
Then the ogress, accosting Rodolph with one of her most gracious
smiles,--a thing unheard of, and almost deemed fabulous, in the annals
of the White Rabbit,--rose from the bar to take the orders of her guest,
and know what he desired to have for the refreshment of his party,--an
attention which she did not evince either to the Schoolmaster or the
Skeleton, two fearful ruffians, who made even the Chourineur tremble.
One of the men with the villainous aspect, whom we have before described
as being very pale, hiding his left hand, and continually pulling his
cap over his brows, leaned towards the ogress, who was carefully wiping
the table where Rodolph had taken his seat, and said to her, in a hoarse
tone, "Hasn't the Gros-Boiteux been here to-day?"
"No," said Mother Ponisse.
"Nor yesterday?"
"Yes, he came yesterday."
"Was Calebasse with him,--the daughter of Martial, who was guillotined?
You know whom I mean,--the Martials of the Ile de Ravageur?"
"What! do you take me for a spy, with your questions? Do you think I
watch my customers?" said the ogress, in a brutal tone.
"I have an appointment to-night with the Gros-Boiteux and the
Schoolmaster," replied the fellow; "we have some business together."
"That's your affair,--a set of ruffians, as you are, altogether."
"Ruffians!" said the man, much incensed; "it is such ruffians you get
your living by."
"Will you hold your jaw?" said the Amazon, with a threatening gesture,
and lifting, as she spoke, the pitcher she held in her hand.
The man resumed his place, grumbling as he did so.
"The Gros-Boiteux has, perhaps, stayed to give that young fellow
Germain, who lives in the Rue du Temple, his gruel," said he, to his
companion.
"What, do they mean to _do_ for him?"
"No, not quite, but to make him more careful in future. It appears he
has 'blown the gaff' in the job at Nantes, so Bras Rouge declares."
"Why, that is Gros-Boiteux's affair; he has only just left prison, and
has his hands full already."
Fleur-de-Marie had followed the Chourineur into the tavern of the
ogress, and he, responding to a nod given to him by the young scamp with
the jaded aspect, said, "Ah, Barbillon! what, pulling away at the old
stuff?"
"Yes; I would rather fast, and go barefoot any day, than be without my
drops for my throttle, and the weed for my pipe," said the rapscallion,
in a thick, low, hoarse voice, without moving from his seat, and puffing
out volumes of tobacco-smoke.
"Good evening, Fleur-de-Marie," said the ogress, looking with a prying
eye on the clothes of the poor girl,--clothes which she had lent her.
After her scrutiny, she said, in a tone of coarse satisfaction, "It's
really a pleasure--so it is--to lend one's good clothes to you; you are
as clean as a kitten, or else I would never have trusted you with that
shawl. Such a beauty as that orange one is, I would never have trusted
it to such gals as Tourneuse and Boulotte; but I have taken every care
_on_ you ever since you came here six weeks ago; and, if the truth must
be said, there is not a tidier nor more nicer girl than you in all the
Cité; that there ain't; though you be al'ays so sad like, and too
particular."
The Goualeuse sighed, turned her head, and said nothing.
"Why, mother," said Rodolph to the old hag, "you have got some holy
boxwood, I see, over your cuckoo," and he pointed with his finger to the
consecrated bough behind the old clock.
"Why, you heathen, would you have us live like dogs?" replied the
ogress. Then addressing Fleur-de-Marie, she added, "Come, now,
Goualeuse, tip us one of your pretty little ditties" (_goualantes_).
"Supper, supper first, Mother Ponisse," said the Chourineur.
"Well, my lad of wax, what can I do for you?" said the ogress to
Rodolph, whose good-will she was desirous to conciliate, and whose
support she might, perchance, require.
"Ask the Chourineur; he orders, I pay."
"Well, then," said the ogress, turning to the bandit, "what will you
have for supper, you 'bad lot?'"
"Two quarts of the best wine, at twelve sous, three crusts of wheaten
bread, and a harlequin,"[5] said the Chourineur, after considering for a
few moments what he should order.
[5] A "harlequin" is a collection of odds and ends of fish,
flesh, and fowl, after they come from table, which the Parisian,
providing for the class to which the Chourineur belongs, finds a
profitable and popular composition.
"Ah! you are a dainty dog, I know, and as fond as ever of them
harlequins."
"Well, now, Goualeuse," said the Chourineur, "are you hungry?"
"No, Chourineur."
"Would you like anything better than a harlequin, my lass?" said
Rodolph.
"No, I thank you; I have no appetite."
"Come, now," said the Chourineur, with a brutal grin, "look my master in
the face like a jolly wench. You have no objection, I suppose?"
The poor girl blushed, and did not look at Rodolph. A few moments
afterwards, and the ogress herself placed on the table a pitcher of
wine, bread, and a harlequin, of which we will not attempt to give an
idea to the reader, but which appeared most relishing to the Chourineur;
for he exclaimed, "_Dieu de Dieu!_ what a dish! What a glorious dish! It
is a regular omnibus; there is something in it to everybody's taste.
Those who like fat can have it; so can they who like lean; as well as
those who prefer sugar, and those who choose pepper. There's tender bits
of chicken, biscuit, sausage, tarts, mutton-bones, pastry crust, fried
fish, vegetables, woodcock's heads, cheese, and salad. Come, eat,
Goualeuse, eat; it is so capital! You have been to a wedding breakfast
somewhere this morning."
"No more than on other mornings. I ate this morning, as usual, my
ha'porth of milk, and my ha'porth of bread."
The entrance of another personage into the cabaret interrupted all
conversation for a moment, and everybody turned his head in the
direction of the newcomer, who was a middle-aged man, active and
powerful, wearing a loose coat and cap. He was evidently quite at home
in the _tapis-franc_, and, in language familiar to all the guests,
requested to be supplied with supper. He was so placed that he could
observe the two ill-looking scoundrels who had asked after Gros-Boiteux
and the Schoolmaster. He did not take his eyes off them; but in
consequence of their position, they could not see that they were the
objects of such marked and constant attention.
The conversation, momentarily interrupted, was resumed. In spite of his
natural audacity, the Chourineur showed a deference for Rodolph, and
abstained from familiarity.
"By Jove," said he to Rodolph, "although I have smarted for it, yet I am
very glad to have met with you."
"What! because you relish the harlequin?"
"Why, may be so; but more because I am all on the fret to see you
'serve out' the Schoolmaster. To see him who has always crowed over me,
crowed over in his turn would do me good."
"Do you suppose, then, that for your amusement I mean to spring at the
Schoolmaster, and pin him like a bull-dog?"
"No, but he'll have at you in a moment, when he learns that you are a
better man than he," replied the Chourineur, rubbing his hands.
"Well, I have coin enough left to pay him in full," said Rodolph, in a
careless tone; "but it is horrible weather: what say you to a cup of
brandy with sugar in it?"
"That's the ticket!" said the Chourineur.
"And, that we may be better acquainted, we will tell each other who we
are," added Rodolph.
"The Albinos called the Chourineur a freed convict, worker at the wood
that floats at St. Paul's Quay; frozen in the winter, scorched in the
summer, from twelve to fifteen hours a day in the water; half man, half
frog; that's my description," said Rodolph's companion, making him a
military salute with his left hand. "Well, now, and you, my master, this
is your first appearance in the Cité. I don't mean anything to offend;
but you entered head foremost against my skull, and beating the drum on
my carcass. By all that's ugly, what a rattling you made, especially
with these blows with which you doubled me up! I never can forget
them--thick as buttons--what a torrent! But you have some trade besides
'polishing off' the Chourineur?"
"I am a fan-painter, and my name is Rodolph."
"A fan-painter! Ah! that's the reason, then, that your hands are so
white," added the Chourineur. "If all your fellow workmen are like you,
there must be a tidy lot of you. But, as you are a workman, what brings
you to a _tapis-franc_ in the Cité, where there are only prigs,
cracksmen or freed convicts like myself, and who only come here because
we cannot go elsewhere? This is no place for you. Honest mechanics have
their coffee-shops, and don't talk slang."
"I come here because I like good company."
"Gammon!" said the Chourineur, shaking his head with an air of doubt. "I
found you in the passage of Bras Rouge. Well, man, never mind. You say
you don't know him?"
"What do you mean with all your nonsense about your Bras Rouge? Let him
go to the--"
"Stay, master of mine. You, perhaps, distrust me; but you are wrong, and
if you like I will tell you my history; but that is on condition that
you teach me how to give those precious thumps which settled my business
so quickly. What say you?"
"I agree, Chourineur; tell me your story, and Goualeuse will also tell
hers."
"Very well," replied the Chourineur; "it is not weather to turn a mangy
cur out-of-doors, and it will be an amusement. Do you agree, Goualeuse?"
"Oh, certainly; but my story is a very short one," said Fleur-de-Marie.
"And you will have to tell us your history, comrade Rodolph," added the
Chourineur.
"Well, then, I'll begin."
"Fan-painter!" said Goualeuse, "what a very pretty trade!"
"And how much can you earn if you stick close to work?" inquired the
Chourineur.
"I work by the piece," responded Rodolph; "my good days are worth three
francs, sometimes four, in summer, when the days are long."
"And you are idle sometimes, you rascal?"
"Yes, as long as I have money, though I do not waste it. First, I pay
ten sous for my night's lodging."
"Your pardon, monseigneur; you sleep, then, at ten sous, do you?" said
the Chourineur, raising his hand to his cap.
The word monseigneur, spoken ironically by the Chourineur, caused an
almost imperceptible smile on the lips of Rodolph, who replied, "Oh, I
like to be clean and comfortable."
"Here's a peer of the realm for you! a man with mines of wealth!"
exclaimed the Chourineur; "he pays ten sous for his bed!"
"Well, then," continued Rodolph, "four sous for tobacco; that makes
fourteen sous; four sous for breakfast, eighteen; fifteen sous for
dinner; one or two sous for brandy; that all comes to about thirty-four
or thirty-five sous a day. I have no occasion to work all the week, and
so the rest of the time I amuse myself."
"And your family?" said the Goualeuse.
"Dead," replied Rodolph.
"Who were your friends?" asked the Goualeuse.
"Dealers in old clothes and marine stores under the pillars of the
market-place."
"How did you spend what they left you?" inquired the Chourineur.
"I was very young, and my guardian sold the stock; and, when I came of
age, he brought me in his debtor for thirty francs; that was my
inheritance."
"And who is now your employer?" the Chourineur demanded.
"His name is Gauthier, in the Rue des Bourdonnais, a
beast--brute--thief--miser! He would almost as soon lose the sight of an
eye as pay his workmen. Now this is as true a description as I can give
you of him; so let's have done with him. I learned my trade under him
from the time when I was fifteen years of age; I have a good number in
the Conscription, and my name is Rodolph Durand. My history is told."
"Now it's your turn, Goualeuse," said the Chourineur; "I keep my history
till last, as a _bonne bouche_."
CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF LA GOUALEUSE.
"Let us begin at the beginning," said the Chourineur.
"Yes; your parents?" added Rodolph.
"I never knew them," said Fleur-de-Marie.
"The deuce!" said the Chourineur. "Well, that is odd, Goualeuse! you and
I are of the same family."
"What! you, too, Chourineur?"
"An orphan of the streets of Paris like you, my girl."
"Then who brought you up, Goualeuse?" asked Rodolph.
"I don't know, sir. As far back as I can remember--I was, I think, about
six or seven years old--I was with an old one-eyed woman, whom they call
the Chouette,[6] because she had a hooked nose, a green eye quite round,
and was like an owl with one eye out."
[6] The Screech-owl.
"Ha! ha! ha! I think I see her, the old night-bird!" shouted the
Chourineur, laughing.
"The one-eyed woman," resumed Fleur-de-Marie, "made me sell barley-sugar
in the evenings on the Pont Neuf; but that was only an excuse for asking
charity; and when I did not bring her in at least ten sous, the Chouette
beat me instead of giving me any supper."
"Are you sure the woman was not your mother?" inquired Rodolph.
"Quite sure; for she often scolded me for being fatherless and
motherless, and said she picked me up one day in the street."
"So," said the Chourineur, "you had a dance instead of a meal, if you
did not pick up ten sous?"
"Yes. And after that I went to lie down on some straw spread on the
ground; when I was cold--very cold."
"I do not doubt it, for the feather of beans (straw) is a very cold sort
of stuff," said the Chourineur. "A dung-heap is twice as good; but then
people don't like your smell, and say, 'Oh, the blackguard! where has he
been?'"
This remark made Rodolph smile, whilst Fleur-de-Marie thus continued:
"Next day the one-eyed woman gave me a similar allowance for breakfast
as for supper, and sent me to Montfauçon to get some worms to bait for
fish; for in the daytime the Chouette kept her stall for selling
fishing-lines, near the bridge of Notre Dame. For a child of seven years
of age, who is half dead with hunger and cold, it is a long way from the
Rue de la Mortellerie to Montfauçon."
"But exercise has made you grow as straight as an arrow, my girl; you
have no reason to complain of that," said the Chourineur, striking a
light for his pipe.
"Well," said the Goualeuse, "I returned very, very tired; then, at noon,
the Chouette gave me a little bit of bread."
"Ah, eating so little has kept your figure as fine as a needle, girl;
you must not find fault with that," said Chourineur, puffing out a cloud
of tobacco-smoke. "But what ails you, comrade--I mean, Master Rodolph?
You seem quite down like; are you sorry for the girl and her miseries?
Ah, we all have, and have had, our miseries!"
"Yes, but not such miseries as mine, Chourineur," said Fleur-de-Marie.
"What! not I, Goualeuse? Why, my lass, you were a queen to me! At least,
when you were little you slept on straw and ate bread; I passed my most
comfortable nights in the lime-kilns at Clichy, like a regular vagabond;
I fed on cabbage-stumps and other refuse vegetables, which I picked up
when and where I could; but very often, as it was so far to the
lime-kilns at Clichy, and I was tired after my work, I slept under the
large stones at the Louvre; and then, in winter, I had white
sheets,--that is, whenever the snow fell."
"A man is stronger; but a poor little girl--" said Fleur-de-Marie. "And
yet, with all that, I was as plump as a skylark."
"What! you remember that, eh?"
"To be sure I do. When the Chouette beat me I fell always at the first
blow; then she stamped upon me, screaming out, 'Ah, the nasty little
brute! she hasn't a farden's worth of strength,--she can't stand even
two thumps!' And then she called me Pegriotte (little thief). I never
had any other name,--that was my baptismal name."
"Like me. I had the baptism of a dog in a ditch, and they called me
'Fellow,' or 'You, sir,' or 'Albino.' It is really surprising, my wench,
how much we resemble each other!" said the Chourineur.
"That's true,--in our misery," said Fleur-de-Marie, who addressed
herself to the Chourineur almost always, feeling, in spite of herself, a
sort of shame at the presence of Rodolph, hardly venturing to raise her
eyes to him, although in appearance he belonged to that class with whom
she ordinarily lived.
"And when you had fetched the worms for the Chouette, what did you do?"
inquired the Chourineur.
"Why, she made me beg until night; then, in the evening, she went to
sell fried fish on the Pont Neuf. Oh, dear! at that time it was a long
while to wait for my morsel of bread; and if I dared to ask the Chouette
for something to eat, she beat me and said, 'Get ten sous, and then you
shall have your supper.' Then I, being very hungry, and as she hurt me
very much, cried with a very full heart and sore body. The Chouette tied
my little basket of barley-sugar round my neck, and stationed me on the
Pont Neuf, where, in winter, I was frozen to death. Yet sometimes, in
spite of myself, I slept as I stood,--but not long; for the Chouette
kicked me until I awoke. I remained on the bridge till eleven o'clock,
my stock of barley-sugar hanging round my neck, and often crying
heartily. The passengers, touched by my tears, sometimes gave me a sou;
and then I gained ten and sometimes fifteen sous, which I gave to the
Chouette, who searched me all over, and even looked in my mouth, to see
if I had kept back anything."
"Well, fifteen sous was a good haul for a little bird like you."
"It was. And then the one-eyed woman seeing that--"
"With her one eye?" said the Chourineur, laughing.
"Of course, because she had but one. Well, then, she finding that when I
cried I got most money, always beat me severely before she put me on the
bridge."
"Brutal, but cunning."
"Well, at last I got hardened to blows; and as the Chouette got in a
passion when I did not cry, why I, to be revenged upon her, the more she
thumped me the more I laughed, although the tears came into my eyes with
the pain."
"But, poor Goualeuse, did not the sticks of barley-sugar make you long
for them?"
"Ah, yes, Chourineur; but I never tasted them. It was my ambition, and
my ambition ruined me. One day, returning from Montfauçon, some little
boys beat me and stole my basket. I came back, well knowing what was in
store for me; and I had a shower of thumps and no bread. In the evening,
before going to the bridge, the Chouette, savage because I had not
brought in anything the evening before, instead of beating me as usual
to make me cry, made me bleed by pulling my hair from the sides of the
temples, where it is most tender."
"_Tonnerre!_ that was coming it too strong," said the bandit, striking
his fist heavily on the table, and frowning sternly. "To beat a child is
no such great thing, but to ill-use one so--Heaven and earth!"
Rodolph had listened attentively to the recital of Fleur-de-Marie, and
now looked at the Chourineur with astonishment: the display of such
feeling quite surprised him.
"What ails you, Chourineur?" he inquired.
"What ails me? Ails me? Why, have you no feeling? That devil's dam of a
Chouette who so brutally used this girl! Are you as hard as your own
fists?"
"Go on, my girl," said Rodolph to Fleur-de-Marie, without appearing to
notice the Chourineur's appeal.
"I have told you how the Chouette ill-used me to make me cry. I was then
sent on to the bridge with my barley-sugar. The one-eyed was at her
usual spot, and from time to time shook her doubled fist at me. However,
as I had not broken my fast since the night before, and as I was very
hungry, at the risk of putting the Chouette in a passion, I took a piece
of barley-sugar, and began to eat it."
"Well done, girl!"
"I ate another piece--"
"Bravo! go it, my hearties!"
"I found it so good, not from daintiness, but real hunger. But then a
woman, who sold oranges, cried out to the one-eyed woman, 'Look ye
there, Chouette; Pegriotte is eating the barley-sugar!'"
"Oh, thunder and lightning!" said the Chourineur; "that would enrage
her,--make her in a passion! Poor little mouse, what a fright you were
in when the Chouette saw you!--eh?"
"How did you get out of that affair, poor Goualeuse?" asked Rodolph,
with as much interest as the Chourineur.
"Why, it was a serious matter to me,--but that was afterwards; for the
Chouette, although boiling over with rage at seeing me devour the
barley-sugar, could not leave her stove, for the fish was frying."
"Ha! ha! ha! True, true,--that was a difficult position for her," said
the Chourineur, laughing heartily.
"At a distance, the Chouette threatened me with her long iron fork; but
when her fish was cooked, she came towards me. I had only collected
three sous, and I had eaten six sous' worth. She did not say a word, but
took me by the hand and dragged me away with her. At this moment, I do
not know how it was that I did not die on the spot with fright. I
remember it as well as if it was this very moment,--it was very near to
New Year's day, and there were a great many shops on the Pont Neuf, all
filled with toys, and I had been looking at them all the evening with
the greatest delight,--beautiful dolls, little furnished houses,--you
know how very amusing such things are for a child."
