Sons of the Soil

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"What shocking style that woman has! what talk, what manners!" she
said. "I really don't think I can admit her any longer into _our
society_,--especially," she added, "when Monsieur Gourdon, the poet, is
present."

"There's social morality!" said the abbe, who had heard and observed
all without saying a word.

After this epigram, or rather, this satire on the company, so true and
so concise that it hit every one, the usual game of boston was
proposed.

Is not this a picture of life as it is at all stages of what we agree
to call society? Change the style, and you will find that nothing more
and nothing less is said in the gilded salons of Paris.



CHAPTER III

THE CAFE DE LA PAIX

It was about seven o'clock when Rigou drove by the Cafe de la Paix.
The setting sun, slanting its beams across the little town, was
diffusing its ruddy tints, and the clear mirror of the lake contrasted
with the flashing of the resplendent window-panes, which originated
the strangest and most improbable colors.

The deep schemer, who had grown pensive as he revolved his plots, let
his horse proceed so slowly that in passing the Cafe de la Paix he
heard his own name banded about in one of those noisy disputes which,
according to the Abbe Taupin, made the name of the establishment a
gain-saying of its customary condition.

For a clear understanding of the following scene we must explain the
topography of this region of plenty and of misrule, which began with
the cafe on the square, and ended on the country road with the famous
Tivoli where the conspirators proposed to entrap the general. The
ground-floor of the cafe, which stood at the angle of the square and
the road, and was built in the style of Rigou's house, had three
windows on the road and two on the square, the latter being separated
by a glass door through which the house was entered. The cafe had,
moreover, a double door which opened on a side alley that separated it
from the neighboring house (that of Vallet the Soulanges mercer),
which led to an inside courtyard.

The house, which was painted wholly in yellow, except the blinds,
which were green, is one of the few houses in the little town which
has two stories and an attic. And this is why: Before the astonishing
rise in the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes the first floor of this
house, which had four chambers, each containing a bed and the meagre
furniture thought necessary to justify the term "furnished lodgings,"
was let to strangers who were obliged to come to Soulanges on matters
connected with the courts, or to visitors who did not sleep at the
chateau; but for the last twenty-five years these rooms had had no
other occupants than the mountebanks, the merchants, the vendors of
quack medicines who came to the fair, or else commercial travellers.
During the fair-time they were let for four francs a day; and brought
Socquard about two hundred and fifty francs, not to speak of the
profits on the consumption of food which the guests took in his cafe.

The front of the house on the square was adorned with painted signs;
on the spaces that separated the windows from the glass door
billiard-cues were represented, lovingly tied together with ribbons,
and above these bows were depicted smoking bowls of punch, the bowls
being in the form of Greek vases. The words "Cafe de la Paix" were over
the door, brilliantly painted in yellow on a green ground, at each end
of which rose pyramids of tricolored billiard-balls. The window-sashes,
painted green, had small panes of the commonest glass.

A dozen arbor-vitae, which ought to be called cafe-trees, stood to the
left and right in pots, and presented their usual pretensions and
sickly appearance. Awnings, with which shopkeepers of the large cities
protect their windows from the head of the sun, were as yet an unknown
luxury in Soulanges. The beneficent liquids in the bottles which stood
on boards just behind the window-panes went through a periodic
cooking. When the sun concentrated its rays through the lenticular
knobs in the glass it boiled the Madeira, the syrups, the liqueurs,
the preserved plums, and the cherry-brandy set out for show; for the
heat was so great that Aglae, her father, and the waiter were forced
to sit outside on benches poorly shaded by the wilted shrubs,--which
Mademoiselle kept alive with water that was almost hot. All three,
father, daughter, and servant, might be seen at certain hours of the
day stretched out there, fast asleep, like domestic animals.

In 1804, the period when "Paul and Virginia" was the rage, the inside
of the cafe was hung with a paper which represented the chief scenes
of that romance. There could be seen Negroes gathering the coffee-crop,
though coffee was seldom seen in the establishment, not twenty cups of
that beverage being served in the month. Colonial products were of so
little account in the consumption of the place that if a stranger had
asked for a cup of chocolate Socquard would have been hard put to it to
serve him. Still, he would have done so with a nauseous brown broth
made from tablets in which there were more flour, crushed almonds, and
brown sugar than pure sugar and cacao, concoctions which were sold at
two sous a cake by village grocers, and manufactured for the purpose of
ruining the sale of the Spanish commodity.

