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