' 
 
STORIES BY FOREIGN AUTHORS 
 4 
 
 FRENCH 
 II 
 
STORIES BY 
 FOREIGN AUTHORS 
 
 THE SUBSTITUTE BY FRANCOIS Corrtx 
 
 THE ATTACK ON T! ... BY EMILK ZOLA 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-- ... BY EMILB SOUVBSTRB 
 
 THE SEMPSTR' ... BY GUSTAVB J>- 
 
 THE VENUS OF ILLB BY PROSFKR M 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CH; >NS 
 
FRANOIS COPPEE 
 
STORIES BY 
 FOREIGN AUTHORS 
 
 FRENCH 
 
 THE SUBSTITUTE BY FRANCOIS Coppihs 
 
 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL . . . Bv EMILB ZOLA 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD .... BY EMILB SOUVBSTRB 
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY .... BY GUSTAVB DROZ 
 
 THE VENUS OF ILLE , BY PROSPER M^RIM^B 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1901 
 
Copyright, 1898, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 THE CAXTON PRESS 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 The translations in this volume, where pre- 
 viously published, are used by arrangement 
 with the owners of the copyrights (as specified 
 at the beginning of each story). Translations 
 made especially for the series are covered by 
 its general copyright. All rights in both classes 
 are reserved. 
 
 412; 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE SUBSTITUTE , Frangois Copp^e... n 
 
 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL Emile Zola 31 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. Emile Souvestre... 85 
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY Gustave Droz 131 
 
 THE VENUS OF ILLE Prosper M6rime 147 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCOIS COPPE'E 
 
From " Ten Tales by Francois Coppee. " Translated by 
 Walter Learned. Published by Harper & Bros. 
 
 Copyright, 1890, by Harder & Bros. 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE 
 
 BY FRANCOIS COPP^E 
 
 HE was scarcely ten years old when he was 
 first arrested as a vagabond. 
 
 He spoke thus to the judge : 
 
 " I am called Jean Franois Leturc, and for 
 six months I was with the man who sings and 
 plays upon a cord of catgut between the lanterns 
 at the Place de la Bastille. I sang the refrain 
 with him, and after that I called, * Here's all the 
 new songs, ten centimes, two sous 1 * He was 
 always drunk, and used to beat me. That is 
 why the police picked me up the other night. 
 Before that I was with the man who sells brushes. 
 My mother was a laundress, her name was Adele. 
 At one time she lived with a man on the ground- 
 floor at Montmartre. She was a good work- 
 woman and liked me. She made money be- 
 cause she had for customers waiters in the 
 cafe's, and they use a good deal of linen. On 
 Sundays she used to put me to bed early so that 
 she could go to the ball. On week-days she sent 
 me to Les Freres, where I learned to read. 
 
 13 
 
UBSTITUTE. 
 
 Well, the sergent-de-ville whose beat was in our 
 street used always to stop before our windows to 
 talk with her a good-looking chap, with a medal 
 from the Crimea. They were married, and after 
 that everything went wrong. He did n't take to 
 me, and turned mother against me. Every one had 
 a blow for me, and so, to get out of the house, I 
 spent whole days in the Place Clichy, where I 
 knew the mountebanks. My father-in-law lost 
 his place, and my mother her work. She used 
 to go out washing to take care of him ; this gave 
 her a cough the steam. . . . She is dead at 
 Lamboisiere. She was a good woman. Since 
 that I have lived with the seller of brushes and 
 the catgut scraper. Are you going to send me 
 to prison ? " 
 
 He said this openly, cynically, like a man. He 
 was a little ragged street-arab, as tall as a boot, 
 his forehead hidden under a queer mop of yel- 
 low hair. 
 
 Nobody claimed him, and they sent him to the 
 Reform School. 
 
 Not very intelligent, idle, clumsy with his 
 hands, the only trade he could learn there was 
 not a good one that of reseating straw chairs. 
 However, he was obedient, naturally quiet and 
 silent, and he did not seem to be profoundly cor- 
 rupted by that school of vice. But when, in his 
 seventeenth year, he was thrown out again on the 
 streets of Paris, he unhappily found there his pris- 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 15 
 
 on comrades, all great scamps, exercising their 
 dirty professions : teaching dogs to catch rats in 
 the sewers, and blacking shoes on ball nights in 
 the passage of the Opera amateur wrestlers, who 
 permitted themselves to be thrown by the Her- 
 cules of the booths or fishing at noontime from 
 rafts; all of these occupations he followed to 
 some extent, and, some months after he came out 
 of the house of correction, he was arrested again 
 for, a petty theft a pair of old shoes prigged 
 from a shop-window. Result : a year in the pris- 
 on of Sainte Pe'lagie, where he served as valet 
 to the political prisoners. 
 
 He lived in much surprise among this group 
 of prisoners, all very young, negligent in dress, 
 who talked in loud voices, and carried their heads 
 in a very solemn fashion. They used to meet in 
 the cell of one of the oldest of them, a fellow of 
 some thirty years, already a long time in prison 
 and quite a fixture at Sainte Pe'lagie a large 
 cell, the walls covered with colored caricatures, 
 and from the window of which one could see all 
 Paris its roofs, its spires, and its domes and 
 far away the distant line of hills, blue and indis- 
 tinct upon the sky. There were upon the walls 
 some shelves filled with volumes and all the old 
 paraphernalia of a fencing-room : broken masks, 
 rusty foils, breastplates, and gloves that were 
 losing their tow. It was there that the " poli- 
 ticians " used to dine together, adding to the 
 
1 6 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 everlasting " soup and beef," fruit, cheese, and 
 pints of wine which Jean Frangois went out and 
 got by the can a tumultuous repast interrupted 
 by violent disputes, and where, during the des- 
 sert, the " Carmagnole " and " Qa Ira " were 
 sung in full chorus. They assumed, however, an 
 air of great dignity on those days when a new- 
 comer was brought in among them, at first enter- 
 taining him gravely as a citizen, but on the mor- 
 row using him with affectionate familiarity and 
 calling him by his nickname. Great words were 
 used there: Corporation, Responsibility, and 
 phrases quite unintelligible to Jean Frangois 
 such as this, for example, which he once heard 
 imperiously put forth by a frightful little hunch- 
 back who blotted some writing-paper every night : 
 
 " It is done. This is the composition of the 
 Cabinet : Raymond, the Bureau of Public In- 
 struction ; Martial, the Interior ; and for Foreign 
 Affairs, myself." 
 
 His time done, he wandered again around 
 Paris, watched afar by the police, after the fash- 
 ion of cockchafers, made by cruel children to fly 
 at the end of a string. He became one of those 
 fugitive and timid beings whom the law, with a 
 sort of coquetry, arrests and releases by turn 
 something like those platonic fishers who, in order 
 that they may not exhaust their fish-pond, throw 
 immediately back into the water the fish which 
 has just come out of the net. Without a suspicion 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 17 
 
 on his part that so much honor had been done to 
 so sorry a subject, he had a special bundle of 
 memoranda in the mysterious portfolios of the 
 Rue de Jerusalem. His name was written in 
 round hand on the gray paper of the cover, and 
 the notes and reports, carefully classified, gave 
 him his successive appellations : " Name, Le- 
 turc ; " " the prisoner Leturc," and, at last, " the 
 criminal Leturc." 
 
 He was two years out of prison, dining where 
 he could, sleeping in night lodging-houses and 
 sometimes in lime-kilns, and taking part with his 
 fellows in interminable games of pitch-penny on 
 the boulevards near the barriers. He wore a 
 greasy cap on the back of his head, carpet slip- 
 pers, and a short white blouse. When he had 
 five sous he had his hair curled. He danced at 
 Constant's at Montparnasse ; bought for two 
 sous to sell for four at the door of Bobino, the 
 jack of hearts or the ace of clubs serving as a 
 countermark ; sometimes opened the door of a 
 carriage ; led horses to the horse-market. From 
 the lottery of all sorts of miserable employments 
 he drew a goodly number. Who can say if the 
 atmosphere of honor which one breathes as a 
 soldier, if military discipline might not have 
 saved him ? Taken, in a cast of the net, with 
 some young loafers who robbed drunkards sleep- 
 ing on the streets, he denied very earnestly hav- 
 ing taken part in their expeditions. Perhaps he 
 
 2 
 
1 8 .TOE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 told the truth, but his antecedents were accepted 
 in lieu of proof, and he was sent for three years 
 to Poissy. There he made coarse playthings for 
 children, was tattooed on the chest, learned 
 thieves' slang and the penal code. A new libera- 
 tion, and a new plunge into the sink of Paris ; 
 but very short this time, for at the end of six 
 months at the most he was again compromised 
 in a night robbery, aggravated by climbing and 
 breaking a serious affair, in which he played an 
 obscure role, half dupe and half fence. On the 
 whole his complicity was evident, and he was 
 sent for five years at hard labor. His grief in 
 this adventure was above all in being separated 
 from an old dog which he had found on a dung- 
 heap, and cured of the mange. The beast loved 
 him. 
 
 Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the 
 harbor, the blows from a stick, wooden shoes on 
 bare feet, soup of black beans dating from 
 Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible 
 sleep in a camp swarming with convicts ; that 
 was what he experienced for five broiling sum- 
 mers and five winters raw with the Mediterranean 
 wind. He came out from there stunned, was 
 sent under surveillance to Vernon, where he 
 worked some time on the river. Then, an incor- 
 rigible vagabond, he broke his exile and came 
 again to Paris. He had his savings, fifty-six 
 francs, that is to say, time enough for reflection. 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 19 
 
 During his absence his former wretched compan- 
 ions had dispersed. He was well hidden, and 
 slept in a loft at an old woman's, to whom he rep- 
 resented himself as a sailor, tired of the sea, 
 who had lost his papers in a recent shipwreck, 
 and who wanted to try his hand at something 
 else. His tanned face and his calloused hands, 
 together with some sea phrases which he dropped 
 from time to time, made his tale seem probable 
 enough. 
 
 One day when he risked a saunter in the 
 streets, and when chance had led him as far as 
 Montmartre, where he was born, an unexpected 
 memory stopped him before the door of Les 
 Freres, where he had learned to read. As it was 
 very warm the door was open, and by a single 
 glance the passing outcast was able to recog- 
 nize the peaceable school-room. Nothing was 
 changed : neither the bright light shining in at the 
 great windows, nor the crucifix over the desk, nor 
 the rows of benches with the tables furnished 
 with inkstands and pencils, nor the table of 
 weights and measures, nor the map where pins 
 stuck in still indicated the operations of some 
 ancient war. Heedlessly and without thinking, 
 Jean Fran9ois read on the blackboard the words of 
 the Evangelist which had been set there as a copy : 
 
 " Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that 
 repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
 persons, which need no repentance." 
 
2O THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 It was undoubtedly the hour for recreation, for 
 the Brother Professor had left his chair, and, sit- 
 ting on the edge of a table, he was telling a story 
 to the boys who surrounded him with eager and 
 attentive eyes. What a bright and innocent face 
 he had, that beardless young man, in his long 
 black gown, and white necktie, and great ugly 
 shoes, and his badly cut brown hair streaming 
 out behind ! All the simple figures of the chil- 
 dren of the people who were watching him seemed 
 scarcely less childlike than his ; above all when, 
 delighted with some of his own simple and priestly 
 pleasantries, he broke out in an open and frank 
 peal of laughter which showed his white and regu- 
 lar teeth, a peal so contagious that all the scholars 
 laughed loudly in their turn. It was such a sweet, 
 simple group in the bright sunlight, which lighted 
 their dear eyes and their blond curls. 
 
 Jean Fra^ois looked at them for some time in 
 silence, and for the first time in that savage 
 nature, all instinct and appetite, there awoke a 
 mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that 
 seared and hardened heart, unmoved when the 
 convict's cudgel or the heavy whip of the watch- 
 man fell on his shoulders, beat oppressively. In 
 that sight he saw again his infancy ; and closing 
 his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing regret, he 
 walked quickly away. 
 
 Then the words written on the blackboard 
 came back to his mind. 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 21 
 
 " If it was n't too late, after all ! " he mur- 
 mured ; " if I could again, like others, eat 
 honestly my brown bread, and sleep my fill with- 
 out nightmare 1 The spy must be sharp who 
 recognizes me. My beard, which I shaved off 
 down there, has grown out thick and strong. 
 One can burrow somewhere in the great ant-hill, 
 and work can be found. Whoever is not worked 
 to death in the hell of the galleys comes out agile 
 and robust, and I learned there to climb ropes 
 with loads upon my back. Building is going on 
 everywhere here, and the masons need helpers. 
 Three francs a day ! I never earned so much. 
 Let me be forgotten, and that is all I ask." 
 
 He followed his courageous resolution ; he 
 was faithful to it, and after three months he was 
 another man. The master for whom he worked 
 called him his best workman. After a long day 
 upon the scaffolding, in the hot sun and the dust, 
 constantly bending and raising his back to take 
 the hod from the man at his feet and pass it to 
 the man over his head, he went for his soup to 
 the cook-shop, tired out, his legs aching, his 
 hands burning, his eyelids stuck with plaster, but 
 content with himself, and carrying his well-earned 
 money in a knot in his handkerchief. He went 
 out now without fear, since he could not be rec- 
 ognized in his white mask, and since he had 
 noticed that the suspicious glances of the police- 
 man were seldom turned on the tired workman, 
 
22 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 He was quiet and sober. He slept the sound 
 sleep of fatigue. He was free ! 
 
 At last oh, supreme recompense ! he had 
 a friend ! 
 
 He was a fellow- workman like himself, 
 named Savinien, a little peasant with red lips 
 who had come to Paris with his stick over his 
 shoulder and a bundle on the end of it, fleeing 
 from the wine-shops and going to mass every 
 Sunday. Jean Franois loved him for his piety, 
 for his candor, for his honesty, for all that he 
 himself had lost, and so long ago. It was a pas- 
 sion, profound and unrestrained, which trans- 
 formed him by fatherly cares and attentions. 
 Savinien, himself of a weak and egotistical nature, 
 let things take their course, satisfied only in 
 finding a companion who shared his horror of the 
 wine-shop. The two friends lived together in a 
 fairly comfortable lodging, but their resources 
 were very limited. They were obliged to take 
 into their room a third companion, an old Auver- 
 gnat, gloomy and rapacious, who found it pos- 
 sible out of his meagre salary to save something 
 with which to buy a place in his own country. 
 Jean Francois and Savinien were always together. 
 On holidays they together took long walks in the 
 environs of Paris, and dined under an arbor in 
 one of those small country inns where there are a 
 great many mushrooms in the sauces and inno- 
 cent rebusses on the napkins. There Jean Fran- 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 23 
 
 gois learned from his friend all that lore of which 
 they who are born in the city are ignorant; 
 learned the names of the trees, the flowers, and 
 the plants ; the various seasons for harvesting ; 
 he heard eagerly the thousand details of a labo- 
 rious country life the autumn sowing, the winter 
 chores, the splendid celebrations of harvest and 
 vintage days, the sound of the mills at the water- 
 side, and the flails striking the ground, the tired 
 horses led to water, and the hunting in the morn- 
 ing mist ; and, above all, the long evenings around 
 the fire of vine-shoots, that were shortened by 
 some marvellous stories. He discovered in 
 himself a source of imagination before unknown, 
 and found a singular delight in the recital of 
 events so placid, so calm, so monotonous. 
 
 One thing troubled him, however : it was the 
 fear lest Savinien might learn something of his 
 past. Sometimes there escaped from him some 
 low word of thieves' slang, a vulgar gesture 
 vestiges of his former horrible existence and he 
 felt the pain one feels when old wounds re-open ; 
 the more because he fancied that he sometimes 
 saw in Savinien the awakening of an unhealthy 
 curiosity. When the young man, already tempted 
 by the pleasures which Paris offers to the poor- 
 est, asked him about the mysteries of the great 
 city, Jean Francois feigned ignorance and turned 
 the subject ; but he felt a vague inquietude for 
 the future of his friend. 
 
24 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 His uneasiness was not without foundation. 
 Savinien could not long remain the simple rustic 
 that he was on his arrival in Paris. If the gross 
 and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always 
 repelled him, he was profoundly troubled by other 
 temptations, full of danger for the inexperience of 
 his twenty years. When spring came he began 
 to go off alone, and at first he wandered about the 
 brilliant entrance of some dancing-hall, watching 
 the young girls who went in with their arms 
 around each other's waists, talking in low tones. 
 Then, one evening, when lilacs perfumed the air 
 and the call to quadrilles was most captivating, 
 he crossed the threshold, and from that time Jean 
 Francois observed a change, little by little, in his 
 manners and his visage. He became more friv- 
 olous, more extravagant. He often borrowed 
 from his friend his scanty savings, and he forgot 
 to repay. Jean Francois, feeling that he was 
 abandoned, jealous and forgiving at the same 
 time, suffered and was silent. He felt that he 
 had no right to reproach him, but with the 
 foresight of affection he indulged in cruel and 
 inevitable presentiments. 
 
 One evening, as he was mounting the stairs to 
 his room, absorbed in his thoughts, he heard, 
 as he was about to enter, the sound of angry 
 voices, and he recognized that of the old Auver- 
 gnat who lodged with Savinien and himself. An 
 old habit of suspicion made him stop at the 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 25 
 
 landing-place and listen to learn the cause of the 
 trouble. 
 
 " Yes," said the Auvergnat, angrily, " I am 
 sure that some one has opened my trunk and 
 stolen from it the three louis that I had hidden 
 in a little box ; and he who has done this thing 
 must be one of the two companions who sleep 
 here, if it were not the servant Maria. It con- 
 cerns you as much as it does me, since you are 
 the master of the house, and I will drag you to 
 the courts if you do not let me at once break 
 open the valises of the two masons. My poor 
 gold ! It was here yesterday in its place, and I 
 will tell you just what it was, so that if we find 
 it again nobody can accuse me of having lied. 
 Ah, I know them, my three beautiful gold-pieces, 
 and I can see them as plainly as I see you ! One 
 piece was more worn than the others ; it was of 
 greenish gold, with a portrait of the great emperor. 
 The other was a great old fellow with a queue 
 and epaulettes ; and the third, which had on it a 
 Philippe with whiskers, I had marked with my 
 teeth. They don't trick me. Do you know that 
 I only wanted two more like that to pay for my 
 vineyard ? Come, search these fellows' things 
 with me, or I will call the police ! Hurry up ! " 
 
 " All right," said the voice of the landlord ; 
 " we will go and search with Maria. So much 
 the worse for you if we find nothing, and the 
 masons get angry. You have forced me to it." 
 