As for coffee, Pere Socquard simply boiled it in a utensil known to
all such households as the "big brown pot"; he let the dregs (that
were half chicory) settle, and served the decoction, with a coolness
worthy of a Parisian waiter, in a china cup which, if flung to the
ground, would not have cracked.

At this period the sacred respect felt for sugar under the Emperor was
not yet dispelled in the town of Soulanges, and Aglae Socquard boldly
served three bits of it of the size of hazel-nuts to a foreign
merchant who had rashly asked for the literary beverage.

The wall decoration of the cafe, relieved by mirrors in gilt frames
and brackets on which the hats were hung, had not been changed since
the days when all Soulanges came to admire the romantic paper, also a
counter painted like mahogany with a Saint-Anne marble top, on which
shone vessels of plated metal and lamps with double-burners, which
were, rumor said, given to the beautiful Madame Socquard by Gaubertin.
A sticky coating of dirt covered everything, like that found on old
pictures put away and long forgotten in a garret. The tables painted
to resemble marble, the benches covered in red Utrecht velvet, the
hanging glass lamp full of oil, which fed two lights, fastened by a
chain to the ceiling and adorned with glass pendants, were the
beginning of the celebrity of the then Cafe de la Guerre.

There, from 1802 to 1804, all the bourgeois of Soulanges played at
dominoes and a game of cards called "brelan," drank tiny glasses of
liqueur or boiled wine, and ate brandied fruits and biscuits; for the
dearness of colonial products had banished coffee, sugar, and
chocolate. Punch was a great luxury; so was "bavaroise." These
infusions were made with a sugary substance resembling molasses, the
name of which is now lost, but which, at the time, made the fortune of
its inventor.

These succinct details will recall to the memory of all travellers
many others that are analogous; and those persons who have never left
Paris can imagine the ceiling blackened with smoke and the mirrors
specked with millions of spots, showing in what freedom and
independence the whole order of diptera lived in the Cafe de la Paix.

The beautiful Madame Socquard, whose gallant adventures surpassed
those of the mistress of the Grand-I-Vert, sat there, enthroned,
dressed in the last fashion. She affected the style of a sultana, and
wore a turban. Sultanas, under the Empire, enjoyed a vogue equal to
that of the "angel" of to-day. The whole valley took pattern from the
turbans, the poke-bonnets, the fur caps, the Chinese head-gear of the
handsome Socquard, to whose luxury the big-wigs of Soulanges
contributed. With a waist beneath her arm-pits, after the fashion of
our mothers, who were proud of their imperial graces, Junie (she was
named Junie!) made the fortune of the house of Socquard. Her husband
owed to her the ownership of a vineyard, of the house they lived in,
and also the Tivoli. The father of Monsieur Lupin was said to have
committed some follies for the handsome Madame Socquard; and
Gaubertin, who had taken her from him, certainly owed him the little
Bournier.

These details, together with the deep mystery with which Socquard
manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name
and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other
reasons for their renown. Nothing better than wine could be got at
Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley; from Conches to
Ville-aux-Fayes, in a circumference of twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard
was the only place where the guests could play billiards and drink the
punch so admirably concocted by the proprietor. There alone could be
found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs, and brandied fruits.
Its name resounded daily throughout the valley, accompanied by ideas
of superfine sensual pleasures such as men whose stomachs are more
sensitive than their hearts dream about. To all these causes of
popularity was added that of being an integral part of the great
festival of Soulanges. The Cafe de la Paix was to the town, in a
superior degree, what the tavern of the Grand-I-Vert was to the
peasantry,--a centre of venom; it was the point of contact and
transmission between the gossip of Ville-aux-Fayes and that of the
valley. The Grand-I-Vert supplied the milk and the Cafe de la Paix the
cream, and Tonsard's two daughters were in daily communication between
the two.

To Socquard's mind the square of Soulanges was merely an appendage to
his cafe. Hercules went from door to door, talking with this one and
that one, and wearing in summer no other garment than a pair of
trousers and a half-buttoned waistcoat. If any one entered the tavern,
the people with whom he gossiped warned him, and he slowly and
reluctantly returned.

Rigou stopped his horse, and getting out of the chaise, fastened the
bridle to one of the posts near the gate of the Tivoli. Then he made a
pretext to listen to what was going on without being noticed, and
placed himself between two windows through one of which he could, by
advancing his head, see the persons in the room, watch their gestures,
and catch the louder tones which came through the glass of the windows
and which the quiet of the street enabled him to hear.

