Angelique Part 1. Marquise of the Angels.
Chapter 3
Angelique - Part 1. Marquise of the Angels Chapter 3 - Read online
Baron had been turning his car towards the courtyard,
from which rose shouts and cries, mingled with the clucking of frightened
fowLTSfcere waVa brief scramble and then yet fiercer cries, in which
GuiUaui^s accent became recognisable. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, оф
all the other inhabitants of the castle were surely out of doors.
“Don’t be afraid, children,” said their grandfather, “they must be chasing some beggar. . .
But Angelique had already bounded towards the porch and was
“Old Guillaume is being attacked, they’re trying to harm him!”
The Baron hobbled to fetch his rusty sabre and Gontran returned, armed with a dog-whip. They too reached the entrance-door and saw the old retainer armed with his pike and Angelique at his side. The adversary was not far of f either. He kept out of reach on the far side of the draw¬bridge, but was still facing them. He was a tall, half-starved-looking fellow, who seemed enraged. At the same time he was trying hard to recover a composed, of ficial air.
Gontran immediately lowered his whip and tugged at his grandfather, whispering:
“It’s the sergeant come for the taxes. He’s been chased away several times already.”
The bullied of ficial, though still retreating slowly, without, however, turning his back, grew more self-assured as he saw the hesitation of the fresh reinforcements. He stopped at a respectful distance and, pulling out of his pocket a roll of paper that had been badly crumpled in the tussle, unrolled it lovingly. Then, wriggling and writhing, he began to read out a summons, according to which the Baron de Sance was ordered to pay without delay a sum of 875 livres, 19 sols and n deniers in respect of rent- tax arrears, a tithe of the seigneurial tax, property tax, mare coverage tax, ‘dust dues’ for the herds passing over the royal road, and fine for arrears in payment.
The old seigneur flushed with rage.
“Maybe you imagine, varlet, that a gentleman will pay out cash just for listening to revenue rigmarole!” he shouted furiously.
“You know very well that his lordship your son has hitherto paid his annual taxes fairly regularly,” said the man, bowing. “I shall come back, therefore, when he is here. But I warn you, if tomorrow at the same hour he is not here for the fourth time and docs not pay, I shall serve a writ on him at once, and your castle and all your furniture will be sold to pay his ^ debts to the Royal Treasury.”
“Get out of here, you State usurers' flunkey!” ,
“Baron, I would have you know that I am a sworn servant of the Law and can also be appointed executive agent.”
“There’s 110 execution without a judgment,” fumed the old Baron.
“There’ll be no trouble about getting a judgment, believe me, if you don’t pay up.”
“How do you expect us to pay if we have nothing to pay with?” shouted Gontran, seeing the old man was ruffled. “Since you are also a law-court of ficer, you can come and verify that the bandits have robbed us of a stallion, two she-asses and four cows. Moreover, the dues you claim are mainly owed by my father s rent-farmers. He’s been willing to pay for them so far, because the poor farmers can’t pay themselves, but he doesn’t owe you anything on it. Besides, the brigands’ last attack has damaged the peasants even more than us, and it certainly won’t be after this last raid that my father’ll be able to settle your bills.”
The tax agent was more appeased by this sensible language than by the old Baron’s insults. While cautiously glancing in Guillaume’s direction, he came a little closer and explained, in a milder and almost kindly tone, but with firmness, that he could not do otherwise than receive and trans¬mit the orders issued by the Revenue Administration. To his mind, the only thing likely to postpone legal action was a petition addressed by the Baron to the Tax Superintendent through the intermediary of the pro¬vincial administrator of Poitou.
“Between ourselves,” added the law of ficer, making die old gentleman wince with disgust, “between ourselves, I’ll tell you that my immediate superiors, such as the District Attorney and the Controller of Taxes, are not empowered to grant you derogation or exemption. Still, since you are of the nobility, you must know people in high places. So take a friend’s advice: act through them.”
“I don’t propose to flatter myself by referring to you as a friend,” remarked the Baron de Ridoue acidly.
“That’s why I am telling you all this so that you can repeat it to his lordship your son. Financial straits are bad for everybody, after all! Do you think I enjoy being received by all and sundry as if I were a ghost? Or collecting more blows than a mangy dog? Well, a good evening to you all, and no of fence!”