26 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 Jean Francois* soul was full of fright. He re- 
 membered the embarrassed circumstances and 
 the small loans of Savinien, and how sober he 
 had seemed for some days. And yet he could 
 not believe that he was a thief. He heard the 
 Auvergnat panting in his eager search, and he 
 pressed his closed fists against his breast as if to 
 still the furious beating of his heart. 
 
 " Here they are ! " suddenly shouted the 
 victorious miser. " Here they are, my louis, my 
 dear treasure ; and in the Sunday vest of that 
 little hypocrite of Limousin ! Look, landlord, 
 they are just as I told you. Here is the Napo- 
 leon, the man with a queue, and the Philippe that 
 I have bitten. See the dents ! Ah, the little 
 beggar with the sanctified air. I should have 
 much sooner suspected the other. Ah, the wretch ! 
 Well, he must go to the convict prison." 
 
 At this moment Jean Frangois heard the well- 
 known step of Savinien coming slowly up the 
 stairs. 
 
 He is going to his destruction, thought he. 
 Three stories. I have time ! 
 
 And, pushing open the door, he entered the 
 room, pale as death, where he saw the landlord 
 and the servant stupefied in a corner, while the 
 Auvergnat, on his knees, in the disordered heap 
 of clothes, was kissing the pieces of gold. 
 
 " Enough of this," he said, in a thick voice ; 
 " I took the money, and put it in my comrade's 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE* 21 
 
 trunk. But that is too bad. I am a thief, but 
 not a Judas. Call the police ; I will not try to 
 escape, only I must say a word to Savinien in 
 private. ^Here he is.'y 
 
 /In fac$ the little Limousin had just arrived, 
 and seeing his crime discovered, believing him- 
 self lost, he stood there, his eyes fixed, his arms 
 hanging. 
 
 JJrean Frangois seized him forcibly by the neck, 
 as if to embrace him ; he put his mouth close to 
 Savinien's ear, and said to him in a low, sup- 
 plicating voice : 
 
 " Keep quiet." 
 
 Thenjturning towards the others : 
 
 " Leave me alone with him. Cl tell you I won't 
 go away. Lock us in if you wish, but leave us 
 alone." 
 
 With a commanding gesture he showed them 
 the door. 
 
 They went out. 
 
 Savjnien, broken by grief, was sitting on the 
 bed,/4nd lowered his eyes without understanding 
 an/thing. 
 
 V " Listen," said Jean Francois, who came and 
 took him by the hands. " I understand ! You 
 have stolen three gold-pieces to buy some trifle 
 for a girl. That costs six months in prison. But 
 one only comes out from there to go back again, 
 and you will become a pillar of police courts and 
 tribunals. I understand it. I have been seven 
 
28 THE SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 years at the Reform School, a year at Samte 
 Pe'lagie, three years at Poissy, five years at Tou- 
 lon. Now, don't be afraid. Everything is ar- 
 ranged. I have taken it on my shoulders.'* 
 C" It is dreadful," said Savinien ; but hope was 
 ringing up again in his cowardly hearty 
 "When the elder brother is under the flag, 
 the younger one does not go," replied Jean Fran- 
 c.ois. " I am your substitute, that 's all. You 
 care for me a little, do you not ? I am paid. 
 (Don't be childish don't refuse.! They would 
 have taken me again one of these days, for I am 
 a runaway from exile. And then, do you see, 
 that life will be less hard for me than for you. I 
 know it all, and I shall not complain if I have 
 not done you this service for nothing, and if you 
 swear to me that you will never do it again. 
 Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friend- 
 ship has made me happy. It is through it that, 
 since I have known you, I have been honest and 
 pure, as I might always have been, perhaps, if I 
 had had, like you, a father to put a tool in my 
 hands, a mother to teach me my prayers. It was 
 my sole regret that I was useless to you, and that 
 I deceived you concerning myself. To-day I 
 have unmasked in saving you. It is all right J 
 Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear 
 heavy boots on the stairs. They are coming 
 with the posse, and we must not seem to know 
 each other so well before those chaps." 
 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 2$ 
 
 He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then 
 pushed him from him, when the door was thrown 
 wide open. 
 
 It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who 
 brought the police. Jean Francois sprang for- 
 ward to the landing-place, held out his hands 
 for the handcuffs, and said, laughing, " Forward, 
 bad lot ! " 
 
 To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life 
 as an incorrigible. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILE ZOLA 
 
From " Jacques Damour," by Emile Zola. Translated 
 
 by William Foster Apthorp. Published by 
 
 Copeland & Day. 
 
 Copyright, 1895, ty Copeland & Day. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 
 
 BY EMILE ZOLA 
 I. 
 
 OLD Merlier's mill was in high feather, that 
 fine summer evening. In the courtyard 
 they had set out three tables, end to end, ready for 
 the guests. All the country knew that, on that day, 
 Merlier's daughter Franchise was to be betrothed 
 to Dominique, a fellow who had the name of be- 
 ing an idle loafer, but whom the women for eight 
 miles round looked at with glistening eyes, so 
 well-favored was he. 
 
 This mill of old Merlier's was a real delight. 
 It stood just in the middle of Rocreuse, at the 
 point where the highway makes a sharp turn. 
 The village has only one street, two rows of 
 hovels, one row on each side of the road ; but 
 there, at the corner, the fields spread out wide, 
 great trees, following the course of the Morelle, 
 cover the depths of the valley with a magnificent 
 shade. There is not in all Lorraine a more lovely 
 bit of nature. / To the right and left, thick woods 
 of century-old trees rise up the gentle slopes, fill- 
 3 33 
 
34 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 ing the horizon with a sea of verdure ; while, 
 towards the south, the plain stretches out mar- 
 vellously fertile, unfolding without end its plots 
 of land divided by live hedges. But what, above 
 all else, gives Rocreuse its charm is the coolness 
 of this green nook in the hottest days of July and 
 August. The Morelle comes down from the 
 Gagny woods, and it seems as if it brought with 
 it the coolness of the foliage beneath which it 
 flows for miles; it brings the murmuring sounds, 
 the icy and sequestered shade of the forests. 
 And it is ot the only source of coolness : all 
 sorts of running water babble beneath the trees ; 
 at every step springs gush^fqrth ; you feel, while 
 following the narrow" paths, as if subterranean 
 lakes were forcing their way through the moss, 
 and taking advantage of the smallest fissures, at 
 the foot of trees, between rocks, to overflow in 
 crystalline fountains. The whispering voices of 
 these brooks rise so multitudinous and high that 
 they drown the bulfinches' song. You would 
 think yourself in some enchanted park, with 
 waterfalls on every hand. 
 
 Below, the meadows are soaking wet. Gigan- 
 tic chestnuts cast their black shadows. Along 
 the edge of the fields, long lines of poplars spread 
 out their rustling drapery. There are two ave- 
 nues of huge sycamore-maples rising across the 
 fields, up toward the old chateau of Gagny, now 
 in ruins. In this perpetually watered soil the 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 3$ 
 
 weeds grow rank. It is like a flower garden lying 
 between two wooded hillsides ; but a natural gar- 
 den, in which the lawns are fields, and giant trees 
 trace out colossal flower-beds. When the sun, 
 at noon, casts its rays straight down, the shadows 
 turn blue, the scorched weeds slumber in the 
 heat, while an icy shudder runs along beneath 
 the foliage. / 
 
 It was there that old Merlier's mill enlivened a 
 nook of rank green growth with its clacking. The 
 building, of planks and mortar, seemed as old as 
 the world. Half of it dipped into the Morelle, 
 which, at this point, widens out into a clear, 
 rounded basin. A dam was contrived to let the 
 water fall from a height of several metres upon 
 the mill-wheel, which turned creaking, with the 
 asthmatic cough of a faithful servant, grown old 
 in the household. When people advised old 
 Merlier to change it for a new one, he would 
 shake his head, saying that a young wheel would 
 be lazier and not so well up in its business ; and 
 he mended the old one with everything that came 
 to hand, staves of casks, bits of rusty iron, zinc, 
 lead. The wheel seemed all the gayer for it, its 
 outline grown strange, all beplumed with weeds 
 and moss. When the water beat against it with 
 its silver stream, it would cover itself with beads, 
 you saw it deck out its strange carcass with a 
 sparkling bedizenment of mother-of-pearl neck- 
 laces. 
 
36 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 The part of the mill that thus dipped into the 
 Morelle looked like a barbarous ark, stranded 
 there. A good half of the structure was built on 
 piles. The water ran in under the board floor ; 
 there, too, were holes, well known in the country 
 for the eels and enormous crawfish caught there. 
 Above the fall, the basin was as clear as a mirror, 
 and when the wheel did not cloud it with its foam, 
 you could see shoals of large fish swimming there 
 with the deliberateness of a naval squadron. A 
 broken flight of steps led down to the river, near 
 a stake to which a boat was moored. A wooden 
 balcony ran above the wheel. Windows opened 
 upon it, cut at irregular distances. This pelltnell 
 of corners, little walls, L's added as an after- 
 thought, beams and bits of roof, gave the mill 
 the appearance of an old dismantled citadel. 
 But ivy had grown there, all sorts of climbing 
 vines had stopped up the two wide cracks and 
 thrown a cloak of green over the old dwelling. 
 Young ladies who passed by would sketch old 
 Merlier's mill in their albums. 
 
 Toward the road the house was stouter. A 
 stone gateway opened upon the main courtyard, 
 which was bordered on the right by sheds and 
 stables. Near a well a huge elm covered half 
 the courtyard with its shade. At the farther 
 end, the house showed the line of its four first- 
 story windows, surmounted by a pigeon-house. 
 Old Merlier's only bit of dandyism was to have 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 37 
 
 this wall whitewashed every ten years. It had 
 just been whitened, and dazzled the village when 
 the sun lighted it up in the middle of the day. 
 
 For twenty years old Merlier had been mayor 
 of Rocreuse. He was esteemed for the fortune 
 he had managed to make. He was supposed to 
 be worth something like eighty thousand francs, 
 laid up sou by sou. When he married Made- 
 leine Guillard, who brought him the mill as her 
 dowry, he hardly possessed anything but his two 
 arms ; but Madeleine never repented her choice, 
 so well did he manage the affairs of the house- 
 hold. Now that his wife was dead, he remained 
 a widower with his daughter Frangoise. No 
 doubt, he might have taken a rest, left his mill 
 to sleep in the moss ; but he would have been 
 too much bored, and the house would have 
 seemed dead to him. He kept on working, for 
 the fun of it. Old Merlier was then a tall old 
 man, with a long, silent face, never laughing, but 
 very jolly internally, nevertheless. He had been 
 chosen for mayor on account of his money, and 
 also for the fine air he knew how to assume, when 
 he married a couple. 
 
 Franchise Merlier was just eighteen. She did 
 not pass for one of the beauties of the country- 
 side ; she was too puny. Up to the age of 
 eleven she was even ugly. No one in Rocreuse 
 could understand how the daughter of father and 
 mother Merlier, both of them ruggedly built, 
 
38 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 could grow up so ill, and, so to speak, grudgingly. 
 But at fifteen, although still delicate, she had the 
 prettiest little face in the world. She had black 
 hair, black eyes, and at the same time was all 
 rosy ; a mouth that laughed all the time, dimpled 
 cheeks, a clear brow on which there seemed to 
 rest a crown of sunshine. Although puny for the 
 neighborhood, she was not thin, far from it; peo- 
 ple only meant that she could not shoulder a sack 
 of grain ; but she grew very^plump with time, 
 and stood a good chance of ending by being round 
 and dainty as a quail. Only her father's long 
 spells of speechlessness had made her thought- 
 ful at an early age. If she was always laughing, 
 it was to give others pleasure. At bottom, she 
 was serious. 
 
 Naturally all the countryside courted her, still 
 more for her dollars than for her niceness. And 
 at last, she made a choice that had just scandal- 
 ized the country. On the other side of the Mo- 
 relle lived a young fellow, named Dominique 
 Penquer. He did not belong in Rocreuse. Ten 
 years before, he had come there from Belgium, 
 to take possession of a legacy from an uncle of 
 his who owned a little piece of property on the 
 very outskirts of the Gagny forest, just opposite 
 the mill, within a few gunshots. He came to sell 
 this property, he said, and go home again. But 
 the country fascinated him, it seems, for he did 
 not stir. He was seen tilling his bit of field, 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 39 
 
 picking a few vegetables, on which he livea. 
 He fished, he went shooting ; several times the 
 gamekeepers just missed catching him and re- 
 porting him to the authorities. This free life, 
 the material resources of which the peasants 
 could not well account for, had at last given him 
 a bad name. He was vaguely spoken of as a 
 poacher. At all events, he was lazy, for he was 
 often found asleep in the grass at times when 
 he ought to have been at work. The hut in 
 which he lived, under the first trees of the for- 
 est, did not look like an honest fellow's dwelling 
 either. If he had had business with the wolves 
 of the old ruins of Gagny, it would not have sur- 
 prised the old women. Yet the girls would, now 
 and then, have the audacity to stand up for him ; 
 for this suspicious man was a superb fellow, tall 
 and supple as a poplar, with a very white skin, 
 and fair beard and hair that shone like gold in 
 the sun. So, one fine morning, Frangoise de- 
 clared to her father that she loved Dominique, 
 and that she would never consent to marry any 
 one else. 
 
 You can imagine what a blow old Merlier re- 
 ceived that day. He said nothing, as usual. He 
 always looked thoughtful in the face ; only his 
 internal jollity stopped sparkling in his eyes. The 
 two did not speak for a week. Frangoise, too, 
 WP very grave. What bothered old Merlier was 
 to make out how in the world that rascal of a 
 
4O THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 poacher could have bewitched his daughter. 
 Dominique had never come to the mill. The 
 miller began to watch him, and espied the gallant 
 on the other side of the Morelle, lying in the grass 
 and pretending to be asleep. The thing was 
 clear : they must have fallen in love, making 
 sheep's-eyes at each other across the mill-wheel. 
 
 Meanwhile another week passed by. Fran- 
 9oise looked more and more solemn. Old Mer- 
 lier still said nothing. Then, one evening, he 
 brought Dominique home with him, without a 
 word. Fran9oise was just setting the table. She 
 did not seem astonished ; she only added an- 
 other plate and knife and fork ; but the little 
 dimples appeared once more in her cheeks, and 
 her laugh came back again. That morning old 
 Merlier had gone after Dominique to his hut on 
 the outskirts of the wood. There the two men 
 had talked for three hours, with closed doors and 
 windows. No one ever knew what they found to 
 say to each other. What was certain was that, 
 on coming out, old Merlier already treated Domi- 
 nique like his own son. No doubt, the old man 
 had found the man he was after, a fine fellow, in 
 this lazybones who lay in the grass to make the 
 girls fall in love with him. 
 
 All Rocreuse gossiped. The women, in the 
 doorways, did not run dry of tittle-tattle about 
 old Merlier's folly in taking a scapegrace into his 
 household. He let them talk on. Perhaps he 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 4! 
 
 remembered his own marriage. Neither had he 
 a red sou when he married Madeleine and her 
 mill ; but that did not prevent his making a good 
 husband. Besides, Dominique cut the gossip 
 short by going to work with such a will that the 
 whole country marvelled at it. It so happened 
 that the miller's boy had just been drafted ; and 
 Dominique would never hear of his hiring an- 
 other. He carried the sacks, drove the cart, 
 struggled with the old wheel when it had to be 
 begged hard before it would turn, and all with 
 such a will that people would come to look at 
 him for sheer pleasure. Old Merlier laughed 
 his quiet laugh. He was very proud of having 
 scented out this fellow. There is nothing like 
 love for putting heart into young people. 
 
 In the midst of all this hard work Francoise 
 and Dominique adored each other. They hardly 
 ever spoke, but they looked at each other with 
 smiling tenderness. So far, old Merlier had not 
 said a single word about the marriage ; and they 
 both respected this silence, awaiting the old man's 
 pleasure. At last, one day about the middle of 
 July, he had three tables set out in the courtyard 
 under the big elm, inviting his friends in Rocreuse 
 to come and take a drink with him in the even- 
 ing. When the courtyard was full, and every one 
 had his glass in his hand, old Merlier raised his 
 very high, saying : 
 
 " This is for the pleasure of announcing to 
 
42 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 you that Franc, oise will marry that fellow there 
 in a month, on Saint-Louis's day." 
 
 Then they clinked glasses noisily. Everybody 
 laughed. But old Merlier, raising his voice, 
 went on, 
 
 " Dominique, kiss your intended. That 
 
 must be done." 
 
 And they kissed each other, very red, while 
 the crowd laughed still louder. It was a real' 
 jollification. A small cask was emptied. Then, 
 when only the intimate friends were left, they 
 chatted quietly. Night had come, a starlit and 
 very clear night. Dominique and Frangoise, sit- 
 ting side by side on a bench, said nothing. An 
 old peasant spoke of the war the emperor had 
 declared with Prussia. All the boys in the vil- 
 lage were already gone. The day before, troops 
 had passed through. There would be hard 
 knocks going. 
 
 ^" Bah ! " said old Merlier, with a happy 
 
 man's egoism. " Dominique is a foreigner, he 
 won't go. . . . And, if the Prussians come, he 
 will be here to defend his wife." / 
 
 This notion that the Prussians might come 
 seemed a good joke. They were to be given an 
 A i thrashing, and it would be soon over. 
 
 " I 've seen 'em, I Ve seen 'em," the old 
 
 peasant said over and over again. 
 
