The Honor of the Name Part 2

But the wicked old Chupin swallowed this affront which he would never forget, and humbly continued:

"I do not say that Mademoiselle Marie-Anne is not generous; but after all her charitable work she has plenty of money left for her fine dresses and her fallals. I think that Monsieur Lacheneur ought to be very well content, even after he has restored to its former owner one-half or even three-quarters of the property he has acquired--no one can tell how. He would have enough left then to grind the poor under foot."

After his appeal to selfishness, Father Chupin appealed to envy. There could be no doubt of his success.

But he had not time to pursue his advantage. The services were over, and the wors.h.i.+ppers were leaving the church.

Soon there appeared upon the porch the man in question, with a young girl of dazzling beauty leaning upon his arm.

Father Chupin walked straight toward him, and brusquely delivered his message.

M. Lacheneur staggered beneath the blow. He turned first so red, then so frightfully pale, that those around him thought he was about to fall.

But he quickly recovered his self-possession, and without a word to the messenger, he walked rapidly away, leading his daughter.

Some minutes later an old post-chaise, drawn by four horses, dashed through the village at a gallop, and paused before the house of the village cure.

Then one might have witnessed a singular spectacle.

Father Chupin had gathered his wife and his children together, and the four surrounded the carriage, shouting, with all the power of their lungs:

"Long live the Duc de Sairmeuse!"

CHAPTER II

A gently ascending road, more than two miles in length, shaded by a quadruple row of venerable elms, led from the village to the Chateau de Sairmeuse.

Nothing could be more beautiful than this avenue, a fit approach to a palace; and the stranger who beheld it could understand the naively vain proverb of the country: "He does not know the real beauty of France, who has never seen Sairmeuse nor the Oiselle."

The Oiselle is the little river which one crosses by means of a wooden bridge on leaving the village, and whose clear and rapid waters give a delicious freshness to the valley.

At every step, as one ascends, the view changes. It is as if an enchanting panorama were being slowly unrolled before one.

On the right you can see the saw-mills of Fereol. On the left, like an ocean of verdure, the forest of Dolomien trembles in the breeze. Those imposing ruins on the other side of the river are all that remain of the feudal manor of the house of Breulh. That red brick mansion, with granite tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, half concealed by a bend in the river, belongs to the Baron d'Escorval.

And, if the day is clear, one can easily distinguish the spires of Montaignac in the distance.

This was the path traversed by M. Lacheneur after Chupin had delivered his message.

But what did he care for the beauties of the landscape!

Upon the church porch he had received his death-wound; and now, with a tottering and dragging step, he dragged himself along like one of those poor soldiers, mortally wounded upon the field of battle, who go back, seeking a ditch or quiet spot where they can lie down and die.

He seemed to have lost all thought of his surroundings--all consciousness of previous events. He pursued his way, lost in his reflections, guided only by force of habit.

Two or three times his daughter, Marie-Anne, who was walking by his side, addressed him; but an "Ah! let me alone!" uttered in a harsh tone, was the only response she could draw from him.

Evidently he had received a terrible blow; and undoubtedly, as often happens under such circ.u.mstances, the unfortunate man was reviewing all the different phases of his life.

At twenty Lacheneur was only a poor ploughboy in the service of the Sairmeuse family.

His ambition was modest then. When stretched beneath a tree at the hour of noonday rest, his dreams were as simple as those of an infant.

"If I could but ama.s.s a hundred pistoles," he thought, "I would ask Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not refuse me." A hundred pistoles! A thousand francs!--an enormous sum for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the depths of his straw mattress.

Still he did not despair. He had read in Martha's eyes that she would wait.

And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his G.o.d-mother; and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps, interest her in his love-affair.

Then the terrible storm of the revolution burst over France.

With the fall of the first thunder-bolts, the Duke of Sairmeuse left France with the Count d'Artois. They took refuge in foreign lands as a pa.s.ser-by seeks shelter in a doorway from a summer shower, saying to himself: "This will not last long."

The storm did last, however; and the following year Mlle. Armande, who had remained at Sairmeuse, died.

The chateau was then closed, the president of the district took possession of the keys in the name of the government, and the servants were scattered.

Lacheneur took up his residence in Montaignac.

Young, daring, and personally attractive, blessed with an energetic face, and an intelligence far above his station, it was not long before he became well known in the political clubs.

For three months Lacheneur was the tyrant of Montaignac.

But this metier of public speaker is by no means lucrative, so the surprise throughout the district was immense, when it was ascertained that the former ploughboy had purchased the chateau, and almost all the land belonging to his old master.

It is true that the nation had sold this princely domain for scarcely a twentieth part of its real value. The apprais.e.m.e.nt was sixty-nine thousand francs. It was giving the property away.

And yet, it was necessary to have this amount, and Lacheneur possessed it, since he had poured it in a flood of beautiful louis d'or into the hands of the receiver of the district.

From that moment his popularity waned. The patriots who had applauded the ploughboy, cursed the capitalist. He discreetly left them to recover from their rage as best they could, and returned to Sairmeuse. There everyone bowed low before Citoyen Lacheneur.

Unlike most people, he did not forget his past hopes at the moment when they might be realized.

He married Martha Barrois, and, leaving the country to work out its own salvation without his a.s.sistance, he gave his time and attention to agriculture.

Any close observer, in those days, would have felt certain that the man was bewildered by the sudden change in his situation.

His manner was so troubled and anxious that one, to see him, would have supposed him a servant in constant fear of being detected in some indiscretion.

He did not open the chateau, but installed himself and his young wife in the cottage formerly occupied by the head game-keeper, near the entrance of the park.

But, little by little, with the habit of possession, came a.s.surance.

The Consulate had succeeded the Directory, the Empire succeeded the Consulate, Citoyen Lacheneur became M. Lacheneur.

Appointed mayor two years later, he left the cottage and took possession of the chateau.