He put his hat back on his head and walked away with a limp and a sorrowful glance at the sleeve of his uniform tunic, which had been torn in the scuffle. The old Baron disappeared, also with a limp, in the opposite direction. Gontran and Angelique walked behind him in silence. Old Guillaume, grumbling against imaginary enemies, carried his ancient lance back into his den of historical relics.
Down in the hall, when their grandfather started walking up and down, the children dared not speak for a long while. At last the little girl’s voice rose out of the darkening shadows: .
“Tell me, Grandfather, since the bandits left us our civil rights, didn’t that black fellow take them away with him now?”
“Go and job your mother,” said the old man, whose voice was shaldng all of a sudden.
He turned to sit down b a high, frayed, tapestry arm-chair and spoke no more.
With a bow and a curtsy, the children left.
When Armand de Sance learned of the reception that had been given to the tax collector, he sighed and, for a moment, scratched the small tuft of grey hair that he wore under his lip b the fashion of Louis XIII.
Angclique had an almost protective affection for this good and quiet father, whose daily difficulties had carved deep furrows in his tanned brow. In order to bring up his numerous offspring, this son of im¬pecunious noblemen had had to forgo all the privileges of his position: he rarely travelled, no longer even hunted, differing in this from the neighbouring seigneurs, who, though hardly better off, consoled them¬selves in their poverty by spending their lives runnbg after hare and wild boar.
Armand de Sance devoted all his time to cultivating his small crops. He was hardly better dressed than his peasants and, like them, carried with him a potent aroma of horses and manure. He loved his children. He amused himself with them and was proud of them; they were his chief hold on life. For him, the children came first; after them, the mules. The seigneur had for some time been dreambg of setting up a small stud of these pack-animals, which are less delicate than horses, and sturdier than donkeys.
But now the bandits had taken his best stallion and two she-asses. It was a disaster, and he turned over in his nund scllbg his last mules and the plot of ground which had hitherto been earmarked for the stud-farm.
The day after the sergeant’s visit, Baron Armand carefully pared a goose-quill and settled down at his writing-desk to draft a petition to the King in order to be exempted from the annual taxes. In this letter he explained the extent of a country nobleman’s destitution.
He started by apologising for not bebg able to mention more than nine livbg children, but that more were sure to follow for “both his wife and he were still young and made them gladly”. He added that he had the charge of an invalid father without a pension, who had risen to the rank of colonel under Louis XIII; that he himself had held a captabcy and been recommended for a higher rank, but that he had been obliged to leave the King’s service because his pay as an of ficer in the Royal Artillery at 1,700 livres a year “had not provided him with the means of sustenance b the service”. He also mentioned that his dependants included two old aunts “whom neither husbands nor convents had wanted, for lack of a dowry, and who could only spend their remaining years in doing humble chores”; that he had four domestic servants, among them an old, pensionless soldier whose services he required. Two of his elder boys were at college and thus cost him 500 livres for their education alone. One daughter was to be placed in a convent, but this required an outlay of 300 livresAie concluded by saying that he had for years been paying his tenants’ taxes in order to keep them on the land, but that nevertheless he now found himself indebted to the revenue authorities, who were claiming 875 livres 19 sols and 11 deniers for just the current year. Yet his annual revenue amounted to hardly 4,000 livres a year, while he had to feed nineteen people and keep up his rank as a country gentleman at the very moment when, to top his misfortunes, brigands had looted, killed and devastated his land, plunging his surviving tenants into even greater misery. Finally, he appealed to the royal kindness to grant him remission of the tax claimed, and aid or an advance of at least one thousand livres, and solicited the King’s grace for the employment as ensign, on any ship commissioned for America or the Indies, of his eldest son, the young ‘knight’ at present being schooled in Logic by the holy fathers, to whom incidentally he still owed a year’s school fees.
He added that he was personally always ready to accept any charge whatsoever that would be compatible with his standing, provided that it would enable him to feed his family, in view of the fact that his estate, even if sold, no longer did. . . .
After scattering sand over this long epistle on which he had laboured for several hours, Armand de Sancc wrote one more line to his protector and cousin, the Marquis du Plessis de Belliere, whom he requested to transmit the petition to the King himself or to the Queen Mother, with accom¬panying recommendations to ensure its being favourably received.
He concluded courteously:
“I wish I may soon see you, sir, and find opportunities of being useful to you in this province, cither with pack-mules, of which I have some very fine ones, or with fruit, chestnuts, cheese or pots of curds for your table.”
A few weeks later, poor Baron Armand de Sancc could have added one more misfortune to his list.