"You had never had any playthings, had you, Goualeuse?" asked the
Chourineur.
"I? _Mon Dieu!_ who was there to give me any playthings?" said the girl,
in a sad tone. "Well, the evening passed. Although it was in the depth
of winter, I only had on a little cotton gown, no stockings, no shift,
and with wooden shoes on my feet: that was not enough to stifle me with
heat, was it? Well, when the old woman took my hand, I burst out into a
perspiration from head to foot. What frightened me most was, that,
instead of swearing and storming as usual, she only kept on grumbling
between her teeth. She never let go my hand, but made me walk so
fast--so very fast--that I was obliged to run to keep up with her, and
in running I had lost one of my wooden shoes; and as I did not dare to
say so, I followed her with one foot naked on the bare stones. When we
reached home it was covered with blood."
"A one-eyed old devil's kin!" said the Chourineur, again thumping the
table in his anger. "It makes my heart quite cold to think of the poor
little thing trotting along beside that cursed old brute, with her poor
little foot all bloody!"
"We lived in a garret in the Rue de la Montellerie; beside the entrance
to our alley there was a dram-shop, and there the Chouette went in,
still dragging me by the hand. She then had a half pint of brandy at the
bar."
"The deuce! Why, I could not drink that without being quite fuddled!"
"It was her usual quantity; perhaps that was the reason why she beat me
of an evening. Well, at last we got up into our cock-loft; the Chouette
double-locked the door; I threw myself on my knees, and asked her pardon
for having eaten the barley-sugar. She did not answer me, but I heard
her mumbling to herself, as she walked about the room, 'What shall I do
this evening to this little thief, who has eaten all that barley-sugar?
Ah, I see!' And she looked at me maliciously with her one green eye. I
was still on my knees, when she suddenly went to a shelf and took down a
pair of pincers."
"Pincers!" exclaimed the Chourineur.
"Yes, pincers."
"What for?"
"To strike you?" inquired Rodolph.
"To pinch you?" said the Chourineur.
"No, no," answered the poor girl, trembling at the very recollection.
"To pull out your hair?"
"No; to take out one of my teeth."
The Chourineur uttered a blasphemous oath, accompanied with such furious
imprecations that all the guests in the _tapis-franc_ looked at him with
astonishment.
"Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Rodolph.
"The matter! the matter! I'll skin her alive, that infernal old hag, if
I can catch her! Where is she? Tell me, where is she? Let me find her,
and I'll throttle the old--"
"And did she really take out your tooth, my poor child,--that wretched
monster in woman's shape?" demanded Rodolph, whilst the Chourineur was
venting his rage in a volley of the most violent reproaches.
"Yes, sir; but not at the first pull. How I suffered! She held me with
my head between her knees, where she held it as if in a vice. Then, half
with her pincers, half with her fingers, she pulled out my tooth, and
then said, 'Now I will pull out one every day, Pegriotte; and when you
have not a tooth left I will throw you into the river, and the fish
shall eat you.'"
"The old devil! To break and pull out a poor child's teeth in that way!"
exclaimed the Chourineur, with redoubled fury.
"And how did you escape her then?" inquired Rodolph of the Goualeuse.
"Next day, instead of going to Montfauçon, I went on the side of the
Champs Elysées, so frightened was I of being drowned by the Chouette. I
would have run to the end of the world, rather than be again in the
Chouette's hands. After walking and walking, I fairly lost myself; I had
not begged a farthing, and the more I thought the more frightened did I
become. At night I hid myself in a timber-yard, under some piles of
wood. As I was very little, I was able to creep under an old door and
hide myself amongst a heap of logs. I was so hungry that I tried to gnaw
a piece of the bark, but I could not bite it,--it was too hard. At
length I fell asleep. In the morning, hearing a noise, I hid myself
still further back in the wood-pile. It was tolerably warm, and, if I
had had something to eat, I could not have been better off for the
winter."
"Like me in the lime-kiln."
"I did not dare to quit the timber-yard, for I fancied that the Chouette
would seek for me everywhere, to pull out my teeth and drown me, and
that she would be sure to catch me if I stirred from where I was."
"Stay, do not mention that old beast's name again,--it makes the blood
come into my eyes! The fact is, that you have known misery,--bitter,
bitter misery. Poor little mite! how sorry I am that I threatened to
beat you just now, and frightened you. As I am a man, I did not mean to
do it."
"Why, would you not have beaten me? I have no one to defend me."
"That's the very reason, because you are not like the others,--because
you have no one to take your part,--that I would not have beaten you.
When I say no one, I do not mean our comrade Rodolph; but his coming was
a chance, and he certainly did give me my full allowance when we met."
"Go on, my child," said Rodolph. "How did you get away from the
timber-yard?"
"Next day, about noon, I heard a great dog barking under the wood-pile.
I listened, and the bark came nearer and nearer; then a deep voice
exclaimed, 'My dog barks,--somebody is hid in the yard!' 'They are
thieves,' said another voice; and the men then began to encourage the
dog, and cry, 'Find 'em! find 'em, lad!' The dog ran to me, and, for
fear of being bitten, I began to cry out with all my might and main.
'Hark!' said one of them; 'I hear the cry of a child.' They called back
the dog; I came out from the pile of wood, and saw a gentleman and a man
in a blouse. 'Ah, you little thief! what are you doing in my
timber-yard?' said the gentleman, in a cross tone. I put my hands
together and said, 'Don't hurt me, pray. I have had nothing to eat for
two days, and I've run away from the Chouette, who pulled out my tooth,
and said she would throw me over to the fishes. Not knowing where to
sleep, I was passing before your door, and I slept for the night
amongst these logs, under this heap, not thinking I hurt anybody.'
"'I'm not to be gammoned by you, you little hussy! You came to steal my
logs. Go and call the watch,' said the timber-merchant to his man."
"Ah, the old vagabond! The old reprobate! Call the watch! Why didn't he
send for the artillery?" said the Chourineur. "Steal his logs, and you
only eight years old! What an old ass!"
"'Not true, sir,' his man replied. 'Steal your logs, master! How can she
do that? She is not so big as the smallest piece!' 'You are right,'
replied the timber-merchant; 'but if she does not come for herself, she
does for others. Thieves have a parcel of children, whom they send to
pry about and hide themselves to open the doors of houses. She must be
taken to the commissary, and mind she does not escape.'"
"Upon my life, this timber-merchant was more of a log than any log in
his own yard," said the Chourineur.
"I was taken to the commissary," resumed Goualeuse. "I accused myself of
being a wanderer, and they sent me to prison. I was sent before the
Tribunal, and sentenced, as a rogue and vagabond, to remain until I was
sixteen years of age in a house of correction. I thank the judges much
for their kindness; for in prison I had food, I was not beaten, and it
was a paradise after the cock-loft of the Chouette. Then, in prison I
learned to sew; but, sad to say, I was idle: I preferred singing to
work, and particularly when I saw the sun shine. Ah, when the sun shone
on the walls of the prison I could not help singing; and then, when I
could sing, I seemed no longer to be a prisoner. It was after I began to
sing so much that they called me Goualeuse, instead of Pegriotte. Well,
when I was sixteen, I left the gaol. At the door, I found the ogress
here, and two or three old women, who had come to see my fellow
prisoners, and who had always told me that when I left the prison they
would find work for me."
"Yes, yes, I see," said the Chourineur.
"'My pretty little maid,' said the ogress and her old companions, 'come
and lodge with us; we will give you good clothes, and then you may amuse
yourself.' I didn't like them, and refused, saying to myself, 'I know
how to sew very well, and I have two hundred francs in hand. I have been
eight years in prison, I should like to enjoy myself a bit,--that won't
hurt anybody; work will come when the money is spent.' And so I began to
spend my two hundred francs. Ah, that was my mistake," added
Fleur-de-Marie, with a sigh. "I ought first to have got my work; but I
hadn't a soul on earth to advise me. At sixteen, to be thrown on the
city of Paris, as I was, one is so lonely; and what is done is done. I
have done wrong, and I have suffered for it. I began then to spend my
money: first, I bought flowers to put in my room,--I do love
flowers!--then I bought a gown, a nice shawl, and I took a walk in the
Bois de Boulogne, and I went to St. Germains, Vincennes, and other
country places. Oh, how I love the country!"
"With a lover by your side, my girl?" asked the Chourineur.
"Oh, _mon Dieu!_ no! I like to be my own mistress. I had my little
excursions with a friend who was in prison with me,--a good little girl
as can be: they call her Rigolette, because she is always laughing."
"Rigolette! Rigolette! I don't know her," said the Chourineur, who
appeared to be appealing to his memory.
"I didn't think you knew her. I am sure Rigolette was very well behaved
in prison, and always so gay and so industrious, she took out with her
when she left the prison at least four hundred francs that she had
earned. And then she is so particular!--you should see her! When I say I
had no one to advise me, I am wrong: I ought to have listened to her;
for, after having had a week's amusement together, she said to me, 'Now
we have had such a holiday, we ought to try for work, and not spend our
money in waste.' I, who was so happy in the fields and the woods,--it
was just at the end of spring, this year,--I answered, 'Oh, I must be
idle a little longer, and then I will work hard.' Since that time I have
not seen Rigolette, but I heard a few days since that she was living
near the Temple,--that she was a famous needlewoman, and earned at least
twenty-five sous a-day, and has a small workroom of her own; but now I
could not for the world see her again,--I should die with shame if I met
her."
"So, then, my poor girl," said Rodolph, "you spent your money in the
country,--you like the country, do you?"
"Like it? I love it! Oh, what would I not give to live there? Rigolette,
on the contrary, prefers Paris, and likes to walk on the Boulevards; but
she is so nice and so kind, she went into the country only to please
me."
"And you did not even leave yourself a few sous to live upon whilst you
found work?" said the Chourineur.
"Yes, I had reserved about fifty francs; but it happened that I had for
my washerwoman a woman called Lorraine, a poor thing, with none but the
good God to protect her. She was then very near her confinement, and yet
was obliged all day long to be with her hands and feet in her
washing-tubs. She fell sick, and, not being able to work, applied for
admittance to a lying-in hospital, but there was no room. She could not
work, and her time was very near at hand, and she had not a son to pay
for the bed in a garret, from which they drove her. Fortunately, she met
one day, at the end of the Pont Notre-Dame, with Goubin's wife, who had
been hiding for four days in a cellar of a house which was being pulled
down behind the Hôtel Dieu--"
"But why was Goubin's wife hiding?"
"To escape from her husband, who threatened to kill her; and she only
went out at night to buy some bread, and it was then she met with the
poor Lorraine, ill, and hardly able to drag herself along, for she was
expecting to be brought to bed every hour. Well, it seems this Goubin's
wife took her to the cellar where she was hiding,--it was just a
shelter, and no more. There she shared her bread and straw with the poor
Lorraine, who was confined in this cellar of a poor little infant; her
only covering and bed was straw! Well, it seems that Goubin's wife could
not bear it, and so, going out at all risks, even of being killed by her
husband, who was looking for her everywhere, she left the cellar in open
day, and came to me. She knew I had still a little money left, and that
I could assist her if I would; so, when Helmina had told me all about
poor Lorraine, who was obliged to lie with her new-born babe on straw, I
told her to bring them both to my room at once, and I would take a
chamber for her next to mine. This I did; and, oh, how happy she was,
poor Lorraine, when she found herself in a bed, with her babe beside her
in a little couch which I had bought for her! Helmina and I nursed her
until she was able to get about again, and then, with the rest of my
money, I enabled her to return to her washing-tubs."
"And when all your money was spent on Lorraine and her infant, what did
you do, my child?" inquired Rodolph.
"I looked out for work; but it was too late. I can sew very well, I have
good courage, and thought that I had only to ask for work and get it.
Ah! how I deceived myself! I went into a shop where they sell ready-made
linen, and asked for employment, and as I would not tell a story, I said
I had just left prison. They showed me the door, without making me any
answer. I begged they would give me a trial, and they pushed me into the
street as if I had been a thief. Then I remembered, too late, what
Rigolette had told me. Little by little I sold my small stock of clothes
and linen, and when all was gone they turned me out of my lodging. I had
not tasted food for two days; I did not know where to sleep. At this
moment I met the ogress and one of her old women who knew where I
lodged, and was always coming about me since I left prison. They told me
they would find me work, and I believed them. I went with them, so
exhausted for want of food that my senses were gone. They gave me brandy
to drink, and--and--here I am!" said the unhappy creature, hiding her
face in her hands.
"Have you lived a long time with the ogress, my poor girl?" asked
Rodolph, in accents of the deepest compassion.
"Six weeks, sir," replied Goualeuse, shuddering as she spoke.
"I see,--I see," said the Chourineur; "I know you now as well as if I
were your father and mother, and you had never left my lap. Well, well,
this is a confession indeed!"
"It makes you sad, my girl, to tell the story of your life," said
Rodolph.
"Alas! sir," replied Fleur-de-Marie, sorrowfully, "since I was born this
is the first time it ever happened to me to recall all these things at
once, and my tale is not a merry one."
"Well," said the Chourineur, ironically, "you are sorry, perhaps, that
you are not a kitchen-wench in a cook-shop, or a servant to some old
brutes who think of no one but themselves."
"Ah!" said Fleur-de-Marie, with a deep sigh, "to be quite happy, we must
be quite virtuous."
"Oh, what is your little head about now?" exclaimed the Chourineur, with
a loud burst of laughter. "Why not count your rosary in honour of your
father and mother, whom you never knew?"
"My father and mother abandoned me in the street like a puppy that is
one too many in the house; perhaps they had not enough to feed
themselves," said Goualeuse, with bitterness. "I want nothing of
them,--I complain of nothing,--but there are lots happier than mine."
"Yours! Why, what would you have? You are as handsome as a Venus, and
yet only sixteen and a half; you sing like a nightingale, behave
yourself very prettily, are called Fleur-de-Marie, and yet you complain!
What will you say, I should like to know, when you will have a stove
under your 'paddlers,' and a chinchilla boa, like the ogress?"
"Oh, I shall never be so old as she is."
"Perhaps you have a charm for never growing any older?"
"No; but I could not lead such a life. I have already a bad cough."
"Ah, I see you already in the 'cold-meat box.' Go along, you silly
child, you!"
"Do you often have such thoughts as these, Goualeuse?" said Rodolph.
"Sometimes. You, perhaps, M. Rodolph, understand me. In the morning,
when I go to buy my milk from the milkwoman at the corner of Rue de la
Vieille-Draperie, with the sous which the ogress gives me, and see her
go away in her little cart drawn by her donkey, I do envy her so, and I
say to myself, 'She is going into the country, to the pure air, to her
home and her family;' and then I return alone into the garret of the
ogress, where you cannot see plainly even at noonday."
"Well, child, be good--laugh at your troubles--be good," said the
Chourineur.
"Good! _mon Dieu!_ and how do you mean be good? The clothes I wear
belong to the ogress, and I am in debt to her for my board and lodging.
I can't stir from her; she would have me taken up as a thief. I belong
to her, and I must pay her."
When she had uttered these last words, the unhappy girl could not help
shuddering, and a tear trembled in her long eyelashes.
"Well, but remain as you are, and do not compare yourself to a country
milkwoman," said the Chourineur. "Are you taking leave of your senses?
Only think, you may yet cut a figure in the capital, whilst the
milkwoman must boil the pot for her brats, milk her cows, gather grass
for her rabbits, and, perhaps, after all, get a black eye from her
husband when he comes home from the pot-house. Why, it is really
ridiculous to hear you talk of envying her."
The Goualeuse did not reply; her eye was fixed, her heart was full, and
the expression of her face was painfully distressed. Rodolph had
listened to the recital, made with so painful a frankness, with deep
interest. Misery, destitution, ignorance of the world, had weighed down
this wretched girl, cast at sixteen years of age on the wide world of
Paris!
Rodolph involuntarily thought of a beloved child whom he had lost,--a
girl, dead at six years of age, and who, had she survived, would have
been, like Fleur-de-Marie, sixteen years and a half old. This
recollection excited the more highly his solicitude for the unhappy
creature whose narration he had just heard.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOURINEUR'S HISTORY.
The reader has not forgotten the two guests at the _tapis-franc_ who
were watched so closely by the third individual who had come into the
cabaret. We have said that one of these fellows, who had on a Greek cap,
and concealed his left hand with much care, asked the ogress if the
Schoolmaster and Gros-Boiteux had not arrived.
During the story of the Goualeuse, which they could not overhear, they
had been constantly talking in a very low tone, throwing occasional
hurried glances at the door. He who wore the Greek cap said to his
comrade, "The Gros-Boiteux does not 'show,' nor the Schoolmaster."
"Perhaps the Skeleton has 'done for him,' and made off with the 'swag.'"
"A precious 'go' that would be for us, who 'laid the plant,' and look
out for our 'snacks,'" replied the other.
The newcomer, who observed the two men, was seated too far off to hear a
word they said, but, after having cautiously consulted a small paper
concealed at the bottom of his cap, he appeared satisfied with his
remarks, rose from the table, and said to the ogress, who was sleeping
at the bar, with her feet on the stove, and her great cat on her knee:
"I say, Mother Ponisse, I shall soon be back again; take care of my
pitcher and my plate; I don't want any one to make free with them."
"Make yourself easy, my fine fellow," said Mother Ponisse; "if your
plate and pitcher are empty, no one will touch them."
The newcomer laughed loudly at the joke of the ogress, and then slipped
out, so that his departure was unnoticed. At that moment when this man
retired, and before the door could be shut, Rodolph saw the
charcoal-dealer, whose black face and tall form we have already alluded
to, and he had just time to manifest to him, by an impatient gesture,
how much he disliked his watchful attendance; but the charcoal-man did
not appear to heed this in the least, and still kept hanging about the
_tapis-franc_. The countenance of the Goualeuse became still more
saddened; with her back to the wall, her head drooping on her bosom, her
full blue eyes gazing mechanically about her, the unfortunate being
seemed bowed down with the weight of her oppressive thoughts. Two or
three times, having met Rodolph's fixed look, she turned away, unable to
account to herself for the singular impression which the unknown had
caused her. Weighed down and abashed at his presence, she almost
regretted having made so candid a narrative to him of her unhappy life.
The Chourineur, on the contrary, was quite in high spirits; he had
devoured the whole harlequin without the least assistance; the wine and
brandy had made him very communicative; the fact of his having found his
master, as he called him, had been forgotten in the generous conduct of
Rodolph; and he also detected so decided a physical superiority, that
his humiliation had given way to a sentiment of admiration, mingled with
fear and respect. This absence of rancour, and the savage pride with
which he boasted of never having robbed, proved that the Chourineur was
not as yet thoroughly hardened. This had not escaped the sagacity of
Rodolph, and he awaited the man's recital with curiosity.
"Now, my boy," said he, "we are listening."