 There was a silence. Then they clinked glasses 
 once more. Frangoise and Dominique had heard 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 43 
 
 nothing; they had taken each other softly by 
 the hand, behind the bench, so that no one could 
 see them, and it seemed so good that they stayed 
 there, their eyes lost in the depths of the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 How warm and splendid a night ! The village 
 was falling asleep on both sides of the road, 
 tranquil as a child. You only heard, from time 
 to time, the crowing of some cock, waked too 
 soon. From the great woods hard by came long 
 breaths that passed like caresses over the roofs. 
 The meadows, with their black shadows, put on 
 a mysterious and secluded majesty, while all the 
 running waters that gushed forth into the dark- 
 ness seemed to be the cool and rhythmic breath- 
 ing of the sleeping country. At moments, the 
 mill-wheel, fast asleep, seemed to be dreaming, 
 like those old watchdogs that bark while snoring. 
 It creaked, it talked all by itself, lulled by the 
 falls of the Morelle, whose sheet of water gave 
 forth the sustained and musical note of an organ 
 pipe. Never had more widespread peace fallen 
 over a happier corner of the earth. 
 
 H. 
 
 JUST a month later, day for day, on Saint- 
 Louis's eve, Rocre^u^jwas in dismay. The Prus- 
 sians had beaten the emperor, and were advanc- 
 ing toward the village by forced marches. For 
 
44 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 a week past, people passing along the road had 
 announced the Prussians : " They are at Lor- 
 miere, they are at Novelles ; " and, hearing that 
 they were approaching so fast, Rocreuse thought, 
 every morning, to see them come down by the 
 Gagny woods. Still, they did not come; this 
 frightened the inhabitants still more. They 
 would surely fall upon the village at night and 
 cut everybody's throat. 
 
 The night before, a little before daybreak, 
 there had been, an alarjm. The. inhabitants had 
 waked up, hearing a great noise of men on the 
 road. The women were just falling upon their 
 knees and crossing themselves, when red trou- 
 sers were recognized through cracks of windows 
 prudently opened. It was a "detachment of 
 French. The captain immediately asked for the 
 mayor of the place, and stayed at the mill, after 
 talking with old Merlier. 
 
 (JThe sun rose gayly that day. It would be hot 
 at noon. Over trie woods floated a yellow light, 
 while in the distance, above the meadows, rose 
 white vapors. The clean, pretty village awoke 
 in the cool air, and the country, with its river 
 and springs, had the dew-sprinkled loveliness of 
 a nosegay,_jBut this fine weather made no one 
 laugh. n j They had just seen the captain walk 
 round about the mill, examine the neighboring 
 houses, cross to the other side of the Morelle, 
 and from there study the country through a spy- 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 45 
 
 glass ; old Merlier, who was with him, seemed to 
 be explaining the country to him. Then the cap- 
 tain stationed soldiers behind walls, behind trees, 
 in holes in the ground. The bulk of the detach- 
 ment was encamped in the courtyard of the mill. 
 So there was to be a fight ? And when old Mer- 
 lier came back, he was plied with questions. He 
 gave a long nod with his head, without speaking. 
 Yes, there was to be a fight. 
 
 Franchise and Dominique were in the court- 
 yard, looking at him. At last, he took his pipe 
 out of his mouth and said simply, 
 
 " Ah ! my poor children, there will be no 
 
 wedding for you to-morrow ! " 
 
 Dominique, his lips set, a line of anger across 
 his forehead, raised himself up on tiptoe from time 
 to time, with his eyes fixed on the Gagny woods, 
 as if he longed to see the Prussians come. Fran- 
 oise, very pale, serious, came and went, supply- 
 ing the soldiers with what they needed. They 
 were making their soup in a corner of the court' 
 yard, and joking while waiting for their meal. 
 
 Meanwhile the captain seemed delighted. He 
 had examined the rooms and the great hall of 
 the mill, looking out upon the river. Now, sit- 
 ting by the well, he was talking with old Merlier. 
 
 " You have a real fortress here," said he. 
 
 " We ought to hold out till evening. . . . The beg- 
 gars are late. They should be here by this time." 
 
 The miller looked serious. He saw his mill 
 
46 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 
 
 flaming like a torch ; but he did not complain, 
 thinking it useless. He only opened his mouth 
 to say, 
 
 " You ought to have some one hide the 
 
 boat behind the wheel. There is a hole there that 
 will hold her. . . . Perhaps she may be of use." 
 
 The captain gave an order. This captain was 
 a handsome man of about forty, tall and with a 
 kindly face. The sight of Frangoise and Domi- 
 nique seemed to please him. He was interested 
 in them, as if he had forgotten the coming strug- 
 gle. He followed Frangoise about with his eyes, 
 and his look told plainly that he found her charm- 
 ing. Then, turning to Dominique, 
 
 " So you 're not in the army, my boy ? " he 
 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 " I 'm a foreigner," the young man an- 
 swered. 
 
 The captain seemed only half pleased with 
 this reason. He winked and smiled. Frangoise 
 was pleasanter company than cannon. Then, 
 seeing him smile, Dominique added, 
 
 " I 'm a foreigner, but I can put a bullet 
 
 into an apple at five hundred metres. . . . See, 
 my gun 's there, behind you." 
 
 u It may be of use to you," the captain 
 
 replied simply. 
 
 Frangoise had come up, trembling a little. 
 And, without minding the people there, Domi- 
 nique took both the hands she held out to him, 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 47 
 
 and pressed them in his, as if to take her under 
 his protection. The captain smiled again, but 
 added not a word. He remained sitting, his 
 sword between his legs, his eyes looking at 
 vacancy, as if in a dream. 
 
 It was already t . j o'clock. It wa$ growing 
 very hot. There was a dead silence.; In the 
 courtyard, under the sheds, the soldiers had fallen 
 to eating their soup. Not a sound came from 
 the village, in which the people had barricaded 
 their houses, doors, and windows. A dog, left 
 alone in the road, was howling. From the neigh- 
 boring woods and meadows, motionless in the 
 heat, came a far-off voice, long sustained, made 
 up of every separate breath of air. A cuckoo 
 was singing. Then the silence spread itself over 
 the country also. 
 
 And, in this slumbering air, a shot suddenly 
 burst forth. The captain sprang up quickly, the 
 soldiers dropped their plates of soup, still half 
 full. In a few seconds, every man was at his 
 post for the fight ; the mill was occupied from 
 top to bottom. Yet the captain, who had gone 
 out upon the road, could make out nothing ; to 
 the right and left, the road stretched out, empty 
 and all white. A second shot was heard, and still 
 nothing, not a shadow ; but, on turning round, 
 he espied, over towards Gagny, between two 
 trees, a light cloudlet of smoke wafted away like 
 gossamer. The wood was still profoundly quiet. 
 
48 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 " The rascals have taken to the forest," he 
 
 muttered. " They know we are here." 
 
 Then the firing kept up harder, and harder, 
 between the French soldiers, stationed round the 
 mill, and the Prussians, hidden behind the trees. 
 The bullets whistled across the Morelle, without 
 occasioning any loss on one side or the other. 
 The shots were irregular, came from every bush ; 
 and all you saw was still the little clouds of 
 smoke gently wafted away by the wind. This 
 lasted for nearly two hours. The officer hummed 
 a tune, as if indifferent. Franchise and Domi- 
 nique, who had stayed in the courtyard, raised 
 themselves up on tiptoe, and looked over the 
 wall. They were particularly interested in watch- 
 ing a little soldier, stationed on the brink of the 
 Morelle, behind the hulk of an old boat; he was 
 flat on his belly, watched his chance, fired his 
 shot, then let himself slide down into a ditch, a 
 little behind him, to reload his rifle; and his 
 movements were so droll, so cunning, so supple, 
 that it made one smile to see him. He must 
 have espied the head of some Prussian, for he 
 got up quickly and brought his piece to his 
 shoulder; but, before he fired, he gave a cry, 
 turned over upon himself, and rolled into the 
 ditch, where his legs stiffened out with the mo- 
 mentary, convulsive jerk of those of a chicken 
 with its neck wrung. The little soldier had re- 
 ceived a bullet full in the breast. He was the 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 49 
 
 first man killed. Instinctively Franchise seized 
 hold of Dominique's hand and squeezed it with 
 a nervous grip. 
 
 " Don't stay there," said the captain. 
 
 " The bullets reach here." 
 
 As he spoke a little, sharp stroke was heard 
 in the old elm, and a branch fell in zigzags 
 through the air ; but the two young people did 
 not stir, riveted there by anxiety at the sight 
 On the outskirts of the wood, a Prussian came 
 out suddenly from behind a tree, as from a side 
 scene, beating the air with his arms, and tum- 
 bling over backwards. And then nothing stirred, 
 the two dead men seemed to sleep in the daz- 
 zling sunshine, you saw no one in the torpid 
 landscape. Even the crack of the shots stopped. 
 Only the Morelle kept up its silver-toned whis- 
 pering. 
 
 Old Merlier looked at the captain in surprise, 
 as if to ask if it were over. 
 
 " Here it comes," the latter muttered. 
 
 " Look out 1 Don't stay there." 
 
 He had not finished speaking when there 
 cime a terrific volley. It was as if the great 
 elm were mowed down, a cloud of leaves whirled 
 about them. Luckily the Prussians had fired 
 too high. Dominique dragged, almost carried 
 Franchise away, while old Merlier followed them, 
 crying out, 
 4 
 
5O THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 " Go down to the little cellar ; the 
 are solid." 
 
 But they did not mind him, they went into the 
 great hall, where ten soldiers, or so, were wait- 
 ing in silence, with shutters closed, peeping 
 through the cracks. The captain had stayed ,. 
 alone in the courtyard, crouched down behind^" 
 the little wall, while the furious volleys con- 
 tinued. The soldiers he had stationed outside 
 yielded ground only foot by foot. Yet they 
 came in, one by one, crawling on their faces, 
 when the enemy had dislodged them from their 
 hiding-places. Their orders were to gain time, 
 not to show themselves, so that the Prussians 
 might not know what numbers they had before 
 them. Another hour went by ; and, as a ser- 
 geant came up, saying that there were only two 
 or three men left outside, the officer looked at his 
 watch, muttering, 
 
 "Half after two. . . . Come, we must 
 
 hold out four hours." 
 
 He had the gate of the courtyard shut, and all 
 preparations were made for an energetic resist- 
 ance. As the Prussians were on the other side 
 of the Morelle, an immediate assault was not to 
 be feared. To be sure, there was a bridge, a 
 little over a mile off, but they doubtless did not 
 know of its existence, and it was hardly probable 
 that they would try to ford the river. So the 
 officer merely had the road watched. The whole 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 5! 
 
 effort was to be made on the side toward the 
 fields. 
 
 The firing had once more ceased. The mill 
 seemed dead beneath the hot sun. Not a shutter 
 was opened, not a sound came from the inside. 
 Little by little, meanwhile, the Prussians showed 
 themselves at the outskirts of the Gagny wood. 
 They stretched forth their heads, grew more dar- 
 ing. In the mill, several soldiers had already 
 levelled their rifles ; but the captain cried out, 
 
 " No, no, wait. . . . Let them come up." 
 
 They were very cautious about it, looking at 
 the mill with evident distrust. This old dwell- 
 ing, silent and dismal, with its curtains of ivy 
 made them uneasy. Still, they kept advancing. 
 When there were about fifty of them in the 
 meadow opposite, the officer said a single 
 word, 
 
 " Fire ! " 
 
 A tearing sound was heard, followed by single 
 shots. Frangoise, shaken with a fit of trembling, 
 put her hands up to her ears, in spite of herself. 
 Dominique, behind the soldiers, looked on ; and, 
 when the smoke had blown away a little, he saw 
 three Prussians stretched on their backs in the 
 middle of the field. The rest had thrown them- 
 selves down behind the willows and poplars ; and 
 the siege began^,^- 
 
 For over an hour the mill was riddled with 
 bullets. They whipped its old walls like hail. 
 
52 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 When they struck stone, you heard them flatten 
 out and fall back into the water. Into wood the)\? 
 penetrated with a hollow sound. Now and then^ N 
 a cracking told that the wheel had been hit. The 
 soldiers inside husbanded their shots, fired only 
 when they could take aim. From time to time 
 the captain would look at his watch ; and, as a 
 ball split a shutter and then lodged in the ceil- 
 ing, 
 
 " Four o'clock," he muttered. " We shall 
 
 never hold out." 
 
 It was true, this terrible firing of musketry 
 was shivering the old mill. A shutter fell into 
 the water, riddled like a piece of lace, and had to 
 be replaced by a mattress. Old Merlier exposed 
 himself every moment, to make sure of the in- 
 jury done to his poor wheel, whose cracking went 
 to his heart. It was all over with it, this time ; 
 never would he be able to repair it. Dominique 
 had implored Frangoise to go, but she would 
 stay with him ; she had sat down behind a great 
 oak clothespress, the sides of which gave out a 
 deep sound. Then Dominique placed himself 
 in front of Frangoise. He had not fired yet ; he 
 held his gun in his hands, not being able to get 
 up to the windows, whose entire width was taken 
 up by the soldiers. At every discharge the floor 
 shook. 
 
 " Look out I look out ! " the captain cried 
 
 of a sudden. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 53 
 
 He had just seen a whole black mass come 
 out from the wood. Immediately a formidable 
 platoon fire was opened. It was as if a water- 
 spout had passed over the mill. Another shutter 
 gave way, and, by the gaping opening of the 
 window, the bullets came in. Two soldiers 
 rolled upon the floor. One did not move ; they 
 pushed him up against the wall, because he 
 was in the way. The other squirmed on the 
 ground, begging them to make an end of him ; 
 but no one minded him, the balls kept coming 
 in, every one shielded himself, and tried to find 
 a loophole to fire back through. A third soldier 
 was wounded ; he said not a word, he let him- 
 self slide down by the edge of a table, with fixed 
 and haggard eyes. Opposite these dead men, 
 Franchise, seized with horror, had pushed her 
 chair aside mechanically, to sit down on the 
 ground next the wall ; she felt smaller there, and 
 in less danger. Meanwhile they had gone after 
 all the mattresses in the house, and had half 
 stopped up the window. The hall was getting 
 filled with rubbish, with broken weapons, with 
 gutted furniture. 
 
 " Five o'clockj" said the captain. " Keep 
 
 it up. . . . They are going to try to cross the 
 water." 
 
 At this instant Franchise gave a shriek. A 
 rebounding ball had just grazed her forehead. 
 A few drops of blood appeared. Dominique 
 
54 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 looked at her ; then, stepping up to the window, 
 he fired his first shot, and kept on firing. He 
 loaded, fired, without paying any attention to 
 what was going on near him ; only from time to 
 time he would give Francoise a look. For the 
 rest, he did not hurry himself, took careful aim. 
 The Prussians, creeping along by the poplars, 
 were attempting the passage of the Morelle, as 
 the captain had foreseen ; but, as soon as one of 
 them risked showing himself, he would fall, hit 
 in the head by a ball from Dominique. The 
 captain, who followed this game, was astonished. 
 He complimented the young man, ^saying that 
 he would be glad to have a lot of marksmen like 
 him. Dominique did not hear him. A ball cut 
 his shoulder, another bruised his arm ; and he 
 kept on firing. 
 
 There were two more men killed. The mat- 
 resses, all slashed to bits, no longer stopped up 
 the windows. A last volley seemed as if it would 
 carry away the mill. The position was no longer 
 tenable. Still the officer repeated, 
 
 " Stick to it. ... Half an hour more." 
 
 Now he counted the minutes. He had prom- 
 ised his superior officers to hold the enemy there 
 until evening, and would not draw back a sole's 
 breadth before the time he had set for the retreat. 
 He still had his gracious manner, smiling at 
 Francoise, to reassure her. He himself had just 
 picked up a dead soldier's rifle, and was firing. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 55 
 
 There were only four soldiers left in the hall. 
 The Prussians showed themselves in a body on 
 the other bank of the Morelle, and it was evident 
 that they might cross the river at any time. A 
 few minutes more elapsed. The captain stuck 
 to it obstinately, would not give the order to 
 retreat, when a sergeant came running up, say- 
 ing. 
 
 " They are on the road, they are going to 
 
 take us in the rear." 
 
 The Prussians must have found the bridge. 
 The captain pulled out his watch. 
 
 " Five minutes more," said he. " They 
 
 won't be here for five minutes." 
 
 Then, at the stroke of six, he at last consented 
 to order his men out by a little door, opening 
 upon an alleyway. From there they threw them- 
 selves into a ditch, they reached the Sauval forest. 
 Before going, the captain saluted old Merlier 
 very politely, excusing himself. And he even 
 added, 
 
 " Make them lose time. . . . We shall be 
 
 back again." 
 
 Meanwhile Dominique stayed on in the hall. 
 He still kept firing, hearing nothing, understand- 
 ing nothing. He only felt that he must defend 
 Frangoise. The soldiers were gone, without his 
 suspecting it the least in the world. He took aim 
 and killed his man at every shot. Suddenly 
 there was a loud noise. The Prussians, from 
 
$6 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 the rear, had just overrun the courtyard. Ht 
 fired his last shot, and they fell upon him as his 
 piece was still smoking. 
 
 Four men held him. Others shouted round 
 him in a frightful language. They all but cut his 
 throat off-hand. Franchise threw herself before 
 him in supplication ; but an officer came in and 
 took charge of the prisoner. After a few sen- 
 tences exchanged in German with the soldiers, he 
 turned to Dominique and said roughly, and in 
 very good French, 
 
 " You will be shot in two hours." 
 
 III. 
 
 IT was a rule made by the German staff : every 
 Frenchman not belonging to the regular army, 
 and taken with arms in his hands, should be shot. 
 Even the guerilla companies were not recognized 
 as belligerents. By thus making terrible exam- 
 ples of the peasants who defended their own 
 firesides, the Germans wished to prevent the 
 uprising of the whole country eji masse, which 
 they dreaded. 
 
 The officer, a tall, lean man of about fifty, 
 put Dominique through a brief examination. 
 Although he spoke very pure French, he had 
 quite the Prussian stiffness. 
 
 " You belong in these parts ? " 
 
 " No, I am a Belgian." 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 57 
 
 " Why have you taken up arms ? . . . 
 
 All this can't be any of your business. " 
 
 Dominique did not answer. At this moment, 
 the officer caught sight of Fran9oise, standing 
 upright and very pale, listening ; her slight wound 
 put a red bar across her white forehead. He 
 looked at the young people, one after the other, 
 seemed to understand, and contented himself 
 with adding, 
 
 " You don't deny that you were firing ? " 
 
 " I fired as long as I was able," Domi- 
 nique answered quietly. , 
 
 This confession was needless, for he was black 
 with powder, covered with sweat, spotted with 
 some drops of blood that had run down from the 
 scratch on his shoulder. 
 
