CHAPTER XVIII.
THE AMERICAN FRANCE.
Chrysler and Genest, after reaching the Manoir, sat conversing under the large triple tree on the side of the lawn.
"You have no idea of the simplicity of life here," l'Honorable philosophised. "We dwell as peacefully, in general, and almost as much in one spot as these great trees. After all, is there any condition in which mortal existence is happier than that of pure air and tranquility. We have a proverb, 'Love God and go thy path.' To love God, to live, to die, are the complete circle."
Chamilly's entrance put an end to these idyllic observations. He was driven up in a cart by a country jehu, and leaping out, there followed him a couple of friends.
Haviland called Tardif, the head servant, who appeared at the door of the house, bareheaded, with an apron on:
"Bring the dinner out here, Tardif," he ordered; and a light table was set under the spreading boughs.
"Now tell us, De La Lande, about your trip to Montreal."
Of the two friends who drove up with their host in the cart, one was Breboeuf, a hunchback. This little creature on being introduced, bowed and shook hands with an aspect of hopeless resignation, and sitting down, relapsed into thought, telescoping his neck into his squarish shoulders. His companion was a young man of small build, but spirited, good-looking face—De La Lande, schoolmaster of the village, a son of the farmer "Duke."
"And where commence?" responded the schoolmaster to the request for an account of the trip to Montreal.
"In the middle, as I am doing," retorted Haviland, flourishing the carving-knife over the joint.
"Ah well. The middle was the climax with me. It was the Fête of St. Jean
Baptiste!"
"You saw Notre Dame, and the great procession?" inquired the Honorable.
"Yes, I saw that vast Cathedral fifteen thousand full! And the Curé of Colonization climbed up in the midst, and I heard the most glorious words that were ever spoken to French Canadians!"
"Was the procession like ours here?"
"At Dormillière? Pah!—we have two Curés, a beadle and the choir-boys! Theirs was a mile in length. There were nineteen bands playing music, all in fine uniforms, and there were all the Societies of St. Jean Baptiste walking, with their gold chains and their badges, and as many as forty magnificently decorated cars, bearing representations of the discovery of Canada by Jacques Cartier, and the workings of all the trades, and innumerable splendid banners, of white, and blue, and red and green, with gold inscriptions and pictures—and the Curé of Col——"
"Were the streets well decorated? How were the arches and flags?"
"They were good. The streets were full of flying tricolors and Union
Jacks stretched across them. They were lined with green saplings as we
do here. The crowd was enormous. There were thousands from the States.
And the Cathedral of Notre Dame was all excitement; for the Curé——,"
"Tell us about it! Every one speaks of it! What did he say?"
(A well-known priest had just electrified the people of the land with an extraordinary declaration.)
"But, to speak of his aims, I must recollect the numbers of our people."
"Breboeuf, mon brebis," said Chamilly, turning to the little fellow, "what is the number of the French Canadians?"
The hunchback lifted his face gravely, and issued in a monotonous voice, but with the precision of a machine:—"One million, eighty-two thousand, nine hundred and forty-three, in Canada, by the census of 1870; one million, one hundred and ten thousand, in Canada, by the computation of the Abbé Zero; four hundred and thirty-five thousand in the United States by the computation of the same."
The Ontarian was surprised at his odd, machine-like accuracy, but Haviland only laughed a little chuckle and Chrysler's glance was drawn away towards a figure entering the gate, walking abstractedly, his hands in his hip pockets and eyes on the path. He was of slender but agile person, the decision which marked every movement showing his consciousness of latent activity. Haviland espied him presently:
"Bravo, here is Quinet. Quinet, what are you doing?"
"Cultivating dulness," replied the figure, scarcely glancing up.
"Come and cultivate us, for a contrast, my friend."
"Would I be changing occupation?"
"Sit here and we will show you. Yourself may be as dull as you like."
The stranger, nonchalantly, and half-defiantly, seated himself, after introduction. Chrysler scanned him curiously in recollection of the references to him in Haviland's Book of Enthusiasms, and recognized the strange red-brown scale of hues of hair, eyebrows and moustache, which gave character to his appearance; but the pale countenance was strong now, and tanned, though spare, and all the signs of former weakness had departed.
Chamilly continued to Chrysler:
"I am not a little proud of the cheerfulness, the spirit, the respectability, the intelligence of my little people. And if you had seen the mottoes which I have read on cars and banners in the processions of our national saint; such as, "GOD HAS MADE LAW TO EVERY MAN TO LABOR," and: "TO MAKE THE PEOPLE BETTER,"—you would have felt with me that it must be a people responsive to sober and admirable aims."
"I have no doubt of it," remarked the visitor genially.
"But I scarcely think you can be familiar with a group of startling projects lately cherished in our circles."
"Plots against everybody," Quinet remarked. "Have the goodness to pass me the asparagus."
"The Continent of North America is a large acre," continued Haviland. "Can you fancy a race who a century ago were but ninety thousand, aspiring and actually planning for its complete control?"
Chrysler looked amused at the idea, for the handful of French-Canadians.
"That is our firmly-persuaded future!" asserted the young man, De La Lande, eagerly and boldly. "The Curé of Colonization has demonstrated that it is possible. We shall reconquer the continent!"
"Is it your view?" Chrysler asked of Chamilly.
"I instance it," he returned, "because it shows that my people are capable of thinking high."
"There is a progression of plans!" went on the eager De La Lande. "The first is to get control of the six English counties!"
"I will trust the Anglo-Saxon for holding his own," the Ontarian laughed, in the amusement of vigorous confidence.
"But we gain!" the young man cried. "Our race is always French! We win fast the British strongholds in our dear Province."
"This the least, of the plans," Haviland remarked. "All are founded on a curious fact."
"What fact is that?"
"Our phenomenal multiplication in numbers," returned the seigneur, smiling.
"What?" cried Chrysler.
He stopped a moment open-eyed, and then laughed heartily and long. He could not satisfy his laughter at such a basis for conquest of a continent, and it burst forth again at intervals for some time.
"Nevertheless it is true,—and Biblical," continued the undaunted schoolmaster. "Sicut saggittae in manu potentis, ita filii excussorum."
"Breboeuf," said Haviland, who took some part with De La Lande but joined in Chrysler's amusement, "help us. What was the number of French-Canadians at the conquest by the English?"