The Chourineur emptied his glass, and thus began:
"You, my poor girl, were at last taken to by the Chouette, whom the
devil confound! You never had a shelter until the moment when you were
imprisoned as a vagabond. I can never recollect having slept in what is
called a bed before I was nineteen years of age,--a happy age!--and then
I became a trooper."
"What, you have served, then, Chourineur?" said Rodolph.
"Three years; but you will hear all about it: the stones of the Louvre,
the lime-kilns of Clichy, and the quarries of Montrouge, these were the
hôtels of my youth. Then I had my house in Paris and in the country. Who
but I--"
"And what was your trade?"
"Faith, master, I have a foggy recollection of having strolled about in
my childhood with an old rag-picker, who almost thumped me to death; and
it must be true, for I have never since met one of these old Cupids,
with a wicker-work quiver, without a longing to pitch into him,--a proof
that one of them must have thumped me when I was a child. My first
employment was to help the knackers to cut the horses' throats at
Montfauçon. I was about ten or twelve. When I began to slash
(_chouriner_) these poor old beasts, it had quite an impression on me.
At the month's end I thought no more about it; on the contrary, I began
to like my trade. No one had his knife so sharpened and keen-edged as
mine; and that made me rejoice in using it. When I had cut the animals'
throats, they gave me for my trouble a piece of the thigh of some animal
that had died of disease; for those that they slaughter are sold to the
'cag-mag' shops near the School of Medicine, who convert it into beef,
mutton, veal, or game, according to the taste of purchasers. However,
when I got to my morsel of horse's flesh, I was as happy as a king! I
went with it into the lime-kiln like a wolf to his lair, and then, with
the leave of the lime-burners, I made a glorious fry on the ashes. When
the burners were not at work, I picked up some dry wood at Romainville,
set light to it, and broiled my steak under the walls of the bone-house.
The meat certainly was bloody, and almost raw, but that made a change."
"And your name? What did they call you?" asked Rodolph.
"I had hair much more flaxen than now, and the blood was always in my
eyes, and so they called me the 'Albino.' The Albinos are the white
rabbits amongst men; they have red eyes," added the Chourineur, in a
grave tone, and, as it were, with a physiological parenthesis.
"And your relations? your family?"
"My relations? Oh! they lodge at the same number as the Goualeuse's.
Place of my birth? Why, the first corner of no-matter-what street,
either on the right or left-hand side of the way, and either going up or
coming down the kennel."
"Then you have cursed your father and mother for having abandoned you?"
"Why, that would not have set my leg if I had broken it! No matter;
though it's true they played me a scurvy trick in bringing me into the
world. But I should not have complained if they had made me as beggars
ought to be made; that is to say, without the sense of cold, hunger, or
thirst. Beggars who don't like thieving would find it greatly to their
advantage."
"You were cold, thirsty, hungry, Chourineur, and yet you did not steal?"
"No; and yet I was horribly wretched. It's a fact, that I have often
gone with an empty bread-basket (fasted) for two days at a time: that
was more than my share; but I never stole."
"For fear of a gaol?"
"Pooh!" said the Chourineur, shrugging his shoulders, and laughing
loudly, "I should then not have stolen bread, for fear of getting my
allowance, eh? An honest man, I was famishing; a thief, I should have
been supported in prison, and right well, too! But I did not steal,
because--because--why, because the idea of stealing never came across
me; so that's all about it!"
This reply, noble as it was in itself, but of the rectitude of which the
Chourineur himself had no idea, perfectly astonished Rodolph. He felt
that the poor fellow who had remained honest in the midst of the most
cruel privations was to be respected twofold, since the punishment of
the crime became a certain resource for him. Rodolph held out his hand
to this ill-used savage of civilisation, whom misery had been unable
wholly to corrupt. The Chourineur looked at his host in
astonishment,--almost with respect; he hardly dared to touch the hand
tendered to him. He felt impressed with some vague idea that there was a
wide abyss between Rodolph and himself.
"'Tis well," said Rodolph to him, "you have heart and honour."
"Heart? honour? what, I? Come, now, don't chaff me," he replied, with
surprise.
"To suffer misery and hunger rather than steal, is to have heart and
honour," said Rodolph, gravely.
"Well, it may be," said the Chourineur, as if thinking, "it may be so."
"Does it astonish you?"
"It really does; for people don't usually say such things to me; they
generally treat me as they would a mangy dog. It's odd, though, the
effect what you say has on me. Heart! honour!" he repeated, with an air
which was actually pensive.
"Well, what ails you?"
"I' faith, I don't know," replied the Chourineur, in a tone of emotion;
"but these words, do you see, they quite make my heart beat; and I feel
more flattered than if any one told me I was a 'better man' than either
the Skeleton or the Schoolmaster. I never felt anything like it before.
Be sure, though, that these words, and the blows of the fist at the end
of my tussle,--you did lay 'em on like a good 'un,--not alluding to what
you pay for the supper, and the words you have said--in a word," he
exclaimed, bluntly, as if he could not find language to express his
thoughts, "make sure that in life or death you may depend on the
Chourineur."
Rodolph, unwilling to betray his emotion, replied in a tone as calm as
he could assume, "How long did you go on as an amateur knacker?"
"Why, at first, I was quite sick of cutting up old worn-out horses, who
could not even kick; but when I was about sixteen, and my voice began to
get rough, it became a passion--a taste--a relish--a rage--with me to
cut and slash. I did not care for anything but that; not even eating and
drinking. You should have seen me in the middle of my work! Except an
old pair of woollen trousers, I was quite naked. When, with my large and
well-whetted knife in my hand, I had about me fifteen or twenty horses
waiting their turn, by Jupiter! when I began to slaughter them, I don't
know what possessed me,--I was like a fury. My ears had singing in them,
and I saw everything _red_,--all was red; and I slashed, and slashed,
and slashed, until my knife fell from my hands! Thunder! what happiness!
Had I had millions, I could have paid them to have enjoyed my trade!"
"It is that which has given you the habit of stabbing," said Rodolph.
"Very likely; but when I was turned of sixteen, the passion became so
strong that when I once began slashing, I became mad; I spoiled my work;
yes, I spoiled the skins, because I slashed and cut them across and
across; for I was so furious that I could not see clearly. At last they
turned me out of the yard. I wanted employment with the butchers, for I
have always liked that sort of business. Well, they quite looked down
upon me; they despised me as a shoemaker does a cobbler. Then I had to
seek my bread elsewhere, and I didn't find it very readily; and this was
the time when my bread-basket was so often empty. At length I got
employment in the quarries at Montrouge; but, at the end of two years, I
was tired of going always around like a squirrel in his cage, and
drawing stone for twenty sous a day. I was tall and strong, and so I
enlisted in a regiment. They asked my name, my age, and my papers. My
name?--the Albino. My age?--look at my beard. My papers?--here's the
certificate of the master quarryman. As I was just the fellow for a
grenadier, they took me."
"With your strength, courage, and taste for chopping and slashing, you
ought, in war-time, to have been made an officer."
"Thunder and lightning! what do you say? What! to cut up English or
Prussians! Why, that would have been better than to cut up old horses;
but, worse luck, there was no war, but a great deal of discipline. An
apprentice tries to hit his master a thump; well, if he be the weaker,
why, he gets the worst of it; if he be the stronger, he has the best of
it; he is turned out-of-doors, perhaps put into the cage,--and that is
all. In the army it is quite a different thing. One day our sergeant had
bullied me a good deal, to make me more attentive,--he was right, for I
was very slow; I did not like a poke he gave me, and I kicked at him; he
pushed me again, I returned his poke; he collared me, and I gave him a
punch of the head. They fell on me, and then my blood was up in my eyes,
and I was enraged in a moment. I had my knife in my hand--I belonged to
the cookery--and I 'went it my hardest.' I cut, slashed,--slashed,
chopped, as if I was in the slaughter-house. I made 'cold meat' of the
sergeant, wounded two soldiers,--it was a real shambles; I gave the
three eleven wounds,--yes, eleven. Blood flowed, flowed everywhere,
blood, as though we were in the bone-house,--I swam in it--"
The brigand lowered his head with a sombre, sullen air, and was silent.
"What are you thinking of, Chourineur?" asked Rodolph, with interest.
"Nothing," he replied, abruptly; and then, with an air of brutish
carelessness, he added, "At length they handcuffed me, and brought me
before the 'big wigs,' and I was cast for death."
"You escaped, however?"
"True; but I had fifteen years at the galleys instead of being
'scragged.' I forgot to tell you that whilst in the regiment I had saved
two of my comrades from drowning in the Marne, when we were quartered at
Milan. At another time,--you will laugh, and say I am amphibious either
in fire or water when saving men or women,--at another time, being in
garrison at Rouen, all the wooden houses in one quarter were on fire,
and burning like so many matches. I am the lad for a fire, and so I went
to the place in an instant. They told me that there was an old woman who
was bedridden, and could not escape from her room, which was already in
flames. I went towards it, and, by Jove! how it did burn; it reminded me
of the lime-kilns in my happy days. However, I saved the old woman,
although I had the very soles of my feet scorched. Thanks to my having
done these things, and the cunning of my advocate, my sentence was
changed, and, instead of being 'scragged,' I was only sent to the hulks
for fifteen years. When I found that my life would be spared, and I was
to go to the galleys, I would have jumped upon the babbling fool, and
twisted his neck, at the moment when he came to wish me joy, and to tell
me he had saved my life, and be hanged to him! only they prevented me."
"Were you sorry, then, to have your sentence commuted?"
"Yes; for those who sport with the knife, the headsman's steel is the
proper fate; for those who steal, the 'darbies' to their heels: each his
proper punishment. But to force you to live amongst galley-slaves, when
you have a right to be guillotined out of hand, is infamous; and,
besides, my life, when I first went to the Bagne, was rather queer; one
don't kill a man, and soon forget it, you must know."
"You feel some remorse, then, Chourineur?"
"Remorse? No; for I have served my time," said the savage; "but at
first, a night did not pass but I saw--like a nightmare--the sergeant
and soldiers whom I had slashed and slaughtered; that is, they were not
alone," added the brigand, in a voice of terror; "these were in tens,
and dozens, and hundreds, and thousands, each waiting his turn, in a
kind of slaughter-house, like the horses whose throats I used to cut at
Montfauçon, awaiting each his turn. Then, then, I saw _red_, and began
to cut and slash away on these men as I used formerly to do on the
horses. The more, however, I chopped down the soldiers, the faster the
ranks filled up with others; and as they died, they looked at one with
an air so gentle,--so gentle, that I cursed myself for killing 'em; but
I couldn't help it. That was not all. I never had a brother; and yet it
seemed as if every one of those whom I killed was my brother, and I
loved all of them. At last, when I could bear it no longer, I used to
wake covered all over with sweat, as cold as melting snow."
"That was a horrid dream, Chourineur!"
"It was; yes. That dream, do you see, was enough to drive one mad or
foolish; so, twice, I tried to kill myself, once by swallowing
verdigris, and another time by trying to choke myself with my chain;
but, confound it, I am as strong as a bull. The verdigris only made me
thirsty; and as for the twist of the chain round my neck, why, that
only gave me a natural cravat of a blue colour. Afterwards, the desire
of life came back to me, nay nightmare ceased to torment me, and I did
as others did."
"At the Bagne, you were in a good school for learning how to thieve?"
"Yes, but it was not to my taste. The other 'prigs' bullied me; but I
soon silenced them with a few thumps of my chain. It was in this way I
first knew the Schoolmaster; and I must pay him the compliment due to
his blows,--he paid me off as you did some little time ago."
"He is, then, a criminal who has served his time?"
"He was sentenced for life, but escaped."
"Escaped, and not denounced?"
"I'm not the man to denounce him. Besides, it would seem as if I were
afraid of him."
"But how is it that the police do not detect him? Have they not got his
description?"
"His description? Oh! yes, yes; but it is long since he has scraped out
from his phiz what nature had placed there; now, none but the 'baker who
puts the condemned in his oven' (the devil) could recognise him" (the
Schoolmaster).
"What has he done to himself?"
"He began by destroying his nose, which was an ell long; he ate it off
with vitriol."
"You jest."
"If he comes in this evening, you'll see. He had a nose like a parrot,
and now it is as flat as in a death's head; to say nothing of his lips,
which are as thick as your fist, and his face, which is as wrinkled as
the waistcoat of a rag-picker."
"And so he is not recognised?"
"It is six months since he escaped from Rochefort, and the 'traps' have
met him a hundred times without knowing him."
"Why was he at the Bagne?"
"For having been a forger, thief, and assassin. He is called the
Schoolmaster because he wrote a splendid hand, and has had a good
education."
"And is he much feared?"
"He will not be any longer, when you have given him such a licking as
you gave me. Oh, by Jove, I am anxious to see it!"
"What does he do for a living?"
"He is associated with an old woman as bad as himself, and as deep as
the 'old one;' but she is never seen, though he has told the ogress that
some day or other he would bring his 'mot' (woman) with him."
"And this women helps him in his robberies?"
"Yes, and in his murders too. They say he brags of having already, with
her assistance, 'done for' two or three persons; and, amongst others,
three weeks ago, a cattle-dealer on the road to Poissy, whom they also
robbed."
"He will be taken sooner or later."
"They must be very cunning, as well as powerful, to do that, for he
always has under his blouse a brace of loaded pistols and a dagger. He
says that Charlot (the executioner) waits for him, and he can only lose
his head once, and so he will kill all he can kill to try and escape.
Oh! he makes no mystery of it; and as he is twice as strong as you and
I, they will have a tough job who take him."
"What did you do, Chourineur, when you left the Bagne?"
"I offered myself to the master-lighterman of the Quai St. Paul, and I
get my livelihood there."
"But as you have never been a 'prig,' why do you live in the Cité?"
"Why, where else can I live? Who likes to be seen with a discharged
criminal? I should be tired of always being alone, for I like company,
and here I am with my equals. I have a bit of a row sometimes, and they
fear me like fire in the Cité; but the police have nothing to say to
me, except now and then for a 'shindy,' for which they give me, perhaps,
twenty-four hours at the watch-house, and there's an end of that."
"What do you earn a day?"
"Thirty-five sous for taking in the river foot-baths, up to the stomach
from twelve to fifteen hours a day, summer and winter; but let me be
just, and tell the truth; so if, through having my toes in the water, I
get the _grenouille_,[7] I am allowed to break my arms in breaking up
old vessels, and unloading timber on my back. I begin as a beast of
burden, and end like a fish's tail. When I lose my strength entirely, I
shall take a rake and a wicker basket, like the old rag-picker whom I
see in the recollections of my childhood."
[7] A disease of the skin to which all who work in the water are
liable.
"And yet you are not unhappy."
"There are worse than I am; and without my dreams of the sergeant and
soldiers with their throats cut,--for I have the dream still
sometimes,--I could quietly wait for the moment when I should drop down
dead at the corner of some dunghill, like that at which I was born; but
the dream--the dream--by heaven and earth! I don't like even to think of
that," said the Chourineur, and he emptied his pipe at the corner of the
table.
The Goualeuse had hardly listened to the Chourineur; she seemed wholly
absorbed in a deep and melancholy reverie. Rodolph himself was pensive.
A tragic incident occurred, which brought these three personages to a
recollection of the spot in which they were.
CHAPTER V.
THE ARREST.
The man who had gone out for a moment, after having requested the ogress
to look after his jug and plate, soon returned, accompanied by a tall,
brawny man, to whom he said, "It was a chance to meet in this way, old
fellow! Come in, and let us have a glass together."
The Chourineur said, in a low voice, to Rodolph and the Goualeuse,
pointing to the newcomer, "We shall have a row. He's a 'trap.' Look out
for squalls."
The two ruffians, one of whom, with the Greek skull-cap pulled over his
brows, had inquired several times for the Schoolmaster and the
Gros-Boiteux, exchanged rapid glances of the eye, and, rising suddenly
from the table, went towards the door; but the two police officers,
uttering a peculiar note, seized them. A fierce struggle ensued. The
door of the tavern opened, and all of the policemen dashed into the
room, whilst, outside, were seen the muskets of the _gens-d'armes_.
Taking advantage of the tumult, the charcoal-seller, of whom we have
spoken, advanced to the threshold of the _tapis-franc_, and, meeting the
eye of Rodolph, he put to his lips the forefinger of his right hand.
Rodolph, with a gesture as rapid as it was imperious, desired him to go,
and then turned his attention to the scene before him. The man with the
Greek skull-cap shrieked with rage, and, half extended on a table,
struggled so desperately, that three men could scarcely hold him. His
companion, enfeebled, dejected, with livid aspect and pale lips, his
lower jaw fallen, and shaking convulsively, made no resistance, but
held out his hands to be enclasped by the handcuffs. The ogress, seated
at her bar, and used to such scenes, remained motionless, with her hands
in the pockets of her apron.
"What have these fellows done, my dear M. Narcisse Borel?" inquired she
of one of the policemen whom she knew.
"Killed an old woman yesterday in the Rue St. Christophe, and robbed her
chamber. Before she died, the poor old thing said that she had bitten
one of her murderers in the hand. We had our eyes on these two
scoundrels; and my comrade, having come to make sure of his men, why, we
have made free to take them."
"How lucky they paid me beforehand for their pint!" said the ogress.
"Won't you take a dram o' nothin' 'short,' M. Narcisse? Just a 'go' of
'Ratifi' of the Column.'"
"Thanks, Mother Ponisse, but I must make sure of my game; one fellow
shows fight still."
The assassin in the Greek cap was furious with rage, and when they tried
to get him into a hackney-coach which was waiting in the street, he
resisted so stoutly that they were obliged to carry him. His accomplice,
seized with a nervous tremor, could hardly support himself, and his blue
lips trembled as though he were speaking. They threw him, helpless and
unresisting, into the vehicle. Before he left the _tapis-franc_, the
head officer looked attentively at the other guests assembled, and said
to the Chourineur, in a tone almost kind:
"What, you here, you bad lot? Why, it is a long time since we heard
anything of you. What, no more rows? Are you growing steady?"
"Steady as a stone figure. Why, you know that now I never break a head,
even if I am begged to do so!"
"Oh, I don't think that would cost you much trouble, strong as you
are."
"Yet here is my master," said the Chourineur, laying his hand on
Rodolph's shoulder.
"Stay, I do not know him," said the _agent de police_, looking
steadfastly at Rodolph.
"And I do not think we shall form an acquaintance now," replied he.
"I hope not, for your sake, my fine fellow," said the agent; then,
turning to the ogress, "Good night, Mother Ponisse; your _tapis-franc_
is a regular mouse-trap; this is the third assassin I have taken here."
"I hope it won't be the last, M. Narcisse; it is quite at your service,"
said the ogress, making a very insinuating nod with her head.
After the departure of the police, the young vagabond with the haggard
visage, who was smoking and drinking brandy, refilled his pipe, and said
in a hoarse voice to the Chourineur:
"Didn't you 'twig' the 'cove' in the Greek cap? He's Boulotte's man.
When I saw the traps walk in, I says to myself, says I, there's
something up; and then, too, I saw him keep his hand always under the
table."
