Sons of the Soil

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If the portraits of Tonsard, his inn, and his father-in-law take a
prominent place in this history, it is because that place belongs to
him and to the inn and to the family. In the first place, their
existence, so minutely described, is the type of a hundred other
households in the valley of Les Aigues. Secondly, Tonsard, without
being other than the instrument of deep and active hatreds, had an
immense influence on the struggle that was about to take place, being
the friend and counsellor of all the complainants of the lower
classes. His inn, as we shall presently see, was the rendezvous for
the aggressors; in fact, he became their chief, partly on account of
the fear he inspired throughout the valley--less, however, by his
actual deeds than by those that were constantly expected of him. The
threat of this man was as much dreaded as the thing threatened, so
that he never had occasion to execute it.

Every revolt, open or concealed, has its banner. The banner of the
marauders, the drunkards, the idlers, the sluggards of the valley des
Aigues was the terrible tavern of the Grand-I-Vert. Its frequenters
found amusement there,--as rare and much-desired a thing in the
country as in a city. Moreover, there was no other inn along the
country-road for over twelve miles, a distance which conveyances (even
when laden) could easily do in three hours; so that those who went
from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes always stopped at the Grand-I-Vert, if
only to refresh themselves. The miller of Les Aigues, who was also
assistant-mayor, and his men came there. The grooms and valets of the
general were not averse to Tonsard's wine, rendered attractive by
Tonsard's daughters; so the Grand-I-Vert held subterraneous
communication with the chateau through the servants, and knew
immediately everything that they knew. It is impossible either by
benefits or through their own self-interests, to break up the
perpetual understanding that exists between the servants of a
household and the people from whom they come. Domestic service is of
the masses, and to the masses it will ever remain attached. This fatal
comradeship explains the reticence of the last words of Charles the
groom, as he and Blondet reached the portico of the chateau.



CHAPTER IV

ANOTHER IDYLL

"Ha! by my pipe, papa!" exclaimed Tonsard, seeing his father-in-law as
the old man entered and supposing him in quest of food, "your stomach
is lively this morning! We haven't anything to give you. How about
that rope,--the rope, you know, you were to make for us? It is amazing
how much you make over night and how little there is made in the
morning! You ought long ago to have twisted the one that is to twist
you out of existence; you are getting too costly for us."

The wit of a peasant or laborer is very Attic; it consists in speaking
out his mind and giving it a grotesque expression. We find the same
thing in a drawing-room. Delicacy of wit takes the place of
picturesque vulgarity, and that is really all the difference there is.

"That's enough for the father-in-law!" said the old man. "Talk
business; I want a bottle of the best."

So saying, Fourchon rapped a five-franc piece that gleamed in his hand
on the old table at which he was seated,--which, with its coating of
grease, its scorched black marks, its wine stains, and its gashes, was
singular to behold. At the sound of coin Marie Tonsard, as trig as a
sloop about to start on a cruise, glanced at her grandfather with a
covetous look that shot from her eyes like a spark. La Tonsard came
out of her bedroom, attracted by the music of metal.

"You are always rough to my poor father," she said to her husband,
"and yet he has earned a deal of money this year; God grant he came by
it honestly. Let me see that," she added, springing at the coin and
snatching it from Fourchon's fingers.

"Marie," said Tonsard, gravely, "above the board you'll find some
bottled wine. Go and get a bottle."

Wine is of only one quality in the country, but it is sold as of two
kinds,--cask wine and bottled wine.

"Where did you get this, papa" demanded La Tonsard, slipping the coin
into her pocket.

"Philippine! you'll come to a bad end," said the old man, shaking his
head but not attempting to recover his money. Doubtless he had long
realized the futility of a struggle between his daughter, his terrible
son-in-law, and himself.

"Another bottle of wine for which you get five francs out of me," he
added, in a peevish tone. "But it shall be the last. I shall give my
custom to the Cafe de la Paix."

"Hold your tongue, papa!" remarked his fair and fat daughter, who bore
some resemblance to a Roman matron. "You need a shirt, and a pair of
clean trousers, and a hat; and I want to see you with a waistcoat.
That's what I take the money for."

"I have told you again and again that such things would ruin me," said
the old man. "People would think me rich and stop giving me anything."

The bottle brought by Marie put an end to the loquacity of the old
man, who was not without that trait, characteristic of those whose
tongues are ready to tell out everything, and who shrink from no
expression of their thought, no matter how atrocious it may be.

"Then you don't want to tell where you filched that money?" said
Tonsard. "We might go and get more where that came from,--the rest of
us."