"Sixty-nine thousand two hundred and sixty-five, by the census of the
General Murray in 1765, including approximately 500 others."
"And now?"
"One million and eight-two thousand nine hundred and forty, by the census of 1870."
"You see, sir, what a growth. The clergy encourage it with satisfaction.
It is not comfortable for bachelors in some of our parishes."
All at the table were laughing, more or less, except De La Lande and the hunchback, who were perfectly serious.
"One plan, sir, I confess freely," said the former, "affects yourself. You are perfectly acquainted with the Ottawa River, separating your Province from our own, and that it cuts across and above yours, which is a peninsula. The fourth great plan (out of six), is to plant centres along the Ottawa which shall exert their expansive force downwards to overrun your peninsula."
"What a dangerous race!"
"While another contingent meets it further south, where our progress is well known. So we shall win the centre itself of the Dominion. Let us possess the North, says our Peter the Hermit, and we can rest sure of the whole. Yes, let us possess the North! let us populate the shores of Hudson's Bay!" the enthusiast cried, losing himself in his vision, "Let us possess the shores of Hudson's Bay, where d'Iberville of old dislodged our enemies!"
"Peter the Hermit!" laughed Chamilly. "What a name for our jolly old Curé of Colonization. But all that is well enough for ecclesiastics to recommend, since none others would invite their friends to die on those refrigerated wastes.—Yet the people themselves are heroically willing."
"Our next ambition," proceeded De La Lande, absorbed in his enthusiasm and quite guileless of any personal enmities, "is the conquest of the United States. Northern Maine is French Canadian. In New England we count half a million. Lowell, Worcester, Lawrence, Nashua and Fall River are ours. In farms, in parishes, in solid masses, we shall establish ourselves on the banks of the Merrimac as we have on our own historic streams, to increase and multiply and possess the land, replacing the degenerate New Englander, possedentes januas hostium, performing a divine mission, working out a high destiny for our language and the Catholic faith, and establishing a new, magnificent State out of the portions of those destroyed, over which shall fly the lilies of old—"
"And perhaps reign a duly fat Bourbon," interrupted Quinet over his salad.
"We shall re-unite at last again with France! The affection of this remnant of her children, turned adrift in their few arpents of snow, has never died towards the land so changed from the time of our forefathers. It is still to us the Palestine of our speech, our history and our faith of St. Louis! We are the American France! We are all ready. We are the people of God. In the words of a brother: 'This blood was set in America in the midst of a material world, like France in Europe, to regenerate these peoples and perpetuate the reign of ideals. God has willed it: 'GESTA DEI PER FRANCOS!'"
Chamilly turned to Chrysler as the school master ended, and said with a smile: "Do you not think there is enterprise in a people like this?"
CHAPTER XVIII.
A DISAPPEARING ORDER.
"Qu'il est triste d'etre vaincu!—"
—DU CALVET.
From Quinet who had been deliberately dealing with his dessert, now came words:
"Mistaken impulses! Led after will o' the wisps by dreamers and designers! If it were not that all movements work but one way, like the backward and forward of a machine—towards advancement, these things would make a man despond."
"What then, sir," Chrysler asked, "are your ideas?"
"Hear me, like a different messenger from the same battle. The motto,
'God has made Law to Every Man to Labour,' means that the slaves of
priestcraft are to be contented with their servitude. 'To Make the
People Better,' means to blind the second eye of their obedience."
"To—?"
"Stop my dear friend," Chamilly interrupted with emotion, "that motto's words are sacred to me and will ever justly be to all our people. Do not disparage that motto?"
"I will never disparage making the people truly better. It is to the tone of those who usurp the aim, you should apply my critique. The men who lip these terms are none other than the evil geniuses of history. It is the Jesuits who would make us poor and miserable,—who have wrecked French America, past and future. Without them we should have welcomed to our dominions from the first, an immigration twice larger than England's: we should have held the continent north, south and centre; our people would have been vitalized by education instead of so ignorant that no commoner but one ever wrote a book; they would have built and flourished and extended; and in place of a poor and helpless people they would have been rich, powerful, and self-reliant, like the Bostonians; Bigot and his nest of horse-leeches would never have sucked our blood and left us to ruin!"
He paused, but as if not yet quite finished. His hearers listened.
"And since—," he suddenly and energetically added, with a stern look around and a bitter suggestiveness on the word as if it were enough to pronounce it; and in truth, it silenced both De La Lande and Chamilly, and appeared to make a completely effective ending.
In the evening, walking out on the road before retiring, Chamilly and Chrysler commented on the discussion, and Chrysler said, "I must say I was unprepared for this debate. I was a poor helpless Briton, caught like Braddock in Mr. De La Lande's ambush. Tell me what you think yourself of these things."
"It is a sad thing to belong to a disappearing order," Haviland replied, "Sympathising with my people, I am grieved in a sense to believe their present aspirations dreams. It is sad to behold any race, and deeply so if it is your own, blind in the presence of unalterable forces which will soon begin their removal of what it considers to be dearest."
"I sympathize with them and you," Chrysler said.
"Ecclesiasticism ruins us!" exclaimed Quinet the Radical, who was with them:
"Quiconque me résiste et me brave est impie
Ce qu'ici-bas j'écris, là-haut Dieu la copie."
"You should moderate your animosity," Chamilly said. "These Jesuits are most certainly humble, self-devoted men?"
"I detest them as machines, not as men!" retorted the Radical.
CHAPTER XIX.
HUMAN NATURE.
"Va …
A monsieur le Curé
Lui dire que sa paroisse
Est tout bouleversee."
—POPULAR BALLAD.
Curé L'Archeveque, black skull-cap on head, was in the best of humour, playing with his little dog in the ample reception-room of the parsonage, when a laborer came and brought an account of several late doings in the village.
When Messiré heard what had been said at Zotique's, his rotund black stole writhed as if founts of lava boiled in him; his face swelled to the likeness of a fiery planet; indignation choked his speech for four minutes by the face of the tall clock in his sitting-room; and then the lava rose to the surface in jets:
"Gang of accurseds!"
"Atheists!"
"Freemasons!"
He turned for a moment to the laborer again who had come to inform him.
Then he exploded successively as before:
"They laughed?"
"They laughed!"
"I will make them laugh!"
The young curé, his vicar, who was present, tried to calm him, but could not.