 " Very well," the officer repeated. " You 
 will be shot in two hours." 
 
 Frangoise did not cry out. She clasped her 
 hands together and raised them in a gesture of 
 mute despair. The officer noticed this gesture. 
 Two soldiers hSd led Dominique away into the 
 next room, where they were to keep him in sight. 
 The young girl had dropped down upon a chair, 
 her legs giving way under her ; she could not cry, 
 she was choking. Meanwhile the officer kept 
 looking at her closely. At last he spoke to 
 her. 
 
 " That young man is your brother ? " he 
 
 asked. 
 
58 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 She shook her head. He stood there stiff, 
 without a smile. Then, after a silence, 
 
 " He has lived a long while in these 
 
 parts ? " 
 
 She nodded yes, still dumb. 
 
 " Then he must know the woods round 
 
 here very well ? " 
 
 This time she spoke. 
 
 " Yes, sir," she said, looking at him in 
 
 some surprise. 
 
 He said no more, and turned on his heel, ask- 
 ing to have the mayor of the village brought to 
 him. But Franchise had risen, a faint blush on 
 her face, thinking to have caught the drift of his 
 questions, and seeing fresh hope in them. It was 
 she who ran to find her father. 
 
 Old Merlier, as soon as the shots had ceased, 
 had run quickly down the wooden steps to look 
 at his wheel. He adored his daughter, he had a 
 stout friendship for Dominique, his intended son- 
 in-law ; but; his wheel also held a large place in 
 his heart, r As the two young ones, as he called 
 them, had come safe and sounoTout of the scrim- 
 mage, he thought of his other love, and this one 
 had suffered grievously. And, bending over the 
 huge wooden carcass, he investigated its wounds, 
 the picture of distress. Five paddles were in 
 splinters, the central framework was riddled/' He 
 stuck his fingers into the bullet holes, to meas- 
 ure their depth ; he thought over how he could 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 59 
 
 repair all this damage. Frangoise found him 
 already stopping up cracks with broken bits of 
 wood and moss. 
 
 " Father," she said, " you are wanted." 
 
 And at last she wept, telling him what she had 
 just heard. Old Merlier shook his head. You 
 didn't shoot people that way. He must see. 
 And he went back into the mill, with his silent, 
 pacific air. When the officer asked him for vic- 
 tuals for his men, he answered that the people in 
 Rocreuse were not accustomed to being bullied, 
 and that nothing would be got from them by 
 violence. He took everything upon himself, but 
 on the condition of being allowed to act alone. 
 The officer showed signs, at first, of getting angry 
 at this cool manner ; then he gave in to the old 
 man's curt and businesslike way of talking. He 
 even called him back, to ask him, 
 
 " What do you call those woods there, 
 
 opposite ? " t 
 
 " The Sauval woods." 
 
 " And what is their extent ? " 
 
 The miller looked at him fixedly. 
 
 "I don't know," he answered. 
 
 And he walked away. An hour later the con- 
 tributions of victuals and money required by the 
 officer were in the courtyard of the mill. Night 
 was approaching ; Frangoise followed the soldiers' 
 movements anxiously. She did not go far from 
 the room in which Dominique was shut up. At 
 
60 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 about seven she had a poignant emotion; she 
 saw the officer go into the prisoner's room, and, 
 for a quarter of an hour, she heard their voices 
 raised. One instant, the officer reappeared on 
 the threshold, to give an order in German, which 
 she did not understand ; but, when twelve men 
 came and fell into line in the courtyard, with 
 their muskets, she fell a-trembling, she felt ready 
 to die. So it was all over ; the execution was to 
 take place. The twelve men waited there ten 
 minutes. Dominique's voice was still raised in 
 a tone of violent refusal. At last the officer 
 came out, slamming the door and saying, 
 
 " Very well, think it over. ... I give 
 
 you till to-morrow morning.'* 
 
 And, with a motion of his arm, he ordered the 
 twelve men to break ranks. Frangoise stayed on 
 in a sort of stupor. Old Merlier, who had not 
 stopped smoking his pipe, while looking at the 
 squad with an air of simple curiosity, came up 
 and took her by the arm with fatherly gentleness. 
 He led her to her room. 
 
 " Keep quiet," he said, " try to sleep. . . . 
 
 To-morrow it will be daylight, and we will see." 
 
 When he withdrew, he locked her in, for pru- 
 dence sake. It was a principle of his that women 
 were no good, and that they made a mess of it 
 whenever they undertook anything serious. But 
 Franchise did not go to bed ; she stayed a long 
 time sitting on her bed, listening to the noises in 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 6 1 
 
 the house. The German soldiers, encamped in the 
 courtyard, were singing and laughing : they must 
 have been eating and drinking up to eleven, for the 
 noise did not stop for an instant. In the mtll 
 itself heavy steps sounded every now and then ; 
 no doubt, they were relieving sentries. But what 
 interested her, above all, were noises that she 
 could not make out, in the room Binder hers. 
 Several times she lay down on the ground, she 
 put her ear to the floor. This room happened to 
 be the one in which Dominique was locked up. 
 He must have been walking from the wall to the 
 window, for she long heard the regular cadence 
 of his steps ; then there was a dead silence, he 
 had doubtless sat down. Besides, the noises 
 stopped, everything was hushed in sleep. When 
 the house seemed to her to slumber, she opened 
 the window as softly as possible, and rested her 
 elbows on the sill. 
 
 Outside, the night was calm and warm. The 
 slender crescent moon, setting behind the Sauval 
 woods, lighted up the country with the glimmer 
 of a night taper. The elongated shadows of the 
 great trees barred the meadows with black, while 
 the grass, in the unshaded spots, put on the soft- 
 ness of greenish velvet. But Franchise did not 
 stop to note the mysterious charm of the night. 
 She examined the country, looking for the sen- 
 tinels that the Germans must have stationed on 
 one side. She plainly saw their shadows, ranged 
 
62 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 like the rungs of a ladder along the Morelle. 
 Only a single one stood opposite the mill, on the 
 other side of the river near a willow whose 
 branches dipped into the water. Franchise saw 
 him distinctly ; he was a big fellow, standmg 
 motionless, his face turned toward the sky with 
 the dreamy look of a shepherd. 
 
 Then, when she had carefully inspected the 
 ground, she went back and sat down upon her 
 bed. She stayed there an hour deeply absorbed. 
 Then she listened again ; in the house not a 
 breath stirred. She went back to the window, 
 and looked out ; but, no doubt, she saw danger 
 in one of the horns of the moon, which still ap- 
 peared behind the trees, for she went back again 
 to wait,..- At last the time seemed to have come. 
 The night was quite dark, she no longer saw the 
 sentinel opposite, the country lay spread out like 
 a pool of ink. She listened intently for a mo- 
 ment, and made up her mind. An iron ladder 
 ran near the window, some bars let into the wall, 
 leading from the wheel up to the loft, down which 
 the millers used to climb, to get at certain cog- 
 wheels ; then, when the machinery had been 
 altered, the ladder had long since disappeared 
 beneath the rank growj,/! of ivy that covered that 
 side of the mill. 
 
 Frangoise bravely climbed over the balustrade 
 of her window, grasped one of the iron bars, 
 and found herself in empty space. She began 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 63 
 
 to climb down. Her skirts were much in her 
 way. Suddenly a stone broke loose from the 
 masonry, and fell into the Morelle with a re- 
 sounding splash. She stopped, chilled with a 
 shudder. But she saw that the waterfall, with 
 its continuous roar, drowned out from afar any 
 noise she might make, and she climbed down 
 more boldly, feeling for the ivy with her foot, 
 making sure of the rungs of the ladder./ When 
 she had got on a level with the room that was 
 used as Dominique's prison, she stopped. An 
 unforeseen difficulty nearly made her lose all 
 her courage ; the window of the room below was 
 not cut regularly under the window of her 
 chamber ; it was some way from the ladder, and, 
 when she stretched out her hand, she felt only 
 the wall. Would she have to climb up again, 
 without carrying her plan through to the end,? 
 Her arms were getting tired, the murmur of the 
 Morelle beneath her began to make her dizzy. 
 Then she tore off little bits of mortar from the 
 wall, and threw them against Dominique's win- 
 dow. He did not hear, perhaps he was asleep. 
 She broke off some more pieces from the wall, 
 barking her fingers. And her strength was 
 giving out, she felt herself falling backwards, 
 when Dominique, at last, softly opened his 
 window. 
 
 "It's I," she whispered. "Take me 
 
 quick, I 'm falling." 
 
64 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 It was the first time she had tutoyeed him. 
 He caught her, leaning out, and lifted her into 
 the room. There she had a fit of tears stifling 
 her sobs, so as not to be heard. Then, by a 
 supreme effort, she calmed herself. 
 
 " You are guarded ? " she asked, in a 
 
 low voice. 
 
 Dominique, still dumfounded at seeing her 
 thus, made a simple sign, pointing to his door. 
 They heard a snoring on the other side ; the 
 sentinel must have given way to drowsiness, 
 and lain down on the ground, across the door- 
 way, thinking that, in this way, the prisoner 
 could not get out. 
 
 " You must run away," she went on rapid- 
 ly. " I have come to implore you to run away, 
 and to say good-bye." 
 
 But he did not seem to hear her. He kept 
 repeating : 
 
 " How, it's you, it's you ! . . . how you 
 
 frightened me ! You might have killed yourself." 
 
 He took her hands, he kissed them. 
 
 " How I love you, Frangoise ! . . . You 
 
 are as brave as you are good. I only had one fear, 
 that of dying without seeing you once more. . . . 
 But you are here, and now they can shoot me. 
 When I have had a quarter of an hour with you 
 I shall be ready." 
 
 Little by little he had drawn her closer to 
 him, and she rested her head upon his shoulder. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 65 
 
 danger drew them nearer together. They 
 forgot all in this embrace. 
 
 " Ah ! Franchise," Dominique went on, in 
 
 a caressing voice, " to-day is Saint-Louis's day, 
 our wedding day, that we have waited for so 
 long. Nothing has been able to separate us, 
 since we are here, all alone, faithful to our tryst. 
 . . . It's our wedding morning now, is n't it?" 
 
 " Yes, yes," she repeated, " our wedding 
 
 morning." 
 
 They exchanged a kiss, trembling. But of a 
 sudden she broke loose, the terrible reality rose 
 up before her. 
 
 " You must run away, you must run away," 
 
 she stammered out. " Let us not lose a minute." 
 
 And, as he stretched out his arms once more 
 to take her in the darkness, she again tutoyeed 
 him, 
 
 " Oh ! I beg you, listen to me. ... If you 
 
 die, I shall die. In an hour it will be daylight. 
 I wish you to go at once." 
 
 Then, rapidly, she explained her plan. The 
 iron ladder ran down to the wheel : there, he could 
 take the paddles and get into the boat which was 
 in a recess. After that it would be easy for him 
 to reach the other bank of the river and escape. 
 
 " But there must be sentinels there ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Only one, opposite, at the foot of the first 
 willow." 
 5 
 
66 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 " And if he sees me, if he tries calling 
 
 out?" 
 
 Frangoise shuddered. She put a knife she had 
 brought down with her into his hand. There 
 was a silence. 
 
 " And your father, and you ? " Dominique 
 
 continued. " But no, I can't run away. . . . 
 When I am gone, maybe these soldiers will 
 slaughter you. . . . You don't know them. 
 They proposed to show me mercy, if I would be 
 their guide through the Sauval forest. When 
 they find me gone they will stick at nothing. " 
 
 The young girl did not stop to discuss. She 
 
 simply answered all the reasons he gave with, 
 
 - " For the love of me, fly. ... If you love 
 
 me, Dominique, don't stay here a minute longer." 
 
 Then she promised to climb back to her room. 
 They would not know that she had helped him. 
 She at last took him in her arms, kissed him to 
 convince him, in an extraordinary outburst of 
 passion. He was beaten. He asked not a ques- 
 tion further. 
 
 u Swear to me that your father knows of 
 
 what you are doing, and that he advises me to 
 run away ? " 
 
 " It was my father sent me," Franchise 
 
 answered boldly. 
 
 She lied. At this moment she felt nothing but 
 a boundless need of knowing him in safety, of 
 escaping from this abominable thought that the 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 6/ 
 
 sun would give the signal for his death. When 
 he was gone, all mishaps might rush down upon 
 her ; it would seem sweet to her, as long as he 
 was alive. The selfishness of her love wished 
 him alive, before all else. 
 
 " Very well," said Dominique, " I will do 
 
 as you please." 
 
 Then they said nothing more. Dominique 
 went to open the window again ; but suddenly 
 a noise chilled their blood. The door was 
 shaken, and they thought it was being opened. 
 Evidently a patrol had heard their voices ; and 
 both of them, standing pressed against each 
 other, waited in unspeakable anguish. The door 
 was shaken again, but it did not open. Each 
 gave a stifled sigh ; they saw how it was, it must 
 have been the soldier lying across the threshold 
 turning over. And really, silence was restored, 
 the snoring began again. 
 
 Dominique would have it that Franchise must 
 first climb back to her room. He took her in his 
 arms ; he bade her a mute farewell. Then he 
 helped her to seize the ladder, and grappled hold 
 of it in his turn. But he refused to go down a 
 single rung before he knew she was in her 
 room. When Fran9oise had climbed in, she 
 whispered, in a voice light as a breath, 
 
 " Au revoir ; I love you ! " 
 
 She stopped with her elbows resting on the 
 window-sill, and tried to follow Dominique with 
 
68 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 her eyes. The night was still very dark. She 
 looked for the sentinel, and did not see him ; only 
 the willow made a pale spot in the midst of the 
 darkness. For an instant she heard the rustling 
 of Dominique's body along the ivy. Then the 
 wheel creaked, and there was a gentle splashing 
 that told that the young man had found the boat. 
 A minute later, in fact, she made out the dark 
 outline of the boat on the gray sheet of the 
 Morelle/7 Then anguish stopped her breath. At 
 every moment she thought to hear the sentinel's 
 cry of alarm. The faintest sounds, scattered 
 through the darkness, seemed to be the hurried 
 tread of soldiers, the clatter of arms, the click 
 of the hammers on the rifles. Yet seconds 
 elapsed, the country slept on in sovereign peace. 
 Dominique must have been landing on the other 
 bank. Frangoise saw nothing more. The still- 
 ness was majestic. And she heard a noise of 
 scuffling feet, a hoarse cry, the dull thud of a fall- 
 ing body. Then the silence grew deeper ; and, 
 as if she had felt death passing by, she waited on, 
 all cold, face to face with the pitch-dark night. 
 
 IV. 
 
 AT daybreak, shouting voices shook the mill. 
 Old Merlier had come to open Franchise's door. 
 She came down into the courtyard, pale and very 
 calm. But there she gave a shudder before the 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 69 
 
 dead body of a Prussian soldier, which was 
 stretched out near the well, on a cloak spread on 
 the ground. 
 
 Around the body, soldiers were gesticulating, 
 crying aloud in fury. Many of them sho6k their 
 fists at the village. Meanwhile, the officer had 
 had old Merlier called, as mayor of the township. 
 
 " See here,'' said he, in a voice choking 
 
 with rage, " here's one of our men who has been 
 found murdered by the river-side. . . . We must 
 make a tremendous example, and I trust you will 
 help us to find out the murderer." 
 
 " Anything you please," answered the 
 
 miller in his phlegmatic way. " Only it will not 
 be easy." 
 
 The officer had stooped down to throw aside a 
 flap of the cloak that hid the dead man's face. 
 Then a horrible wound appeared. The sentinel 
 had been struck in the throat, and the weapon 
 was left in the wound. It was a kitchen knife 
 with a black handle. 
 
 " Look at this knife," said the officer to old 
 
 Merlier, "perhaps it may help us in our search." 
 
 The old man gave a start. But he recovered 
 himself immediately, and answered, without mov- 
 ing a muscle of his face, 
 
 " Everybody in these parts has knives like 
 
 that. . . . Maybe your man was tired of fighting, 
 and did the job himself. Such things have been 
 known to happen." 
 
7O THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 " Shut up ! " the officer cried furiously. 
 
 " I don't know what keeps me from setting fire to 
 the four corners of the .village." 
 
 His anger luckily prevented his noticing the 
 profound change that had come over Franchise's 
 face. She had to sit down on the stone bench, 
 near the well. In spite of herself her eyes never 
 left that dead body, stretched on the ground al- 
 most at her feet. He was a big, handsome fellow, 
 who looked like Dominique, with light hair and 
 blue eyes. This resemblance made her heart 
 sick. She thought of how the dead man had 
 perhaps left some sweetheart behind, who would 
 weep for him over there, in Germany. And she 
 recognized her knife in the dead man's throat. 
 She had killed him. 
 
 .. Meanwhile the officer talked of taking terrible 
 measures against Rocreuse, when some soldiers 
 came up running. They had only just noticed 
 Dominique's escape. It occasioned an extreme 
 agitation. The officer visited the premises, 
 looked out of the window, which had been left 
 open, understood it all, and came back exas- 
 perated. 
 
 Old Merlier seemed very much put out at 
 Dominique's flight. 
 
 " The idiot ! " he muttered, " he spoils 
 
 it all." 
 
 Franoise, who heard him, was seized with an- 
 guish. For the rest, her father did not suspect 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 71 
 
 her complicity. He shook his head, saying to 
 her in an undertone, 
 
 " Now we are in a fine scrape ! " 
 
 " It J s that rascal ! it 's that rascal ! " cried 
 
 the officer. " He must have reached the woods. 
 . . . But he must be found for us, or the village 
 shall pay for it." 
 
 And, addressing the miller, 
 
 " Come, you must know where he is 
 
 hiding ? " 
 
 Old Merlier gave a noiseless chuckle, pointing 
 to the wide extent, qf wooded hillside. 
 
 " How do yoifc^xpect to find a man in 
 
 there ? " said he. 
 
 " Oh ! there must be/ holes in there that 
 
 you know of. I will give you ten men. You shall 
 be their guide." i 
 
 " All right. Only it will take us a week 
 
 to beat all the woods in the neighborhood." 
 