He was making a snare, and as he finished it the ferocious innkeeper
happened to glance at his father-in-law's trousers, and there he spied
a raised round spot which clearly defined a second five-franc piece.

"Having become a capitalist I drink your health," said Pere Fourchon.

"If you choose to be a capitalist you can be," said Tonsard; "you have
the means, you have! But the devil has bored a hole in the back of
your head through which everything runs out."

"Hey! I only played the otter trick on that young fellow they have got
at Les Aigues. He's from Paris. That's all there is to it."

"If crowds of people would come to see the sources of the Avonne,
you'd be rich, Grandpa Fourchon," said Marie.

"Yes," he said, drinking the last glassful the bottle contained, "and
I've played the sham otter so long, the live otters have got angry,
and one of them came right between my legs to-day; Mouche caught it,
and I am to get twenty francs for it."

"I'll bet your otter is made of tow," said Tonsard, looking slyly at
his father-in-law.

"If you will give me a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, and some list
braces, so as not to disgrace Vermichel on the music stand at Tivoli
(for old Socquard is always scolding about my clothes), I'll let you
keep that money, my daughter; your idea is a good one. I can squeeze
that rich young fellow at Les Aigues; may be he'll take to otters."

"Go and get another bottle," said Tonsard to his daughter. "If your
father really had an otter, he would show it to us," he added,
speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon.

"I'm too afraid it would get into your frying-pan," said the old man,
winking one of his little green eyes at his daughter. "Philippine has
already hooked my five-franc piece; and how many more haven't you
bagged under pretence of clothing me and feeding me? and now you say
that my stomach is too lively, and that I go half-naked."

"You sold your last clothes to drink boiled wine at the Cafe de la
Paix, papa," said his daughter, "though Vermichel tried to prevent
it."

"Vermichel! the man I treated! Vermichel is incapable of betraying my
friendship. It must have been that lump of old lard on two legs that
he is not ashamed to call his wife!"

"He or she," replied Tonsard, "or Bonnebault."

"If it was Bonnebault," cried Fourchon, "he who is one of the pillars
of the place, I'll--I'll--Enough!"

"You old sot, what has all that got to do with having sold your
clothes? You sold them because you did sell them; you're of age!" said
Tonsard, slapping the old man's knee. "Come, do honor to my drink and
redden up your throat! The father of Mam Tonsard has a right to do so;
and isn't that better than spending your silver at Socquard's?"

"What a shame it is that you have been fifteen years playing for
people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how
Socquard cooks his wine,--you who are so shrewd!" said his daughter;
"and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon
get as rich as Rigou."

Throughout the Morvan, and in that region of Burgundy which lies at
its feet on the side toward Paris, this boiled wine with which Mam
Tonsard reproached her father is a rather costly beverage which plays
a great part in the life of the peasantry, and is made by all grocers
and wine-dealers, and wherever a drinking-shop exists. This precious
liquor, made of choice wine, sugar, and cinnamon and other spices, is
preferable to all those disguises or mixtures of brandy called
ratafia, one-hundred-and-seven, brave man's cordial, black currant
wine, vespetro, spirit-of-sun, etc. Boiled wine is found throughout
France and Switzerland. Among the Jura, and in the wild districts
trodden only by a few special tourists, the innkeepers call it, on the
word of commercial travellers, the wine of Syracuse. Excellent it is,
however, and their guests, hungry as hounds after ascending the
surrounding peaks, very gladly pay three and four francs a bottle for
it. In the homes of the Morvan and in Burgundy the least illness or
the slightest agitation of the nerves is an excuse for boiled wine.
Before and after childbirth the women take it with the addition of
burnt sugar. Boiled wine has soaked up the property of many a peasant,
and more than once the seductive liquid has been the cause of marital
chastisement.

"Ha! there's no chance of grabbing that secret," replied Fourchon,
"Socquard always locks himself in when he boils his wine; he never
told how he does it to his late wife. He sends to Paris for his
materials."

"Don't plague your father," cried Tonsard; "doesn't he know? well,
then, he doesn't know! People can't know everything!"

Fourchon grew very uneasy on seeing how his son-in-law's countenance
softened as well as his words.

"What do you want to rob me of now?" he asked, candidly.

"I?" said Tonsard, "I take none but my legitimate dues; if I get
anything from you it is in payment of your daughter's portion, which
you promised me and never paid."

Fourchon, reassured by the harshness of this remark, dropped his head
on his breast as though vanquished and convinced.

"Look at that pretty snare," resumed Tonsard, coming up to his
father-in-law and laying the trap upon his knee. "Some of these days
they'll want game at Les Aigues, and we shall sell them their own,
or there will be no good God for the poor folks."

"A fine piece of work," said the old man, examining the mischievous
machine.