His energies turned to action; he dismissed the parishioner, who, hat in hand, stood humbly by the door, and sitting down began to write letters and concoct vows.
The first of the latter was to announce a spiritual boycott from the pulpit on Zotique and his iniquitous hall; and with this he wrote to the Attorney-General on the scandal of the gross misuse of the Circuit Court and the bad character of the local Registrar.
The second bitter vow was that the Liberals should lose their election: this inspired a letter to Grandmoulin, the "Cave" Chief.
There were other vows and other letters; one each to the Bishop and the
Archbishop,—whose contents are unknown.
At similar times, however, the Reverend gentleman had a recreation to which he was accustomed to turn for refreshment, and this was not long in rising in his mind. By law he was Visitor to the secular school: than which there was nothing he considered more nearly the root of all evil. He therefore took up his brown straw hat and black cane, and started determinedly out to exercise his habit of vexing the high spirit of the school master, De La Lande.
"Ah bon, fratello!" cried Zotique that afternoon when de La Lande appeared at his door, "How goes it? Come in and speak to Mr. Chrysler, here."
"It goes ill, Zotique," answered the school master, gloomily, "I have had the Curé again."
"And what did he say to you?"
"Quarrels with everything in the system. Our geography was galimatias, and book-keeping a crime: the people must not think they were on a level with the learned, and the children must do this and that. At last—at last—I was exasperated, and told him I had a right under the laws to my position and powers. He said there can be no right against the Right! I told him there were many wrongs against the Right! And he went away saying he would bring me to a bed of straw."
"Let him do!" laughed the Registrar.
But Zotique himself was not to escape quite scot-free, for when Chrysler stopped next day at his office, as he was getting accustomed to do, he found him in one of his excitements.
[F]"Àc-ré-yé!" he was ejaculating.
[Footnote F: NOTE—An evasive form of "Sacre," analogous to "Sapre,"
"Sacristie," "Sac," "St. Christophe," &c.]
"Ah, good day, sir. Come in and take a seat Àa-a-créyé, how they enrage us!"—and he cast an impatient glance on the floor at a large envelope deeply marked with his heel.
"What is the matter?" Chrysler queried.
"The matter, sir, is that!"—spurning the envelope.
"An official notification?"
"Not official!—No, sir, unofficial! ultra-official, contra-official, pseud-official! See, read it!"
He picked up and handed over the objectionable letter, which was headed with the stamp of the Attorney-General's Office:—"Dear Sir,—You are requested to grant Mr. Cletus Libergent the use of the Circuit Court edifice and rooms, which are in your charge, for whatever purpose he may desire, for the space of three weeks from the present date."
T. OUAOUARON,
Attorney-General.
Chrysler smiled to Zotique. Could a Government that openly granted the public buildings to partisans pretend to a sense of right or dignity?
As to the effects of the Curé's second vow, they remain matter for narration to come.
CHAPTER XX.
CHEZ NOUS.
"Bonjour le maître et la maîtresse
Et tous les gens de la maison."
—THE GUIGNOLEE CAROL.
The crimson and gold of sunset were stained richly across the west. Chrysler was walking leisurely out in the country. A mile from Dormillière, a white stone farm-house stood forward near the road. In front, across the highway, the low cliff swelled out into the stump of a headland, which bore spreading on its grassy top three mighty and venerable oaks.
Chrysler, pondering as was his wont upon this and everything, noting the surges of color in the sky, the clear view, the procession of odd-looking homesteads down the road; their narrow fields running back indefinitely; the resting flocks and herds; here a group of thatched-roof barns, and there a wayside cross; passed along and mused on the peace of life in this prairie country, and the goodness of the Almighty to His children of every tongue.
The strains of a violin in the farm-house struck his ear. Someone was fiddling the well-known sprightly air, "Vive la Canadienne:"
"Long live the fair Canadian girl,
With her sweet, tender eyes."
The house was a large cottage, having around its door a slender gallery, at whose side went down a stair. Its chimnies were stout, and walls thick, its roof pitched very steep and clipped off short at the eaves; a garden of lilac-bushes and shrubs, some of which pressed their dark green against its spotless white-wash, surrounding it in front and on one side, while on the other lay the barn-yard, with a large wooden cross in its centre, protected by a railing. Two hundred years ago such houses were built in Brittany.
Chrysler's glances took in with curiosity the tiny window up in the gable, the quaint-cut iron bars of the cellar openings, the small-paned sashes of the four front windows.
Above the door, was the rude-cut inscription:
A DIEU LA GLOIRE J.B. 1768.
The fiddler drew his attention particularly, however, to the people on the gallery. There was one at least whom he had seen before. A cavalier of much shirt-front and large mouth, and on whose make-up, Nature had printed "BAR-TENDER" in capitals—in short the "Spoon" of Zotique's reception—was sitting on the balustrade of the little gallery, making courtship over the shoulder of a dark-eyed maid, whose mother—a square-waisted archetype of her—stood in the door. Paterfamilias sat on the top step with his back to Chrysler, barring the stair rather awkwardly with his legs. A second young man slender, and dressed in a frock coat of black broad-cloth, and silk hat, and with face pale, but of undiscourageable obserfulness, though without doubt repulsed by the father's attitude from a front attack on the position, was taking the three steps in the garden necessary to bring him alongside the gallery. And, unobserved, down beside her dress, the maiden's fair hand was dropping him a sprig of lilac.
Within, the grandfather bent crooked over his violin.
Our traveller halted, there was a whisper, and the music stopped.
"Salut, Monsieur," cried the householder, stumbling down the steps and hurrying half-way across the garden, where he took up a position, "Monsieur is tired. Will he honour my roof? All here is yours, and I and my family are at your service. Enter, Monsieur."
A dramatic gesture of humility recalled at once the man in blue homespun, who had addressed the crowd at Zotique's.
"Good evening, Mr. Benoit," the Ontarian said, opening the gate and mustering his French, "I shall be charmed."
The air immediately bustled with hospitality.
"Come in, sir, come in," feebly rasped the voice of the old man from the door. "Josephte, bring a chair for Monsieur." "I will fetch one!" cried the good-wife. The girl Josephte, rose from her seat and followed her mother quickly into the house; the pale young man in the garden doubled his cheerful smile; and only the bar-tender endued himself in an aggressive grin of independence.