 The old man's coolness infuriated the officer. 
 In fact, he saw the ridiculousness of this battue. 
 It was then that he caught sight of Frangoise, 
 pale and trembling, on the bench, The young 
 girl's anxious attitude struck him. He said noth- 
 ing for an instant, looking hard at the miller and 
 Franchise by turns. 
 
 " Is n't this man," he at last brutally asked 
 
 the old man, " your daughter's lover ? " 
 
 Old Merlier turned livid, and one would have 
 thought him on the point of throwing himself 
 
72 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 upon the officer and strangling him. He drew 
 himself up stiffly ; he did not answer. Fran- 
 c,oise put her face between her hands. 
 
 " Yes, that 's it," the Prussian went on, 
 
 " you or your daughter have helped him to run 
 away. You are his accomplice. . . . For the last 
 time, will you give him up to us ? " 
 
 The miller did not answer, He had turned 
 away, looking off into the distance, as if the of- 
 ficer had not been speaking to him. This put 
 the last touch to the latter's anger. 
 
 " Very well," he said, " you shall be shot 
 instead." 
 
 And he once more ordered out the firing party. 
 Old Merlier still kept cool. He hardly gave a 
 slight shrug of his shoulders ; this whole drama 
 seemed to him in rather bad taste. No doubt, 
 he did not believe that a man was to be shot with 
 so little ado. Then, when the squad had come, 
 he said gravely : 
 
 " You 're in earnest, then ? . . . All right. 
 
 If you absolutely must have some one, I will do 
 as well as another." 
 
 But Fran9oise sprang up, half crazed, stam- 
 mering out : 
 
 " Mercy, monsieur, don't do any harm to 
 
 my father. Kill me instead. ... It 's I who helped 
 Dominique to escape. I am the only culprit." 
 
 " Be quiet, little girl," cried old Merlier. 
 
 " What are you lying for ? . . , She spent the 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 73 
 
 night locked up in her room, monsieur. She 
 lies, I assure you." 
 
 " No, I am not lying," the young girl re- 
 plied ardently. " I climbed down out of the 
 window, I urged Dominique to fly. . . . It 's the 
 truth, the only truth. . . ." 
 
 The old man turned very pale. He saw clearly 
 in her eyes that she was not lying, and this story 
 appalled him. Ah ! these children, with their 
 hearts, how they spoiled everything ! Then he 
 grew angry. 
 
 " She 's crazy, don't believe her. She is 
 
 telling you stupid stories. . . . Come, let 's have 
 done with it." 
 
 She tried to protest again. She knelt down, 
 she clasped her hands. The officer looked 
 quietly on at this heartrending struggle. 
 
 " Good God ! " he said at last, " I take 
 
 your father, because I have n't got the other one. 
 . . . Try and find the other one, and your father 
 shall go free." 
 
 For a moment she looked at him, her eyes 
 staring wide at the atrocity of this proposal. 
 
 - " It 's horrible," she murmured. " Where 
 do you expect me to find Dominique at this 
 time ? He 's gone ; I don't know where he is." 
 
 " Well, choose. Him or your father." 
 
 " Oh ! my God ! how can I choose ? But 
 
 even if I knew where Dominique was, I could not 
 choose ! ... It is my heart you are breaking. 
 
74 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 
 
 ... I had rather die at once. Yes, it would 
 be soonest over so. Kill me, I beg of you, kill 
 me. . . ." 
 
 The officer at last grew impatient at this scene 
 of despair and tears. He cried out, 
 
 " I Ve had enough of this ! I 'm willing 
 
 to be good-natured, I consent to give you two 
 hours. ... If your sweetheart is n't here in two 
 hours, your father shall pay for him." 
 
 And he had old Merlier taken to the room 
 which had been used for Dominique's prison. 
 The old man asked for some tobacco, and fell to 
 smoking. No emotion was to be detected in his 
 impassive face. Only, when he was alone, two 
 big tears ran slowly down his cheeks. His poor, 
 dear child ; how she suffered ! 
 
 Fran9oise had stayecf in the middle of the 
 courtyard. Some Prussian soldiers passed by, 
 laughing. Some of them called out to her, jokes 
 which she did not understand. She stared at 
 the door through which her father had just dis- 
 appeared. And, with a slow movement, she 
 raised her hand to her forehead, as if to keep it 
 from bursting. 
 
 The officer turned on his heel, repeating : 
 
 " You have two hours. Try to make 
 
 good use of them." 
 
 She had two hours. This sentence kept buz- 
 zing in her head. Then, mechanically, she went 
 out of the courtyard, she walked straight before 
 
THE ATTACK ON TH MILL. 7$ 
 
 her. Whither should she go ? What should she 
 do ? She did not even try to decide, because 
 she felt convinced of the uselessness of her efforts. 
 Yet she would have liked to find Dominique. 
 They would have come to an understanding to- 
 gether, they might perhaps have hit upon an 
 expedient. And, amid the confusion of her 
 thoughts, she went down to the bank of the 
 Morelle, which she crossed below the dam, at a 
 place where there were some large stones. Her 
 feet led her under the first willow, at the corner 
 of the field. As she bent down, she saw a pool 
 of blood that made her turn pale. That was 
 clearly the place. And she followed Domi- 
 nique's tracks in the trodden grass ; he must 
 have run, a line of long strides was to be seen 
 cutting through the field cornerwise. Then, 
 farther on, she lost the tracks ; but, in a 
 neighboring field, she thought she found them 
 again. This brought her to the outskirts of 
 the forest, where all traces were wiped out. 
 
 Frangoise plunged in under the trees, notwith- 
 standing. It was a relief to be alone. She sat 
 down for a moment ; then, remembering that 
 her time was running out, she got up again. 
 How long was it since she had left the mill ? 
 Five minutes? half an hour? She had lost all 
 consciousness of time. Perhaps Dominique had 
 gone and hidden in a copse she knew of, where, 
 one afternoon, they had eaten filberts together. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 * 
 
 She went to the copse and searched it. Only a 
 blackbird flew out, whistling its soft, melancholy 
 tune. Then she thought he had taken refuge in 
 a hollow in the rocks, where he sometimes used 
 to lie in ambush for game ; but the hollow in the 
 rocks was empty. What was the use of looking 
 for him ? she would not find him ; and, little by 
 little, her desire to find him grew furious, she 
 walked on faster. The notion that he might 
 have climbed up a tree suddenly struck her. 
 From that moment she pushed on with up- 
 turned eyes, and, that he might know she was 
 near, she called out to him every fifteen or twenty 
 steps. The cuckoos answered her, a breath of 
 air passing through the branches made her think 
 he was there, and was coming down. Once she 
 even thought she saw him ; she stopped, choking, 
 having a good mind to run away. What would 
 she say to him ? Had she come, then, to lead 
 him away and have him shot ? Oh ! no, she 
 would not mention these things. She would cry 
 out to him to escape, not to stay in the neighbor- 
 hood. Then the thought of her father waiting 
 for her gave her a sharp pang. She fell upon 
 the turf, weeping, repeating aloud, 
 
 - " My God ! my God ! why am I here ? " 
 
 She was crazy to have come. And, as if 
 
 seized with fright, she ran, she tried to find a 
 
 way out of the forest. Three times she took the 
 
 wrong path, and she thought she should not find 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 77 
 
 the mij] again, when she came out into a field, 
 just opposite Rccreuse. As soon as she caught 
 sight of the village, j^he stopped. Was she going 
 to return alone ? * 
 
 As she stood there, a voice called to her 
 softly, 
 
 ' " FranQoise ! Francoise ! " 
 
 And she saw Dominique raising his head 
 above the edge of a ditch. Just God ! she had 
 found him ! So heaven wished his death ? She 
 held back a cry, she let herself slide down into 
 the ditch. 
 
 " You were looking for me ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, her head buzzing, 
 
 not knowing what she said. 
 
 " Ah ! what 's going on ? " 
 
 She looked down, she stammered out, 
 
 " Why, nothing ; I was anxious, I wanted 
 to see you." 
 
 Then, reassured, he told her that he had not 
 wished to go far. He feared for them. Those 
 rascals of Prussians were just the sort to wreak 
 vengeance upon women and old men. Then 
 all was going well ; and he added, laughing, 
 
 " Our wedding will be for this day week, 
 
 that 's all." 
 
 Then, as she was still overcome, he grew 
 serious again. 
 
 " But what 's the matter with you ? You 
 
 are keeping something from me." 
 
78 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 " No, I swear to you. I ran to come. . . ." 
 
 He kissed her, saying that it was imprudent 
 for either of them to talk any longer; and he 
 wished to get back to the forest. She held him 
 back. She was trembling. 
 
 " Listen, perhaps it would be as well for 
 
 you to stay here, all the same. . . . Nobody is 
 looking for you, you 're not afraid of anything." 
 
 " Franchise, you are keeping something 
 
 from me," he repeated. 
 
 Again she swore she was keeping nothing from 
 him. Only she had rather know that he was 
 near ; and she stammered out other reasons be- 
 sides. She struck him as acting so queerly, that 
 now he himself would not have been willing to 
 leave her. Besides, he believed the French 
 would return. Troops had been seen over Sauval 
 way. 
 
 " Ah ! let them be in a hurry, let them be 
 
 here as soon as possible ! " he muttered fer- 
 vently. 
 
 At this moment the Rocreuse church clock 
 struck eleven. The strokes came clear and dis- 
 tinct. She sprang up in fright ; it was two hours 
 since she had left the mill. 
 
 " Listen," she said rapidly, " if we should 
 
 need you, I will go up to my room and wave my 
 handkerchief." 
 
 And she left him, running, while Dominique, 
 very anxious, stretched himself out on the edge 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 79 
 
 of the ditch, to keep his eye on the mill. As 
 she was just turning into Rocreuse, Franchise 
 met an old beggar, old Bpntemps, who knew the 
 whole country. He bowed to her, he had just 
 seen the miller in the midst of the Prussians ; 
 then, crossing himself and mumbling some dis-f 
 connected words, he went on his way. 
 
 " The two hours are over," said the officer 
 
 when Frangoise appeared. 
 
 Old Merlier was there, sitting on the bench by 
 the well. He was still smoking. The young 
 girl once more implored, wept, fell upon her 
 knees. She wished to gain time. The hope of 
 seeing the French return had grown in her, and, 
 while bewailing her fate, she thought she heard 
 the measured tread of an army. Oh ! if they 
 had come, if they had delivered them all ! 
 
 -, " Listen, monsieur, one hour, one hour 
 
 more. . . . You can surely grant me one hour! " 
 
 But the officer was still inflexible. He even 
 ordered two men to take her in charge and lead 
 her away, that they might proceed quietly with 
 the old man's execution. Then a frightful con- 
 flict went on in Franchise's heart. She could 
 not let her father be thus murdered. No, no, 
 she would die with Dominique first ; and she was 
 bounding toward her room, when Dominique him- 
 self walked into the courtyard. 
 
 The officer and soldiers gave a shout of 
 triumph. But he, as if no one but Frangoise had 
 
80 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 been there, stepped up to her quietly, a little 
 sternly. 
 
 "That was wrong," said he. "Why 
 
 did n't you bring me back with you ? Old Bon- 
 temps had to tell me everything. . . . After all, 
 here I am." 
 
 V. 
 
 IT was three o'clock. Great black clouds had 
 slowly filled the sky, the tail of some not distant 
 thunderstorm. This yellow sky, these copper- 
 colored rags, changed the valley of Rocreuse, 
 so cheerful in the sunshine, to a cut-throat den, 
 full of suspicious shadows. The Prussian officer 
 had been content to have Dominique locked up, 
 without saying anything about what fate he had 
 in store for him. Ever since noon, Franchise 
 had been a prey to abominable anguish. She 
 would not leave the courtyard, in spite of her 
 father's urging. She was waiting for the French. 
 But the hours passed by, night was at hand, and 
 she suffered the more keenly that all this time 
 gained did not seem likely to change the fright- 
 ful catastrophe. 
 
 Nevertheless, at about three, the Prussians 
 made preparations to go. A minute before, the 
 officer had closeted himself with Dominique, as 
 on the preceding day. Frangoise saw that the 
 young man's life was being decided on. Then 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 8 1 
 
 she clasped her hands and prayed. Old Mer- 
 lier, beside her, maintained his mute and rigid 
 attitude of an old peasant who does not struggle 
 with the fatality of facts. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! oh, my God ! " stammered 
 
 Franchise, " they are going to kill him." 
 
 The miller drew her close to him and took her 
 upon his knees, like a child. 
 
 Just then the officer came out, while, behind 
 him, two men led Dominique. 
 
 " Never, never ! " cried the latter. " I 
 
 am ready to die." 
 
 " Think of it well," replied the officer. 
 
 " This service that you refuse us will be done for 
 us by another. I offer you your life, I am gener- 
 ous. ... It is only to be our guide to Montre- 
 don, through the woods. There must be paths." 
 
 Dominique made no answer. 
 
 " Then you are still obstinate ? " 
 
 " Kill me, and let us have done with it," 
 
 he answered. 
 
 Fran9oise, with hands clasped, implored him 
 from across the yard. She had forgotten all, 
 she would have urged him to some piece of 
 cowardice. But old Merlier grasped her hands, 
 that the Prussians might not see her delirious 
 gesture. 
 
 " He is right," he murmured, "it 's bet- 
 ter to die." 
 
 The firing party was there. The officer was 
 6 
 
82 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 waiting for a moment of weakness on Domi- 
 nique's part. He still counted on winning him 
 over. There was a dead silence. From the dis- 
 tance were heard violent claps of thunder. A 
 sultry heat weighed upon the country ; and, in 
 the midst of this silence, a shriek burst forth, 
 
 The French ! the French ! " 
 
 It was really they. On the Sauval road, on 
 the outskirts of the wood, you could make out 
 the line of red trousers. Inside the mill there 
 was an extraordinary hubbub. The Prussian 
 soldiers ran about with guttural exclamations. 
 For the rest, not a shot had been fired yet. 
 
 - " The French ! the French ! " screamed 
 Franchise, clapping her hands. 
 
 She was like mad. She had broken loose from 
 her father's embrace, and she laughed, her arms 
 waving in the air. At last they were coming 
 and they had come in time, since Dominique was 
 still there, erect ! 
 
 A terrible firing that burst upon her ears like 
 a thunder-stroke made her turn round. The 
 officer had just muttered : 
 
 " First of all, let us finish this job." 
 
 And, pushing Dominique up against the wall 
 of a shed with his own hands, he had ordered, 
 " Fire ! " When Frangoise turned round, Domi- 
 nique was lying on the ground, his breast pierced 
 with twelve bullets. 
 
 She did not weep ; she stood there in a stupor. 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 83 
 
 Her eyes were fixed, and she went and sat down 
 under the shed, a few steps from the body. She 
 looked at it ; at moments she made a vague and 
 childlike movement with her hand. The Prus- 
 sians had laid hold of old Merlier as a hostage. 
 
 It was a fine fight. Rapidly the officer sta- 
 tioned his men, recognizing that he could not 
 beat a retreat without being overpowered. It 
 was as well to sell his life dearly. Now it was 
 the Prussians who defended the mill and the 
 French that made the attack. The firing began 
 with unheard-of violence. For half an hour it 
 did not stop. Then a dull explosion was heard, 
 and a shot broke off one of the main branches 
 of the hundred-year-old elm. The French had 
 cannon. A battery, drawn up just above the 
 ditch in which Dominique had hidden, swept the 
 main street of Rocreuse. From this moment 
 the struggle could not last long. 
 
 Ah ! the poor mill ! Shot pierced it through 
 and through. Half the roofing was carried 
 away. Two walls crumbled. But it was, above 
 all, on the side toward the Morelle that the ruin 
 done was piteous. The ivy, torn from the shat- 
 tered walls, hung in rags ; the river swept away 
 debris of every sort, and through a breach you 
 could see Frangoise's room, with her bed, the 
 white curtains of which were carefully drawn. 
 Shot upon shot, the old wheel received two can- 
 non-balls, and gave one last groan : the paddles 
 
84 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 
 
 were washed away by the current, the carcass 
 collapsed. The mill had breathed out its soul. 
 
 Then the French stormed the place. There 
 was a furious fight with side-arms. Beneath the 
 rust-colored sky, the cutthroat hollow of the val- 
 ley was filled with killed. The broad meadows 
 looked grim, with their great single trees, their 
 rows of poplars streaking them with shadows. 
 To the right and left, the forests were like the 
 walls of a circus, shutting in the combatants ; 
 while the springs, the fountains, the running 
 waters, gave forth sounds of sobbing, amid the 
 panic of the countryside. 
 
 Under the shed, Franchise had not stirred, 
 crouched down opposite Dominique's body. 
 Old Merlier was killed outright by a spent bullet. 
 Then, when the Prussians had been annihilated, 
 and the mill was burning, the French captain was 
 the first man to enter the courtyard. From the 
 beginning of the campaign it was the only suc- 
 cess he had won. And, all aglow, drawing up 
 his tall figure to its full height, he laughed with 
 his gracious air of a fine cavalier. And, seeing 
 Franchise, imbecile, between the dead bodies of 
 her husband and father, amidst the smoking 
 ruins of the mill, he gallantly saluted her with 
 his sword, crying out : 
 
 " Victory 1 victory I * 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILE SOUVESTRE 
 
From " Tales of Brittany and La Vendee." 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD 
 
 BY EMILE SOUVESTRE 
 
 THE Bay of Douarnenez, inclosed as it is 
 by the two rocky peninsulas of Kelerne 
 and Crozon, which leave only a narrow passage 
 out into the open sea, belongs to those portions 
 of the coast of Brittany which make the deepest 
 impression upon a traveller possessed of taste 
 and sympathy for such scenery. Its charm does 
 not, however, consist in what is generally called 
 the beautiful, or the romantic. There are along 
 this coast many wilder, sublimer, more romantic, 
 and more beautiful points. But that which ex- 
 ercises so peculiar an influence here is doubtless 
 the complete unity of style, if one may use such 
 an expression, the harmony of the whole, and of 
 every detail, down to the very moss which hangs 
 from the rocks, partaking, as they all do, of one 
 and the same grave, severe, gloomy, and mys- 
 terious character. Yet this coast-scene is pre- 
 served from a dull monotony by the exquisitely 
 blue waters of the bay, which, though protected 
 indeed from the mighty waves that break upon 
 
88 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 the rocky promontories outside, yet not only curls 
 beneath the breath of the almost spent wind, and 
 shares the great pulsations of ocean in its ebb 
 and flow, but is still further animated by, as it 
 were, a ceaseless breathing, or, in other words, a 
 peculiar, mysterious, perfectly regular, and low- 
 murmuring swelling and subsiding of its waters. 
 Whatever explanation may be afforded by natural 
 causes dependent upon the formation of the 
 shore, it is certain that the people connect this 
 phenomenon with the tradition, according to 
 which the old Armorican King Grallon still dwells 
 in his glorious magic city, deep down under the 
 surface of the bay. 
 