"It is very well to pick up the sous now, papa," said Mam Tonsard,
"but you know we are to have our share in the cake of Les Aigues."

"Oh, what chatterers women are!" cried Tonsard. "If I am hanged it
won't be for a shot from my gun, but for the gabble of your tongue."

"And do you really suppose that Les Aigues will be cut up and sold in
lots for your pitiful benefit?" asked Fourchon. "Pshaw! haven't you
discovered in the last thirty years that old Rigou has been sucking
the marrow out of your bones that the middle-class folks are worse
than the lords? Mark my words, when that affair happens, my children,
the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, the Rigous, will make you kick your heels
in the air. 'I've the good tobacco, it never shall be thine,' that's
the national air of the rich man, hey? The peasant will always be the
peasant. Don't you see (but you never did understand anything of
politics!) that government puts such heavy taxes on wine only to
hinder our profits and keep us poor? The middle classes and the
government, they are all one. What would become of them if everybody
was rich? Could they till their fields? Would they gather the harvest?
No, they _want_ the poor! I was rich for ten years and I know what I
thought of paupers."

"Must hunt with them, though," replied Tonsard, "because they mean to
cut up the great estates; after that's done, we can turn against them.
If I'd been Courtecuisse, whom that scoundrel Rigou is ruining, I'd
have long ago paid his bill with other balls than the poor fellow
gives him."

"Right enough, too," replied Fourchon. "As Pere Niseron says (and he
stayed republican long after everybody else), 'The people are tough;
they don't die; they have time before them.'"

Fourchon fell into a sort of reverie; Tonsard profited by his
inattention to take back the trap, and as he took it up he cut a slip
below the coin in his father-in-law's pocket at the moment when the
old man raised his glass to his lips; then he set his foot on the
five-franc piece as it dropped on the earthen floor just where it was
always kept damp by the heel-taps which the customers flung from their
glasses. Though quickly and lightly done, the old man might, perhaps,
have felt the theft, if Vermichel had not happened to appear at that
moment.

"Tonsard, do you know where you father is?" called that functionary
from the foot of the steps.

Vermichel's shout, the theft of the money, and the emptying of old
Fourchon's glass, were simultaneous.

"Present, captain!" cried Fourchon, holding out a hand to Vermichel to
help him up the steps.

Of all Burgundian figures, Vermichel would have seemed to you the most
Burgundian. The practitioner was not red, he was scarlet. His face,
like certain tropical portions of the globe, was fissured, here and
there, with small extinct volcanoes, defined by flat and greenish
patches which Fourchon called, not unpoetically, the "flowers of
wine." This fiery face, the features of which were swelled out of
shape by continual drunkenness, looked cyclopic; for it was lighted on
the right side by a gleaming eye, and darkened on the other by a
yellow patch over the left orb. Red hair, always tousled, and a beard
like that of Judas, made Vermichel as formidable in appearance as he
was meek in reality. His prominent nose looked like an
interrogation-mark, to which the wide-slit mouth seemed to be always
answering, even when it did not open. Vermichel, a short man, wore
hob-nail shoes, bottle-green velveteen trousers, an old waistcoat
patched with diverse stuffs which seemed to have been originally made
of a counterpane, a jacket of coarse blue cloth and a gray hat with a
broad brim. All this luxury, required by the town of Soulanges where
Vermichel fulfilled the combined functions of porter at the town-hall,
drummer, jailer, musician, and practitioner, was taken care of by
Madame Vermichel, an alarming antagonist of Rabelaisian philosophy.
This virago with moustachios, about one yard in width and one hundred
and twenty kilograms in weight (but very active), ruled Vermichel with
a rod of iron. Thrashed by her when drunk, he allowed her to thrash
him still when sober; which caused Pere Fourchon to say, with a sniff
at Vermichel's clothes, "It is the livery of a slave."

"Talk of the sun and you'll see its beams," cried Fourchon, repeating
a well-worn allusion to the rutilant face of Vermichel, which really
did resemble those copper suns painted on tavern signs in the
provinces. "Has Mam Vermichel spied too much dust on your back, that
you're running away from your four-fifths,--for I can't call her your
better half, that woman! What brings you here at this hour,
drum-major?"

"Politics, always politics," replied Vermichel, who seemed accustomed
to such pleasantries.

"Ah! business is bad in Blangy, and there'll be notes to protest, and
writs to issue," remarked Pere Fourchon, filling a glass for his
friend.

"That APE of ours is right behind me," replied Vermichel, with a
backward gesture.

In workmen's slang "ape" meant master. The word belonged to the
dictionary of the worthy pair.