"I assure you, monsieur," pronounced Jean Benoit, with his full armory of oratorical gestures, "that a friend of Monseigneur Chamilly will always have our best. Ascend, sir.—Josephte, place Monsieur the chair."
Never was there a greater occasion of state.
Their guest raised his hat to the young lady and her mother, who threw into her carriage all the dignity and suavity she could command. Then he ascended and sat gratefully down, for he was fatigued.
The grandfather had laid his instrument on a spinning-wheel within the door, and slowly lit a pipe with both hands. The bar-tender jumped from his perch and stood with a familiar leer, of which when Benoit said "Mr. Cuiller, monsieur," Chrysler took trifling notice. On the other hand the pale lover remained modestly down the steps, and his cheerfulness redoubled when Chrysler nodded to him, passingly introduced as "Le Brun."
"Does the gentleman take white whiskey,[G] or well milk?" asked the old man. "Josephte, bring some milk."
[Footnote G: Highwines.]
The daughter darted into the house.—"There is tea on the stove, Josephte!" Madame called hurriedly inwards, "and bring out some cakes and apples, and perhaps Monsieur would like new honey.—Be comfortable, sir."
"Monsieur has come into the parish for the election?" the old man queried politely.
"Only to see what passes," he replied, accepting the bowl of milk which Josephte tendered him, and a piece of raisin cake from a pile on a blue-pattern plate.—"What do you think of it?"
But a diversion occurred. The wife had retired a few moments, and a veteran piano commenced playing, while a spirited boy's voice struck up a hymn from the services of the Church,—"O Salutaris Hostia." It was her youngest son, whom she had not been able to resist showing off a little. Chrysler praised the voice, which was excellent, and the boy, attired in a neat, black, knee-breeches suit with white stockings, was proudly brought forward and presented.
The grandfather had the twinkle in his eye of a true country violinist.
"I was going to tell them a story of the old times, sir. Will you pardon me?" he said, with the twinkle sparkling.
Chrysler protested his own desire to listen.
"We always like to hear about the old times," said young Le Brun, apologetically.
"It's about a rascality of Zotique's, the droll boy, when we were young—the delectable history of Mouton. Mouton, the servant of Père Galibert, who in those times was Curé, was a fat man, of the air of a tallow image. You know Legros—the butcher's son,—just like that. If he had had red hair there would have been spontaneous combustion."
"Someone stole the sacramental wine of Pére Galibert, and everyone except the Pére knew it was Mouton. Messire would never believe them, though it so angered him he preached fourteen discourses against the thief. They were eloquent sermons."
"One Sunday afternoon—it was about the Day of St. Michel, when we went in to pay the seigneur his rents—Zotique was at the presbytère with me and his brother the Honorable, and all of us playing cards with Pére Galibert. Zotique had come down from the city with a new keg of wine for the Sacrament, and they were discussing the disappearance. Mouton was there, and he says never a word. "Let it alone," says Zotique, and he looks around and takes up the inkbottle carelessly from the shelf and goes off to the kitchen and down into the cellar, where he puts away the wine, and then he comes back to us, upstairs. Mouton disappears in a moment. Zotique pretends to play,—but he is calculating the seconds. Presently he says, "Monsieur le Curé, you and I are too good players. Let Mouton take my place, and do you play against Benoit and my cousin," and without waiting for any answer he flies out to the kitchen, and cries sharply: "Mouton, Messire wants you!" adding, "Quick, quick, tête de Mouton!" Mouton rushes upstairs, brushing his mouth. There he stands before us, solid as the image of tallow; but his mouth was as black as an oven's, and his features indistinguishable with ink."
The circle, all eagerly listening, burst forth:
"How did Zotique do it?" they cried.
"Voila the mystery."
"What was done to Mouton?"
"Pére Galibert boiled him down into tapers, and sold him to the congregation."
The old man put his pipe, which had gone out, once more to his lips and nonchalantly repeated the operation of lighting it between his hands.
Spoon, his low felt hat tipped over his eyes made Josephte blush crimson with his attentions. Her glances and smiles were to François.
Chrysler as he watched her, saw that it was she whose spiritual expression had attracted him at church. Near at hand, he took notes of her appearance. She was of modest face, regular and handsome in features, though not striking, and her cheek wore just a suggestion of color. Dressed in black, her apparel and demeanor were quietly perfect.
The fine sweep of view from the gallery across the water attracted him, and his eyes rested upon the leafy monarchs shadowing the river-bank before them.
"Your house is well placed," he said in admiration.
"Yes, Monsieur," replied the old man, simply, and he pointed out the various parishes whose spires could be descried across the water.
Thus conversing and observing, the Ontarian spent an instructive and delightful hour. When he rose to go, calm and rested, the hospitality again became profuse. "The gentleman will not walk!" shrilly protested highly-pleased mater familias. "Go François," turning to young Le Brun: "row Monsieur to the Manoir, you and Mr. Cuiller. Take the rose chaloupe, and Josephte shall go too."
Chrysler made a very admirable guest. He would have struck you as a fine, large man, of kindly face, and influential manner, and people pressed upon him their best wherever he went. "You speak our tongue, sir," said the grandfather, "That is a great thing. I have often thought that if all the people of the earth spoke but one speech they would all be brothers. What an absurdity to be divided by mere syllables."
So they parted, with many "Au revoirs" and mutual compliments at the water-side. The willing François planted one foot on a stone in the water and handed the young lady into the boat, and Cuiller hastening for the seat next her, made a pretended accidental lunge of his heavy shoulder at him into the water. François kept his balance and, quite unconscious of the malicious stratagem, held the ill-wisher himself from going over, which he almost did, to Josephte's demure amusement; next Chrysler got in and François essayed to push off. But as the boat stuck in the bottom and refused to stir, he suddenly dropped his hold, and with an "Avance done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current.
Peace reigned over every surrounding. The broad, molten-like surface; the dusky idealizing of the lines of cottages and delicate silhouetting of the trees along the shore near them; the artistic picture of the old white farm-house, mystic-looking in the soft evening light, with its shapes of lilac-trees rioting about it and the three great oaks darkening the bank in front; the ghost of light along the distant horizon; the gentle coolness of the air; the occasional far-off echo of some cry; and the regular splash and gleam of the oars as they leave the water or dip gently in again. A fish leaps. An ocean steamer, low in the distance, can be descried creeping noiselessly on. The islands and shores mirror themselves half-distinctly in the water.