"If I were to tell old Rigou that your brother Nicolas is after La
Pechina," cried an angry voice, "and that he waylays her, he'd rip the
entrails out of every one of you,--pack of scoundrels that you are at
the Grand-I-Vert!"

"If you play me such a trick as that, Aglae," said the shrill voice of
Marie Tonsard, "you sha'n't tell anything more except to the worms in
your coffin. Don't meddle with my brother's business or with mine and
Bonnebault's either."

Marie, instigated by her grandmother, had, as we see, followed
Bonnebault; she had watched him through the very window where Rigou
was now standing, and had seen him displaying his graces and paying
compliments so agreeable to Mademoiselle Socquard that she was forced
to smile upon him. That smile had brought about the scene in the midst
of which the revelation that interested Rigou came out.

"Well, well, Pere Rigou, what are you doing here?" said Socquard,
slapping the usurer on the shoulder; he was coming from a barn at the
end of the garden, where he kept various contrivances for the public
games, such as weighing-machines, merry-go-rounds, see-saws, all in
readiness for the Tivoli when opened. Socquard stepped noiselessly,
for he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost
so little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the
provinces.

"If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said
Rigou; "it is a warm evening."

"Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window
and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.

"They are quarrelling for Bonnebault," said Rigou, sardonically.

The anger of the father was at once controlled by the interest of the
tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper judged it prudent to listen outside,
as Rigou was doing; the father was inclined to enter and declare that
Bonnebault, possessed of admirable qualities in the eyes of a
tavern-keeper, had none at all as son-in-law to one of the notables of
Soulanges. And yet Pere Socquard had received but few offers for his
daughter. At twenty-two Aglae already rivalled in size and weight
Madame Vermichel, whose agility seemed phenomenal. Sitting behind a
counter increased the adipose tendency which she derived from her
father.

"What devil is it that gets into girls?" said Socquard to Rigou.

"Ha!" replied the ex-Benedictine, "of all the devils, that's the one
the Church has most to do with."

Just then Bonnebault came out of the billiard-room with a cue in his
hand, and struck Marie sharply, saying:--

"You've made me miss my stroke; but I'll not miss you, and I'll give
it to you till you muffle that clapper of yours."

Socquard and Rigou, who now thought it wise to interfere, entered the
cafe by the front door, raising such a crowd of flies that the light
from the windows was obscured; the sound was like that of the distant
practising of a drum-corps. After their first excitement was over, the
big flies with the bluish bellies, accompanied by the stinging little
ones, returned to their quarters in the windows, where on three tiers
of planks, the paint of which was indistinguishable under the
fly-specks, were rows of viscous bottles ranged like soldiers.

Marie was crying. To be struck before a rival by the man she loves is
one of those humiliations that no woman can endure, no matter what her
place on the social ladder may be; and the lower that place is, the
more violent is the expression of her wrath. The Tonsard girl took no
notice of Rigou or of Socquard; she flung herself on a bench, in
gloomy and sullen silence, which the ex-monk carefully watched.

"Get a fresh lemon, Aglae," said Pere Socquard, "and go and rinse that
glass yourself."

"You did right to send her away," whispered Rigou, "or she might have
been hurt"; and he glanced significantly at the hand with which Marie
grasped a stool she had caught up to throw at Aglae's head.

"Now, Marie," said Socquard, standing before her, "people don't come
here to fling stools; if you were to break one of my mirrors, the milk
of your cows wouldn't pay for the damage."

"Pere Socquard, your daughter is a reptile; I'm worth a dozen of her,
I'd have you know. If you don't want Bonnebault for a son-in-law, it
is high time for you to tell him to go and play billiards somewhere
else; he's losing a hundred sous every minute."

In the middle of this flux of words, screamed rather than said,
Socquard took Marie round the waist and flung her out of the door,
in spite of her cries and resistance. It was none too soon; for
Bonnebault rushed out of the billiard-room, his eyes blazing.

"It sha'n't end so!" cried Marie Tonsard.

"Begone!" shouted Bonnebault, whom Viollet held back round the body
lest he should do the girl some hurt. "Go to the devil, or I will
never speak to you or look at you again!"

"You!" said Marie, flinging him a furious glance. "Give me back my
money, and I'll leave you to Mademoiselle Socquard if she is rich
enough to keep you."