"It's lucky for the Schoolmaster and Gros-Boiteux that they were not
here," said the ogress; "Greek cap asked twice for him, and said they
had business together; but I never turn 'nose' (informer) on any
customer. If they take them, very well,--every one to his trade; but I
never sell my friends. Oh, talk of the old gentleman, and you see his
horns," added the hag, as at the moment a man and woman entered the
cabaret; "here they are,--the Schoolmaster and his companion. Well, he
was right not to show her, for I never see such an ugly creetur in my
born days. She ought to be very much obliged to him for having taken up
with such a face."
At the name of the Schoolmaster, a sort of shudder seemed to circulate
amongst the guests of the _tapis-franc_. Rodolph, himself, in spite of
his natural intrepidity, could not wholly subdue a slight emotion at the
sight of this redoubtable ruffian, whom he contemplated for some
seconds with a mixed feeling of curiosity and horror. The Chourineur had
spoken truth when he said that the Schoolmaster was frightfully
mutilated. Nothing can be imagined more horrible than the countenance of
this man. His face was furrowed in all directions with deep, livid
cicatrices; the corrosive action of the vitriol had puffed out his lips;
the cartilages of his nose were divided, and two misshapen holes
supplied the loss of nostrils. His gray eyes were bright, small,
circular, and sparkled savagely; his forehead, as flat as a tiger's, was
half hidden beneath a fur cap, with long yellow hair, looking like the
crest of a monster.
The Schoolmaster was not more than five feet four or five; his head,
which was disproportionately large, was buried between two shoulders,
broad, powerful, and fleshy, displaying themselves even under the loose
folds of his coarse cotton blouse; he had long, muscular arms, hands
short, thick, and hairy to the very fingers' end, with legs somewhat
bowed, whose enormous calves betokened his vast strength. This man
presented, in fact, the exaggeration of what there is of short,
thickset, and condensed, in the type of the Hercules Farnese. As to the
expression of ferocity which suffused this hideous mask, and the
restless, wild, and glaring look, more like a wild beast than a human
being, it is impossible to describe them.
The woman who accompanied the Schoolmaster was old, and rather neatly
dressed in a brown gown, with a plaid shawl, of red and black check, and
a white bonnet. Rodolph saw her profile, and her green eye, hooked nose,
skinny lips, peaked chin, and countenance at once wicked and cunning,
reminded him involuntarily of La Chouette, that horrible old wretch who
had made poor Fleur-de-Marie her victim. He was just on the point of
saying this to the girl, when he saw her suddenly turn pale with fright,
whilst looking at the hideous companion of the Schoolmaster, and
seizing the arm of Rodolph with a trembling hand, the Goualeuse said, in
a low voice:
"Oh, the Chouette! the Chouette!--the one-eyed woman!"
At this moment the Schoolmaster, after having exchanged a few words in
an undertone with Barbillon, came slowly towards the table where
Rodolph, the Goualeuse, and the Chourineur were sitting, and addressing
himself to Fleur-de-Marie, in a hoarse voice, said:
"Ah, my pretty, fair miss, you must quit these two 'muffs,' and come
with me."
The Goualeuse made no reply, but clung to Rodolph, her teeth chattering
with fright.
"And I shall not be jealous of my man, my little _fourline_" (a pet word
for assassin), added the Chouette, laughing loudly. She had not yet
recognised in Goualeuse "Pegriotte," her old victim.
"Well, my little white face, dost hear me?" said the monster, advancing.
"If thou dost not come, I'll poke your eye out, and make you a match for
the Chouette. And thou with the moustache," he said to Rodolph, "if thou
dost not stand from between me and the wench, I'll crack thy crown."
"Defend me! oh, defend me!" cried Fleur-de-Marie to Rodolph, clasping
her hands. Then, reflecting that she was about to expose him to great
danger, she added, in a low voice, "No, no, do not move, Mister Rodolph;
if he comes nearer, I will cry out for help, and for fear of the
disturbance, which may call in the police, the ogress will take my
part."
"Don't be alarmed, my child," said Rodolph, looking calmly at the
Schoolmaster; "you are beside me,--don't stir; and as this ill-looking
scoundrel makes you as well as myself feel uncomfortable, I will kick
him out."
"Thou?" said the Schoolmaster.
"I!" said Rodolph. And, in spite of the efforts of the Goualeuse, he
rose from the table. Despite his hardihood, the Schoolmaster retreated a
step, so threatening were the looks, so commanding the deportment, of
Rodolph. There are peculiar glances of the eye which are irresistible,
and certain celebrated duellists are said to owe their bloody triumphs
to this fascinating glance, which unmans, paralyses, and destroys their
adversaries. The Schoolmaster trembled, retreated a step, and, for once,
distrustful of his giant strength, felt under his blouse for his long
cut-and-thrust knife. A murder would have stained the _tapis-franc_, no
doubt, if the Chouette, taking the Schoolmaster by the arm, had not
screamed out:
"A minute, a minute, _fourline_,--let me say a word! You shall walk into
these two 'muffs' all the same, presently."
The Schoolmaster looked at her with astonishment. For some minutes she
had been looking at Fleur-de-Marie with fixed and increasing attention,
as if trying to refresh her memory. At length no doubt remained, and she
recognised the Goualeuse.
"Is it possible?" she cried, clasping her hands in astonishment. "It is
Pegriotte, who stole my barley-sugar. But where do you come from? Is it
the devil who sends you back?" and she shook her clenched hand at the
young girl. "You won't come into my clutch again, eh? But be easy; if I
do not pull out your teeth, I will have out of your eyes every tear in
your body. Come, no airs and graces. You don't know what I mean. Why, I
have found out the people who had the care of you before you were handed
over to me. The Schoolmaster saw at the _Pré_ (the galleys) the man who
brought you to my 'crib' when you were a brat, and he has proofs that
the people who had you first were 'gentry coves'" (rich people).
"My parents! Do you know them?" cried Fleur-de-Marie.
"Never mind whether I know them or not, you shall know nothing about it.
The secret is mine and my _fourline's_, and I will tear out his tongue
rather than he shall blab it. What! it makes you snivel, does it,
Pegriotte?"
"Oh, no," said Goualeuse, with a bitterness of accent; "_now_ I do not
care ever to know my parents."
Whilst La Chouette was speaking, the Schoolmaster had resumed his
assurance, for, looking at Rodolph, he could not believe that a young
man of slight and graceful make could for a moment cope with him, and,
confident in his brutal force, he approached the defender of Goualeuse,
and said to the Chouette, in an imperious voice:
"Hold your jaw! I'll tackle with this swell, and then the fair lady may
think me more to her fancy than he is."
With one bound Rodolph leaped on the table.
"Take care of my plates!" shouted the ogress.
The Schoolmaster stood on his guard, his two hands in front, his chest
advanced, firmly planted on his legs, and arched, as it were, on his
brawny legs, which were like balusters of stone. At the moment when
Rodolph was springing at him, the door of the _tapis-franc_ opened with
violence, and the charcoal-man, of whom we have before spoken, and who
was upwards of six feet high, dashed into the apartment, pushed the
Schoolmaster on one side rudely, and coming up to Rodolph, said, in
German, in his ear:
"Monseigneur, the countess and her brother--they are at the end of the
street."
At these words Rodolph made an impatient and angry gesture, threw a
louis d'or on the bar of the ogress, and made for the door in haste. The
Schoolmaster attempted to arrest Rodolph's progress, but he, turning to
him, gave him two or three rapid blows with his fists over the nose and
eyes, and with such potent effect, that the beast staggered with very
giddiness, and fell heavily against a table, which alone prevented his
prostration on the floor.
"_Vive la Charte!_ those are _my_ blows,--I know them," cried the
Chourineur; "two or three more lessons like that, and I shall know all
about it."
Restored to himself after a few moments, the Schoolmaster darted off in
pursuit of Rodolph, but he had disappeared with the charcoal-man in the
dark labyrinth of the streets of the Cité, and the brigand found it
useless to follow.
At the moment when the Schoolmaster had returned, foaming with rage, two
persons, approaching from the opposite side to that by which Rodolph had
disappeared, entered into the _tapis-franc_, hastily, and out of breath,
as if they had been running far and fast. Their first impulse was to
look around the room.
"How unfortunate!" said one of them; "he has gone,--another opportunity
lost."
The two newcomers spoke in English. The Goualeuse, horror-struck at
meeting with the Chouette, and dreading the threats of the Schoolmaster,
took advantage of the tumult and confusion caused by the arrival of the
two fresh guests in the _tapis-franc_, and, quietly gliding out by the
half-opened door, left the cabaret.
CHAPTER VI.
THOMAS SEYTON AND THE COUNTESS SARAH.
The two persons who had just entered the _tapis-franc_ were quite of
another class from those who ordinarily frequented it. One, tall and
erect, had hair almost white, black eyebrows and whiskers, a long and
tanned face, with a stiff, formal air. His long frock coat was buttoned
up to the throat, _à la militaire_. We shall call this individual Thomas
Seyton. His companion was young, pale, and handsome, and appeared about
thirty-one or two years of age. His hair, eyebrows, and eyes were of a
deep black, which showed off the more fully the pure whiteness of his
face. By his step, the smallness of his stature, and the delicacy of his
features, it was easy to detect a woman in male habiliments. This female
was the Countess Sarah Macgregor. We will hereafter inform our readers
of the motives and events which had brought the countess and her brother
into this cabaret of the Cité.
"Call for something to drink, Thomas, and ask the people here about
_him_; perhaps they may give us some information," said Sarah, still
speaking English.
The man with white hair and black eyebrows sat down at a table, whilst
Sarah was wiping her forehead, and said to the ogress, in excellent
French, "Madame, let us have something to drink, if you please."
The entrance of these two persons into the _tapis-franc_ had excited
universal attention. Their dress, their manners, all announced that they
never frequented low drinking-shops, whilst, by their restless looks
and disturbed countenances, it might be judged that some very powerful
motives had led them hither. The Chourineur, the Schoolmaster, and the
Chouette viewed them with increasing curiosity.
Startled by the appearance of such strange customers, the ogress shared
in the general surprise. Thomas Seyton, a second time, and with an
impatient tone, said, "We have called for something to drink, ma'am;
pray let us have it."
Mother Ponisse, flattered by their courtesy of manner, left her bar,
and, coming towards her new guests, leaned her arms on their table, and
said, "Will you have a pint of wine in measure or a bottle?"
"A bottle of wine, glasses, and some water."
The ogress brought the supplies demanded, and Thomas Seyton threw her a
five-franc piece, and refused the change which she offered to him.
"Keep it, my good woman, for yourself, and perhaps you will take a glass
with us."
"You're uncommon purlite, sir," looking at the countess's brother with
as much surprise as gratitude.
"But tell me, now," said he; "we had appointed to meet a friend in a
cabaret in this street, and have, perhaps, mistaken the house in coming
here."
"This is the 'White Rabbit,' at your service, sir."
"That's right enough, then," said Thomas, making a sign to Sarah; "yes,
it was at the 'White Rabbit' that he was to give us the meeting."
"There are not two 'White Rabbits' in this street," said the ogress,
with a toss of her head. "But what sort of a person was your friend?"
"Tall, slim, and with hair and moustaches of light chestnut," said
Seyton.
"Exactly, exactly; that's the man who has just gone out. A charcoal-man,
very tall and stout, came in and said a few words to him, and they left
together."
"The very man we want to meet," said Tom.
"Were they alone here?" inquired Sarah.
"Why, the charcoal-man only came in for one moment; but your comrade
supped here with the Chourineur and Goualeuse;" and with a nod of her
head, the ogress pointed out the individual of the party who was left
still in the cabaret.
Thomas and Sarah turned towards the Chourineur. After contemplating him
for a few minutes, Sarah said, in English, to her companion, "Do you
know this man?"
"No; Karl lost all trace of Rodolph at the entrance of these obscure
streets. Seeing Murphy disguised as a charcoal-seller, keeping watch
about this cabaret, and constantly peeping through the windows, he was
afraid that something wrong was going on, and so came to warn us.
Murphy, no doubt, recognised him."
During this conversation, held in a very low tone, and in a foreign
tongue, the Schoolmaster said to the Chouette, looking at Tom and Sarah,
"The swell has shelled out a 'bull' to the ogress. It is just twelve,
rains and blows like the devil. When they leave the 'crib,' we will be
on their 'lay,' and draw the 'flat' of his 'blunt.' As his 'mot' is with
him, he'll hold his jaw."
If Tom and Sarah had heard this foul language, they would not have
understood it, and would not have detected the plot against them.
"Be quiet, _fourline_," answered the Chouette; "if the 'cull' sings out
for the 'traps,' I have my vitriol in my pocket, and will break the
phial in his 'patter-box.' Nothing like a drink to keep children from
crying," she added. "Tell me, darling, sha'n't we lay hands on Pegriotte
the first time we meet with her? And only let me once get her to our
place, and I'll rub her chops with my vitriol, and then my lady will no
longer be proud of her fine skin."
"Well said, Chouette; I shall make you my wife some day or other," said
the Schoolmaster; "you have no equal for skill and courage. On that
night with the cattle-dealer, I had an opportunity of judging of you;
and I said, 'Here's the wife for me; she works better than a man.'"
"And you said right, _fourline_; if the Skeleton had had a woman like me
at his elbow, he would not have been nabbed with his gully in the dead
man's weasand."
"He's done up, and now he will not leave the 'stone jug,' except to kiss
the headsman's daughter, and be a head shorter."
"What strange language these people talk!" said Sarah, who had
involuntarily heard the last few words of the conversation between the
Schoolmaster and the Chouette. Then she added, pointing to the
Chourineur, "If we ask this man some questions about Rodolph, perhaps he
may be able to answer them."
"We can but try," replied Thomas, who said to the Chourineur, "Comrade,
we expected to find in this cabaret a friend of ours; he supped with
you, I find. Perhaps, as you know him, you will tell us which way he has
gone?"
"I know him because he gave me a precious good hiding two hours ago, to
prevent me from beating Goualeuse."
"And have you never seen him before?"
"Never; we met by chance in the alley which leads to Bras Rouge's
house."
"Hostess, another bottle of the best," said Thomas Seyton.
Sarah and he had hardly moistened their lips, and their glasses were
still full; but Mother Ponisse, doubtless anxious to pay proper respect
to her own cellar, had frequently filled and emptied hers.
"And put it on the table where that gentleman sits, if he will permit,"
added Thomas, who, with Sarah, seated themselves beside the Chourineur,
who was as much astonished as flattered by such politeness.
The Schoolmaster and the Chouette were talking over their own dark plans
in low tones and "flash" language. The bottle being brought, and Sarah
and her brother seated with the Chourineur and the ogress, who had
considered a second invitation as superfluous, the conversation was
resumed.
"You told us, my good fellow, that you met our comrade Rodolph in the
house where Bras Rouge lives?" inquired Thomas Seyton, as he hob and
nobbed with the Chourineur.
"Yes, my good fellow," replied he, as he emptied his glass at a gulp.
"What a singular name is Bras Rouge! What is this Bras Rouge?"
"_Il pastique la maltouze_" (smuggles), said the Chourineur, in a
careless tone, and then added, "This is jolly good wine, Mother
Ponisse!"
"If you think so, do not spare it, my fine fellow," said Seyton, and he
filled the Chourineur's glass as he spoke.
"Your health, mate," said he, "and the health of your little friend,
who--but mum. 'If my aunt was a man, she'd be my uncle,' as the proverb
says. Ah! you sly rogue, I'm up to you!"
Sarah coloured slightly as her brother continued, "I did not quite
understand what you meant about Bras Rouge. Rodolph came from his house,
no doubt?"
"I told you that Bras Rouge _pastique la maltouze_."
Thomas regarded the Chourineur with an air of surprise.
"What do you mean by _pastique la mal_--What do you call it?"
"_Pastiquer la maltouze._ He smuggles, I suppose you would call it; but
it seems you can't 'patter flash?'"
"My fine fellow, I don't understand one word you say."
"I see you can't talk slang like M. Rodolph."
"Slang?" said Thomas Seyton, looking at Sarah with an astonished air.
"Ah! you are yokels; but comrade Rodolph is an out-and-out pal, he is.
Though only a fan-painter, yet he is as 'downy' in 'flash' as I am
myself. Well, since you can't speak this very fine language, I tell you,
in plain French, that Bras Rouge is a smuggler, and, besides that, has a
small tavern in the Champs Elysées. I say, without breaking faith, that
he is a smuggler, for he makes no secret of it, but owns it under the
very nose of the custom-house officers. Find him out, though, if you
can; Bras Rouge is a deep one."
"What could Rodolph want at the house of this man?" asked Sarah.
"Really, sir, or madam, which you please, I know nothing about anything,
as true as I drink this glass of wine. I was chaffing to-night with the
Goualeuse, who thought I was going to beat her, and she ran up Bras
Rouge's alley, and I after her; it was as dark as the devil. Instead of
hitting Goualeuse, however, I stumbled on Master Rodolph, who soon gave
me better than I sent. Such thumps! and especially those infernal
thwacks with his fist at last. My eyes! how hot and heavy they did fall!
But he's promised to teach me, and to--"
"And Bras Rouge, what sort of a person is he?" asked Tom. "What goods
does he sell?"
"Bras Rouge? Oh, by the Holy! he sells everything he is forbidden to
sell, and does everything which it is forbidden to do. That's his line,
ain't it, Mother Ponisse?"
"Oh! he's a boy with more than one string to his bow," answered the
ogress. "He is, besides, principal occupier of a certain house in the
Rue du Temple,--a rum sort of a house, to be sure; but mum," added she,
fearing to have revealed too much.
"And what is the address of Bras Rouge in that street?" asked Seyton of
the Chourineur.
"No. 13, sir."
"Perhaps we may learn something there," said Seyton, in a low voice, to
his sister. "I will send Karl thither to-morrow."
"As you know M. Rodolph," said the Chourineur, "you may boast the
acquaintance of a stout friend and a good fellow. If it had not been for
the charcoal-man, he would have 'doubled up' the Schoolmaster, who is
there in the corner with the Chouette. By the Lord! I can hardly contain
myself, when I see that old hag, and know how she behaved to the
Goualeuse,--but patience, 'a blow delayed is not a blow lost,' as the
saying is."
The Hotel de Ville clock struck midnight; the lamp of the tavern only
shed a dim and flickering light. Except the Chourineur and his two
companions, the Schoolmaster, and the Screech-owl, all the guests of the
_tapis-franc_ had retired one after the other.
The Schoolmaster said, in an undertone, to the Chouette, "If we go and
hide in the alley opposite, we shall see the swells come out, and know
which road they take. If they turn to the left, we can double upon them
at the turning of the Rue Saint Eloi; if to the right, we will wait for
them by the ruins close to the tripe-market. There's a large hole close
by, and I have a capital idea."
The Schoolmaster and the Chouette then went towards the door.
"You won't, then, take a 'drain' of nothin' to-night?" said the ogress.
"No, Mother Ponisse, we only came in to take shelter from the rain,"
said the Schoolmaster, as he and the Chouette went out.
CHAPTER VII.
"YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE."