A mile above, some boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like the voices of spirits.
But farther, farther yet, a still more distant echo—a suggestion scarcely real—floats also to us. The whole river, in its length and breadth, from Soulanges and the Lake of Two Mountains, and the tributary Ottawa, to Quebec and Kamouraska and the shores of the Gulf beyond, all is alive with plaintive sweetness, echoing from spirit to spirit, (for it is a fiction that music is a thing of lips and ears), old accents of Normandy, Champagne, and Angoulême.
The brimming François strikes up by natural suggestion of his dipping oars;
A la claire fontaine
M'en allant promener.
I.
Beside the crystal fountain
Turning for ease to stray,
So fair I found the waters
My limbs in them I lay.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
So fair I found the waters,
My limbs in them I lay:
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay.
Long is it, &c.
III
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay,
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree's topmost spray.
Long is it, &c.
IV.
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree's topmost spray:—
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou who hast heart so gay!
Long is it, &c.
V.
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou hast a heart so gay,
Thou hast a heart so merry,
While mine is sorrow's prey.
Long is it, &c.
VI.
For I have lost my mistress,
Whom I did true obey,
All for a bunch of roses,
Whereof I said her nay.
Long is it, &c.
VII.
I would those luckless roses,
Were on their bush to-day,
And that itself the rosebush
Were plunged in ocean's spray.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
The melody was of a quiet, haunting strangeness, and from the end of the words "Thou who hast heart so gay," the maiden perfected it by interweaving an exquisite contralto into the chorus,
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
In this fashion was Chrysler delivered at the Manoir, and when Chamilly asked him "Where have you been-this evening?" as he entered the grounds, he answered, "In Arcadia!"
CHAPTER XXI.
DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE.
"Aië! cela ressemble un peu à certaine fable celèbre, dont la morale se résume ceçi ne comptez pas sans votre hôte."
—BENJAMIN SULTE
"St. Gregory the Great! Here comes the Small-pox!" exclaimed Zotique, as he and Chamilly, with their guest, were off behind the Manoir, and standing by the weather-worn Chapel in the hayfields, which served as the tomb of the first Haviland, "the Protestant Seigneur."
The name "Picault" offered itself so readily to the pun of
"Picotte,"—Small-pox,—that the jest had become almost a usage.
Startled by Zotique's exclamation, Mr Chrysler looked from the commemorative table on the Chapel's side (whose rivulet of eulogies he was reading line by line), towards the pine-walk round the Manoir, whence a distant figure was sauntering towards them along the path, meditatively smoking a cigar.
"That's a fact," exclaimed Chamilly, straining his eyes towards the figure; and the three looked at each other in astonishment. "Has he actually the enterprise to try me again? Or what can he want?"
"I can answer you," the veracious Zotique undertook, "my eyes are good.—He is smiling fully a second hundred thousand."
"That is courage after what I gave him for the first."
"It is doubtless, then, glory:—say Member of the Council."
"Did I ever tell you of the last time he came to me, and offered not only that Membership, but finally advanced to the Presidency of it. Imagine the recklessness of the Province's interests—A President of the Council at twenty-four years! More than that, if I wished for active glory, he would give either the local Premiership, or undertake to combine the French parties at Ottawa, and put me at their head, with a surety of being Premier of the whole country. And this again for a youth of twenty-four years!—He tried to flatter me that I was a Pitt or a Napoleon. And I answered, that no man guilty of such a compact could be either."
"You will do it without him," replied Zotique, confidently.
Chrysler looked closely at the approaching figure, growing larger and clearer.
"Where is he Member for?" he asked.
"Member for Hoang-ho in partibus infidelium," replied Zotique, sarcastically.
Picault sauntered up with a smile of unfaltering genial sang-froid, bowed, removed his cigar, and addressed them.
"Salut, my dear Haviland, salut Messieurs. Oh! my dear Genest, how goes it?" offering his hand, which Zotique took with a caricature of extravagant joy and imitation of the other's style:
"My dear Small-pox—pardon me—my dear friend, I am charmed to meet again a man of so much sense and honor."
"Ah yes, we have fought on many a field, but we respect each other 'Honneur au plus vaillant.' But why, my dear Haviland," turning, "why should the valiant oppose each other, and half of them lose at each battle? Is it not because they are divided? Union makes strength!"
"Yes, it is because they are divided by impassable gulfs," said
Chamilly, coldly. "Did you come to see me, Monsieur?"
"My dear fellow, can't we have a little private conversation together?
I am, of course, in the country to oppose your politics, but being in
Dormillière, I cannot forget our social acquaintanceship."
"Do me the honor of saying here what you desire to say, Monsieur. I have no political secrets from these friends."
"Pardon me, what I have to tell you, is strictly private."
"If it is in political matters, I do not wish it to be so."
"It is personal, I assure you."
"Then you will humor me, sir, by writing it."
"My friend, do not let party differences put grimaces at each other on our real faces:—I would say rather party names; for I am in reality as much a Red as yourself. If you were willing we would prove that to you by changing the title, of our side to yours."
"At that moment, sir, there would be what I live for in the name
'Blue.'"
Picault drew a deliberative puff at his cigar, and lowered it again.
"You will not, then, do me the honor of a personal interview?" he asked, smiling unprovokably still.
"Cease, cease!" replied Haviland, "It will soon be the noon of plain words!"
The tempter with nice discernment, perceiving that this short and bold interview was useless, and that he ought to withdraw, put his cigar between his lips, puffed a "Good-day, gentlemen," and turned back meditatively, along the path towards the pines of the Manoir.
"Au plaisir!" returned Zotique to him with facetious exactitude.
Haviland was furious.
"Shall the children of these men, enriched perhaps and elevated through their crimes," he exclaimed, "pretend in time to come that they obtained their 'Honorables,' and Knighthoods, and seats on the Bench of Justice, and of Cabinets fairly from their country, and were the world's great and true? Forbid it, and forbid that their names should live except in memory of their paltriness!"
"But dear Mr. Chrysler," he added in a moment, "you must not take us for party bigots. The masses of the Bleus are honest, and any day our own name may be desecrated by a clique of knaves, our principles represented by the other name."
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MANUFACTORY OF REFLECTIONS.