"What's Monsieur Brunet coming bothering about here?" asked Tonsard.

"Hey, by the powers, you folks!" said Vermichel, "you've brought him
in for the last three years more than you are worth. Ha! that master
at Les Aigues, he has his eye upon you; he'll punch you in the ribs;
he's after you, the Shopman! Brunet says, if there were three such
landlords in the valley his fortune would be made."

"What new harm are they going to do to the poor?" asked Marie.

"A pretty wise thing for themselves," replied Vermichel. "Faith!
you'll have to give in, in the end. How can you help it? They've got
the power. For the last two years haven't they had three foresters and
a horse-patrol, all as active as ants, and a field-keeper who is a
terror? Besides, the gendarmerie is ready to do their dirty work at
any time. They'll crush you--"

"Bah!" said Tonsard, "we are too flat. That which can't be crushed
isn't the trees, it's ground."

"Don't you trust to that," said Fourchon to his son-in-law; "you own
property."

"Those rich folks must love you," continued Vermichel, "for they think
of nothing else from morning till night! They are saying to themselves
now like this: 'Their cattle eat up our pastures; we'll seize their
cattle; they can't eat grass themselves.' You've all been condemned,
the warrants are out, and they have told our ape to take your cows. We
are to begin this morning at Conches by seizing old mother
Bonnebault's cow and Godin's cow and Mitant's cow."

The moment the name of Bonnebault was mentioned, Marie, who was in
love with the old woman's grandson, sprang into the vineyard with a
nod to her father and mother. She slipped like an eel through a break
in the hedge, and was off on the way to Conches with the speed of a
hunted hare.

"They'll do so much," remarked Tonsard, tranquilly, "that they'll get
their bones broken; and that will be a pity, for their mothers can't
make them any new ones."

"Well, perhaps so," said old Fourchon, "but see here, Vermichel, I
can't go with you for an hour or more, for I have important business
at the chateau."

"More important than serving three warrants at five sous each? 'You
shouldn't spit into the vintage,' as Father Noah says."

"I tell you, Vermichel, that my business requires me to go to the
chateau des Aigues," repeated the old man, with an air of laughable
self-importance.

"And anyhow," said Mam Tonsard, "my father had better keep out of the
way. Do you really mean to find the cows?"

"Monsieur Brunet, who is a very good fellow, would much rather find
nothing but their dung," answered Vermichel. "A man who is obliged to
be out and about day and night had better be careful."

"If he is, he has good reason to be," said Tonsard, sententiously.

"So," continued Vermichel, "he said to Monsieur Michaud, 'I'll go as
soon as the court is up.' If he had wanted to find the cows he'd have
gone at seven o'clock in the morning. But that didn't suit Michaud,
and Brunet has had to be off. You can't take in Michaud, he's a
trained hound! Ha, the brigand!"

"Ought to have stayed in the army, a swaggerer like that," said
Tonsard; "he is only fit to deal with enemies. I wish he would come
and ask me my name. He may call himself a veteran of the young guard,
but I know very well that if I measured spurs with him, I'd keep my
feathers up longest."

"Look here!" said Mam Tonsard to Vermichel, "when are the notices for
the ball at Soulanges coming out? Here it is the eighth of August."

"I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at Ville-aux-Fayes, to be
printed," replied Vermichel; "they do talk of fireworks on the lake."

"What crowds of people we shall have!" cried Fourchon.

"Profits for Socquard!" said Tonsard, spitefully.

"If it doesn't rain," said his wife, by way of comfort.

At this moment the trot of a horse coming from the direction of
Soulanges was heard, and five minutes later the sheriff's officer
fastened his horse to a post placed for the purpose near the wicket
gate through which the cows were driven. Then he showed his head at
the door of the Grand-I-Vert.

"Come, my boys, let's lose no time," he said, pretending to be in a
hurry.

"Hey!" said Vermichel. "Here's a refractory, Monsieur Brunet; Pere
Fourchon wants to drop off."

"He has had too many drops already," said the sheriff; "but the law in
this case does not require that he shall be sober."

"Please excuse me, Monsieur Brunet," said Fourchon, "I am expected at
Les Aigues on business; they are in treaty for an otter."

Brunet, a withered little man dressed from head to foot in black
cloth, with a bilious skin, a furtive eye, curly hair, lips
tight-drawn, pinched nose, anxious expression, and gruff in speech,
exhibited the phenomenon of a character and bearing in perfect harmony
with his profession. He was so well-informed as to the law, or, to
speak more correctly, the quibbles of the law, that he had come to be
both the terror and the counsellor of the whole canton. He was not
without a certain popularity among the peasantry, from whom he usually
took his pay in kind. The compound of his active and negative
qualities and his knowledge of how to manage matters got him the
custom of the canton, to the exclusion of his coadjutor Plissoud,
about whom we shall have something to say later. This chance
combination of a sheriff's officer who does everything and a sheriff's
officer who does nothing is not at all uncommon in the country justice
courts.