One evening when the first frost was beginning to make itself felt, a horse was heard galloping up the road and over the old drawbridge, which was as usual festooned with turkeys. The dogs barked in the courtyard. Angcliquc rushed to the window.
She saw a horse from which trwo tall, lanky riders, dressed in black, leapt down, while a trunk-laden mule appeared on the road, led by a little peasant. *
The two girls and the old ladies hurried downstairs. They arrived in the drawing-room just as the schoolboys were greeting their grandfather and Aunt Jeanne. The servants came running from all directions. Someone had already gone to fetch the Baron from the fields and Madame from the kitchen-garden.
The youngsters responded rather ungraciously to the fuss made over their homecoming. They were fifteen and sixteen years old, but were frequently taken for twins. They had the same mat complexion, grey eyes and wiry black hair which hung down to the white collars of their crumpled and dirty uniforms. Only their expressions differed. Josselin's features showed more brutality, Raymond’s more reserve.
While they answered their grandfather’s questions in monosyllables, the delighted nurse spread a beautiful cloth over the table and brought dishes of pie, bread, butter and a cauldron full of the first chestnuts. The youngsters’ eyes shone. Without waiting, they sat down to table and ate with such greed and slovenliness that Angelique was filled with admiration. She noticed, however, that they were thin and pale and that their black twill costumes were threadbare at the knees and elbows. They dropped their eyes when they spoke. Neither had seemed to recognise her, yet she remembered that she had formerly helped Josselin to raid bird-nests, just as Denis was helping her nowadays.
Raymond had a hollow horn at his belt. She asked him what it was.
“It’s an inkhorn,” he replied haughtily.
“I’ve thrown mine away,” said Josselin.
Their father and mother arrived with torches. The Baron was a little alarmed, despite his joy.
“How is it that you are here, my boys? You did not come home all summer. Aren’t the first winter days an odd time for holidays?”
“Wc didn’t come during the summer,” explained Raymond, “because wc hadn’t a penny to hire a horse or even take the public coach from Poitiers to Niort.”
“And if we are here now, it isn’t because we’re any richer . . .” con¬tinued Josselin.
“. . . but because the fathers have turned us out,” ended Raymond.
There was a constrained silence.
“By Saint Denis,” cried their grandfather, “what pranks have you been up to, gentlemen, that you should be treated so injuriously?”
“None whatever, but it’s almost two years since the Augustine friars last received our fees. They gave us to understand that other students’ whose parents were more generous, needed our places. . .
Baron Armand started walking up and down the room, which was a sign of great agitation in him.
“It hardly seems possible. If you haven’t proved yourselves unworthy, the friars cannot turn you out so unceremoniously; after all, you’re gentlemen! The fathers are well aware of it.”
Josselin, the elder, said with a nasty smirk:
“They are indeed, and I can even repeat to you the words which the bursar gave us as our only refreshment for the journey: he said that the noblemen were the worst payers, and that if they hadn’t any money they could very well do without Latin and sciences.”
The old Baron straightened his stooping back.
“I find it hard to believe that you are telling the truth. Remember that Church and Nobility are as one, and that the students represent the future flower of the State. The good fathers know that better than anybody!” Raymond, the second boy, who was preparing for the priesthood, answered with his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground:
“The fathers taught us that God will know how to choose his own, so perhaps we weren’t considered worthy ...”
“Shut your album of household words, Raymond,” said his brother. “I assure you this isn’t the time to open it: if you want to become a mendicant friar, that’s your concern. But I am the eldest and I agree with Grandfather: the Church owes us noblemen some consideration! If she now prefers commoners to us, sons of burghers and shopkeepers, let her. She’ll have chosen her own downfall and she’ll crumble!”
The two Barons protested in unison:
“Josselin, you have no right to utter blasphemies!”
“This isn’t blasphemy: I am merely stating a fact. In my Logic class, where I am the youngest and the second out of thirty students, there are exactly twenty-five sons of merchants and officials who pay cash down, and five gentlemen, of whom only two pay regularly.”
Armand de Sancc tried to grasp this slender straw to uphold his prestige. “So two more sons of noblemen were sent down at the same time as
v»
you?
“Not at all; the parents of those who can’t pay are highly placed and the fathers fear them.”
“I forbid you to talk like that about your educators,” said the'Baron, while his old father growled into his beard.
“Good thing the King is dead, so he doesn’t have to see such things.”
“Yes, good thing, Grandfather, as you say,” said Josselin with a sneer. “Even though it was a good monk who murdered Henri IV.”