Haviland's approaching election kept him very busy from this time forward, and deluged him with interviews, canvasses, meetings, great and little, and perpetual calls on his attention. His conscientiousness made him work almost unremittingly, for he determined his part in the struggle to be far more than a matter of mere verbiage and smiles. Mr. Chrysler, like a sensible fellow-Member, quite comprehended the situation, and was content to note the admirable way in which his friend did everything; to receive a smile or friendly direction here and there, and to fall back on the attentions of l'Honorable, and the over-zealous Zotique. He felt his entry free, however, to the office where Haviland was principally employed, and which was not uninteresting of itself. There the young man had gathered a library of statistical volumes and other statesman's lore, with busts of Thiers and Cæsar and strangely ideal and unlike the rest,—a pure white classic mask of Minerva on the wall opposite his chair, as if to strike the note of a higher life; while Breboeuf, curious little object, devoured some blue-book in a corner.
Now what were those great aims of Haviland's? NATION-MAKING, we know in general. But what was the work upon which he was employed as the means?
On the occasion of one of Chrysler's quiet entries, Haviland rose from his table as the light began to fall, threw off his toils with a breath of relief, and turning towards the older gentleman, called his attention to a large green tin case of pigeon-holes and drawers of different sizes, labelled.
"Here," he said, "is my manufactory of reflections."
One compartment was marked "FINANCES," another "LABOUR," a small one
"DEFENCE," and a drawer lying open for use was titled "THE UNITY OF
RACES."
"Take out a paper, Mr. Chrysler."
Chrysler put forth his hand willingly, and withdrawing one, held it to the window and read as follows:
"A great thought can be thought in any place. A great Empire may be planned in any corner."
The second was a note from "GENERAL NEEDS."
"What the country most requires is Devoted Men."
Others read similarly, some long, some short.
"I can show you what will strike you more," exclaimed Chamilly, in a moment. "I have been planning your visit a little."
"Have you a geyser or a catacomb?"
"No sir,—a fountain of life," replied he, jocosely. "Let us get our hats."
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE STATESMAN'S DREAM.
As they went down the village, he continued to banter.
"You great Ontarians believe too firmly that there is no progress here. According to you there is no being to be met in these forsaken wastes, except a superstitious peasant, clothed all the year in 'beefs' and homespun, capped with the tuque, girded with the sash, and carrying the capuchin hood on his shoulders, like the figure on some of our old copper sous;—who sows, after the manner of his fathers, a strip of the field of his grandfathers, and cherishes to his heart every prejudice of his several great, great-grandfathers."
"I do not think so," interrupted Chrysler laughing, "I might put you fifty years behind the age, but no further."
"Yes, but you, sir, have seen us. Why do not more of you come and see?"
"For some of the same reasons perhaps why you do not know us."
Some distance past the Church northward, the village, obscured by the great, irregularly-occurring pines, takes a turn and a sudden dip. The dip and the pines, which are thick at that end, obscure a section of the village known locally as La Reveillière.
As they came to the high ground where the dip occurs, the vista appeared below of a spacious avenue, down whose centre ran a straight and smooth road-bed, and on either side twice its breadth of lawn, rolled and cut, forming a sort of common, ornamented by a sparing group or two of the ubiquitous pines of the neighbourhood. Along the edges of this avenue or common, lay what could only be called a sort of transfigured French-Canadian village, looking, in the quiet light of evening, as if pictured by some artist out of studies of the places in the country about. The dwellings were larger, better drawn, their windows, attics and wings more varied in design, but amid their picturesque variety could be discerned in several, a suggestion of the chimney of a certain wild little cot in a dell near the Manoir; in others, of the solid stone home of Jean Benoit; in many the châlet-eaved pattern of the ordinary cottage. Perhaps the latter were made prettiest of all—they were at least the airiest looking. It was in the colors and stainings applied to the gables and other parts that the greatest care had been taken. These were selected out of the ordinary red, yellow, white, and sage-green washes in common use, with such taste as to effect a deeply harmonious and ideal issue. Again, the plan of the village was peculiar. It was simply an improvement on that of the local villages in general, the dwellings being upon the border of the street and not far apart, with their little, foot-wide flower-gardens close against the front. The circular fan of a patent windmill lifted itself lightly, the most prominent object in the settlement, and a charming Gothic schoolhouse crouched farther down on the opposite side. Behind the houses, growths of trees formed an enclosing background, according to the tastes of the owners, but guided by some harmonizing supervision like the colors. And at a short distance the avenue was crossed by a white poplar grove, which brought the scene to a limit, and separated this dream of a rural statesman from the common world.
"V'là, monsieur," said Zotique, who had joined them, stretching his hand, "Behold the cherished work of our young seigneur."
Upon the galleries, the verandahs, the green lawn, the picture moved with life. A half-haze, precursive of the twilight, lent scenic softness to the forms of old men puffing their pipes before the doors, a maiden listlessly strolling on the sward, a swarm of children playing near the road, a distant toiler making his way home, bearing his scythe. The visitors went down into the place and Chrysler saw that the artistic shapes and ideal colors were worn with daily use, the men and women, serene-looking, were still the every day mortals of the region.
"I think I have gained a great step in the houses and street," said
Haviland.
"And the Reveillière is proud of its founder," added l'Honorable.
"We have a little newspaper—Le Coup d'Oeil,"—cried Zotique.
Chrysler congratulated Chamilly on his felicity of design in the dwellings.
The greater size of the houses was chiefly for better ventilation. The windmill was part of a simple water-works system, which supplied the village with draughts from the bottom of the river. The school was a gift of Chamilly's.
"If we had some great architect among us," replied he, "he would transmute for our country a national architecture."
A little house, conspicuous for the delicacy of its architecture, stood near them, and a young man—the schoolmaster—who was on the verandah, reading, in his shirtsleeves, threw down his newspaper at the call of Zotique, came forward and entered eloquently into the work of information about the Reveillière, flinging his cotton-clad arms recklessly towards the winds of heaven.
"The Institute—the fountain of all—the gentleman has not seen the
Institute?" inquired he, looking to the two Frenchmen.
"I believe not," Zotique said. "Have you seen it, sir?"
"Not that I know of."
"Monsieur, you must see the Institute."
"What is this Institute?"
"The enfant perdu of Liberalism, the mainspring of Dormillière, the hope of French America!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE INSTITUTE.