 After a long absence I revisited this country 
 a few years ago, to recover from the effects of 
 the marrow and bone, the soul and spirit con- 
 suming business of the metropolis. I had wan- 
 dered away to the northern tongue of land, my 
 whole being open to the impressions conveyed 
 by its scenery, and to the influence of the 
 strengthening sea breeze which blew over me 
 from both sides, to the left from the bay, to the 
 right from the open sea. Opposite Rostudel, 
 not far from the hamlet of Kerkolleorch, I ob- 
 served, on my left, a little green dingle which 
 opened out between gray masses of rocks, and 
 led down to the shore of the bay. Below me, the 
 little brook which had given rise to a kindly 
 vegetation around to grass, bushes, and some 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 89 
 
 low trees had been, by the help of a few rough, 
 upright stones, converted into a well that a few 
 willows shaded over. 
 
 A young peasant girl sat on a stone near this 
 well, her arm resting upon one of the large red 
 earthern jugs which are universally used in these 
 parts, and have from time immemorial been 
 brought over from the opposite coast of Corn- 
 wall, which was once inhabited by a kindred 
 race. I stepped towards her ; for even at a dis- 
 tance I was attracted by the peculiar and sur- 
 prising charm of such an apparition in this lonely 
 and savage spot. She was of a remarkably 
 pure and touching order of beauty, and the sim- 
 ple costume of the district, poor but delicately 
 clean, the blue gown with a broad red border, 
 the brown kerchief around the head, and which 
 fell over her shoulders and bosom like a pair of 
 wings, the small bare feet, the round arm leaning 
 on the red pitcher all formed an unspeakably 
 charming tout ensemble. She greeted me in the 
 dialect of the country, with so gentle a voice, 
 and such a frank, friendly glance and nod, that 
 I could not resist the temptation to become 
 somewhat better acquainted with her, which 
 would, I knew, in all probability be the result of 
 a little conversation. As I approached, return- 
 ing her greeting, and wiping away the drops that 
 stood on my brow, she praised the water of the 
 well, and offered me some to drink ; and upon 
 
o THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 
 
 my making a sign of assent, she rose, and, with 
 fascinating grace and alacrity, raised the pitcher 
 to my lips. While I drained long draughts of 
 the pure stream, she held the heavy pitcher and 
 looked at me with a smile. 
 
 As, according to the custom of the country, 
 I thanked her by bidding God bless her, and was 
 about to enter into conversation, a harsh voice 
 broke in : 
 
 " The Holy Trinity protect us ! Can it be 
 Dinorah, who, on the open heath, sets up a 
 liquor-shop for the townsfolk ? " 
 
 I looked round, and saw a miller of the neigh- 
 borhood, whom I knew by sight, sitting upon his 
 sacks, which a strong horse carried without diffi- 
 culty together with his master, and on his way 
 apparently to one hamlet after another. Under 
 other circumstances he would have been a wel- 
 come companion to me, for he knew the country 
 and its inhabitants intimately, and, apart from 
 his self-satisfied, levelling, liberal views, and the 
 spirit of contradiction which he caught from his 
 newspapers apart, I say, from this, and an utter 
 absence of all feeling for what was deepest, ten- 
 derest, and most earnest in the heart of the peo- 
 ple, he was by no means a bad sort of man, nay, 
 for every-day life, he might be called a cheerful 
 and useful companion. 
 
 At this moment, however, his appearance, and 
 the antagonism between him and such a creature 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 91 
 
 as Dinorah, as well as his discordance with the 
 place, and with all that united to form the mood 
 which he disturbed, were extremely unwelcome 
 to me. Half offended, half embarrassed, I was 
 silent, and turned away, that I might not be 
 tempted to say anything rude to him. But Din- 
 orah did not long owe him an answer. 
 
 " Go your ways elsewhere, Guiller Three- 
 Tongues^ cried she, with a gay and uncon- 
 strained laugh. " You are well entitled to the 
 nickname else you never could speak so much 
 arrant nonsense." 
 
 " Come, come, girl, give me at least a drink as 
 well," said he conciliatingly, while he saluted me 
 very politely for he knew me at once, in spite 
 of my turning away. 
 
 " Not I, indeed," replied she tartly. " This is 
 only spring-water for good Christians ; such as 
 you w&ni. fire-water, and that I do not sell ; so go 
 your ways." 
 
 " My time is thine, child ; for it so happens 
 that I am taking this flour to Kerkolleorch." 
 
 " Except that portion of it which remains be- 
 hind sticking to the mill-stones is it not so, 
 Guiller?" 
 
 I could not help laughing at this allusion to 
 the well-known foible of the miller, or rather at 
 the droll, pert way in which the girl brought it 
 out ; but the miller turned to me, and said, with 
 a shrug of his shoulders : 
 
92 THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 " Monsieur, then, understands the gour Ian 
 chenn (the bad tongue) already. But who ever 
 would believe it of a little saint that she could 
 be so sharp ? I have seen her when she was not 
 higher than her pitcher when she could not even 
 call me by my name, and now I can get on less 
 well with her than if she were an advocate. That 
 shows plainly enough that when God took the 
 tongue from the serpent He gave it to the woman. 
 I should like to know if she serves Bauzec the 
 Black in the same way when he passes by her 
 door." 
 
 The miller had evidently touched his fair op- 
 ponent on a tender point. At all events she was 
 silent, blushed perceptibly, and pulled her head- 
 gear about with some embarrassment. But when 
 he tried to follow up his advantage, she soon 
 found her tongue again, and some light-hearted 
 and harmless bantering was carried on between 
 them for some time longer. 
 
 At last, he replied to the reproach of not know- 
 ing how to prevent his three tongues from con- 
 tradicting each other, by an allusion that I did 
 not understand, and which soon put an end to 
 all jesting on the part of Dinorah. 
 
 " Well," cried he, " we can't all be the blessed 
 Virgin's god-children that is only the lot of 
 such little saints as Dinorah." 
 
 " Do not mock at holy things, Guiller," said 
 she, with a sudden earnestness of voice, look, 
 
/. '* 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 93 
 
 t 
 
 i#nd gesture, while raising her pitcher to her head, 
 
 " and preparing to go away. 
 
 " Old William * may burn me black," replied 
 'he, "if I meant to mock. Every child in the 
 
 f -district knows the story, and if the gentleman has 
 
 \ not heard it already, I will tell it him now. 
 
 " You must know that the little Dinorah was 
 jjust born, and was to be, as is right and proper, 
 baptized as soon as possible. All were assem- 
 bled in the church, and quite ready. The sexton 
 tad brought the shell with the salt in it the 
 priest had put on his stole ; they were only wait- 
 ing for one of the godmothers. At that moment 
 
 came a messenger out of breath to say that she 
 had suddenly dropped down dead. You may 
 imagine the confusion and distress. It would 
 never do to take the first come for the god- 
 mother of such a jewel of a child, and in short 
 
 ' she was very near being carried out of the church 
 unbaptized, home. At that moment, out of the 
 Chapel of the Holy Virgin Mary, which stands 
 on one side of the choir, there came a wonder- 
 fully beautiful lady, dressed in silk and lace, and 
 offered to hold the child for baptism. The priest 
 had nothing to say against it, and all the rest of 
 the party assembled held their breath at the 
 apparition ; and before they rightly knew what 
 
 * This is the title given by the peasants of Brittany to 
 the devil perhaps from a forgotten play upon the name 
 of William the Conqueror. 
 
94 THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 had happened to them, our little Dinorah was 
 baptized, and the apparition had vanished again 
 into the chapel. But pray, sir, do not thmk of 
 disputing with Dinorah here, or with any of the 
 good folk of this province, as to whether it really 
 was the Blessed Virgin, or a distinguished lady 
 'from Paris, who was sketching at that time in the 
 neighborhood, and hunting out cromlechs and 
 other antiquities and curiosities. So now you see 
 it was no bad joke of mine, but that it is in good, 
 downright earnest that we call Dinorah the little 
 saint, and the Virgin's god-daughter ! " 
 
 I looked inquiringly at Dinorah, who replied, 
 half in anger and half in embarrassment : 
 
 " Guiller can lie, even while telling the truth ; 
 but, however, no one can alter what God willed 
 should happen. The dog may bark at the moon, 
 indeed ; but the moon does not, on that account, 
 fall from the sky." 
 
 So saying, she went away with a quick step, 
 and soon disappeared behind the rocks. 
 
 We took the same way more slowly. The mil- 
 ler went on rattling for some time, but I did not 
 heed him. The little legend I had just heard 
 had in no way diminished my interest in Dinorah. 
 I knew well that the people in Brittany are always 
 pleased with stories of some wonderful distinction 
 paid to one or other of themselves by the Lord of 
 Heaven, or by some of His saints. Such highly 
 favored ones are objects of pride to a whole 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOOD-CHILD. 95 
 
 district. I had already heard of the widow ot a 
 baker of St. Mathieu, whose dough had been 
 kneaded by the archangel Gabriel ; and of Lotsen 
 of Batz, to whom the Saviour Himself had taught 
 certain words which had the power of guiding a 
 ship safely over the most perilous seas, and had 
 never yet seen one of these distinguished individ- 
 uals. Here, however, was a maiden who was 
 evidently fully persuaded that she stood in a 
 peculiar relation to the Queen of Heaven. No 
 one who saw her could doubt the genuineness of 
 such belief on her part ; nay, this story alone gave 
 the key to her peculiar bearing at once lively 
 and dignified, modest, retiring, mysterious, and 
 yet firm, self-possessed, and even daring as it was. 
 Moreover as Guiller confessed cordially enough, 
 when he found that his light talk found no re- 
 sponse in me though Dinorah was certainly 
 rather too proud of her exalted sponsor, she did 
 her credit by being the most pious, most honor- 
 able, and, in short, the best girl in all the country 
 far and near ; and if all saints were like her, added 
 he, he would himself think seriously about being 
 converted and trying to get to heaven. 
 
 Meanwhile, we had reached one of those 
 cottages standing close by the shore, where the 
 so-called Gabariers were wont to live, that they 
 might collect tang, fine sand, and other produc- 
 tions or refuse of the sea, which they sold to 
 potash and glass manufacturers, in order to eke 
 
96 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILI>. 
 
 out by these small earnings the fishing which was 
 their special vocation. But this cottage of which 
 I speak was in far better order than the general- 
 ity. It was built of granite blocks, pretty regu- 
 larly arranged, and roofed with large slates. Its 
 situation was sheltered, standing as it did at the 
 opening of a little hollow in the steep banks which 
 rose from behind it, leaving room for a little bit 
 of garden, where herbs and a few flowers, pro- 
 tected by a green hedge, seemed to flourish very 
 well. A deep curve of the shore reached to a few 
 steps of the cottage door. The little waves, 
 sparkling in the evening sun, lifted in their play 
 a neat boat on to the snow-white sand of the 
 beach, which was diversified here and there by 
 gay shells. Nets were hanging up to dry upon a 
 neighboring rock. 
 
 Guiller observed to me : 
 
 " That 's the home of Dinorah's father, old Sa- 
 laun. And there lies the old man himself," con-' 
 tinned he, laughing, as he pointed out a man 
 asleep in the shadow of a rock, " and repeats the 
 paternoster of St. Do-nothing. These people 
 live as they used to do in Paradise. The sea 
 brings them all they want while they sleep, and 
 they have only got to stretch their hand out to 
 take it in. No doubt he is dreaming at this mo- 
 ment of the great lobster with pearl eyes, and ot 
 the bank with silver anchovies ; and he is ready 
 to sell his soul to Satan if he will but get him a 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 97 
 
 net made of sand, with which to fish out all these 
 marvels from the depths of the Bay of Douarne- 
 nez. I will waken him just in time to prevent 
 the bargain being struck." 
 
 He did this in rather a summary manner ; and 
 after a few jokes, both men began to unlade the 
 sacks of flour which the miller had brought. 
 During this process I engaged the Gabarier to 
 take me in his boat, at the next ebb of the tide, 
 to the cave of Morgate, which was opposite, at 
 the very extremity of the southern point. To 
 while away the short intervening time, I ascended 
 the banks behind the cottage, and delighted my- 
 self with the glorious scene presented by the bay : 
 its rocky shores, the wide sea beyond, the prom- 
 ontories and fissures far and near, the hundred 
 sails of small and large vessels traversing the blue 
 expanse in every direction ; and all this brightly 
 lighted up by the sun, which already neared the 
 misty horizon. 
 
 I was roused out of the dreamy condition into 
 which the scene had plunged me by the noise 
 that the fisherman and miller made in shut- 
 ting the cottage-door after they had finished their 
 task. I had begun to descend, but involun- 
 tarily stood still as I saw Dinorah come out of 
 the cottage. She had placed her distaff on her 
 hip, and as she went along she whirled the spindle 
 with great speed and accuracy. In the other 
 hand, she held up her apron, in which she seemed 
 7 
 
00 THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 
 
 to be carl ying something or other. She came up 
 th& cliff near to where I was standing, behind a 
 projection of rock, and then stood still, a few 
 steps below me. She looked round on every side, 
 raised her hand to the four points of the compass 
 successively, while she pronounced two or three 
 words vhich I did not understand. She was in- 
 stantly answered by a loud chirping from the low 
 bushe? around, and from every side different 
 kinds of birds bulfinches, robin-redbreasts, 
 hedge-sparrows, titmice, and many more flew 
 down to pick up the food she had brought them 
 in her apron, and which she now carefully and 
 lovingly distributed in little handfuls, while, in 
 an undertone, she sang to herself in a strange 
 sort of way. 
 
 It was a lovely picture, seen thus in the red 
 glow of evening ; and the pure outline of her face, 
 with its rich waves of golden hair around, would 
 certainly have afforded to a painter a most ad- 
 mirable study for the head of a saint. 
 
 At length I approached, but she beckoned me/ ( 
 away, without, however, evincing the least sur- 
 prise or embarrassment. 
 
 " If monsieur comes nearer, all my little birdies 
 will fly away, and they are not half satisfied," 
 said she in a whisper, that her /r<?/<%r might not 
 be disturbed by the sound of a strange language. 
 
 However, at that moment both the men came 
 noisily out of the cottage, and the little birds dis- 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 99 
 
 persed on every side, with a loud twittering, ex- 
 pressive of their alarm and displeasure. 
 
 So Dinorah, after having called out a few 
 quieting and sympathizing words after them, 
 found herself obliged to speak to me. In answer 
 to my question, by what means she had contrived 
 thus to tame such shy little creatures, she looked 
 at me in astonishment, and said : 
 
 "Why, by the same that attracts all God's 
 creatures by love ; by showing them that one 
 is fond of them. In winter, when they cannot 
 find food for themselves, I strew it for them 
 before our door, and in summer they know me 
 again." 
 
 As she spoke, we reached the cottage, and the 
 miller could not refrain from teasing her a little 
 more. 
 
 " The little saint has again given alms to the 
 beggars of the air. No doubt she expects to 
 find one or other amongst them who will bring 
 her tidings from her high and holy godmother." 
 
 Dinorah went into the house, silent, and evi- 
 dently offended ; but old Salaun said gravely : 
 
 " And why not, pray ? If our fathers have not 
 deceived us, there are birds who know the way 
 to the upper sea, and can, no doubt, carry a mes- 
 sage to the blest in Paradise." 
 
 "Well, all I know," replied the miller, " is that 
 it is just the contrary with my horse and me. 
 We have to find our way to one who comes much 
 
IOO THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 nearer to the lost in hell. Or has the devil at last 
 hunted down his ^reyJudock Shipwreck of the 
 havens' Cliff?" 
 
 Salaun, it was plain, wished to avoid giving an 
 answer, and went accordingly towards the boat, 
 remarking that it was high time to think of our 
 expedition. But the name vijudock happened 
 to recall to my mind, though indistinctly, certain 
 criminal prosecutions in which I had been en- 
 gaged. And upon inquiry the miller convinced 
 me that it was indeed this very man who had 
 been brought before the Court at Brest several 
 years before, charged with heavy crimes, but who 
 had been acquitted, contrary to the general ex- 
 pectation, owing to some deficiency in the evi- 
 dence. 
 
 " If I only knew," added the miller, " whether 
 the old villain were at home, that he might him- 
 self receive his flour from me, and make no more 
 ado about it, I would rather " here he inter- 
 rupted himself. " But here comes his boy 
 Bauzec the Black and he can give us the surest 
 information if he but choose to do so." 
 
 The new-comer was a young lad in the very 
 poorest dress of the district. H is thick, unkempt, 
 rough, coal-black hair fell like a mane over his 
 shoulders. In his right hand he held a long 
 cudgel, which, with strength and agility, he swung 
 round in circles ; while his left hand clutched 
 with fierce grasp the sack which he carried on 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. IOI 
 
 his shoulders. His features, as well as his ex- 
 pression, wore no trace of the old Armorican 
 type, had about them nothing of its sad, severe 
 earnestness and indomitable fidelity. There was 
 evidently the wild, cunning, gypsy character 
 about the dark, contracted features, and the 
 bright, deeply cut eyes. In short, there was some- 
 thing in his whole appearance that awakened dis- 
 like as well as fear. 
 
 When he saw that he was observed, he stopped 
 for an instant in his rapid walk, and seemed 
 doubtful as to whether or not he would turn back. 
 But just at that moment Dinorah happened to 
 come to the door, busied with her spindle, and 
 looking down. 
 