The noise which was made by the shutting of the door aroused Tom and
Sarah from their reverie, and they rose, and, having thanked the
Chourineur for the information he had given them, the fellow went out,
the wind blowing very strongly, and the rain falling in torrents. The
Schoolmaster and the Chouette, hidden in an alley opposite the
_tapis-franc_, saw the Chourineur go down the street, in the direction
of the street in which the house in ruins was situated. His steps, which
were somewhat irregular, in consequence of the frequent libations of the
evening, were soon unheard amidst the whistling of the storm and the
sheets of rain which dashed against the walls. Sarah and Tom left the
tavern in spite of the tempest, and took a contrary direction to the
Chourineur.
"They're done for," said the Schoolmaster, in a low key, to the
Chouette; "out with your vitriol, and mind your eye."
"Let us take off our shoes, and then they won't hear us as we follow,"
suggested the Chouette.
"You are right,--always right; let us tread like cats, my old darling."
The two monsters took off their shoes, and moved stealthily along,
keeping in the shadows of the houses. By means of this stratagem they
followed so closely, that, although within a few steps of Sarah and Tom,
they did not hear them.
"Fortunately our hackney-coach is at the end of the street; the rain
falls in torrents. Are you not cold, Sarah?"
"Perhaps we shall glean something from this smuggler,--this Bras Rouge,"
said Sarah, in a thoughtful tone, and not replying to her brother's
inquiry.
He suddenly stopped, and said, "I have taken a wrong turning; I ought to
have gone to the right when I left the tavern; we must pass by a house
in ruins to reach the _fiacre_. We must turn back."
The Schoolmaster and the Chouette, who followed on the heels of their
intended victims, retreated into the dark porch of a house close at
hand, so that they might not be perceived by Tom and Sarah, who, in
passing, almost touched them with their elbows.
"I am glad they have gone that way," said the Schoolmaster, "for if the
'cove' resists, I have my own idea."
Sarah and her brother, having again passed by the _tapis-franc_, arrived
close to the dilapidated house, which was partly in ruins, and its
opened cellars formed a kind of gulf, along which the street ran in that
direction. In an instant, the Schoolmaster, with a leap resembling in
strength and agility the spring of a tiger, seized Seyton with one hand
by the throat, and exclaimed, "Your money, or I will fling you into this
hole!"
Then the brigand, pushing Seyton backwards, shoved him off his balance,
and with one hand held him suspended over the mouth of the deep
excavation; whilst, with his other hand, he grasped the arm of Sarah, as
if in a vice. Before Tom could make the slightest struggle, the Chouette
had emptied his pockets with singular dexterity. Sarah did not utter a
cry, nor try to resist; she only said, in a calm tone, "Give up your
purse, brother;" and then accosting the robber, "We will make no noise;
do not do us any injury."
The Chouette, having carefully searched the pockets of the two victims
of this ambush, said to Sarah, "Let's see your hands, if you've got any
rings. No," said the old brute, grumblingly, "no, not one ring. What a
shame!"
Tom Seyton did not lose his presence of mind during this scene, rapidly
and unexpectedly as it had occurred.
"Will you strike a bargain? My pocketbook contains papers quite useless
to you; return it to me, and to-morrow I will give you twenty-five louis
d'ors," said Tom to the Schoolmaster, whose hand relaxed something of
its fierce gripe.
"Oh! ah! to lay a trap to catch us," replied the thief. "Be off, without
looking behind you, and be thankful that you have escaped so well."
"One moment," said the Chouette; "if he behaves well, he shall have his
pocketbook. There is a way." Then, addressing Thomas Seyton, "You know
the plain of St. Denis?"
"I do."
"Do you know where St. Ouen is?"
"Yes."
"Opposite St. Ouen, at the end of the road of La Revolte, the plain is
wide and open. Across the fields, one may see a long way. Come there
to-morrow, quite alone, with your money in your hand; you will find me
and the pocketbook ready. Hand me the cash, and I will hand you the
pocketbook."
"But he'll trap you, Chouette."
"Oh, no, he won't; I'm up to him or any of his dodges. We can see a long
way off. I have only one eye, but that is a piercer; and if the 'cove'
comes with a companion, he won't find anybody; I shall have 'mizzled.'"
A sudden idea seemed to strike Sarah, and she said to the brigand, "Will
you like to gain some money?"
"Yes."
"Did you see, in the cabaret we have just left--for I know you
again--the man whom the charcoal-man came to seek?"
"A dandy with moustaches? Yes, I would have stuck it into the fellow,
but he did not give me time. He stunned me with two blows of his fists,
and upset me on the table,--for the first time that any man ever did so.
Curses on him! but I will be revenged."
"He is the man I mean," said Sarah.
"He?" cried the Schoolmaster, "a thousand francs, and I'll kill him."
"Wretch! I do not seek his life," replied Sarah to the Schoolmaster.
"What, then, would you have?"
"Come to-morrow to the plain of St. Denis; you will there find my
companion," she replied; "you will see that he is alone, and he will
tell you what to do. I will not give you one thousand, but two thousand,
francs, if you succeed."
"_Fourline_," said the Chouette, in a low tone, to the Schoolmaster,
"there's 'blunt' to be had; these are a 'swell' lot, who want to be
revenged on an enemy, and that enemy is the beggar that you wished to
'floor.' Let's go and meet him. I would go, if I were you. Fire and
smoke! Old boy, it will pay for looking after."
"Well, my wife shall be there," said the Schoolmaster; "you will tell
her what you want, and I shall see--"
"Be it so; to-morrow at one."
"At one o'clock."
"In the plain of St. Denis?"
"In the plain of St. Denis."
"Between St. Ouen and the road of La Revolte, at the end of the road?"
"Agreed."
"I will bring your pocketbook."
"And you shall have the five hundred francs I promised you, and we will
agree in the other matter, if you are reasonable."
"Now, you go to the right, and we to the left hand. Do not follow us, or
else--"
The Schoolmaster and the Chouette hurried off, whilst Tom and the
countess went in the other direction, towards Notre Dame.
A concealed witness had been present at this transaction; it was the
Chourineur, who had entered the cellars of the house to get shelter from
the rain. The proposal which Sarah made to the brigand respecting
Rodolph deeply interested the Chourineur, who, alarmed for the perils
which appeared about to beset his new friend, regretted that he could
not warn him of them. Perhaps his detestation of the Schoolmaster and
the Chouette might have something to do with this feeling.
The Chourineur resolved to inform Rodolph of the danger which threatened
him; but how? He had forgotten the address of the self-styled
fan-painter. Perhaps Rodolph would never again come to the
_tapis-franc_, and then how could he warn him? Whilst he was conning all
this over in his mind, the Chourineur had mechanically followed Tom and
Sarah, and saw them get into a coach which awaited them near Notre Dame.
The _fiacre_ started. The Chourineur got up behind, and at one o'clock
it stopped on the Boulevard de l'Observatoire, and Thomas and Sarah went
down a narrow entrance, which was close at hand. The night was pitch
dark, and the Chourineur, that he might know the next day the place
where he then was, drew from his pocket his clasp-knife, and cut a deep
notch in one of the trees at the corner of the entrance, and then
returned to his resting-place, which was at a considerable distance.
For the first time for a very long while, the Chourineur enjoyed in his
den a comfortable sleep, which was not once interrupted by the horrible
vision of the "Sergeant's slaughter-house," as, in his coarse language,
he styled it.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WALK.
On the day after the evening on which the various events we have
described had passed, a bright autumnal sun shone from a pure sky; the
darkness of the night had wholly disappeared. Although always shaded by
the height of the houses, the disreputable neighbourhood into which the
reader has followed us seemed less horrible when viewed in the light of
open day.
Whether Rodolph no longer feared meeting with the two persons whom he
had evaded the over-night, or did not care whether he faced them or not,
about eleven o'clock in the morning he entered the Rue aux Fêves, and
directed his steps towards the tavern of the ogress.
Rodolph was still in a workman's dress; but there was a decided neatness
in his costume. His new blouse, open on his chest, showed a red woollen
shirt, closed by several silver buttons; whilst the collar of another
shirt, of white cotton, fell over a black silk cravat, loosely tied
around his neck. From under his sky blue velvet cap, with a bright
leather peak, several locks of chestnut hair were seen; and his boots,
cleaned very brightly, and replacing the heavy iron shoes of the
previous evening, showed off to advantage a well-formed foot, which
seemed all the smaller from appearing out of a loose pantaloon of olive
velveteen. The costume was well calculated to display the elegant shape
and carriage of Rodolph, which combined so much grace, suppleness, and
power. The ogress was airing herself at her door when Rodolph presented
himself.
"Your servant, young man; you have come, no doubt, for your change of
the twenty francs," she said, with some show of respect, not venturing
to forget that the conqueror of the Chourineur had handed her a louis
d'or the previous evening. "There is seventeen francs ten sous coming to
you; but that's not all. There was somebody here asking after you last
night,--a tall gent, well dressed, and with him a young woman in men's
clothes. They drank my best wine along with the Chourineur."
"Oh, with the Chourineur, did they? And what could they have to say to
him?"
"When I say they drank, I make a mistake; they only just sipped a drain
or so, and--"
"But what did they say to the Chourineur?"
"Oh, they talked of all manner of things,--of Bras Rouge, and the rain,
and fine weather."
"Do they know Bras Rouge?"
"Not by no means; the Chourineur told 'em all about him, and as how as
you--"
"Well, well, that is not what I want to know."
"You want your change."
"Yes, and I want to take Goualeuse to pass the day in the country."
"Oh, that's impossible!"
"Why?"
"Why? Because she may never come back again. Her things belong to me,
not including as she owes me a matter of ninety francs as a balance for
her board and lodging, for the six weeks as she has lodged with me; and
if I didn't know her to be as honest a gal as is, I should never let her
go out of sight."
"Goualeuse owes you ninety francs?"
"Ninety francs ten sous; but what's that to you, my lad? Are you a-going
to come 'my lord,' and pay it for her?"
"Yes," said Rodolph, throwing five louis on the ogress's bar, "and
what's your price for the clothes she wears?"
The old hag, amazed, looked at the louis one after the other, with an
air of much doubt and mistrust.
"What! do you think I have given you bad money? Send and get change for
one of them; but make haste about it. I say, again, how much for the
garments the poor girl is wearing?"
The ogress, divided between her desire to make a good harvest, her
surprise to see a workman with so much money, the fear of being cheated,
and the hopes of still greater gain, was silent for an instant, and then
replied, "Oh, them things is well worth a hundred francs."
"What! those rags? Come, now, you shall keep the change from yesterday,
and I'll give you another louis, and no more. If I give you all I have,
I shall cheat the poor, who ought to get some alms out of me."
"Well, then, my fine fellow, I'll keep my things, and Goualeuse sha'n't
go out. I have a right to sell my things for what I choose."
"May Lucifer one day fry you as you deserve! Here's your money; go and
look for Goualeuse."
The ogress pocketed the gold, thinking that the workman had committed a
robbery, or received a legacy, and then said, with a nasty leer, "Well,
indeed! Why not go up-stairs, and find Goualeuse yourself; she'll be
very glad to see you, for, on my life, she was much smitten with you
yesterday?"
"Do you go and fetch her, and tell her I will take her into the country;
that's all you need say; not a word about my having paid you her debt."
"Why not?"
"What's that to you?"
"Oh, nothing; it's no matter to me; I would rather that she still
believed herself in my clutch--"
"Will you hold your tongue, and do as I bid you?"
"Oh, what a cross creetur you are! I pity anybody who is under you.
Well, I'm going, I'm going;" and the ogress went up-stairs.
After a few minutes she came down again.
"Goualeuse would not believe me, and really turned quite crimson when
she knew you were here; and when I told her that I would give her leave
to pass the day in the country, I thought she would have gone
crazy,--for the first time in her life she was inclined to throw her
arms about my neck."
"That was her delight at leaving you."
Fleur-de-Marie entered at this moment, dressed as she was the
over-night, with her gown of brown stuff, her little orange shawl tied
behind her, and her handkerchief of red checks over her head, leaving
only two thick bands of light hair visible. She blushed when she saw
Rodolph, and looked down with a confused air.
"Would you like to pass the day in the country with me, my lass?" asked
Rodolph.
"Very much, indeed, M. Rodolph," said Goualeuse, "since madame gives me
leave."
"Yes, yes, you may go, my little duck, because you're such a good gal.
Come and kiss me afore you go."
And the old beldam offered her bloated lips to Fleur-de-Marie. The poor
girl, overcoming her disgust, bent her forehead to the ogress, but
Rodolph, giving a sudden push with his elbow, shoved the hag back on her
seat, took Fleur-de-Marie's arm, and left the _tapis-franc_, amidst the
loud maledictions of Mother Ponisse.
"Mind, M. Rodolph," said Goualeuse; "the ogress will, perhaps, throw
something at you,--she is very spiteful."
"Oh, don't heed her, my girl. But what's the matter with you? You seem
embarrassed, sad. Are you sorry for having come out with me?"
"Oh, dear, no; but--but--you give me your arm!"
"Well, and what of that?"
"You are a workman, and some one may tell your master that they met you
with me, and harm may come of it; masters do not like their workmen to
be unsteady." And Goualeuse gently removed her arm from that of Rodolph,
adding, "Go on by yourself; I will follow you to the barrier; when we
are once in the fields I can walk with you."
"Do not be uneasy," said Rodolph, touched by the poor girl's
consideration, and taking her arm again; "my master does not live in
this quarter, and we shall find a coach on the Quai aux Fleurs."
"As you please, M. Rodolph; I only said so that you might not get into
trouble."
"I am sure of that, and thank you very much. But tell me, is it all the
same to you what part of the country we go into?"
"Yes, quite so, M. Rodolph, so that it be the country. It is so fine and
it is so nice to breathe the open air! Do you know that I have not been
farther than the flower-market for these six weeks? And now, if the
ogress allows me to leave the Cité, she must have great confidence in
me."
"And when you came here, was it to buy flowers?"
"Oh, no, I had no money; I only came to look at them, and breathe their
beautiful smell. During the half-hour which the ogress allowed me to
pass on the quay on market-days, I was so happy that I forgot everything
else."
"And on returning to the ogress, and those filthy streets?"
"Oh, why, then I returned more sad than when I set out; but I wiped my
eyes, that I might not be beaten for crying. Yet, at the market, what
made me envious--oh, so envious!--was to see neat, clean little
workwomen, who were going away so gaily with a beautiful pot of flowers
in their hands."
"I am sure that if you had had but a few flowers in your own window,
they would have kept you company."
"What you say is quite true, M. Rodolph. Only imagine, one day, on her
birthday, the ogress, knowing my taste, gave me a little rose-tree. If
you only knew how happy it made me,--I was never tired of looking at
it,--my own rose-tree! I counted its leaves, its flowers; but the air of
the Cité is bad, and it began to wither in two days. Then--but you'll
laugh at me, M. Rodolph."
"No, no; go on."
"Well, then, I asked the ogress to let me go out, and take my rose-tree
for a walk, as I would have taken a child out. Well, then, I carried it
to the quay, thinking that to be with other flowers in the fresh and
balmy air would do it good. I bathed its poor fading leaves in the clear
waters of the fountain, and then to dry it I placed it for a full
quarter of an hour in the sun. Dear little rose-tree! it never saw the
sun in the Cité any more than I did, for in our street it never descends
lower than the roof. At last I went back again, and I assure you, M.
Rodolph, that, thanks to these walks, my rose-tree lived at least ten
days longer than it would have done, had I not taken such pains with
it."
"No doubt of it. But when it died, what a loss it must have been to
you!"
"I cried heartily, for it grieved me very, very much; and you see, M.
Rodolph,--for you know one loves flowers, although one hasn't any of
one's own,--you see, I felt grateful to it, that dear rose-tree, for
blooming so kindly for me, although I was so--"
Goualeuse bent her head, and blushed deeply.
"Unhappy child! With this feeling of your own position, you must
often--"
"Have desired to end it, you mean, sir?" said Goualeuse, interrupting
her companion. "Yes, yes, more than once. A month ago I looked over the
parapet at the Seine; but then, when I looked at the flowers, and the
sun, then I said, 'The river will be always there; I am but sixteen and
a half,--who knows?'"
"When you said 'who knows,' you had hope?"
"Yes."
"And what did you hope?"
"To find some charitable soul who would get me work, so that I might be
enabled to leave the ogress; and this hope comforted me. Then I said to
myself, I am very wretched, but I have never injured anybody, and if I
had any one to advise me I should not be as I am. This lightened my
sorrow a little, though it had greatly increased at the loss of my
rose-tree," added Goualeuse, with a sigh.
"Always so very sad."
"Yes; but look, here it is."
And Goualeuse took from her pocket a little bundle of wood trimmed very
carefully, and tied with a rose-coloured bow.
"What, have you kept it?"
"I have, indeed; it is all I possess in the world."
"What, have you nothing else?"
"Nothing."
"This coral necklace?"
"Belongs to the ogress."
"And you have not a piece of riband, a cap, or handkerchief?"
"No, nothing,--nothing but the dead branches of my poor rose-tree; and
that is why I love it so."
When Rodolph and Goualeuse had reached the Quai aux Fleurs, a coach was
waiting there, into which Rodolph handed Goualeuse. He got in himself,
saying to the driver:
"To St. Denis; I will tell you presently which road to take."
The coach went on. The sun was bright, and the sky cloudless, whilst the
air, fresh and crisp, circulated freely through the open windows.
"Here is a woman's cloak!" said Goualeuse, remarking that she had seated
herself on the garment without having at first noticed it.
"Yes, it is for you, my child; I brought it with me for fear you should
be cold."
Little accustomed to such attention, the poor girl looked at Rodolph
with surprise.
"_Mon Dieu!_ M. Rodolph, how kind you are; I am really ashamed--"
"Because I am kind?"
"No; but you do not speak as you did yesterday; you appear quite another
person."
"Tell me, then, Fleur-de-Marie, which do you like best,--the Rodolph of
yesterday, or the Rodolph of to-day?"
"I like you better now; yet yesterday I seemed to be more your equal."
Then, as if correcting herself, and fearing to have annoyed Rodolph, she
said to him, "When I say your equal, M. Rodolph, I do not mean that I
can ever be that."
"One thing in you astonishes me very much, Fleur-de-Marie."
"And what is that, M. Rodolph?"
"You appear to have forgotten that the Chouette said to you yesterday
that she knew the persons who had brought you up."
"Oh! I have not forgotten it; I thought of it all night, and I cried
bitterly; but I am sure it is not true; she invented this tale to make
me unhappy."
"Yet the Chouette may know more than you think. If it were so, should
you not be delighted to be restored to your parents?"
"Alas, sir! if my parents never loved me, what should I gain by
discovering them? They would only see me and--But if they _did_ ever
love me, what shame I should bring on them! Perhaps I should kill them!"
"If your parents ever loved you, Fleur-de-Marie, they will pity,
pardon, and still love you. If they have abandoned you, then, when they
see the frightful destiny to which they have brought you, _their_ shame
and remorse will avenge you."
"What is the good of vengeance?"