"The battle for the sway,
Of liberty,
Fraternity,
And light of the new day"
—MARY MORGAN.
"About eighteen hundred and fifty," explained the Honorable, "L'Institut Canadien was our national thinking Society, and the spark of an awakening of great promise."
"Under the French regime, our people received no education. They knew the forests, the rapids, the science of trapping beaver, and when to expect the Iroquois, and sow grain. The English, conquest came next and cut us off from the new birth, of modern France, and the Church, our only institution, was very willing to ignore that stimulation of ideas. We lived on; we read little; we labored much.—But, monsieur," said l'Honorable, with his quiet dignity, "we were of the race of Descartes."
"We slept. At last the awakening! Our griefs and our grievances forced the Rebellion; they brought our thoughts together and made us reason in common; we demanded a new Canada, relieved of bureaucracy, of political disabilty, of seignioral oppression, some said even of abuses of the Church—a Canada of the People, in which every citizen should stand up equal and free."
"The first result demanded—and obtained—was responsible government. Among others came preparations for the abolition of feudal tenure, making a vassal population freeholders!"
"The next cry was Education! The French-Canadians were delighted with the opening world of knowledge and ideas, and there is no race which ever rose with greater enthusiasm to pursue progress and science. A few young men of Montreal were banded into a Society for mutual advancement, to hold debates at which all races were to be free to contribute opinions, to open a library of useful books, and to seek truth without any conditions. That was the Institut Canadien!"
"These noble young enthusiasts soon attracted chosen spirits, a precious essence of the race. They sprang into fame;—fourteen were returned to Parliament in one year. They called all the world freely to their discussions, and created eclat by the brillancy of their programme. The province kindled—every village had its Institute!" "But 'sa-a-a-cr!'" savagely ejaculated Zotique, and his eyes grew intense in their fierceness."
"The Institut Canadien gradually excited the jealousy of certain ecclesiastics by its free admissions and the liberality of its researches. What is known as the "Struggle" commenced. A series of combined assaults by episcopal summons, a pulpit crusade, excommunication, refusal of burial, encouragement of dissensions, and the establishment of rival Institutes bearing names such as "Institut Canadien Français," most of which existed only on paper, finally succeeded in crushing the movement."
"Ac"—ejaculated Zotique.
"The Institute at Dormillière is the insignificant sole survivor."
"I understand now your Reveillière," Chrysler said.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CAMPAIGN PLAN.
On Saturday evening of Chrysler's first week at the Manoir, they went to the Institute. It was a house down the Dormillière Street, that held its head somewhat higher, and tipped it back a little more proudly than the rest,—a long old fashioned wooden cottage, of many windows, and some faded pretensions to the ornamental: still elegant in the light curve of its capacious grey roof, the slender turned pillars of its gallery, separated by horizontal oval arches, its row of peaked and moulded dormer windows, its ornaments, its broad staircase climbing up to the doorway, and the provincial-aristocratic look of its high set-back position in its garden. The name of a rich money-lender, who had been feared in days gone by—"Cletus the Ingrate,"—was mentioned under breath in the stories about it. But ever since his death, many years before, it had been the faded outer shell into which the intellectual kernel of Dormillière life withdrew itself, and in the passage as one entered, the sign "INSTITUT CANADIEN," which had once had its place on the front, might be seen resting on the floor,—a beehive and the motto "Altius Tendimus," occupying the space between the two words.
The interior was a very great contrast to the outside. Its fittings were in the pleasantest of light-hued paints and varnished pine: maps, casts, and pictures enlivened the walls and corners; a handsome library and nucleus of a museum, with reading tables, opened to the left, and a large debating hall to the right—together occupying the whole of the principal floor.
That evening the row of front windows shone with particular illumination for a meeting of Chamilly's supporters, and as Chrysler entered with Haviland and Zotique, they caught from De La Lande the fragmentary assertion, "It is France that must be preached!"
"Aux armes, citoyens!" roared Zotique, entering like a captain on the stage. "Give me my battalion! Write me my letters of marque:" Then throwing one hand in air: "Allons! what has been done?"
The audience sitting around on tables and windowsills, as well as on groups of chairs, laughed boisterously and thumped the floor, and recalled to the proper work of the meeting, commenced a cry of "l'Honorable!"
"The Honorable presides!" intoned Benoit, like a crier; and Genest, accustomed to understand their wishes, seated himself in the chair, while a momentary lull fell over the noisiness.
"A Secretary!"
"De La Lande!"
"Calixte Lefebvre!"
"Le Brun, Le Brun, Le Brun, Le Brun!"
"I nominate our good friend Descarries," smilingly spoke the Chairman.
"Does the meeting agree?"
"Yes!" "Yes!" "Maitre Descarries for Secretary!" "Maitre Descarries!"
"Carried!" were the responses shouted together from all sides.
"We have to consider this evening," continued the Chairman, after the white-wigged official had seated himself in his place as Secretary, "our general organization and appointment of districts. The aim is to work hard for Monsieur during the times coming. The people's meeting to take place to-morrow, is to be addressed for Libergent by Grandmoulin himself, and Picault will be in the county with them till the election. So you see our task is not less than to defeat the whole strength of the Cave. As we fight with men of stature, there is need of valor and address."
"We'll have to pull the devil by the tail!" cried one. The words were those of a common proverb referring to "close shaving."
The Chairman added: "Mr. De La Lande, the floor seems to be already yours."
"I have heard," began De La Lande, "that Grandmoulin has commenced to raise the issue of French patriotism."
"You are right," said Zotique.
"Well, then, why can we not use a like word, that shall go to the heart of the people? Give us a national cry! Let the struggle rest on our fundamental emotions of race! Why can we not"—The face of the impetuous schoolmaster began to flame into eagerness and fire.
"Because," interrupted Haviland, firmly, "we are in this particular country. Would you have us enter upon a campaign of injustice and ill-will? Leave that, and the glory of it, to Grandmoulin and to Picault!"
"But, my chief, the positions of the French and the English!—We who were first, are becoming last!"
"Come here if you please, sir," Haviland said, turning to Chrysler, who rose and advanced to him surprised. Haviland took him, and passing over to De La Lande, placed the hand of the Ontario gentleman in that of the high-spirited schoolmaster, who accepted it, puzzled. "There!" cried Haviland, raising his voice to a pitch of solemnity. "Say whatever you can in that position. That is the position of the Canadian races?"