“Josselin, be silent,” suddenly declared Angllique. “Talking isn’t your strong point, and, what’s more, you look like a toad when you talk. Besides, it’s Henri Ш who was killed by a monk, and not Henri IV.”
The youngster started in amazement and stared at the curly-headed little girl who was thus rebuking him calmly.
“Why, who’s there, little frog, the princess of the marshes, the ‘mar¬quise of the angels’! . . . And to think I even forgot to greet you, little
• _ » sister.
“Why do you call me a frog?”
“Because you called me a toad. Besides, don’t you always hop and dis-appear into the grass and reeds of the marshes? You haven’t turned into a prim old prig like Hortense, by any chance?”
“I should hope not,” said Angelique modestly.
Her interruption had relaxed the atmosphere. The two brothers, more¬over, had finished eating and the nurse was already clearing the table.
The air none the less remained somewhat heavy. Amid the silence could be heard the screams of the youngest baby. The Baroness and aunts and even Gontran used this pretext to “go and have a look”. But Angelique remained with the two Barons and her two elder brothers, who had come back from town in such a wretched state. She wondered whether this time honour wasn’t lost. She would have very much liked to ask, but she didn’t dare. However, her brothers inspired her with some¬thing that wasrather like contemptuous pity.
Old Liitzen, who had been away when the boys arrived, now brought new torches in their honour. He dropped a little wax while clumsily embracing the elder. The younger boy avoided the rough welcoming hug with some disdain.
But, without being put of f, the old soldier did not hesitate to proclaim his own point of view:
“It’s not too soon that you two have come home. First of all, what’s the use of your racking your brains with Latin when you hardly know how to write your own language? When Fantine told me that the young masters have come home for good, I said to myself straightway that Master Josselin could now at last go to sea . . .”
“Sergeant Lutzen, must I remind you of discipline?” bluntly remarked the old Baron.
The old retainer did not protest, and fell silent. Angelique was surprised by her grandfather’s vexed and angry tone of voice. He turned to the eldest boy:
“I trust, Josselin, that you have forgotten your childish dreams of becoming a seafarer?”
“Why should I, Grandfather? It even seems to me that there is no other solution for me now/ * ч.
“You won't go to sea as long as I am alive. Anything, but not that!” And the old man pounded the chipped stone floor with his stick.
Josselin was speechless at this sudden attack on the part of his grandfather concerning a project that was so dear to his heart and which had enabled him to bear his expulsion without too much rancour.
‘That puts an end to the paternosters and Latin recitations/ he had thought. 1 am a man now and can sail before the royal mast/
Armand de Sane6 tried to intervene.
“Look, Father, why be so peremptory? It might be as good a solution as any. As a matter of fact, in the petition I recently addressed to the King, I asked, among other things, for facilities to have my eldest son com¬missioned on a corsair or a man-o’-war.”
But the old Baron writhed with anger. Never had Angelique seen him so furious, even on the day of his altercation with the tax sergeant.
“I don't like people whose feet itch to leave the soil of their ancestors. They never find the wonders of the world beyond the seas, but merely stark-naked savages with tattooed arms. The elder son of a nobleman must serve in the King’s armies, that’s all.”
“I do want to serve the King, but at sea,” answered the boy.
“Josselin is sixteen years old. It’s time for him to choose his own destiny, after all,” suggested his father, somewhat hesitantly.
An expression of pain flitted over the wrinkled face framed by the short white beard. The old man raised his hand.
“It is true that others before him in this family have chosen their own destiny. Must you too disappoint me, my son?” he added with deep sadness.
“Far be it from me to arouse painful memories in you, Father,” apologised Baron Armand. “I myself never dreamt of exiling myself and I am more attached to our Poitou soil than I can say. But I recall how hard and precarious my situation was in the army. Even as a nobleman, you cannot reach the higher ranks widiout money. I was smothered in debts and obliged, at times, to sell my entire outfit, horse, tent, weapons, and even to hire out my own valet. Do you remember all the valuable land you had to sell to keep me in the service?”
Ang&ique followed the conversation with great interest. She had never seen mariners, but the mighty appeal of the ocean penetrated deep into the valleys of the Sevres and the Vendee. She knew that along the coast, from
La Rochelle past Sables d’Olonne to Nantes, there were fishing-craft that sailed for distant lands, where you met men as red as fire or striped like young wild boar. They even told of a Breton sailor, from around Saint Malo, who had brought savages back to France with feathers growing on their heads, like birds. Ah! if she had been a boy, she wouldn’t have asked for Grandfather’s advice! . . . She would already have gone, taking all her little angels along with her to the New World.