 As soon as he saw her, he came on again, but 
 so slowly, that the miller more than once called 
 upon him to make haste, adding, that in general 
 he was light-footed enough, otherwise there would 
 have been an end of his light feet long ago, and 
 he would have had a couple of pounds of iron 
 hung upon them. When the lad had come with- 
 in a few steps of us, he stood still again, and cast 
 furtive glances differing, however, wonderfully 
 in expression first at us, and then at Dinorah. 
 The miller then asked him if Judock was at home. 
 He made no answer till Dinorah repeated the 
 question, when he slowly said : 
 
 " He only can know that who comes from the 
 Ravens' Cliff." 
 
XO2 THE VIRGIN s GOD-CHILD. 
 
 " And thou, lad, comest as usual," said the 
 fisherman, advancing towards us from his boat, 
 " only from some place or other thou shouldest 
 not come from, and which no one asks thee 
 about." 
 
 "Where should he come from, indeed, but 
 from some poaching expedition ? " suggested the 
 miller. " Let us see what your booty is to-day 
 fruit or roots, fish or flesh ! " 
 
 And so saying, he was going to snatch at the 
 sack, but the youth looked at him in such a way, 
 and made such an expressive motion with the 
 cudgel, that the miller, strong as he was, drew 
 back, with an exclamation that called forth the 
 interposition of Dinorah. 
 
 " Bauzec comes from the downs," she calmly 
 said ; " I saw him wandering about there an 
 hour or so ago." 
 
 " He has been hunting with the gentry. I 
 have met him out with them before now," ex- 
 claimed Guiller spitefully. 
 
 " And why not ? " replied the youth, in a tone 
 of defiance. " Here is my gun, which never fails, 
 and here is my sporting dog, which never loses 
 scent of the game," added he triumphantly, as 
 he swung round his cudgel, and opened his sack 
 a little, out of which peeped a little white, hairy 
 head, with small, red eyes, and a pointed and 
 blood-stained little nose. 
 
 " A ferret ! " exclaimed Salaun ; " no wonder, 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. IO3 
 
 then, that the gentry complain that they can 
 hardly get a roasted rabbit out of all their rabbit 
 warrens." 
 
 Bauzec grinned with delight at this acknowl- 
 edgment of his heroic deeds. He fumbled in 
 his bag, and brought out four fine rabbits, on 
 whose white breasts the little track of blood 
 showed where the ferret had sucked their veins. 
 That little creature evinced a strong fellow-feel- 
 ing with his master, looking complacently upon 
 its victims, and licking its lips and whiskers with 
 its small red tongue. 
 
 To the miller's question as to whether he was 
 willing to sell them, Bauzec replied : 
 
 " Not here ; I shall get a better price for them 
 at the tavern in Crozon, as well as a glass of fire- 
 water into the bargain." 
 
 So saying, he replaced his booty in the bag, 
 lingered for a moment or two as if in indecision, 
 and then prepared, to leave without any further 
 salutation. But he suddenly recollected himself, 
 drew one of the rabbits out of the bag again, and 
 threw it at Dinorah's feet, with the bold yet shy 
 manner of a rough youth who would willingly be 
 gallant but does not know how. 
 
 " It is the finest of them," muttered he ; " the 
 little saint may keep it if she will." 
 
 Dinorah looked at him gravely, almost severely. 
 But her father pushed away the present with his 
 foot, and said rudely : " Take thy game along 
 
IO4 THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 with thee, lad; we only receive presents from 
 Christian people." 
 
 Bauzec shrank back, and for a moment ap- 
 peared discomfited; but he soon regained his 
 savage air of defiance. He uttered a sort of hiss- 
 ing sound, which might pass for a laugh of con- 
 tempt, took up his bag again, and with a few 
 strides vanished behind a projection of the 
 rocks. 
 
 The miller, meanwhile, had picked up the 
 rabbit, and said that his conscience was not so 
 tender ; and that, if they despised the dainty 
 roast it would make, it would do nicely for him. 
 
 He then prepared to join Bauzec, as he had to 
 go to the Ravens' Cliff. I resolved to accompany 
 him ; for I was curious to make the personal ac- 
 quaintance of this Judock, whose innocence as 
 to the charges already referred to had always ap- 
 peared to me something more than doubtful, 
 while their nature had left on my mind a picture 
 of a remarkable and original villain. The fisher- 
 man promised, though evidently with some re- 
 luctance, to bring the boat round for me to 
 Ravens' Cliff at the proper time. I took a short 
 farewell of Dinorah, but found her far more 
 silent and reserved than she had been at first, 
 and went on my way, accompanied by the 
 miller. 
 
 " You will find Judock an odd sort of saint/* 
 said my companion, in his obtrusive way ; " or 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 1 05 
 
 rather, I should say, no saint at all, but a regular 
 limb of Satan, with whose sins and crimes one 
 could fill up the whole way between Camaret and 
 Crozon. For twenty years he lit false lights from 
 Loquirnk to Trevignon, and has had more to do 
 with shipwrecks upon this coast than the south- 
 west wind itself." 
 
 I asked whether this creditable occupation en- 
 riched its pursuer. 
 
 " One cannot exactly tell," rejoined Guiller ; 
 " he lives in his den yonder as poor as a 
 Klasker-bara a bread-seeker, as we call beggars 
 about here. But the question is, whether his 
 miserliness be not greater than all his other vices. 
 Many believe that he has tons of buried gold. 
 And besides, he gains something every now and 
 then as a flayer and rope-maker ; and on that 
 account, too, the people look askance at him as 
 anything but a Christian, and aver that he is a 
 Kakous." 
 
 After an hour's good walk, as we followed a 
 bend of the down, we came in sight of Judock's 
 hut. It was built into a small and narrow fissure 
 in the rocks, and stood close to the shore. The 
 natural walls thus afforded, the moss-grown flag- 
 stones that formed its roof, and whose broad 
 crevices were stuffed up with sea-tang, held to- 
 gether by strong fir-branches, rendered it diffi- 
 cult to distinguish the dwelling from the rocks 
 around, and the sea-produce strewn upon them. 
 
lo6 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 Everything was barren, rude, and inhospitable- 
 looking. Some pointed piles of bones lay about, 
 and the projecting roof of the gable had two or 
 three horses' skulls nailed to it, a decoration 
 worthy of the whole. 
 
 Judock sat at his door, busied with some old 
 cordage, which he was pulling to pieces. He 
 was a little, thin, shrivelled old man, with a large 
 bald head. The prevailing hue of his face was 
 almost brick-colored, but in the countless wrinkles 
 the skin was lighter ; and as these wrinkles 
 widened more or less at every change of feature, 
 or when he spoke, they gave him a strange re- 
 pulsive appearance, and made a varying and con- 
 fusing impression upon the beholder. His rest- 
 less, piercing glance, his beak-like nose, his low 
 forehead, his toothless mouth, his under jaw in 
 constant motion, all completed a picture which 
 only answered too well to the opinion that I had 
 already formed of him. 
 
 As soon as he saw me he started, and furtively 
 watched all my movements with visible unrest 
 and suspicion. But he pretended not to observe 
 me. 
 
 " Now then, old sinner," said Guiller to him at 
 last, "canst thou not give God's blessing and 
 the good-day to this gentleman ? " 
 
 "What is the nobleman seeking for on this 
 coast ? " was the ungracious answer, spoken in 
 an undertone. 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 107 
 
 " Ay, what indeed ? old Judock, perhaps," 
 said the miller, laughing. 
 
 At these words Judock sprang up, and seemed 
 doubtful whether to flee or to defend himself. I 
 however soon calmed him, by assuring him that 
 I was only a lover of rock and ocean, and that I 
 had a boat ready to take me to see the cave. 
 Without returning me any answer, he seized the 
 sack of flour that Guiller had brought, and carried 
 it into the hut. No sooner had I crossed the 
 threshold, however, than Judock let his burden 
 fall and gave a loud scream. 
 
 " He here ! " exclaimed he, with an expression 
 of extremest amazement. " The saints be gra- 
 cious to me ! how has he got in ? " 
 
 The intruder was Bauzec, who, to all appear- 
 ance quite unconcerned, sat upon the hearth and 
 roasted potatoes in the ashes. 
 
 " Why," observed the miller, showing himself 
 upon the doorsill, " you have not left more than 
 one hole to your palace ; how could he have got 
 in otherwise than by it, old boy?" 
 -> " No, no ; the door was shut, and I but I 
 must ferret out how this vermin crept in here 
 without my knowledge, or " 
 
 He raised his hand threateningly against the 
 lad, who, however, replied calmly, and with an 
 ironical emphasis upon the expression : 
 
 "Why, my dear father, does not the wind 
 find its way in without asking your leave, and 
 
io8 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 why should not your dear little son do the 
 same ? " 
 
 " Only hear him, the young imp ! " exclaimed 
 the old man, half angrily and half piteously. " He 
 himself confesses that he has slipped in here to 
 rob his poor old father ! " 
 
 " Eh, father dear ! " continued the youth in 
 the same mocking tone ; " so there is then some- 
 thing to rob you of, and people are not so far 
 wrong eh ? " 
 
 That last sentence was too much for the old 
 man. He seized an iron implement which lay 
 at hand, and rushed upon Bauzec ; but with a 
 laugh he slipped away from him, and out at the 
 door, with cat-like agility. The old man fol- 
 lowed, but he very soon returned out of breath, 
 apparently without having effected anything. He 
 spent himself in asseverations respecting his pov- 
 erty, his age, and his wretchedness ; the untruth, 
 and indeed impossibility, of any reports to the con- 
 trary ; the bad-heartedness and ingratitude of the 
 " vermin," as he called his well-educated son. 
 
 The miller put an end to the repulsive garrulity 
 of the old man whose mind was actually weak- 
 ened by the alarm given to his covetousness by 
 reminding him of the payment due, and of the 
 glass of brandy that was to accompany it. But 
 he could only bring him to the point by the 
 positive threat of no longer grinding for him. 
 
 At last the boat of old Salaun touched the 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 109 
 
 shore, and he called out to me that there was 
 no time to lose. I was glad to leave the inhos- 
 pitable hut and its owner, and the miller too, 
 whose manner towards the old man was disagree- 
 able to me. So I soon found myself sitting in 
 the boat, and gave myself up to the strange and 
 sublime scenes that shore and sea afforded me, 
 as he rowed to the outlet of the bay. Salaun had 
 made visible haste to push off from the shore, and 
 had at first exerted all his energies to get away as 
 fast as possible out of sight of the Kakous' hut. 
 
 His exertions, and the anxious look that he 
 cast towards the cloudless horizon, induced me 
 at last to ask him whether we had a sudden 
 squall to apprehend. 
 
 " Ask them who cause such, sir ; it would not 
 be the first storm that has come from that quar- 
 ter in perfectly still weather," said he signifi- 
 cantly, while he pointed to the direction where 
 stood the dwelling of the Kakous. 
 
 And strange enough, at that very moment, a light 
 white cloud arose from the point in question, and 
 spread out to the horizon. But I soon convinced 
 myself that it must be smoke and concerned my- 
 self no further about the matter, seeing that the 
 Gabarier, to my query as to how a fire could take 
 place on so nearly uninhabited a coast, merely 
 replied by shrugs of the shoulders and other 
 strange gestures. And besides this, we had 
 now reached the vicinity of the Grotto of Mor- 
 
IIO THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 
 
 gate, where Nature claimed and absorbed all my 
 attention. 
 
 I let the conversation drop, and soon we glided 
 through the narrow entrance into the cave, whose 
 noble dome looking, in the wonderfully blue 
 light, as if it were built of sapphires rose sud- 
 denly upon the astonished and bewildered sight. 
 This cave certainly surpasses the so much 
 more widely famed blue Grotto of Capri ; and 
 this particular point, as well as the whole coast 
 indeed, possesses, in a much higher degree than 
 those southern shores, the charm of ancient local 
 traditions and national songs. 
 
 These are for the most part connected, in this 
 district, with the mythic King Grallon-Mawr 
 (Grallon the Great), and with the magic Princess 
 Morgane, or Morgate, who, as is well known, oc- 
 cupies so prominent a position in the legends and 
 lays of Arthur's Round Table. 
 
 Nothing was wanting but a hint on my part to 
 induce my companion, who had been hitherto so 
 monosyllabic, to set off fluently upon these sub- 
 jects. 
 
 His favorite tradition the scene of which, 
 moreover, was, he asserted, this very grotto 
 appeared to be the story of the fair Genossa, 
 which is also preserved in an old national song 
 (Gutrz) of Brittany.* 
 
 * It is well known that the distinguished Villemarque 
 has published a collection, in two volumes, of similar 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. Ill 
 
 Genossa was the daughter of a mighty lord, 
 who lived in the castle whose giant ruins are still 
 shown on the island of Rozan, at the mouth of 
 the Laber. Genossa lived without God, and 
 without a wish. Her father let her grow up as 
 do the flowers of the field, and no priest had ever 
 approached the island, which was devoted to the 
 Evil Spirit. Sitting upon a snow-white cow with 
 golden horns, she wandered all the day long 
 through the meadows and woods that lay around 
 the shore, catching in her silken net the birds on 
 the wing. 
 
 One day she chanced to meet a beautiful 
 young man upon a black bull with silver horns. 
 His approach thrilled her through and through. 
 He spoke such wondrously sweet words to 
 her, that she was bewitched by them. The 
 black bull and the white cow walked so closely 
 together, and so slowly, that they could crop 
 the grass at their feet, and pull at the same 
 flowers ; and the blended sound of their hoofs 
 echoed like music in the heart of Genossa. 
 
 The fisherman had at first told the tale in his 
 own way, and with sundry pauses ; but soon the 
 words of the old ditty fell from him in their 
 original form, and he continued without interrup- 
 
 national lyrics, under the title, Barzas-Bricz, chants popu- 
 laires de la Bretagne, which have also been translated by 
 Ad. Keller, and others whose names have escaped my 
 memory. But the legend of Genossa is not ainongst them. 
 
ii2 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 tion, in a strange half-chanting, half-reciting 
 tone: 
 
 " It seemed to Genossa as though every tree 
 were hung around with wreaths of flowers, and 
 sweet bird-notes sprung from under every leaf, 
 and the sea breezes were laden with incense-like 
 perfume. Genossa met the handsome man on 
 the black bull more than once, and ever his 
 magic power grew stronger and stronger over 
 her. She soon thought and wished only what 
 the stranger wished and thought. And so it 
 came to pass that one day the white cow returned 
 to the castle alone, and Genossa sat behind the 
 stranger upon the black bull with the silver horns. 
 The lord of the island of Rozan, however, 
 gathered all his men together in pursuit, each 
 bearing in one hand a sword, and in the other a 
 dagger. For this lord had promised to cover 
 with gold every drop of blood spilt, whether of 
 their own or their enemy's. 
 
 " Soon Genossa found herself resting by the 
 stranger's side on the sea-shore, while the black 
 bull pastured near. As soon as the stranger saw 
 the pursuers advancing, he vaulted with Genossa 
 on the back of the bull, who plunged into the 
 blue sea, and soon carried them over to the 
 Grotto of Morgane. Arrived there, the stranger 
 began to caress the maiden ; she shrank away 
 abashed, and said : 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 113 
 
 " * Leave off, Spountus.* I hear my mother 
 weeping and sobbing between the boards of the 
 narrow house.' 
 
 " ' It is the sighing of the waves in the narrow 
 fissures of the rock, my sweet Genossa.' 
 
 " * Listen, listen, Spountus ! my mother speaks 
 from under the consecrated earth ! ' 
 
 " ' What says she, then, from under the con- 
 secrated earth, Genossa ? ' 
 
 " ' She says that her daughter is not to give 
 herself up body and soul without the show of 
 consecrated altar-lights, and without the priest's 
 holy chants.' 
 
 " ' Be it, then, as she wishes, Genossa, my be- 
 loved ; I honor the dead ! ' 
 
 " Then the handsome stranger made a sign, 
 and suddenly there rose out of the darkness 
 priest and choristers, and surrounded the rock 
 that rises in the little island in the midst of the 
 grotto. They covered the rock with a cloth of 
 scarlet silk embroidered in silver, and kindled 
 around it tall wax lights in golden candlesticks. 
 The marriage ceremony began. But at the mo- 
 ment when the priest spoke the blessing, and 
 placed the ring upon her finger, Genossa 
 screamed aloud till the whole grotto rang with 
 the sound. The ring burned her finger like fire. 
 She tried to tear herself away to fly, but it was 
 
 * Spountus, the Terrible, is one of the names given to the 
 Evil Spirit by the Armorican Celts. 
 
 8 
 
114 THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 
 
 too late ! Spountus seized her arm, and forced 
 her to follow him through long, endlessly long 
 and dismal passages. Her heart died within her, 
 and, trembling and sorrowful, she leaned on the 
 one who had become master of her soul and 
 body. 
 
 "'Listen, Spountus,' whispered she, 'does it 
 not seem as if all around us here, there, and 
 everywhere there came the sounds of weeping 
 and wailing and gnashing of teeth ? ' 
 
 " ' It is nothing, Genossa, my sweet soul, but 
 the workmen who are boring the rock above us, 
 and singing their songs the while.' 
 
 " ' Seems it not, Spountus, as though bitter 
 tears were trickling on us down the rocks ? ' 
 
 " ' It is only the water of the springs that oozes 
 through the rock, Genossa, my sweet soul.' 
 
 " ' Lord of my life, the air that surrounds us is 
 like the breath of a furnace ! ' 
 
 " ' Genossa, joy of my heart, look there ! Fire, 
 fire, everywhere fire ! this is hell, heathen maiden, 
 and thou art mine for ever ! ' ' 
 
 This is the Guerz of Genossa, which must of 
 course lose indescribably by translation, and by 
 the absence of all the circumstances under which 
 I heard it. 
 
 We rowed once more in silence round the 
 devil's altar, and by way of dispelling the op- 
 pressive and shuddering mood into which the old 
 song had unconsciously plunged me, I inquired 
 
THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 115 
 
 whether Spountus were still occasionally to be 
 seen in the grotto. The fisherman did not an- 
 swer at once, but first with a couple of powerful 
 oar-strokes made the boat shoot out through the 
 entrance of the grotto into the clear daylight and 
 the free expanse of sea. Then he said : 
 
 " The gentleman ought to have asked old Ju- 
 dock that question he knows its answer." 
 