A shout rose in the hall, and every man sprang to his feet. Cheer rose upon cheer, while De La Lande shook the hand in his with feeling; and the cheering, smiling, and hand shaking, lasted nearly a minute.
It ended at a story by Zotique.
"When I was a boy,"—he began, in a deep, exaggerated voice, and whirling his two arms so as to include the whole of those present in the circle of his address. The cheers and confusion broke into a roar of laughter for a moment, that stifled itself almost as quickly, as they listened.
"We lived for a year in the Village Ste. Aldegonde, near to Montreal. In the Village Ste. Aldegonde there was a nation of boys. All these boys marched in daily to town to the great School of the Blessed Brothers. Along the way to the School of the Blessed Brothers, many English boys lay in wait between us and learning, and we passed certain streets like Hurons passing through the forests of Iroquois. Often we went in large war parties, and repeated the charges of Waterloo for hours up and down streets."
"One afternoon I passed there alone—accompanied by a great boaster. We behold three big English boys. We cross the street. They come after:—get before us:—command us to stop!"
The audience were worked up into suppressed fits, for Zotique's gestures were inimitable.
"My friend the boaster steps forward with the air Napoleonic! He sticks out his breast like this; he shortens his neck, like this; he frowns his brows; he glares at them a terrible look; he cries: 'I am of the Canadian blood!'"
"And what does he do next, gentlemen?" Zotique paused a moment.
—"Runs for his life!"
The roar that followed shook the apartment. Zotique stopped it.
"But what did I do, gentlemen?"
No one ventured to guess.
"I—perhaps because I was of the Dormillière blood—did not run, but looked at the English.—We laughed all together.—And I passed along unmolested."
"Messieurs,—with the exception of our excellent De La Lande, I am afraid it is too often those who lack the virtues of their race who make most cry of it."
The meeting now resumed its discussions.
"We require strategy!" asserted a burly, red-haired lawyer from the
City.
"I confess myself in favor of strategy," admitted Zotique also;
"I am always in favor," said Chamilly, "of the strategy of organized tactics, of the avoidance of useless by-questions, and of spirit and intelligence in attack and defence."
"But you will not let us lie a little in protection of you," retorted
Zotique. "To me the moral law is to beat Picault."
"Assuredly!" the red-haired lawyer said indignantly, looking a half air of patronage towards Chamilly, and breathing in for a steady blast of eloquence: "It is time these ridiculous ideas which forbid us so many successes were sent back to Paradise, and that such elections as the present were governed upon rational principles. We cannot offer the people directly what is good for them; because it is not what they want. What they want, is what we must first of all assume to provide. Once in power we can persuade them afterwards. Gentlemen, to get into power is the first absolute necessity. We cannot defeat the enemy except by opposing to them some of their own methods. Revive the courage of the young men by offering what they deserve—good places in case of success! Replenish the coffers by having our army of contractors to oppose to the ranks of theirs. If they lie, we have a right to lie. If they spend money, we must spend it. If they cajole with figures, surely our advantage as to the facts would enable us to produce others still more astonishing. Human nature is not angelic—and you can never make it otherwise."
"My friend," answered Chamilly, raising his strong frame deliberately, "these are the very principles that I am resolutely determined to battle with all my forces, I care not whether among my foes or my friends. Must our young Liberals learn over again what Liberalism is? The true way to enter polities is none other at any time than to deliberately choose a higher stand and methods. Trickeries are easier and sometimes lead to a kind of success: if our objects were sordid, we might descend to demeaning hypocrisies, we might cheat, we might thieve, perjure, and be puppets, and perhaps so win our way to power; we might think we could use these to better ends, though that doctrine succeeds but rarely;—and perhaps what we might achieve may appear to you of some value, even of great value to you."
"Yet, no, my friends of Dormillière, your very work is to lay the foundations of sincerity deep in this sphere, and to withstand and eradicate the existing political evils. 'One must determine,' said a very great man, 'to serve the people and not to please them.' If some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The country reads our motto, and is watching what we practise. Give it an answer in all your acts!"
Chamilly's manner of uttering these words produced the only perfect stillness the meeting observed during the evening, for the French-Canadians have a custom of talking among themselves throughout any ordinary debate. Their respect for Chamilly was striking. L'Honorable listened with a smile of pleasure; Zotique looked all loyalty: and the young men beamed their over-flowing flowing endorsation of sentiments worthy of the Vigers, Dorions, and Papineaus, those grand men whose portraits hung upon their walls.
As he stopped, there was a sudden movement all about. A spirit of energy took hold on all. Zotique, posing at the head of a large table in front of the Chair, almost at once had installed De La Lande assistant-secretary, to do the real work of which punctilious old Maître Descarries could only make a courageous show; had swept towards him an inkstand, shaken open a drawer and whipped out some foolscap, and darting his cadaverous eyes from one to another around, despotically appointed them to places of various service, now sharply answering, now ignoring a question by the appointee, while De La Lande scribbled his directions; and everyone was so anxious to find some post that there was no grumbling at his heedless good generalship. In a trice they were all being called for at various tables and corners, which he fixed for the operations of the Committees.
The most zealous and loquacious of those who pressed forward to be given positions of trust was Jean Benoit.
"What pig will you shear?" demanded Zotique, (looking for an instant, as he turned to shout towards another quarter, "En'oyez done; en'oyez!")
"I take the Reveillière."
"The Reveillère is parted among three."—("Be quiet there!")
"Well then,"—grandiloquently,—"I take from St. Jean de Dieu to the parish Church of Dormillière."
"Too much for four?" pronounced Zotique.
Spoon pressed heavily behind Benoit, and whispered something.
"La Misericoide then," said Benoit, hastily.
Zotique shouted to the Secretary: "Jean Benoit the countryside of La
Misericorde!" And to Benoit again:
"There is your committee."
But Jean would have a hand in shoving forward his admired bar-tender:
"Give monsieur something near my own."
"Cuiller—the village of La Misericorde," directed Zotique. "Now, both of you, the chief thing you have to do is to report to us if the Bleus commence to work there. Go; go!"
"Salut, Benoit; how goes it; how is the wife? and the father?—the children also? I hope you are well. Comment ça-va-t-il Cuiller?"—asked Chamilly.