“Don’t be afraid, children,” said their grandfather, “they must be chasing some beggar. . .
But Angelique had already bounded towards the porch and was
“Old Guillaume is being attacked, they’re trying to harm him!”
The Baron hobbled to fetch his rusty sabre and Gontran returned, armed with a dog-whip. They too reached the entrance-door and saw the old retainer armed with his pike and Angelique at his side. The adversary was not far of f either. He kept out of reach on the far side of the draw¬bridge, but was still facing them. He was a tall, half-starved-looking fellow, who seemed enraged. At the same time he was trying hard to recover a composed, of ficial air.
Gontran immediately lowered his whip and tugged at his grandfather, whispering:
“It’s the sergeant come for the taxes. He’s been chased away several times already.”
The bullied of ficial, though still retreating slowly, without, however, turning his back, grew more self-assured as he saw the hesitation of the fresh reinforcements. He stopped at a respectful distance and, pulling out of his pocket a roll of paper that had been badly crumpled in the tussle, unrolled it lovingly. Then, wriggling and writhing, he began to read out a summons, according to which the Baron de Sance was ordered to pay without delay a sum of 875 livres, 19 sols and n deniers in respect of rent- tax arrears, a tithe of the seigneurial tax, property tax, mare coverage tax, ‘dust dues’ for the herds passing over the royal road, and fine for arrears in payment.
The old seigneur flushed with rage.
“Maybe you imagine, varlet, that a gentleman will pay out cash just for listening to revenue rigmarole!” he shouted furiously.
“You know very well that his lordship your son has hitherto paid his annual taxes fairly regularly,” said the man, bowing. “I shall come back, therefore, when he is here. But I warn you, if tomorrow at the same hour he is not here for the fourth time and docs not pay, I shall serve a writ on him at once, and your castle and all your furniture will be sold to pay his ^ debts to the Royal Treasury.”
“Get out of here, you State usurers' flunkey!” ,
“Baron, I would have you know that I am a sworn servant of the Law and can also be appointed executive agent.”
“There’s 110 execution without a judgment,” fumed the old Baron.
“There’ll be no trouble about getting a judgment, believe me, if you don’t pay up.”
“How do you expect us to pay if we have nothing to pay with?” shouted Gontran, seeing the old man was ruffled. “Since you are also a law-court of ficer, you can come and verify that the bandits have robbed us of a stallion, two she-asses and four cows. Moreover, the dues you claim are mainly owed by my father s rent-farmers. He’s been willing to pay for them so far, because the poor farmers can’t pay themselves, but he doesn’t owe you anything on it. Besides, the brigands’ last attack has damaged the peasants even more than us, and it certainly won’t be after this last raid that my father’ll be able to settle your bills.”
The tax agent was more appeased by this sensible language than by the old Baron’s insults. While cautiously glancing in Guillaume’s direction, he came a little closer and explained, in a milder and almost kindly tone, but with firmness, that he could not do otherwise than receive and trans¬mit the orders issued by the Revenue Administration. To his mind, the only thing likely to postpone legal action was a petition addressed by the Baron to the Tax Superintendent through the intermediary of the pro¬vincial administrator of Poitou.
“Between ourselves,” added the law of ficer, making die old gentleman wince with disgust, “between ourselves, I’ll tell you that my immediate superiors, such as the District Attorney and the Controller of Taxes, are not empowered to grant you derogation or exemption. Still, since you are of the nobility, you must know people in high places. So take a friend’s advice: act through them.”
“I don’t propose to flatter myself by referring to you as a friend,” remarked the Baron de Ridoue acidly.
“That’s why I am telling you all this so that you can repeat it to his lordship your son. Financial straits are bad for everybody, after all! Do you think I enjoy being received by all and sundry as if I were a ghost? Or collecting more blows than a mangy dog? Well, a good evening to you all, and no of fence!”
He put his hat back on his head and walked away with a limp and a sorrowful glance at the sleeve of his uniform tunic, which had been torn in the scuffle. The old Baron disappeared, also with a limp, in the opposite direction. Gontran and Angelique walked behind him in silence. Old Guillaume, grumbling against imaginary enemies, carried his ancient lance back into his den of historical relics.