Thereupon Marie, frightened when she saw that even Socquard-Alcides
could scarcely hold Bonnebault, who sprang after her like a tiger,
took to flight along the road.

Rigou followed, and told her to get into his carriole to escape
Bonnebault, whose shouts reached the hotel Soudry; then, after hiding
Marie under the leather curtains, he came back to the cafe to drink
his lemonade and examine the group it now contained, composed of
Plissoud, Amaury, Viollet, and the waiter, who were all trying to
pacify Bonnebault.

"Come, hussar, it's your turn to play," said Amaury, a small, fair
young man, with a dull eye.

"Besides, she's taken herself off," said Viollet.

If any one ever betrayed astonishment it was Plissoud when he beheld
the usurer of Blangy sitting at one of the tables, and more occupied
in watching him, Plissoud, than in noticing the quarrel that was going
on. In spite of himself, the sheriff allowed his face to show the
species of bewilderment which a man feels at an unexpected meeting
with a person whom he hates and is plotting against, and he speedily
withdrew into the billiard-room.

"Adieu, Pere Socquard," said Rigou.

"I'll get your carriage," said the innkeeper; "take your time."

"How shall I find out what those fellows have been saying over their
pool?" Rigou was asking himself, when he happened to see the waiter's
face in the mirror beside him.

The waiter was a jack at all trades; he cultivated Socquard's vines,
swept out the cafe and the billiard-room, kept the garden in order,
and watered the Tivoli, all for fifty francs a year. He was always
without a jacket, except on grand occasions; usually his sole garments
were a pair of blue linen trousers, heavy shoes, and a striped velvet
waistcoat, over which he wore an apron of homespun linen when at work
in the cafe or billiard-room. This apron, with strings, was the badge
of his functions. The fellow had been hired by Socquard at the last
annual fair; for in this valley, as throughout Burgundy, servants are
hired in the market-place by the year, exactly as one buys horses.

"What's your name?" said Rigou.

"Michel, at your service," replied the waiter.

"Doesn't old Fourchon come here sometimes?"

"Two or three times a week, with Monsieur Vermichel, who gives me a
couple of sous to warn him if his wife's after them."

"He's a fine old fellow, Pere Fourchon; knows a great deal and is full
of good sense," said Rigou, paying for his lemonade and leaving the
evil-smelling place when he saw Pere Socquard leading his horse round.

Just as he was about to get into the carriage, Rigou noticed the
chemist crossing the square and hailed him with a "Ho, there, Monsieur
Vermut!" Recognizing the rich man, Vermut hurried up. Rigou joined
him, and said in a low voice:--

"Are there any drugs that can eat into the tissue of the skin so as to
produce a real disease, like a whitlow on the finger, for instance?"

"If Monsieur Gourdon would help, yes," answered the little chemist.

"Vermut, not a word of all this, or you and I will quarrel; but speak
of the matter to Monsieur Gourdon, and tell him to come and see me the
day after to-morrow. I may be able to procure him the delicate
operation of cutting off a forefinger."

Then, leaving the little man thoroughly bewildered, Rigou got into the
carriole beside Marie Tonsard.

"Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had
fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which
closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think
you can keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence? If you were a
wise girl you would promote his marriage with that hogshead of
stupidity and take your revenge afterwards."

Marie could not help smiling as she answered:--

"Ah, how bad you are! you are the master of us all in wickedness."

"Listen to me, Marie; I like the peasants, but it won't do for any one
of you to come between my teeth and a mouthful of game. Your brother
Nicolas, as Aglae said, is after La Pechina. That must not be; I
protect her, that girl. She is to be my heiress for thirty thousand
francs, and I intend to marry her well. I know that Nicolas, helped by
your sister Catherine, came near killing the little thing this
morning. You are to see your brother and sister at once, and say to
them: 'If you let La Pechina alone, Pere Rigou will save Nicolas from
the conscription.'"

"You are the devil incarnate!" cried Marie. "They do say you've signed
a compact with him. Is that true?"

"Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.

"I heard it, but I didn't believe it."

"He has guaranteed that no attacks aimed at me shall hurt me; that I
shall never be robbed; that I shall live a hundred years and succeed
in everything I undertake, and be as young to the day of my death as a
two-year old cockerel--"

"Well, if that's so," said Marie, "it must be _devilishly_ easy for
you to save my brother from the conscription--"

"If he chooses, that's to say. He'll have to lose a finger," returned
Rigou. "I'll tell him how."