"You are right; let us talk no more on the subject."
At this moment the carriage reached St. Ouen, where the road divides to
St. Denis and the Revolte. In spite of the monotony of the landscape,
Fleur-de-Marie was so delighted at seeing the fields, as she called
them, that, forgetting the sad thoughts which the recollection of the
Chouette had awakened in her, her lovely countenance grew radiant with
delight. She leaned out of the window, clasping her hands, and crying:
"M. Rodolph, how happy I am! Grass! Fields! May I get out? It is so
fine! I should so like to run in the meadows."
"Let us run, then, my child. Coachman, stop."
"What! You, too? Will you run, M. Rodolph?"
"I'm having a holiday."
"Oh! What pleasure!"
And Rodolph and Goualeuse, taking each other's hand, ran as fast as they
could over a long piece of latter-grass, just mowed. It would be
impossible to describe the leaps and exclamations of joy, the intense
delight, of Fleur-de-Marie. Poor lamb! so long a prisoner, she inspired
the free air with indescribable pleasure. She ran, returned, stopped,
and then raced off again with renewed happiness. At the sight of the
daisies and buttercups Goualeuse could not restrain her transport,--she
did not leave one flower which she could gather. After having run about
in this way for some time, she became rather tired, for she had lost the
habit of exercise, and stopped to take breath, sitting down on the trunk
of a fallen tree which was lying at the edge of a deep ditch.
[Illustration: "_She Proffered to Rodolph the Bouquet_"
Etching by Mercier, after the drawing by Frank T. Merrill]
The clear and white complexion of Fleur-de-Marie, generally rather pale,
was now heightened by the brightest colour. Her large blue eyes sparkled
brightly, her vermilion lips, partly opened to recover her breath,
displayed two rows of liquid pearls; her bosom throbbed under her
worn-out little orange shawl, and she placed one of her hands upon her
heart, as if to restrain its quickened pulsation, whilst with the other
hand she proffered to Rodolph the bouquet of field flowers which she had
just gathered. Nothing could be more charming than the combination of
innocence and pure joy which beamed on her expressive countenance. When
Fleur-de-Marie could speak, she said to Rodolph, with an accent of
supreme happiness and of gratitude, almost amounting to piety:
"How good is the great God to give us so fine a day!"
A tear came into Rodolph's eye when he heard this poor, forsaken,
despised, lost creature utter a cry of happiness and deep gratitude to
the Creator, because she enjoyed a ray of sunshine and the sight of a
green field. He was roused from his reverie by an unexpected
occurrence.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SURPRISE.
We have said that Goualeuse was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree,
at the edge of a deep ditch. Suddenly a man, springing up from the
bottom of this hollow, shook the rubbish from him under which he had
concealed himself, and burst into a loud fit of laughter. Goualeuse
turned around, screaming with alarm. It was the Chourineur.
"Don't be frightened, my girl," said the Chourineur, when he saw her
extreme fear, and that she had sought protection from her companion.
"Ah, Master Rodolph, here's a curious meeting, which I am sure neither
you nor I expected." Then he added, in a serious tone, "Listen, master.
People may say what they like, but there is something in the
air,--there, up there, above our heads, very wonderful; which seems to
say to a man, 'Go where I send you.' See how you two have been sent
here. It is devilish wonderful!"
"What are you doing there?" said Rodolph, greatly surprised.
"I was on the lookout in a matter of yours, master; but, thunder and
lightning! what a high joke that you should come at this particular
moment into this very neighbourhood of my country-house! There's
something in all this,--decidedly there is something."
"But again I ask you, what are you doing there?"
"All in good time, I'll tell you; only let me first look about me for a
moment."
The Chourineur then ran towards the coach, which was some distance off,
looked this way and that way over the plain with a keen and rapid
glance, and then rejoined Rodolph, running quickly.
"Will you explain to me the meaning of all this?"
"Patience, patience, good master; one word more. What's o'clock?"
"Half past twelve," said Rodolph, looking at his watch.
"All right; we have time, then. The Chouette will not be here for the
next half-hour."
"The Chouette!" cried Rodolph and the girl both at once.
"Yes, the Chouette; in two words, master, I'll tell you all. Yesterday,
after you had left the _tapis-franc_, there came--"
"A tall man with a woman in man's attire, who asked for me; I know all
about that, but then--"
"Then they paid for my liquor, and wanted to 'draw' me about you. I had
nothing to tell them, because you had communicated nothing to me, except
those fisticuffs which settled me. All I know is, that I learned
something then which I shall not easily forget. But we are friends for
life and death, Master Rodolph, though the devil burn me if I know why.
I feel for you the regard which the bulldog feels for his master. It was
after you told me that I had 'heart and honour;' but that's nothing, so
there's an end of it. It is no use trying to account for it; so it is,
and so let it be, if it's any good to you."
"Many thanks, my man; but go on."
"The tall man and the little lady in men's clothes, finding that they
could get nothing out of me, left the ogress's, and so did I; they going
towards the Palais de Justice, and I to Notre Dame. On reaching the end
of the street I found it was raining pitchforks, points downward,--a
complete deluge. There was an old house in ruins close at hand, and I
said to myself, 'If this shower is to last all night, I shall sleep as
well here as in my own "crib."' So I rolled myself into a sort of cave,
where I was high and dry; my bed was an old beam, and my pillow a heap
of lath and plaster, and there I slept like a king."
"Well, well, go on."
"We had drank together, Master Rodolph; I had drank, too, with the tall
man and the little woman dressed in man's clothes, so you may believe my
head was rather heavy, and, besides, nothing sends me off to sleep like
a good fall of rain. I began then to snooze, but I had not been long
asleep, I think, when, aroused by a noise, I sat up and listened. I
heard the Schoolmaster, who was talking in a friendly tone with
somebody. I soon made out that he was parleying with the tall man who
came into the _tapis-franc_ with the little woman dressed in man's
clothes."
"They in conference with the Schoolmaster and the Chouette?" said
Rodolph, with amazement.
"With the Schoolmaster and the Chouette; and they agreed to meet again
on the morrow."
"That's to-day!" said Rodolph.
"At one o'clock."
"This very moment!"
"Where the road branches off to St. Denis and La Revolte."
"This very spot!"
"Just as you say, Master Rodolph, on this very spot."
"The Schoolmaster! Oh, pray be on your guard, M. Rodolph," exclaimed
Fleur-de-Marie.
"Don't be alarmed, my child, he won't come; it's only the Chouette."
"How could the man who, with the female in disguise, sought me at the
_tapis-franc_, come into contact with these two wretches?" said Rodolph.
"I'faith I don't know, and I think I only awoke at the end of the
affair, for the tall man was talking of getting back his pocketbook,
which the Chouette was to bring here in exchange for five hundred
francs. I should say that the Schoolmaster had begun by robbing him, and
that it was after that that they began to parley, and to come to
friendly terms."
"It is very strange."
"_Mon Dieu!_ it makes me quite frightened on your account, M. Rodolph,"
said Fleur-de-Marie.
"Master Rodolph is no chicken, girl; but as you say, there may be
something working against him, and so I am here."
"Go on, my good fellow."
"The tall man and the little woman have promised two thousand francs to
the Schoolmaster to do to you--I don't know what. The Chouette is to be
here directly to return the pocketbook, and to know what is required
from them, which she is to tell the Schoolmaster, who will undertake
it."
Fleur-de-Marie started. Rodolph smiled disdainfully.
"Two thousand francs to do something to you, Master Rodolph; that makes
me think that when I see a notice of a dog that has been lost (I don't
mean to make a comparison), and the offer of a hundred francs reward for
his discovery, I say to myself, 'Animal, if you were lost, no one would
give a hundred farthings to find you.' Two thousand francs to do
something to you! Who are you, then?"
"I'll tell you by and by."
"That's enough, master. When I heard this proposal, I said to myself, I
must find out where these two dons live who want to set the Schoolmaster
on the haunches of M. Rodolph; it may be serviceable. So when they had
gone away, I got out of my hiding-place, and followed them quietly. I
saw the tall man and little woman get into a coach near Notre Dame, and
I got up behind, and we went on until we reached the Boulevard de
l'Observatoire. It was as dark as the mouth of an oven, and I could not
distinguish anything, so I cut a notch in a tree, that I might find out
the place in the morning."
"Well thought of, my good fellow."
"This morning I went there, and about ten yards from the tree I saw a
narrow entrance, closed by a gate. In the mud there were little and
large footsteps, and at the end of the entrance a small garden-gate,
where the traces ended; so the roosting-place of the tall man and the
little woman must be there."
"Thanks, my worthy friend, you have done me a most essential piece of
service, without knowing it."
"I beg your pardon, Master Rodolph, but I believed I was serving you,
and that was the reason I did as I did."
"I know it, my fine fellow, and I wish I could recompense your service
more properly than by thanks; but, unfortunately, I am only a poor devil
of a workman, although you say they offer two thousand francs for
something to be done against me. I will explain that to you."
"Yes, if you like, but not unless. Somebody threatens you with
something, and I will come across them if I can; the rest is your
affair."
"I know what they want. Listen to me. I have a secret for cutting fans
in ivory by a mechanical process, but this secret does not belong to me
alone. I am awaiting my comrade to go to work, and, no doubt, it is the
model of the machine which I have at home that they are desirous of
getting from me at any price, for there is a great deal of money to be
made by this discovery."
"The tall man and the little woman then are--"
"Work-people with whom I have been associated, and to whom I have
refused my secret."
This explanation appeared satisfactory to the Chourineur, whose
apprehension was not the clearest in the world, and he replied:
"Now I understand it all. The beggars! you see they have not the courage
to do their dirty tricks themselves. But to come to the end of my story.
I said to myself this morning, I know the rendezvous of the Chouette and
the tall man; I will go there and wait for them; I have good legs, and
my employer will wait for me. I came here and found this hole, and,
taking an armful of stuff from the dunghill yonder, I hid myself here up
to my nose, and waited for the Chouette. But, lo and behold! you came
into the field, and poor Goualeuse came and sat down on the very edge of
my park, and then I determined to have a bit of fun, and, jumping out of
my lair, I called out like a man on fire."
"And now what do you propose to do?"
"To wait for the Chouette, who is sure to come first; to try and
overhear what she and the tall man talk about, for that may be useful
for you to know. There is nothing in the field but this trunk of a tree,
and from here you may see all over the plain; it is as if it were made
on purpose to sit down upon. The rendezvous of the Chouette is only four
steps off at the cross-road, and I will lay a bet they come and sit here
when they arrive. If I cannot hear anything, then, as soon as they
separate, I will follow the Chouette, who is sure to stay last, and I'll
pay her the old grudge I owe her for the Goualeuse's tooth; and I'll
twist her neck until she tells me the name of the parents of the poor
girl, for she says she knows them. What do you think of my idea, Master
Rodolph?"
"I like it very well, my lad; but there is one part which you must
alter."
"Oh, Chourineur, do not get yourself into any quarrel on my account. If
you beat the Chouette, then the Schoolmaster--"
"Say no more, my lass. The Chouette shall not go scot free for me.
Confound it! why, for the very reason that the Schoolmaster will defend
her, I will double her dose."
"Listen, my man, to me; I have a better plan for avenging the Chouette's
brutalities to Goualeuse, which I will tell you hereafter. Now," said
Rodolph, moving a few paces from Goualeuse, and speaking low, "Now, will
you render me a real service?"
"Name it, Master Rodolph."
"The Chouette does not know you?"
"I saw her yesterday for the first time at the _tapis-franc_."
"This is what you must do. Hide yourself first; but, when you see her
come close to you, get out of this hole--"
"And twist her neck?"
"No, defer that for a time. To-day, only prevent her from speaking to
the tall man. He, seeing some one with her, will not approach; and if he
does, do not leave her alone for a moment. He cannot make his proposal
before you."
"If the man thinks me curious, I know what to do; he is neither the
Schoolmaster nor Master Rodolph. I will follow the Chouette like her
shadow, and the man shall not say a word that I do not overhear. He will
then be off, and after that I will have one little turn with the
Chouette. I must have it; it will be such a sweet drop for me."
"Not yet; the one-eyed hag does not know whether you are a thief or
not?"
"No, not unless the Schoolmaster has talked of me to her, and told her
that I did not do business in that line."
"If he have, you must appear to have altered your ideas on that
subject."
"I?"
"Yes."
"Ten thousand thunders! M. Rodolph, what do you mean? Indeed--truly--I
don't like it; it does not suit me to play such a farce as that."
"You shall only do what you please; but you will not find that I shall
suggest any infamous plan to you. The tall man once driven away, you
must try and talk over the Chouette. As she will be very savage at
having missed the good haul she expected, you must try and smooth her
down by telling her that you know of a capital bit of business which may
be done, and that you are then waiting for your comrade, and that, if
the Schoolmaster will join you, there is a lump of money to be made."
"Well, well."
"After waiting with her for an hour, you may say, 'My mate does not
come, and so the job must be put off;' and then you may make an
appointment with the Chouette and the Schoolmaster for to-morrow, at an
early hour. Do you understand me?"
"Quite."
"And this evening, at ten o'clock, meet me at the corner of the Champs
Elysées and the Allée des Veuves, and I will tell you more."
"If it is a trap, look out! The Schoolmaster is a scoundrel. You have
beaten him, and, no doubt, he will kill you if he can."
"Have no fear."
"By Jove! it is a 'rum start;' but do as you like with me. I do not
hesitate, for something tells me that there is a rod in pickle for the
Schoolmaster and the Chouette. One word, though, if you please, M.
Rodolph."
"Say it."
"I do not think you are the man to lay a trap, and set the police on the
Schoolmaster. He is an arrant blackguard, who deserves a hundred deaths;
but to have them arrested, that I will not have a hand in."
"Nor I, my boy; but I have a score to wipe off with him and the
Chouette, because they are in a plot with others against me; but we two
will baffle them completely, if you will lend me your assistance."
"Of course I will; and, if that is to be the game, I am your man. But
quick, quick," cried the Chourineur, "down there I see the head of the
Chouette. I know it is her bonnet. Go, go, and I will drop into my
hole."
"To-night, then, at ten o'clock."
"At the corner of the Champs Elysées and the Allée des Veuves; all
right."
Fleur-de-Marie had not heard a word of the latter part of the
conversation between the Chourineur and Rodolph, and now entered again
into the coach with her travelling companion.
CHAPTER X.
CASTLES IN THE AIR.
For some time after this conversation with the Chourineur, Rodolph
remained preoccupied and pensive, while Fleur-de-Marie, too timid to
break the silence, continued to gaze on him with saddened earnestness.
At length Rodolph looked up, and, meeting her mournful look, smiled
kindly on her, and said, "What are you thinking of, my child? I fear our
rencontre with the Chourineur has made you uncomfortable, and we were so
merry, too."
"Oh, no, M. Rodolph, indeed, I do not mind it at all; nay, I even
believe the meeting with the Chourineur may be useful to you."
"Did not this man pass amongst the inhabitants of the _tapis-franc_ as
possessing some good points among his many bad ones?"
"Indeed, I know not, M. Rodolph; for although, previously to the scene
of yesterday, I had frequently seen him, I had scarcely ever spoken to
him. I always looked upon him as bad as all the rest."
"Well, well, do not let us talk any more about him, my pretty
Fleur-de-Marie. I should be sorry, indeed, to make you sad,--I, who
brought you out purposely that you might spend a happy day."
"Oh, I am happy. It is so very long since I have been out of Paris."
"Not since your grand doings with Rigolette."
"Yes, indeed, M. Rodolph; but that was in the spring. Yet, though it is
now autumn, I enjoy it quite as much. How beautifully the sun shines!
Only look at the gold-coloured clouds out there--there, I mean; and then
that hill, with its pretty white houses half hid among the trees, and
the leaves still so green, though we are in the middle of the month of
October. Do not you think it is wonderful, M. Rodolph, they should so
well preserve their verdure? In Paris, all the leaves wither so soon.
Look! look at those pigeons! how many there are! and how high they fly!
Now they are settling on that old mill. One is never tired in the open
fields of looking at all these amusing sights."
"It, is, indeed, a pleasure to behold the delight you seem to take in
all these trifling matters, Fleur-de-Marie; though they, in reality,
constitute the charm of a landscape."
And Rodolph was right; for the countenance of his companion, while
gazing upon the fair, calm scene before her, was lit up with an
expression of the purest joy.
"See!" she exclaimed, after intently watching the different objects that
unfolded themselves to her eager look, "see how beautifully the clear
white smoke rises from those cottages, and ascends to the very clouds
themselves; and there are some men ploughing the land. What a capital
plough they have got, drawn by those two fine gray horses. Oh, if I were
a man, how I should like to be a husbandman, to go out in the fields,
and drive one's own plough; and then when you look to see the blue
skies, and the green shiny leaves of the neighbouring forests,--such a
day as to-day, for instance, when you feel half inclined to weep,
without knowing why, and begin singing old and melancholy songs, like
'Geneviève de Brabant.' Do you know 'Geneviève de Brabant,' M. Rodolph?"
"No, my child; but I hope you will have the kindness to sing it to me
before the day is over. You know our time is all our own."
At these words, which reminded the poor Goualeuse that her newly tasted
happiness was fast fleeting away, and that, at the close of this, the
brightest day that had ever shone on her existence, she must return to
all the horrors of a corrupt city, her feelings broke through all
restraint, she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. Much
surprised at her emotion, Rodolph kindly inquired its cause.
"What ails you, Fleur-de-Marie? What fresh grief have you found?"
"Nothing,--nothing indeed, M. Rodolph," replied the girl, drying her
eyes and trying to smile. "Pray forgive me for being so sad, and please
not to notice it. I assure you I have nothing at all to grieve
about,--it is only a fancy; and now I am going to be quite gay, you will
see."
"And you were as gay as could be a few minutes ago."
"Yes, I know I was; and it was my thinking how soon--" answered
Fleur-de-Marie, naïvely, and raising her large, tearful blue eyes, with
touching candour, to his face.
The look, the words, fully enlightened Rodolph as to the cause of her
distress, and, wishing to dissipate it, he said, smilingly:
"I would lay a wager you are regretting your poor rose-tree, and are
crying because you could not bring it out walking with you, as you used
to do."
La Goualeuse fell into the good-natured scheme for regaining her
cheerfulness, and by degrees the clouds of sadness cleared away from her
fair young face; and once again she appeared absorbed in the pleasure of
the moment, without allowing herself to recollect the future that would
succeed it. The vehicle had by this time almost arrived at St. Denis,
and the tall spires of the cathedral were visible.
"Oh, what a fine steeple!" exclaimed La Goualeuse.
"It is that of the splendid church of St. Denis: would you like to see
it? We can easily stop our carriage."
Poor Fleur-de-Marie cast down her eyes. "From the hour I went to live
with the ogress," said she, in a low tone, while deep blushes dyed her
cheek, "I never once entered a church,--I durst not. When in prison, on
the contrary, I used to delight in helping to sing the mass; and,
against the Fête-Dieu, oh, I made such lovely bouquets for the altar!"
"But God is merciful and good; why, then, fear to pray to him, or to
enter his holy church?"