Down in the hall, when their grandfather started walking up and down, the children dared not speak for a long while. At last the little girl’s voice rose out of the darkening shadows: .
“Tell me, Grandfather, since the bandits left us our civil rights, didn’t that black fellow take them away with him now?”
“Go and job your mother,” said the old man, whose voice was shaldng all of a sudden.
He turned to sit down b a high, frayed, tapestry arm-chair and spoke no more.
With a bow and a curtsy, the children left.
When Armand de Sance learned of the reception that had been given to the tax collector, he sighed and, for a moment, scratched the small tuft of grey hair that he wore under his lip b the fashion of Louis XIII.
Angclique had an almost protective affection for this good and quiet father, whose daily difficulties had carved deep furrows in his tanned brow. In order to bring up his numerous offspring, this son of im¬pecunious noblemen had had to forgo all the privileges of his position: he rarely travelled, no longer even hunted, differing in this from the neighbouring seigneurs, who, though hardly better off, consoled them¬selves in their poverty by spending their lives runnbg after hare and wild boar.
Armand de Sance devoted all his time to cultivating his small crops. He was hardly better dressed than his peasants and, like them, carried with him a potent aroma of horses and manure. He loved his children. He amused himself with them and was proud of them; they were his chief hold on life. For him, the children came first; after them, the mules. The seigneur had for some time been dreambg of setting up a small stud of these pack-animals, which are less delicate than horses, and sturdier than donkeys.
But now the bandits had taken his best stallion and two she-asses. It was a disaster, and he turned over in his nund scllbg his last mules and the plot of ground which had hitherto been earmarked for the stud-farm.
The day after the sergeant’s visit, Baron Armand carefully pared a goose-quill and settled down at his writing-desk to draft a petition to the King in order to be exempted from the annual taxes. In this letter he explained the extent of a country nobleman’s destitution.
He started by apologising for not bebg able to mention more than nine livbg children, but that more were sure to follow for “both his wife and he were still young and made them gladly”. He added that he had the charge of an invalid father without a pension, who had risen to the rank of colonel under Louis XIII; that he himself had held a captabcy and been recommended for a higher rank, but that he had been obliged to leave the King’s service because his pay as an of ficer in the Royal Artillery at 1,700 livres a year “had not provided him with the means of sustenance b the service”. He also mentioned that his dependants included two old aunts “whom neither husbands nor convents had wanted, for lack of a dowry, and who could only spend their remaining years in doing humble chores”; that he had four domestic servants, among them an old, pensionless soldier whose services he required. Two of his elder boys were at college and thus cost him 500 livres for their education alone. One daughter was to be placed in a convent, but this required an outlay of 300 livresAie concluded by saying that he had for years been paying his tenants’ taxes in order to keep them on the land, but that nevertheless he now found himself indebted to the revenue authorities, who were claiming 875 livres 19 sols and 11 deniers for just the current year. Yet his annual revenue amounted to hardly 4,000 livres a year, while he had to feed nineteen people and keep up his rank as a country gentleman at the very moment when, to top his misfortunes, brigands had looted, killed and devastated his land, plunging his surviving tenants into even greater misery. Finally, he appealed to the royal kindness to grant him remission of the tax claimed, and aid or an advance of at least one thousand livres, and solicited the King’s grace for the employment as ensign, on any ship commissioned for America or the Indies, of his eldest son, the young ‘knight’ at present being schooled in Logic by the holy fathers, to whom incidentally he still owed a year’s school fees.
He added that he was personally always ready to accept any charge whatsoever that would be compatible with his standing, provided that it would enable him to feed his family, in view of the fact that his estate, even if sold, no longer did. . . .
After scattering sand over this long epistle on which he had laboured for several hours, Armand de Sancc wrote one more line to his protector and cousin, the Marquis du Plessis de Belliere, whom he requested to transmit the petition to the King himself or to the Queen Mother, with accom¬panying recommendations to ensure its being favourably received.
He concluded courteously:
“I wish I may soon see you, sir, and find opportunities of being useful to you in this province, cither with pack-mules, of which I have some very fine ones, or with fruit, chestnuts, cheese or pots of curds for your table.”
A few weeks later, poor Baron Armand de Sancc could have added one more misfortune to his list.
One evening when the first frost was beginning to make itself felt, a horse was heard galloping up the road and over the old drawbridge, which was as usual festooned with turkeys. The dogs barked in the courtyard. Angcliquc rushed to the window.