"Look out, you are taking the upper road!" exclaimed Marie.

"I never go by the lower at night," said the ex-monk.

"On account of the cross?" said Marie, naively.

"That's it, sly-boots," replied her diabolical companion.

They had reached a spot where the high-road cuts through a slight
elevation of ground, making on each side of it a rather steep slope,
such as we often see on the mail-roads of France. At the end of this
little gorge, which is about a hundred feet long, the roads to
Ronquerolles and to Cerneux meet and form an open space, in the centre
of which stands a cross. From either slope a man could aim at a victim
and kill him at close quarters, with all the more ease because the
little hill is covered with vines, and the evil-doer could lie in
ambush among the briers and brambles that overgrow them. We can
readily imagine why the usurer did not take that road after dark. The
Thune flows round the little hill; and the place is called the Close
of the Cross. No spot was ever more adapted for revenge or murder, for
the road to Ronquerolles continues to the bridge over the Avonne in
front of the pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux leads
off above the mail-road; so that between the four roads,--to Les
Aigues, Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles, and Cerneux,--a murderer could
choose his line of retreat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.

"I shall drop you at the entrance of the village," said Rigou when
they neared the first houses of Blangy.

"Because you are afraid of Annette, old coward!" cried Marie. "When
are you going to send her away? you have had her now three years. What
amuses me is that your old woman still lives; the good God knows how
to revenge himself."



CHAPTER IV

THE TRIUMVIRATE OF VILLE-AUX-FAYES

The cautious usurer compelled his wife and Jean to go to bed and to
rise by daylight; assuring them that the house would never be attacked
if he sat up till midnight, and he never himself rose till late. Not
only had he thus secured himself from interruption between seven at
night and five the next morning but he had accustomed his wife and
Jean to respect his morning sleep and that of Hagar, whose room was
directly behind his.

So, on the following morning, about half past six, Madame Rigou, who
herself took care of the poultry-yard with some assistance from Jean,
knocked timidly at her husband's door.

"Monsieur Rigou," she said, "you told me to wake you."

The tones of that voice, the attitude of the woman, her frightened air
as she obeyed an order the execution of which might be ill-received,
showed the utter self-abnegation in which the poor creature lived, and
the affection she still bore to her petty tyrant.

"Very good," replied Rigou.

"Shall I wake Annette?" she asked.

"No, let her sleep; she has been up half the night," he replied,
gravely.

The man was always grave, even when he allowed himself to jest.
Annette had in fact opened the door secretly to Sibilet, Fourchon, and
Catherine Tonsard, who all came at different hours between eleven and
two o'clock.

Ten minutes later Rigou, dressed with more care than usual, came
downstairs and greeted his wife with a "Good-morning, my old woman,"
which made her happier than if counts had knelt at her feet.

"Jean," he said to the ex-lay-brother, "don't leave the house; if any
one robs me it will be worse for you than for me."

By thus mingling mildness and severity, hopes and rebuffs, the clever
egoist kept his three slaves faithful and close at his heels, like
dogs.

Taking the upper-road, so-called, to avoid the Close of the Cross,
Rigou reached the square of Soulanges about eight o'clock.

Just as he was fastening his rein to the post nearest the little door
with three steps, a blind opened and Soudry showed his face, pitted
with the small-pox, which the expression of his small black eyes
rendered crafty.

"Let's begin by taking a crust here before we start," he said; "we
sha'n't get breakfast at Ville-aux-Fayes before one o'clock."

Then he softly called a servant-girl, as young and pretty as Annette,
who came down noiselessly, and received his order for ham and bread;
after which he went himself to the cellar and fetched some wine.

Rigou contemplated for the hundredth time the well-known dining-room,
floored in oak, with stuccoed ceiling and cornice, its high wainscot
and handsome cupboards finely painted, its porcelain stone and
magnificent tall clock,--all the property of Mademoiselle Laguerre.
The chair-backs were in the form of lyres, painted white and highly
varnished; the seats were of green morocco with gilt nails. A massive
mahogany table was covered with green oilcloth, with large squares of
a deeper shade of green, and a plain border of the lighter. The floor,
laid in Hungarian point, was carefully waxed by Urbain and showed the
care which ex-waiting-women know how to exact out of their servants.