"Oh, no, no, M. Rodolph! I have offended God deeply enough; let me not
add impiety and sacrilege to my sins."
After a moment's silence, Rodolph again renewed the conversation, and,
kindly taking the hand of La Goualeuse, said, "Fleur-de-Marie, tell me
honestly, have you ever known what it is to love?"
"Never, M. Rodolph."
"And how do you account for this?"
"You saw the kind of persons who frequented the _tapis-franc_. And then,
to love, the object should be good and virtuous--"
"Why do you think so?"
"Oh, because one's lover, or husband, would be all in all to us, and we
should seek no greater happiness than devoting our life to him. But, M.
Rodolph, if you please, we will talk of something else, for the tears
will come into my eyes."
"Willingly, Fleur-de-Marie; let us change the conversation. And now tell
me, why do you look so beseechingly at me with those large, tearful
eyes? Have I done anything to displease you?"
"On the contrary, 'tis the excess of your goodness that makes me weep;
indeed, I could almost fancy that you had brought me out solely for my
individual pleasure and enjoyment, without thinking of yourself. Not
content with your generous defence of me yesterday, you have to-day
procured for me happiness such as I never hoped to enjoy."
"You are, then, truly and entirely happy?"
"Never, never shall I forget to-day."
"Happiness does not often attend us on earth," said Rodolph, sighing.
"Alas, no! Seldom, perhaps never."
"For my own part, to make up for a want of reality in its possession, I
often amuse myself with pictures of what I would have if I could, saying
to myself, this is how, and where, I should like to live,--this is the
sort of income I should like to enjoy. Have you never, my little
Fleur-de-Marie, amused yourself with building similar 'castles in the
air?'"
"Yes, formerly, when I was in prison, before I went to live with the
ogress,--then I used to do nothing all day but dance, sing, and build
these fairy dreams; but I very seldom do so now. Tell me, M. Rodolph, if
you could have any wish you liked, what should you most desire?"
"Oh, I should like to be rich, with plenty of servants and carriages; to
possess a splendid hôtel, and to mix in the first circles of fashion; to
be able to obtain any amusement I pleased, and to go to the theatres and
opera whenever I chose."
"Well, then, you would be more unreasonable than I should. Now I will
tell you exactly what would satisfy me in every respect: first of all,
sufficient money to clear myself with the ogress, and to keep me till I
could obtain work for my future support; then a pretty, little, nice,
clean room, all to myself, from the window of which I could see the
trees while I sat at my work."
"Plenty of flowers in your casement, of course?"
"Oh, certainly! And, if it could be managed, to live in the country
always. And that, I think, is all I should want."
"Let me see: a little room, and work enough to maintain you,--those are
positive necessaries; but, when one is merely wishing, there is no harm
in adding a few superfluities. Should you not like such nice things as
carriages, diamonds, and rich clothes?"
"Not at all! All I wish for is my free and undisturbed liberty,--a
country life, and the certainty of not dying in a hospital. Oh, that
idea is dreadful! Above all things, I would desire the certainty of its
never being my fate. Oh, M. Rodolph, that dread often comes across me
and fills me with terror."
"Alas! poor folks, such as we are, should not shrink from such things."
"'Tis not the dying in a charitable institution I dread, or the poverty
that would send me into it, but the thoughts of what they do to your
lifeless remains."
"What do they do that shocks you so much?"
"Is it possible, M. Rodolph, you have never been told what will become
of you if you die in one of those places?"
"No, indeed, I have not; do you tell me."
"Well, then, I knew a young girl, who had been a sort of companion to me
when I was in prison; she afterwards died in a hospital, and what do you
think? Her body was given to the surgeons for dissection!" murmured the
shuddering Fleur-de-Marie.
"That is, indeed, a frightful idea! And do these miserable anticipations
often trouble you, my poor girl?"
"Ah, M. Rodolph, it surprises you that, after my unhappy life, I can
feel any concern as to what becomes of my miserable remains! God knows,
the feeling which makes me shrink from such an outrage to modesty is all
my wretched fate has left me!"
The mournful tone in which these words were uttered, and the bitter
feelings they contained, went to the heart of Rodolph; but his
companion, quickly perceiving his air of dejection, and blaming herself
for having caused it, said, timidly:
"M. Rodolph, I feel that I am behaving very ill and ungratefully towards
you, who so kindly brought me out to amuse me and give me pleasure; in
return for which I only keep talking to you about all the dull and
gloomy things I can think of! I wonder how I can do so!--to be able even
to recollect my misery, when all around me smiles and looks so gay! I
cannot tell how it is, words seem to rise from my lips in spite of
myself; and, though I feel happier to-day than I ever did before in my
life, my eyes are continually filling with tears! You are not angry with
me, are you, M. Rodolph? See, too, my sadness is going away as suddenly
as it came. There now, it is all gone, and shall not return to vex you
any more, I am determined. Look, M. Rodolph, just look at my eyes,--they
do not show that I have been crying, do they?"
And here Fleur-de-Marie, having repeatedly closed her eyes to get rid of
the rebellious tears that would gather there, opened them full upon
Rodolph, with a look of most enchanting candour and sweetness.
"Put no restraint on yourself, I beseech you, Fleur-de-Marie: be gay, if
you really feel so; or sad, if sadness most suits your present state of
mind. I have my own hours of gloom and melancholy, and my sufferings
would be much increased were I compelled to feign a lightness of heart I
did not really possess."
"Can it be possible, M. Rodolph, that you are ever sad?"
"Quite possible, my child, and true. Alas! the prospect before me is but
little brighter than your own. I, like you, am without friends or
parents; what would become of me if I were to fall ill and be unable to
earn my daily bread,--for I need scarcely tell you I live but from day
to day, and spend my money quite as fast as I obtain it?"
"Oh, but that is wrong, M. Rodolph,--very, very wrong!" said La
Goualeuse, in a tone of such deep and grave remonstrance as made him
smile. "You should always lay by something. Look at me: why, all my
troubles and misfortunes have happened because I did not save my money
more carefully. If once a person can get a hundred francs beforehand, he
need never fear falling into any one's power; generally, a difficulty
about money puts very evil thoughts into our head."
"All that is very wise and very sensible, my frugal little friend; but a
hundred francs!--that is a large sum; how could a man like myself ever
amass so much?"
"Why, M. Rodolph, it is really very easy, if you will but consider a
little. First of all, I think you said you could earn five francs a
day?"
"Yes, so I can, when I choose to work."
"Ah! but you should work, constantly and regularly; and yours is such a
pretty trade. To paint fans! how nice such work must be,--mere
amusement, quite a recreation! I cannot think why you should ever be
tired or dull. Indeed, M. Rodolph, I must tell you plainly I do not pity
you at all; and, besides, really you talk like a mere child when you say
you cannot save money out of such large earnings," added La Goualeuse,
in a sweet, but, for her, severe tone. "Why, a workman may live well
upon three francs a day; there remain forty sous; at the end of a month,
if you manage prudently, you will have saved sixty francs. Think of
that! There's a sum!--sixty francs in one month!"
"Oh, but one likes to show off sometimes, and to indulge in a little
idleness."
"There now, M. Rodolph, I declare you make me quite angry to hear you
talk so childishly! Pray let me advise you to be wiser."
"Come, then, my sage little monitress, I will be a good boy, and listen
to all your careful advice. And your idea of saving, too, is a
remarkably good one; I never thought of it before."
"Really!" exclaimed the poor girl, clapping her hands with joy. "Oh, if
you knew how delighted I am to hear you say so! Then you will begin from
to-day to lay by the forty sous we were talking about, will you? Will
you, indeed?"
"I give you my honour that, from this very hour, I will resolve to
follow up your most excellent plan, and save forty sous out of each
day's pay."
"Are you quite, quite sure you will?"
"Nay, have I not promised you that I will?"
"You will see how proud and happy you will be with your first savings;
and that is not all--ah, if you would promise not to be angry!"
"Do I look as though I could be so unkind, Fleur-de-Marie, as to find
fault with anything you said?"
"Oh, no, indeed, that you do not; only I hardly know whether I ought--"
"You ought to tell me everything you think or feel, Fleur-de-Marie."
"Well, then, I was wondering how _you_, who, it is easily seen, are
above your condition, can frequent such low cabarets as that kept by the
ogress."
"Had I not done so, I should not have had the pleasure of wandering in
the fields with you to-day, my dear Fleur-de-Marie."
"That is, indeed, true, M. Rodolph; but, still, it does not alter my
first opinion. No, much as I enjoy to-day's treat, I would cheerfully
give up all thoughts of ever passing such another if I thought it could
in any way injure you."
"Injure me! Far from it! Think of the excellent advice you have been
giving me."
"Which you have promised me to follow?"
"I have; and I pledge my word of honour to save henceforward at least
forty sous a day." Thus speaking, Rodolph called out to the driver of
their vehicle, who was passing the village of Sarcelles, "Take the first
road to the right, cross Villiers to Bel, turn to the left, then keep
along quite straight."
"Now," said Rodolph, turning to his companion, "that I am a good boy,
and promised to do all you tell me, let us go back to our diversion of
building castles in the air: that does not run away with much money. You
will not object to such a method of amusing myself, will you?"
"Oh, no, build as many as you like, they are very cheaply raised, and
very easily knocked down when you are tired of them. Now, then, you
begin."
"Well, then--No! Fleur-de-Marie, you shall build up yours first."
"I wonder if you could guess what I should choose, if wishing were all,
M. Rodolph."
"Let us try. Suppose that this road--I say _this_ road, because we
happen to be on it--"
"Yes, yes, of course; this road is as good as any other."
"Well, then, I say, I suppose that this road leads to a delightful
little village, at a considerable distance from the highroad--"
"Oh, yes; that makes it so much more still and quiet!"
"It is built facing the south, and half surrounded by trees--"
"And close by flows a gentle river."
"Exactly!--a clear, gently flowing river. At the end of this village
stands a pretty farm, with a nice orchard on one side of it, and a
garden, filled with flowers, on the other--"
"That farm shall be called my farm, to which we will pretend we are now
going."
"Just so."
"And where we know we shall get some delicious milk to drink after our
journey!"
"Milk, indeed! Excellent cream, and newly laid eggs, if you please."
"And where we would be glad to stay all our lives!"
"All our lives! Quite right,--go on."
"And then we should go and see all the cows!"
"To be sure we should."
"And afterwards visit the dairy?"
"Visit the dairy! Yes."
"Then the pigeon-house?"
"Yes, so we should."
"Oh, how very, very nice, only to think of such things!"
"But let me finish the description of the farm--"
"Yes, pray do! I quite forgot that."
"Well, then, the ground floor contains two rooms; one, a large kitchen
for the farm servants, and the other for the owner of the place."
"Make that room have green blinds, M. Rodolph,--do, pray; they are so
cool, and look so pretty!"
"Yes, yes,--green blinds to the windows. I quite agree with you,--they
do look uncommonly pretty, and set off a place so well! Of course, the
person tenanting this farm is your aunt."
"Of course she is my aunt, and a very good, sensible, kind woman, M.
Rodolph, is she not?"
"Particularly so, and loves you like her own child."
"Dear, good aunt! Oh, how delightful to have some one to love us!"
"And you return the tender affection she bears you?"
"Oh, with all my heart!" exclaimed Fleur-de-Marie, clasping her hands,
and raising her eyes to heaven with an expression impossible to
describe. "And I should help her to work, to attend to the family linen,
to keep everything neat and clean, to store up the summer fruits against
winter--oh, she would never have to complain that I was idle, I promise!
First of all, in the morning--"
"Wait a bit, Fleur-de-Marie; you are in too great a hurry. I want to
finish describing the house to you; never mind your aunt just yet."
"Ah, ha, Mr. Painter! All this is taken from some pretty landscape you
have been painting on a fan. Now I know what makes you so expert at
describing it!" said La Goualeuse, laughing merrily at her own little
jest.
"You little chatterer, be quiet, will you?"
"Yes, I am a chatterer, indeed, to interrupt you so often, M. Rodolph;
but pray go on, and I will not speak again till you have finished
painting this dear farm."
"Your room is on the first floor--"
"My room! how charming! Oh, go on--go on, please, M. Rodolph, and
describe all about it to me!" And the delighted girl opened her large
laughing eyes, and pressed more closely against Rodolph, as if she
expected to see the picture in his hand.
"Your chamber has two windows looking out upon the flower garden, and a
small meadow, watered by the river we mentioned. On the opposite bank of
the stream rises a small hill, planted with fine old chestnut-trees; and
from amongst them peeps out the village church--"
"Oh, how beautiful,--how very beautiful, M. Rodolph! It makes one quite
long to be there."
"Three or four fine cows are grazing in the meadow, which is only
separated from the garden by a hedge of honeysuckle--"
"And from my windows I can see the cows?"
"Perfectly."
"And one among them ought to be my favourite, you know, M. Rodolph; and
I ought to put a little bell round its neck, and use it to feed out of
my hands!"
"Of course she would come when you called her. Let me see, what name
shall we give her? Suppose we say, Musette. Do you like that? She shall
be very young and gentle, and entirely white."
"Oh, what a pretty name! Musette! Ah, Musette, Musette, I shall be
always feeding you and patting you to make you know me."
"Now we will finish the inside of your apartment, Fleur-de-Marie. The
curtains and furniture are green, like the blinds; and outside the
window grow an enormous rose-tree and honeysuckle, which entirely cover
this side of the farm, and so surround your casements that you have only
to stretch out your hand to gather a large bunch of roses and
honeysuckle wet with the early morning dew."
"Ah, M. Rodolph, what a good painter you are!"
"Now this is the way you will pass your day--"
"Yes, yes, let us see how I shall employ myself all day."
"Early in the morning your good aunt wakes you with a tender kiss; she
brings with her a bowl of new milk, just warm, which she prays you to
drink, as she fancies you are delicate about the lungs, poor dear child!
Well, you do as she wishes you; then rise, and take a walk around the
farm; pay a visit to Musette, the poultry, your pets the pigeons, the
flowers in the garden, till nine o'clock, when your writing-master
arrives--"
"My writing-master?"
"Why, you know, unless you learned such necessary things as reading,
writing, and accounts, you would not be able to assist your aunt to keep
her books relative to the produce of the farm."
"Oh, to be sure! How very stupid of me not to recollect that I must
learn to write well, if I wished to help my aunt!" cried the young girl,
so thoroughly absorbed in the picture of this peaceful life as to
believe for the moment in its reality.
"After your lesson is concluded, you will occupy yourself in household
matters, or embroider some pretty little article of dress for yourself;
then you will practise your writing for an hour or two, and, when that
is done, join your aunt in her round of visits to the different
operations of the farm; in the summer, to see how the reapers get on in
the hay field; in harvest-time, to observe the reapers, and afterwards
to enjoy the delight with which the gleaners pick up the scattered ears
of grain; by this time you will have almost tired yourself, and
gathering a large handful of wild herbs, carefully selected by you as
the known favourites of your dear Musette, you turn your steps
homewards--"
"But we go back through the meadow, dear M. Rodolph, do we not?"
inquired La Goualeuse, as earnestly as though every syllable her ears
drank in was to be effectually brought to pass.
"Oh, yes! by all means; and there happens, fortunately, to be a nice
little bridge, by which the river separating the farm-land from the
meadow may be crossed. By the time you reach home, upon my word, it is
seven o'clock; and, as the evenings begin to be a little chill, a
bright, cheerful fire is blazing in the large farm kitchen; you go in
there for a few minutes, just to warm yourself and to speak a few kind
words to the honest labourers, who are enjoying a hearty meal after the
day's toil is over. Then you sit down to dinner with your aunt;
sometimes the curé, or a neighbouring farmer, is invited to share the
meal. After dinner you read or work, while your aunt and her guest have
a friendly game at piquet. At ten o'clock she dismisses you, with a kiss
and a blessing, to your chamber; you retire to your room, offer prayers
and thanksgivings to the Great Author of all your happiness, then sleep
soundly till morning, when the same routine begins again."
"Oh, M. Rodolph, one might lead such a life as that for a hundred years,
without ever knowing one moment's weariness."
"But that is not all. There are Sundays and fête-days to be thought of."
"Yes; and how should we pass those?"
"Why, you would put on your holiday dress, with one of those pretty
little caps _à la paysanne_, which all admit you look so very nicely in,
and accompany your aunt in her large old-fashioned chaise, driven by
James the farm servant, to hear mass in the village church; after which,
during summer, your kind relative would take you to the different fêtes
given in the adjoining parishes. You, so gentle, so modest and
good-looking, so tenderly beloved by your aunt, and so well spoken of by
the curé for all the virtues and qualifications which make a good wife,
will have no scarcity of offers for your hand in the dance,--indeed, all
the principal young farmers will be anxious to secure you as a partner,
by way of opening an acquaintance which shall last for life. By degrees
you begin to remark one more than the others; you perceive his deep
desire to attract your undivided attention, and so--" And here Rodolph,
struck by the continued silence of La Goualeuse, looked up at her. Alas!
the poor girl was endeavouring, though fruitlessly, to choke the deep
sobs which almost suffocated her. For a brief period, carried away by
the words of Rodolph, the bright future presented to her mental vision
had effaced the horrible present; but too quickly did the hideous
picture return, and sweep away for ever the dear delight of believing so
sweet, so calm an existence could ever be hers.
"Fleur-de-Marie," asked Rodolph, in a kind and affectionate tone, "why
is this? Why these tears?"
"Ah, M. Rodolph, you have unintentionally caused me much pain. Foolish
girl that I was, I had listened to you till I quite fancied this
paradise were a true picture."
"And so it is, my dear child! This paradise, as you call it, is no
fiction."
"Stop, coachman!"
"Now look! see! observe where we are!"
As the carriage stopped, La Goualeuse, at Rodolph's bidding,
mechanically raised her head,--they were on the summit of a little
hill. What was her surprise, her astonishment, at the scene which
revealed itself to her gaze! The pretty village, built facing the south,
the farm, the meadow, the beautiful cows, the little winding river, the
chestnut grove, the church in the distance,--the whole picture, so
vividly painted, was before her eyes. Nothing was wanting,--even the
milk-white heifer, Musette, her future pet, was peacefully grazing as
she had been described. The rich colouring of an October sun gilded the
charming landscape, while the variegated tint of the chestnut-leaves,
slightly tinged by the autumnal breezes, stood out in bold relief
against the clear blue of the surrounding sky.
"Well, my little Fleur-de-Marie, what do you say to this? Am I a good
painter, or not?"
La Goualeuse looked at him with a surprise in which a degree of
uneasiness was mingled; all she saw and heard appeared to her to partake
largely of the supernatural.
"M. Rodolph," she at length exclaimed, with a bewildered look, "how can
this be? Indeed, indeed, I feel afraid to look at it,--it is so exactly
alike. I cannot believe it is anything but a dream you have conjured up,
and which will quickly pass away. Speak to me! pray do; and tell me what
to believe."
"Calm yourself, my dear child! Nothing is more simple or true than what
you behold here. The good woman who owns this farm was my nurse, and
brought me up here; intending to give myself a treat, I sent to her
early this morning to say I was coming to see her. You see I painted
after nature."