She saw a horse from which trwo tall, lanky riders, dressed in black, leapt down, while a trunk-laden mule appeared on the road, led by a little peasant. *
The two girls and the old ladies hurried downstairs. They arrived in the drawing-room just as the schoolboys were greeting their grandfather and Aunt Jeanne. The servants came running from all directions. Someone had already gone to fetch the Baron from the fields and Madame from the kitchen-garden.
The youngsters responded rather ungraciously to the fuss made over their homecoming. They were fifteen and sixteen years old, but were frequently taken for twins. They had the same mat complexion, grey eyes and wiry black hair which hung down to the white collars of their crumpled and dirty uniforms. Only their expressions differed. Josselin's features showed more brutality, Raymond’s more reserve.
While they answered their grandfather’s questions in monosyllables, the delighted nurse spread a beautiful cloth over the table and brought dishes of pie, bread, butter and a cauldron full of the first chestnuts. The youngsters’ eyes shone. Without waiting, they sat down to table and ate with such greed and slovenliness that Angelique was filled with admiration. She noticed, however, that they were thin and pale and that their black twill costumes were threadbare at the knees and elbows. They dropped their eyes when they spoke. Neither had seemed to recognise her, yet she remembered that she had formerly helped Josselin to raid bird-nests, just as Denis was helping her nowadays.
Raymond had a hollow horn at his belt. She asked him what it was.
“It’s an inkhorn,” he replied haughtily.
“I’ve thrown mine away,” said Josselin.
Their father and mother arrived with torches. The Baron was a little alarmed, despite his joy.
“How is it that you are here, my boys? You did not come home all summer. Aren’t the first winter days an odd time for holidays?”
“Wc didn’t come during the summer,” explained Raymond, “because wc hadn’t a penny to hire a horse or even take the public coach from Poitiers to Niort.”
“And if we are here now, it isn’t because we’re any richer . . .” con¬tinued Josselin.
“. . . but because the fathers have turned us out,” ended Raymond.
There was a constrained silence.
“By Saint Denis,” cried their grandfather, “what pranks have you been up to, gentlemen, that you should be treated so injuriously?”
“None whatever, but it’s almost two years since the Augustine friars last received our fees. They gave us to understand that other students’ whose parents were more generous, needed our places. . .
Baron Armand started walking up and down the room, which was a sign of great agitation in him.
“It hardly seems possible. If you haven’t proved yourselves unworthy, the friars cannot turn you out so unceremoniously; after all, you’re gentlemen! The fathers are well aware of it.”
Josselin, the elder, said with a nasty smirk:
“They are indeed, and I can even repeat to you the words which the bursar gave us as our only refreshment for the journey: he said that the noblemen were the worst payers, and that if they hadn’t any money they could very well do without Latin and sciences.”
The old Baron straightened his stooping back.
“I find it hard to believe that you are telling the truth. Remember that Church and Nobility are as one, and that the students represent the future flower of the State. The good fathers know that better than anybody!” Raymond, the second boy, who was preparing for the priesthood, answered with his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground:
“The fathers taught us that God will know how to choose his own, so perhaps we weren’t considered worthy ...”
“Shut your album of household words, Raymond,” said his brother. “I assure you this isn’t the time to open it: if you want to become a mendicant friar, that’s your concern. But I am the eldest and I agree with Grandfather: the Church owes us noblemen some consideration! If she now prefers commoners to us, sons of burghers and shopkeepers, let her. She’ll have chosen her own downfall and she’ll crumble!”
The two Barons protested in unison:
“Josselin, you have no right to utter blasphemies!”
“This isn’t blasphemy: I am merely stating a fact. In my Logic class, where I am the youngest and the second out of thirty students, there are exactly twenty-five sons of merchants and officials who pay cash down, and five gentlemen, of whom only two pay regularly.”
Armand de Sancc tried to grasp this slender straw to uphold his prestige. “So two more sons of noblemen were sent down at the same time as
v»
you?
“Not at all; the parents of those who can’t pay are highly placed and the fathers fear them.”
“I forbid you to talk like that about your educators,” said the'Baron, while his old father growled into his beard.
“Good thing the King is dead, so he doesn’t have to see such things.”
“Yes, good thing, Grandfather, as you say,” said Josselin with a sneer. “Even though it was a good monk who murdered Henri IV.”
“Josselin, be silent,” suddenly declared Angllique. “Talking isn’t your strong point, and, what’s more, you look like a toad when you talk. Besides, it’s Henri Ш who was killed by a monk, and not Henri IV.”