"So matters are getting warm, are they?" said Tonsard to little
Brunet.

"What can you expect? you pilfer the man too much, and he's going to
protect himself," replied the officer. "It will be a bad business for
you in the end; government will interfere."

"Then we, poor unfortunates, must give up the ghost!" said Mam
Tonsard, offering him a glass of brandy on a saucer.

"The unfortunate may all die, yet they'll never be lacking in the
land," said Fourchon, sententiously.

"You do great damage to the woods," retorted the sheriff.

"Now don't believe that, Monsieur Brunet," said Mam Tonsard; "they
make such a fuss about a few miserable fagots!"

"We didn't crush the rich low enough during the Revolution, that's
what's the trouble," said Tonsard.

Just then a horrible, and quite incomprehensible noise was heard. It
seemed to be a rush of hurried feet, accompanied with a rattle of
arms, half-drowned by the rustling of leaves, the dragging of
branches, and the sound of still more hasty feet. Two voices, as
different as the two footsteps, were venting noisy exclamations.
Everybody inside the inn guessed at once that a man was pursuing a
woman; but why? The uncertainty did not last long.

"It is mother!" said Tonsard, jumping up; "I know her shriek."

Then suddenly, rushing up the broken steps of the Grand-I-Vert by a
last effort that can be made only by the sinews of smugglers, old
Mother Tonsard fell flat on the floor in the middle of the room. The
immense mass of wood she carried on her head made a terrible noise as
it crashed against the top of the door and then upon the ground. Every
one had jumped out of the way. The table, the bottles, the chairs were
knocked over and scattered. The noise was as great as if the cottage
itself had come tumbling down.

"I'm dead! The scoundrel has killed me!"

The words and the flight of the old woman were explained by the
apparition on the threshold of a keeper, dressed in green livery,
wearing a hat edged with silver cord, a sabre at his side, a leathern
shoulder-belt bearing the arms of Montcornet charged with those of the
Troisvilles, the regulation red waistcoat, and buckskin gaiters which
came above the knee.

After a moment's hesitation the keeper said, looking at Brunet and
Vermichel, "Here are witnesses."

"Witnesses of what?" said Tonsard.

"That woman has a ten-year-old oak, cut into logs, inside those
fagots; it is a regular crime!"

The moment the word "witness" was uttered Vermichel thought best to
breathe the fresh air of the vineyard.

"Of what? witnesses of what?" cried Tonsard, standing in front of the
keeper while his wife helped up the old woman. "Do you mean to show
your claws, Vatel? Accuse persons and arrest them on the highway,
brigand,--that's your domain; but get out of here! A man's house is
his castle."

"I caught her in the act, and your mother must come with me."

"Arrest my mother in my house? You have no right to do it. My house is
inviolable,--all the world knows that, at least. Have you got a
warrant from Monsieur Guerbet, the magistrate? Ha! you must have the
law behind you before you come in here. You are not the law, though
you have sworn an oath to starve us to death, you miserable
forest-gauger, you!"

The fury of the keeper waxed so hot that he was on the point of
seizing hold of the wood, when the old woman, a frightful bit of black
parchment endowed with motion, the like of which can be seen only in
David's picture of "The Sabines," screamed at him, "Don't touch it, or
I'll fly at your eyes!"

"Well, then, undo that pile in presence of Monsieur Brunet," said the
keeper.

Though the sheriff's officer had assumed the indifference that the
routine of business does really give to officials of his class, he
threw a glance at Tonsard and his wife which said plainly, "A bad
business!" Old Fourchon looked at his daughter, and slyly pointed at a
pile of ashes in the chimney. Mam Tonsard, who understood in a moment
from that significant gesture both the danger of her mother-in-law and
the advice of her father, seized a handful of ashes and flung them in
the keeper's eyes. Vatel roared with pain; Tonsard pushed him roughly
upon the broken door-steps where the blinded man stumbled and fell,
and then rolled nearly down to the gate, dropping his gun on the way.
In an instant the load of sticks was unfastened, and the oak logs
pulled out and hidden with a rapidity no words can describe. Brunet,
anxious not to witness this manoeuvre, which he readily foresaw,
rushed after the keeper to help him up; then he placed him on the bank
and wet his handkerchief in water to wash the eyes of the poor fellow,
who, in spite of his agony, was trying to reach the brook.