"You are quite right, M. Rodolph," sighed La Goualeuse. "There is,
indeed, nothing but what is quite natural in all this."
The farm to which Rodolph had conducted Fleur-de-Marie was situated at
the outer extremity of the village of Bouqueval,--a small, isolated, and
unknown hamlet, entirely surrounded by its own lands, and about two
leagues' distance from Ecouen; the vehicle, following the directions of
Rodolph, rapidly descended the hill, and entered a long avenue bordered
with apple and cherry trees, while the wheels rolled noiselessly over
the short fine grass with which the unfrequented road was overgrown.
Fleur-de-Marie, whose utmost efforts were unavailing to shake off the
painful sensations she experienced, remained so silent and mournful that
Rodolph reproached himself with having, by his well-intentioned
surprise, been the cause of it. In a few moments more, the carriage,
passing by the large entrance to the farm, entered a thick avenue of
elm-trees, and stopped before a little rustic porch, half hidden by the
luxuriant branches of the vine which clustered round it.
"Now, Fleur-de-Marie, here we are. Are you pleased with what you see?"
"Indeed I am, M. Rodolph. But how shall I venture before the good person
you mentioned as living here? Pray do not let her see me,--I cannot
venture to approach her."
"And why, my child?"
"True, M. Rodolph; I forget she does not know me, and will not guess how
unworthy I am." And poor Fleur-de-Marie tried to suppress the deep sigh
that would accompany her words.
The arrival of Rodolph had, no doubt, been watched for; the driver had
scarcely opened the carriage door when a prepossessing female, of middle
age, dressed in the style of wealthy landholders about Paris, and whose
countenance, though melancholy, was also gentle and benevolent in its
expression, appeared in the porch, and with respectful eagerness
advanced to meet Rodolph.
Poor Goualeuse felt her cheeks flush and her heart beat as she timidly
descended from the vehicle.
"Good day, good day, Madame Georges," said Rodolph, advancing towards
the individual so addressed, "you see I am punctual." Then turning to
the driver, and putting money into his hand, he said, "Here, my friend,
there is no further occasion to detain you; you may return to Paris as
soon as you please."
The coachman, a little, short, square-built man, with his hat over his
eyes, and his countenance almost entirely concealed by the high collar
of his driving-coat, pocketed the money without a word, remounted his
seat, gave his horses the whip, and disappeared down the _allée verte_
by which he had entered.
Fleur-de-Marie sprang to the side of Rodolph, and with an air of
unfeigned alarm, almost amounting to distress, said, in a tone so low as
not to be overheard by Madame Georges:
"M. Rodolph! M. Rodolph! pray do not be angry, but why have you sent
away the carriage? Will it not return to fetch us away?"
"Of course not; I have quite done with the man, and therefore dismissed
him."
"But the ogress!"
"What of her? Why do you mention her name?"
"Alas! alas! because I must return to her this evening; indeed, indeed,
I must, or--or she will consider me a thief. The very clothes I have on
are hers, and, besides, I owe her--"
"Make yourself quite easy, my dear child; it is my part to ask your
forgiveness, not you mine."
"My forgiveness! Oh, for what can you require me to pardon you?"
"For not having sooner told you that you no longer owe the ogress
anything; that it rests only with yourself to decide whether you will
henceforward make this quiet spot your home, and cast off the garments
you now wear for others my kind friend, Madame Georges, will furnish you
with. She is much about your height, and can supply you with everything
you require. She is all impatience to commence her part of 'aunt,' I
can assure you."
Poor Fleur-de-Marie seemed utterly unable to comprehend the meaning of
all she saw and heard, and gazed with wondering and perplexed looks from
one companion to the other, as though fearing to trust either her eyes
or ears.
"Do I understand you rightly?" she cried at length, half breathless with
emotion. "Not go back to Paris? Remain here? And this lady will permit
me to stay with her? Oh, it cannot be possible; I dare not hope it; that
would, indeed, be to realise our 'castles in the air.'"
"Dear Fleur-de-Marie, your wishes are realised,--your dream a true one."
"No, no, you must be jesting; that would be too much happiness to
expect, or even dare to hope for."
"Nay, Fleur-de-Marie, we should never find fault with an oversupply of
happiness."
"Ah, M. Rodolph, for pity's sake deceive me not; you cannot believe the
misery I should experience were you to tell me all this happiness was
but a jest."
"My child, listen to me," said Rodolph, with a tone and manner which,
although still affectionate, was mingled with a dignified accent and
manner Fleur-de-Marie had never previously remarked in him. "I repeat
that, if you please, you may from this very hour lead here, with Madame
Georges, that peaceful life whose description but a short time since so
much delighted you. Though the kind lady with whom you will reside be
not your aunt, she will feel for you the most lively and affectionate
interest, and with the personages about the farm you will pass as being
really and truly her niece, and this innocent deception will render your
residence here more agreeable and advantageous. Once more I repeat to
you, Fleur-de-Marie, you may now at your own pleasure realise the dream
of our journey. As soon as you have assumed your village dress," said
Rodolph, smilingly, "we will take you to see that milk-white heifer,
Musette, who is to be your favourite henceforward, and who is only
waiting for the pretty collar you designed to ornament her with; then we
will go and introduce ourselves to your pets, the pigeons, afterwards
visit the dairy, and so go on till we have been all over the farm. I
mean to keep my promise in every respect, I assure you."
Fleur-de-Marie pressed her hands together with earnest gratitude.
Surprise, joy, and the deepest thankfulness, mingled with respect, lit
up her beautiful countenance, while, with eyes streaming with tears, she
exclaimed:
"M. Rodolph, you are, you must be, one of those beneficent angels sent
by the Almighty to do good upon earth, and to rescue poor fallen
creatures, like myself, from shame and misery."
"My poor girl," replied Rodolph, with a smile of deep sadness and
ineffable kindness, "though still young, I have already deeply suffered.
I lost a dear child, who, if living, would now be about your age. Let
that explain my deep sympathy with all who suffer, and for yourself
particularly, Fleur-de-Marie, or, rather, _Marie_ only. Now, go with
Madame Georges, who will shew you the pretty chamber, with its
clustering roses and honeysuckle to form your morning bouquets. Yes,
Marie, henceforward let that name, simple and sweet as yourself, be your
only appellation. Before my departure we will have some talk together,
and then I shall quit you, most happy in the knowledge of your full
contentment."
Fleur-de-Marie, without one word of reply, gracefully bent her knee,
and, before Rodolph could prevent her, gently and respectfully raised
his hand to her lips; then rising with an air of modest submission,
followed Madame Georges, who eyed her with a profound interest, out of
the room.
CHAPTER XI.
MURPHY AND RODOLPH.
Upon quitting the house, Rodolph bent his steps towards the farmyard,
where he found the individual who, the preceding evening, disguised as a
charcoal-man, had warned him of the arrival of Tom and Sarah. Murphy,
which was the name of this personage, was about fifty years of age; his
head, nearly bald, was still ornamented with a fringe of light brown
hair at each side, which the hand of time had here and there slightly
tinged with gray; his face was broad, open, and ruddy, and free from all
appearance of hair, except very short whiskers, of a reddish colour,
only reaching as low as the tip of the ear, from which it diverged, and
stretched itself in a gentle curve across his rubicund cheeks. Spite of
his years and _embonpoint_, Murphy was active and athletic; his
countenance, though somewhat phlegmatic, was expressive of great
resolution and kindliness of nature; he wore a white neck-handkerchief,
a deep waistcoat, and a long black coat, with very wide skirts; his
breeches, of an olive green colour, corresponded in material with the
gaiters which protected his sturdy legs, without reaching entirely to
the knee, but allowing the strings belonging to his upper garment to
display themselves in long unstudied bows; in fact, the dress and whole
_tournure_ of Murphy exactly accorded with the idea of what in England
is styled a "gentleman farmer." Now, the personage we are describing,
though an English squire, was no farmer. At the moment of Rodolph's
appearance in the yard, Murphy was in the act of depositing, in the
pocket of a small travelling _caléche_, a pair of small pistols he had
just been carefully cleaning.
"What the devil are you going to do with those pistols?" inquired
Rodolph.
"That is my business, my lord," replied Murphy, descending the carriage
steps; "attend to your affairs, and I will mind mine."
"At what o'clock have you ordered the horses?"
"According to your directions,--at nightfall."
"You got here this morning, I suppose?"
"I did, at eight o'clock. Madame Georges has had ample time to make all
the preparations you desired."
"What has gone wrong, Murphy? You seem completely out of humour. Have I
done anything to offend you?"
"Can you not, my lord, accomplish your self-imposed task without
incurring so much personal risk?"
"Surely, in order to lull all suspicion in the minds of the persons I
seek to understand and fully appreciate, I cannot do better than, for a
time, to adopt their garb, their language, and their customs."
"But all this did not prevent you, my lord, last night (in that
abominable place where we went to unkennel Bras Rouge, in hopes of
getting out of him some particulars relative to that unhappy son of
Madame Georges), from being angry, and ready to quarrel with me, because
I wished to aid in your tussle with the rascal you encountered in that
horrid cut-throat alley."
"I suppose, then, Murphy, you do not think I am capable of defending
myself, and you either doubt my courage or the strength of my arm?"
"Unfortunately, you have given me too many reasons to form a contrary
opinion of both. Thank God! Flatman, the Bertrand of Germany, perfected
you in the knowledge of fencing; Tom Cribb taught you to box; Lacour, of
Paris, accomplished you in single-stick, wrestling, and slang, so as to
render you fully provided for your venturesome excursions. You are bold
as a lion, with muscles like iron, and, though so slight in form, I
should have no more chance with you than a dray-horse would against a
racer, were they to compete with each other. No mistake about that."
"Then what are you afraid of?"
"Why, I maintain, my lord, that it is not the right thing for you to
throw yourself in the way of all these blackguards. I do not say that
because of the nuisance it is to a highly respectable individual of my
acquaintance to blacken his face with charcoal, and make himself look
like a devil. No, God knows, spite of my age, my figure, and my gravity,
I would disguise myself as a rope-dancer, if, by so doing, I could serve
you. But I still stick to what I say, and--"
"Oh! I know all you would say, my excellent old fellow, and that when
once you have taken an idea into your thick skull, the very devil
himself could no more drive it out of you than he could, by all his
arts, remove the fidelity and devotion implanted in your brave and
valiant heart."
"Come, come, my lord, now you begin to flatter me, I suspect you are up
to some fresh mischief."
"Think no such thing, Murphy; give yourself no uneasiness, but leave all
to me."
"My lord, I cannot be easy; there is some new folly in hand, and I am
sure of it."
"My good friend, you mean well; but you are choosing a very ill hour for
your lectures; forbear, I beg."
"And why, my lord, can you not listen to me now, as well as any other
time?"
"Because you are interfering with one of my short-lived moments of pride
and happiness. I am here, in this dear spot!"
"Where you have done so much good. I know it. Your 'model farm,' as you
term it, built by you to instruct, to encourage, and to reward deserving
labourers, has been of incalculable service to this part of the country.
Ordinary men think but of improving their cattle; you, more wisely and
benevolently, have directed your exertions for the bettering your fellow
creatures. Nothing can be better; and when you placed Madame Georges at
the head of the establishment, you acted with the utmost wisdom and
provident good sense. What a woman she is! No, she is an angel!--so
good, so firm, so noble, and upright! I am not easily moved, my lord, as
you know; but often have I felt my eyes grow moist, as her many trials
and misfortunes rise to my recollection. But about your new protégée,
however, my lord; if you please, we will not say much on that subject.
'The least said is soonest mended,' as the old proverb has it."
"Why not, Murphy?"
"My lord, you will do what you think proper."
"I do what is just," said Rodolph, with an air of impatience.
"What is just, according to your own interpretation."
"What is just before God and my own conscience," replied Rodolph, in a
severe tone.
"Well, my lord, this is a point on which we cannot agree, and therefore
let us speak no more about it."
"I desire you will continue to talk about it!" cried Rodolph,
imperiously.
"I have never been so circumstanced that your royal highness should have
to bid me hold my tongue, and I hope I shall not now be ordered to speak
when I should be silent," said Murphy, proudly.
"Mr. Murphy!" said Rodolph, with a tone of increased irritation.
"My lord!"
"You know, sir, how greatly I detest anything like concealment."
"Your royal highness will excuse me, but it suits me to have certain
concealments," said Murphy, bluntly.
"If I descend to familiarity with you, sir, it is on condition that you,
at least, act with entire frankness towards me."
It is impossible to describe the extreme hauteur which marked the
countenance of Rodolph as he uttered these words.
"I am fifty years of age, I am a gentleman, and your royal highness
should not address me in such a tone."
"Be silent!"
"My lord!"
"Be silent! I say."
"Your royal highness does wrong in compelling a man of honour and
feeling to recall the services he has rendered to you," said the squire,
in a calm tone.
"Have I not repaid those services in a thousand ways?"
It should be stated that Rodolph had not attached to these bitter words
the humiliating sense which could place Murphy in the light of a
mercenary; but such, unfortunately, was the esquire's interpretation of
them. He became purple with shame, lifted his two clenched hands to his
forehead with an expression of deep grief and indignation, and then, in
a moment, as by a sudden revulsion of feeling, throwing his eyes on
Rodolph, whose noble countenance was convulsed by the violence of
extreme disdain, he said, in a faltering voice, and stifling a sigh of
the tenderest pity, "My lord, be yourself; you surpass the bounds of
reason."
These words impelled Rodolph to the very height of irritation; his
glance had even a savage glare in it; his lips were blanched; and,
advancing towards Murphy with a threatening aspect, he exclaimed, "Dare
you?"
Murphy retreated, and said, in a quick tone, and as if in spite of
himself, "My lord, my lord, _remember the thirteenth of January!_"
These words produced a magical effect on Rodolph. His countenance,
contracted by anger, now expanded. He looked at Murphy steadfastly,
bowed his head, and then, after a moment's silence, murmured, in
faltering accents, "Ah, sir, you are now cruel, indeed. I had thought
that my repentance--my deep remorse--and yet it is you--you--"
Rodolph could not finish; his voice was stifled; he sunk, subdued, on a
stone bench, and concealed his countenance with both his hands.
"My lord," said Murphy, in deep distress, "my good lord, forgive me!
Forgive your old and faithful Murphy. It was only when driven to an
extremity, and fearing, alas! not for myself, but for you, the
consequences of your passion, that I uttered those words. I said them in
spite of myself, and with sorrow. My lord, I was wrong to be so
sensitive. _Mon Dieu!_ who can know your character, your feelings, if I
do not,--I, who have never left you from your childhood! Pray, oh, pray
say that you forgive me for having called to your recollection that sad,
sad day. Alas! what expiations have you not made--"
Rodolph raised his head; he was very pale, and said to his companion, in
a gentle and saddened voice, "Enough, enough, my old friend; I thank you
for having, by one word, checked my headlong passion. I make no
apologies to you for the severe things I have said; you know well that
'it is a long way from the heart to the lips,' as the good people at
home say. I was wrong; let us say no more on the subject."
"Alas! now we shall be out of spirits for a long time, as if I were not
sufficiently unhappy! I only wished to see you roused from your low
spirits, and yet I add to them by my foolish tenaciousness. Good Heaven!
what's the use of being an honest man, and having gray hairs, if it does
not enable us to endure reproaches which we do not deserve?"
"Be it so, be it so; we were both in the wrong, my good friend," said
Rodolph, mildly; "let us forget it, and return to our former
conversation. You approved entirely of my establishment of this farm,
and the deep interest I have always felt in Madame Georges. You will
allow, won't you, that she had merited it by her excellent qualities,
her misfortunes, even if she did not belong to the family of
Harville,--a family to which my father had vowed eternal gratitude."
"I have always approved of the sentiments which your lordship has
entertained for Madame Georges."
"But you are astonished at the interest I take in this poor girl, are
you not?"
"Pray, pray, my lord, I was wrong; I was wrong."
"No, I can imagine that appearances have deceived you; but, as you know
my life--all my life, and as you aid me always with as much fidelity as
courage in my self-inflicted expiation, it is my duty, or, if you like
the phrase better, my gratitude, to convince you that I am not acting
from a frivolous impulse."
"Of that I am sure, my lord."
"You know my ideas on the subject of the good which a man ought to do
who has the knowledge, the will, and the power. To succour unhappy, but
deserving, fellow creatures is well; to seek after those who are
struggling against misfortune with energy and honour, and to aid them,
sometimes without their knowledge,--to prevent, in right time, misery
and temptation, is better; to reinstate such perfectly in their own
estimation,---to lead back to honesty those who have preserved in purity
some generous and ennobling sentiments in the midst of the contempt that
withers them, the misery that eats into them, the corruption that
encircles them, and, for that end, to brave, in person, this misery,
this corruption, this contagion, is better still; to pursue, with
unalterable hatred, with implacable vengeance, vice, infamy, and crime,
whether they be trampling in the mud, or be clothed in purple and fine
linen, that is justice; but to give aid inconsiderately to well-merited
degradation, to prostitute and lavish charity and commiseration, by
bestowing help on unworthy and undeserving objects, is most infamous; it
is impiety,--very sacrilege! it is to doubt the existence of the
Almighty; and so, he who acts thus ought to be made to understand."
"My lord, I pray you do not think that I would for a moment assert that
you have bestowed your benefits unworthily."
"One word more, my old friend. You know well that the child whose death
I daily deplore--that that daughter whom I should have loved the more,
as her unworthy mother, Sarah, had shown herself so utterly indifferent
about her--would have been sixteen years of age, like this unhappy girl.
You know, too, that I cannot prevent the deep, and almost painful,
sympathy I feel for young girls of that age."
"True, my lord; and I ought so to have interpreted the interest you
evince for your protégée. Besides, to succour the unfortunate is to
honour God."
"It is, my friend, when the objects deserve it; and thus nothing is more
worthy of compassion and respect than a woman like Madame Georges, who,
brought up by a pious and good mother in the strict observance of all
her duties, has never failed,--never! and has, moreover, courageously
borne herself in the midst of the most severe trials. But is it not to
honour God in the most acceptable way, to raise from the dust one of
those beings of the finest mould, whom he has been pleased to endow
richly? Does not she deserve compassion and respect,--yes,
respect,--who, unhappy girl! abandoned to her own instinct,--who,
tortured, imprisoned, degraded, sullied, has yet preserved, in holiness
and pureness of heart, those noble germs of good first implanted by the
Almighty? If you had but seen, poor child! how, at the first word of
interest expressed for her,--the first mark of kindness and right
feeling,--the most charming natural impulses, the purest tastes, the
most refined thoughts, the most poetic ideas, developed themselves
abundantly in her ingenuous mind, even as, in the early spring, a
thousand wild flowers lift up their heads at the first rays of the sun!
In a conversation of about an hour with Fleur-de-Marie, I have
discovered treasures of goodness, worth, prudence,--yes, prudence, old
Murphy. A smile came to my lips, and a tear in my eye, when, in her
gentle and sensible prattle, she urged on me the necessity of saving
f
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