The youngster started in amazement and stared at the curly-headed little girl who was thus rebuking him calmly.
“Why, who’s there, little frog, the princess of the marshes, the ‘mar¬quise of the angels’! . . . And to think I even forgot to greet you, little
• _ » sister.
“Why do you call me a frog?”
“Because you called me a toad. Besides, don’t you always hop and dis-appear into the grass and reeds of the marshes? You haven’t turned into a prim old prig like Hortense, by any chance?”
“I should hope not,” said Angelique modestly.
Her interruption had relaxed the atmosphere. The two brothers, more¬over, had finished eating and the nurse was already clearing the table.
The air none the less remained somewhat heavy. Amid the silence could be heard the screams of the youngest baby. The Baroness and aunts and even Gontran used this pretext to “go and have a look”. But Angelique remained with the two Barons and her two elder brothers, who had come back from town in such a wretched state. She wondered whether this time honour wasn’t lost. She would have very much liked to ask, but she didn’t dare. However, her brothers inspired her with some¬thing that wasrather like contemptuous pity.
Old Liitzen, who had been away when the boys arrived, now brought new torches in their honour. He dropped a little wax while clumsily embracing the elder. The younger boy avoided the rough welcoming hug with some disdain.
But, without being put of f, the old soldier did not hesitate to proclaim his own point of view:
“It’s not too soon that you two have come home. First of all, what’s the use of your racking your brains with Latin when you hardly know how to write your own language? When Fantine told me that the young masters have come home for good, I said to myself straightway that Master Josselin could now at last go to sea . . .”
“Sergeant Lutzen, must I remind you of discipline?” bluntly remarked the old Baron.
The old retainer did not protest, and fell silent. Angelique was surprised by her grandfather’s vexed and angry tone of voice. He turned to the eldest boy:
“I trust, Josselin, that you have forgotten your childish dreams of becoming a seafarer?”
“Why should I, Grandfather? It even seems to me that there is no other solution for me now/ * ч.
“You won't go to sea as long as I am alive. Anything, but not that!” And the old man pounded the chipped stone floor with his stick.
Josselin was speechless at this sudden attack on the part of his grandfather concerning a project that was so dear to his heart and which had enabled him to bear his expulsion without too much rancour.
‘That puts an end to the paternosters and Latin recitations/ he had thought. 1 am a man now and can sail before the royal mast/
Armand de Sane6 tried to intervene.
“Look, Father, why be so peremptory? It might be as good a solution as any. As a matter of fact, in the petition I recently addressed to the King, I asked, among other things, for facilities to have my eldest son com¬missioned on a corsair or a man-o’-war.”
But the old Baron writhed with anger. Never had Angelique seen him so furious, even on the day of his altercation with the tax sergeant.
“I don't like people whose feet itch to leave the soil of their ancestors. They never find the wonders of the world beyond the seas, but merely stark-naked savages with tattooed arms. The elder son of a nobleman must serve in the King’s armies, that’s all.”
“I do want to serve the King, but at sea,” answered the boy.
“Josselin is sixteen years old. It’s time for him to choose his own destiny, after all,” suggested his father, somewhat hesitantly.
An expression of pain flitted over the wrinkled face framed by the short white beard. The old man raised his hand.
“It is true that others before him in this family have chosen their own destiny. Must you too disappoint me, my son?” he added with deep sadness.
“Far be it from me to arouse painful memories in you, Father,” apologised Baron Armand. “I myself never dreamt of exiling myself and I am more attached to our Poitou soil than I can say. But I recall how hard and precarious my situation was in the army. Even as a nobleman, you cannot reach the higher ranks widiout money. I was smothered in debts and obliged, at times, to sell my entire outfit, horse, tent, weapons, and even to hire out my own valet. Do you remember all the valuable land you had to sell to keep me in the service?”
Ang&ique followed the conversation with great interest. She had never seen mariners, but the mighty appeal of the ocean penetrated deep into the valleys of the Sevres and the Vendee. She knew that along the coast, from
La Rochelle past Sables d’Olonne to Nantes, there were fishing-craft that sailed for distant lands, where you met men as red as fire or striped like young wild boar. They even told of a Breton sailor, from around Saint Malo, who had brought savages back to France with feathers growing on their heads, like birds. Ah! if she had been a boy, she wouldn’t have asked for Grandfather’s advice! . . . She would already have gone, taking all her little angels along with her to the New World.
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