 As it was evident that my companion had no 
 pleasure in telling either what he knew or what 
 he thought upon this subject, and as moreover 
 we were suddenly surrounded by a thick fog, oc- 
 casioning all manner of optical illusions, and re- 
 quiring his whole attention to be given to the 
 management of the boat, we both continued 
 silent. But after about a quarter of an hour, 
 when a fresh wind rose and drove away the fog, 
 Salaun suddenly touched me on the shoulder, ex- 
 claiming : 
 
 " Look there ! Judock's hut is on fire ! " 
 
 On looking round, I remarked a ruddy light 
 on the Ravens' Cliff, which was scarcely distin- 
 guished from the rosy glow still thrown by the 
 setting sun upon the higher rocks. It was only 
 at intervals that a brighter flame leaped up. 
 Agreeably to my wish, Salaun steered our boat 
 to the spot ; curiosity, or the wish to assist, over- 
 coming the repugnance which he had previously 
 shown to the Ravens' Cliff and to its owner. 
 
 As we drew near we saw a number of men 
 
n6 THE VIRGIN'S SOD-CHILD. 
 
 busily engaged about the fire, while numbers 
 more were hurrying towards it in every direction. 
 Having landed, we soon found out that, as is 
 generally the case on such occasions, the great- 
 est part of them by screams and useless gestures 
 impeded the assistance that might yet have been 
 afforded. A few only were occupied with the 
 door, which, however, they had vainly tried to 
 break open with the half of a fir-tree stem torn 
 off the roof, while the fire appeared to be de- 
 vouring slowly the inside of the hut, which had 
 no vent or opening of any kind. On approach- 
 ing nearer, a loud groaning and whining was dis- 
 tinctly heard within. We listened for a moment ; 
 another voice arose, a sharp, mocking tone, 
 which at last broke out into a yell of fiendish 
 laughter. Then hard blows were repeatedly 
 given then again the same wailing and whim- 
 pering, the same mocking rejoinder. 
 
 Salaun and the remainder drew back in hor- 
 ror, and a few words, spoken half aloud, showed 
 that they were in no doubt as to whom the old 
 villain had to deal with, and that, in their 
 opinion, no human help could avail to deliver 
 him from the grasp of the spirits whom he had 
 served all his life long. 
 
 It was in vain that I requested Salaun to join 
 me in an attempt to break open the door. 
 
 " This fire is not kindled by mortal hands, and 
 we poor sinners can never put it out." 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 117 
 
 " The Church will put it out, then," here inter- 
 fered a deep, well-toned voice. 
 
 It was that of a priest who had joined us. 
 All surrounded him, taking off their hats with 
 much respect, while I in a few words explained 
 the state of things. Though advanced in years, 
 he was still strong and active in mind and body. 
 We understood each other instantly. While he 
 sent a messenger to fetch an axe from the nearest 
 village, and gave some other judicious orders, 
 which the people unhesitatingly obeyed, I climbed 
 to the top of the rock into whose fissures the hut 
 was squeezed, that I might thence try to find out 
 whether it had any other opening or not. 
 
 I was, however, unable to discover anything of 
 the kind, and was therefore about to descend, 
 when I saw a dark figure glide behind some low 
 bushes at a little distance, but the very same 
 moment it vanished behind the next projection 
 of rock. It had already become too dark, and 
 the apparition was too sudden and momentary 
 for me to have any distinct impression as to its 
 form or features. 
 
 At first I felt half inclined to pursue it, but 
 after two or three onward steps I felt convinced 
 that to do so along such a road as this, over such 
 masses of rocks, such crevices, and through such 
 brushwood, would be not only vain, but danger- 
 ous. At the same time, too, the strokes of the 
 axe upon the door announced that the chief 
 
n8 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 point that of forcing an entrance into the hut 
 would soon be gained, and I therefore rapidly 
 made my way down again. 
 
 Just as I arrived the door gave way. A stream 
 of flame, clouds of smoke, and sparks rushed 
 out, and scared the bystanders away ; but the ( 
 fury of the fire was already spent, and in a few 
 moments the priest was able to enter, followed 
 by Salaun and myself. The others remained 
 standing outside, partly out of respect to the in- 
 junctions of the priest, partly through terror of 
 the things that might have to be encountered 
 within. 
 
 The first sight that met our eyes was Judock 
 lying upon the hearth in a pool of blood. He 
 was still alive, and we instantly carried him out 
 into the open air ; and at the earnest entreaty of 
 the priest, the barber of the neighboring village, 
 who, like the many others, found himself on the 
 spot, undertook to examine, and, as far as he was 
 able, to treat the severely-wounded man. At the 
 same time, all that could be done was done to 
 save the hut. It was found that all that was 
 combustible was already consumed, and the glow- 
 ing embers were easily quenched. No trace was 
 found of the perpetrator, or of the cause of the 
 crime, except, indeed, a mattock, which had evi- 
 dently served to raise the hearthstone, and to dig- 
 under it. 
 
 That this calamity was not accidental, we none 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 119 
 
 of us had any doubt ; and as I, in company with 
 the priest, again approached the late possessor 
 of the hut, the surgeon, as he called himself, 
 showed us a deep wound in the breast, and a 
 considerable dint in the head of the old Kakous, 
 which could only have been dealt by a murderer's 
 hand. 
 
 It was quite plain that no recovery was to be 
 looked for. Before we found the old man, he 
 had bled almost to death, and seemed to have 
 already entirely lost consciousness. But after a 
 few minutes, he came to himself a little, moved 
 his lips, opened his eyes, and tried, with the con- 
 vulsive energy of a dying effort, to shape his loud 
 groans into intelligible words. If his appearance 
 had been repulsive in life, it was now almost in- 
 sufferably horrible. At length he was able to 
 make it understood that he wished to confess. 
 The bystanders seemed to look upon such a re- 
 quest not only with wonder, but displeasure, as 
 involving unheard-of presumption, and actual 
 desecration of the rite. But the priest knelt 
 down at once by the head of the dying man, and 
 at a sign from him the people reverentially re- 
 tired, the greatest part evincing their sympathy 
 with the solemn occasion by kneeling also, with 
 heads uncovered, and hands folded in silent 
 prayer. 
 
 The moon had by this time risen, and spread 
 a mild, peaceful light on the shore, the rocks, and 
 
120 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 the sea, whose low murmur the solemn stillness 
 of the men, so loud a few minutes before, ren- 
 dered more impressive. The silence was only 
 broken every now and then by the increasingly 
 painful groans of the dying man, or by an out- 
 burst of sparks, as some remnants of the wood- 
 work within the hut, or rather the cleft that it 
 formerly occupied, fell in. 
 
 After a few minutes, the priest beckoned me 
 to approach. He had, according to his appre- 
 hension of the duties of his calling, endeavored, 
 before all things, to awaken the feeble conscious- 
 ness of the expiring sinner to the necessity of 
 preparing for death after the manner of the 
 Catholic Church, as far as it was possible to do 
 so under such circumstances. But when this 
 was over, he was anxious to make an attempt to 
 elicit some words which might lead to the dis- 
 covery of the murderer ; and it was with this 
 view that he wished to have me both as assistant 
 and witness and also called old Salaun. 
 
 The dying man's words were for the most part 
 incoherent, and spoken in an unintelligible voice ; 
 but, however, such as they were, they tended to 
 confirm a suspicion that had already crossed my 
 m/nd, and led me to connect the mysterious pres- 
 ence in the hut, of the youth called Bauzec, on 
 the occasion of my first visit, with the apparition 
 I had just witnessed on the rocks above. In the 
 mind of the dying man, shaken as it was by the 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 121 
 
 death-struggle, and the terrors of conscience, tha 
 same opinion evidently often obtained respecting 
 the personality of his murderer, which the people 
 are wont to offer in connection with the most 
 varied circumstances, namely, that the Evil One 
 had surprised him counting his ill-won wealth, 
 and asserted his own claim to it. 
 
 But every now and then the recollection of the 
 true state of the case would pierce through, as he 
 repeated : 
 
 " The vermin ! the black ! the vermin ! " over 
 and over again, with such rage and abhorrence, 
 that his energies seemed more and more ex- 
 hausted by each repetition of the words, and at 
 last he died in pronouncing them. 
 
 It was to me a very significant fact that Ju- 
 dock should, in his wanderings, use many com- 
 mon English phrases, which rendered it beyond 
 a doubt that he had carried on treasonable com- 
 munications with the enemy during the war, and 
 it was with these that the criminal prosecutions 
 already referred to were connected. 
 
 The priest and Salaun shared my conviction. 
 But when I exclaimed with horror : 
 
 " The son the murderer of the father I " the 
 fisherman rejoined : 
 
 " It is bad enough as it is, but Bauzec the 
 Black is not the son of Judock Shipwreck. I my- 
 self saw him draw the fellow with his hook out 
 of the hen-coop of a ship that had gone to pieces. 
 
!22 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 He knew best what wind had driven it upon the 
 Ravens' Cliff. And then the little black imp sat 
 upon the coop, and was scarcely on shore before 
 he shook off the water like a poodle, and danced 
 and screamed, so that it was awful to see him. 
 But as he had been almost drowned, the country 
 'people called him * Bauzec,' which means in the 
 gentleman's language 'the drowned one.' " 
 
 " Judock, then, adopted him as a son ? " asked 
 I. " That is more than I should have believed 
 of him." 
 
 " That was not the case either," replied Sa- 
 laun, " but just the contrary. The boy hung upon 
 the old man like a chain ; hooked himself to him 
 like a kitten. He could neither be shaken off 
 nor driven away by blows, kicks, or hunger he 
 always returned. If Judock had flung him out 
 at night, and driven him far away across the 
 downs, believing that he would not find his way 
 back ; when morning came, there he was again 
 cowering at the door. But you are not to sup- 
 pose that gratitude or attachment had anything 
 to do with this. On the contrary, from the very 
 first he took to playing all manner of tricks upon 
 the old man ; and if he ever failed to get out of 
 the way of blows with cat-like expertness, and 
 chanced to be caught, which was rare, he would 
 bite and scratch like a young wild beast. It 
 really seemed as though he were an evil spirit, 
 and had a hold over the old sinner's soul. At all 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 123 
 
 events, he was obliged to tolerate what he could 
 not avoid. For, you see, he was grown old and 
 feeble, and had, besides, a horror of the lad, whom 
 he never called by any other name than the 
 * vermin ' ; or else what could have prevented 
 him from tying a stone about his neck and throw- 
 ing him into the sea ? Certainly it was not con- 
 science or tender-heartedness, for " 
 
 Here Salaun interrupted himself. 
 
 " The Kakous is now dead, and has to give an 
 account of himself elsewhere, and so I will say 
 no more about him. We poor folk about here 
 have never doubted that Bauzec was given to 
 Judock Shipwreck as a plague and a punishment 
 whether man or devil, it's all one." 
 
 Meanwhile the corpse had been carried into 
 the burnt-out hut, and a watch over it appointed 
 for the night. We at length contrived, by the 
 light of the tapers brought, to discover a narrow 
 opening at the end of the fissure, which wound 
 up to the top of the cliff, and opened out amidst 
 the brushwood there. This might possibly have 
 afforded an inlet to a slender and active youth. 
 But how it happened that the builder and owner 
 of the hut should not have been aware of this 
 way of entrance, or how, on the other hand, he 
 should not have stopped it up, fearing that his 
 good-for-nothing comrade might learn to make 
 use of it without his leave, and probably to his 
 hurt, this certainly did remain a mystery to us. 
 
I 24 THE VIRGIN S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 Midnight was already past before the country 
 people dispersed, and I again took my place in 
 the boat, to be rowed by the old fisherman to his 
 own dwelling. We were both silent, meditating, 
 no doubt, upon what we had just witnessed. We 
 now approached the little bay in which Salaun's 
 cottage stood, and by the unsteady and changing 
 light of the clouded moon were already able to 
 distinguish it, when we heard a loud cry for help 
 proceeding thence. The next moment two fig- 
 ures rushed out on the shore, and struggled vio- 
 lently or rather, one struggled to overpower the 
 other, who endeavored to escape, and cried more 
 and more loudly for help. 
 
 " God be with me ! " exclaimed Salaun at the 
 first scream heard, "it is Dinorah's voice ! " 
 
 And, straining his strength to the utmost, he 
 made the little boat bound to the point where we 
 saw the two forms, while we both announced the 
 approach of help, and endeavored to frighten 
 away the assailant by raising our voices to their 
 utmost pitch. But, owing to the murmurs of the 
 waves upon the beach, and to the excitement of 
 the parties concerned, they did not observe us 
 till we were but a few yards from the shore, when 
 we plainly distinguished not only Dinorah, but 
 also the aggressor, who was no other than Bauzec 
 the Black. We further observed that the young 
 girl's strength was nearly exhausted. Dinorah 
 was the first to perceive us. At once she tore 
 
THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 125 
 
 herself out of her assailant's grasp, and rushed 
 towards us into the sea. 
 
 Her father had hardly time to check the boat's 
 speed, so as to prevent a collision, when, breath- 
 less, exhausted, with torn garment and streaming 
 hair, she clasped the boat's prow, and was lifted 
 into it and carried to shore in an unconscious 1 
 state. Meanwhile Bauzec had vanished ; and 
 it would have been in vain to have pursued him, 
 had we not, besides, been fully occupied with 
 the poor girl. 
 
 Thanks to her thoroughly healthy nature, she 
 soon came round, and told us but not without 
 a certain reserve, and an evident endeavor to 
 criminate the ruffian as little as possible that 
 Bauzec had, about half an hour before, in great 
 haste and excitement, joined her on the shore, 
 whither she had gone to look for us. He had 
 told her, in the strangest and wildest way possi- 
 ble, that he must leave the country forthwith, 
 and that she must accompany him. Upon her 
 refusal, he at first tried every means of persua- 
 sion, and showed her his hands full of gold. But 
 when she remained firm, and again hastened out 
 of the cottage, whither he had followed her, and 
 rushed to the shore, he tried to carry her away 
 by force. 
 
 " And then I cried once more out of my inmost 
 soul to my heavenly godmother, and you came, 
 father!" said the girl in conclusion. And the 
 
126 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 joy that beamed over her features at the mirac- 
 ulous help which she fully believed to have 
 been afforded her, banished every trace of her 
 previous terror. 
 
 Soon, however, on learning from us what had 
 happened at the Ravens' Cliff, and recognizing, 
 as we did also, in her late experience a confirma- 
 tion of the blood-guiltiness of her wild lover, 
 she was seized with a profound and peculiar 
 emotion. She became pale as death, trem- 
 bling in every limb, and threw herself upon her 
 knees, where she long remained in fervent 
 prayer. 
 
 Could the miller, Guiller, have had some 
 grounds, then, for rallying her about this wild, 
 repulsive, wicked youth ? What relations could 
 there possibly be between him and this pure and 
 maidenly creature ? A few words, however, ex- 
 changed upon a later occasion with the priest 
 whose acquaintance I had made at Ravens' 
 Cliff, afforded me the only explanation conceiv- 
 able. Her feeling was a complex one, consisting 
 in part of womanly compassion for one whom 
 all the world, and perhaps with good cause, 
 avoided ; in part, of a certain dread of the youth's 
 savage strength, not entirely free, it might be, 
 from a germ of unconscious admiration of it ; in 
 part, of blended piety and vanity, such as one 
 often meets with in more refined society. She had 
 believed herself elected, by the assistance and to 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. I2/ 
 
 the glory of her heavenly sponsor, to convert this 
 poor, benighted soul. 
 
 And upon Bauzec's part, joined to the impulse 
 of passions early wakened, there was doubtless 
 a better and deeper impression made by the 
 maidenly gentleness and purity of Dinorah. Wild 
 and scornful as he was to all besides, and in out- 
 ward appearance to her also, it is certain that she 
 had obtained a degree of influence over him, 
 which she, in her half-childish way, took pleasure 
 in displaying. 
 
 All this, as I have already said, I only found 
 out later. At the period of which I treat, I con- 
 tented myself with leaving the father and daugh- 
 ter together, and betaking myself to rest in the 
 fragrant hayloft under the roof, which was the 
 room assigned to me. 
 
 When I awoke the following morning, the sun 
 was already high in the heavens ; nothing seemed 
 stirring in the house, or round about it. I only 
 heard the monotonous breaking of the waves 
 upon the shore, and the twittering of birds be- 
 tween. I found the little room below in the best 
 order possible, and even my clean and simple 
 breakfast ready provided ; but Salaun and his 
 daughter were nowhere to be seen. 
 
 I knew too well the rights with which the in- 
 habitants of Brittany invest the strangerswhom 
 they designate as the sent of God not to avail 
 myself, even in the absence of the host, of the 
 
128 THE VIRGIN'S GOD-CHILD. 
 
 hospitality of which I stood so sorely in need. 
 But before setting out, I laid down a gold-piece 
 upon the table, which I could hardly have got 
 old Salaun to accept had he been at home. 
 
 I took the way to Crozon, and had not pro- 
 ceeded far before I heard in the distance a 
 solemn chant, which drew nearer and nearer to 
 where I was. On account of the very high 
 hedges which shut in the road, I was unable as 
 yet to see any of tihe singers, even though I could 
 distinctly hear the words of their song. A 
 peasant who came from Crozon informed me, 
 however, that it was a procession, undertaken by 
 all the adjacent parishes on account of the long- 
 continued drought, and that it was marching 
 around the fields, chanting, and offering up 
 prayers for rain. 
 
 From a little hillock on the roadside which I 
 ascended, I succeeded in seeing the procession, 
 which soon, however, defiled along a crossway, 
 and came into the road. First came the priest, 
 then the men, two and two ; afterwards the 
 women, in their picturesque Sunday costume, but 
 with grave bearing, and absorbed in deep devo- 
 tion. 
 
 In the pauses of the chant, which were devoted 
 to prayer, nothing was to be heard but the hum- 
 ming of insects and the chirping of birds. 
 
 One of these pauses was suddenly interrupted 
 by a noise which proceeded from the direction 
 
THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 129 
 
 in which I had come. It was made by the rolling 
 and rattling of a vehicle of some kind ; and soon 
 we could see in the lane behind us a cart, sur- 
 rounded by armed custom-house officers, as well 
 as by some fishers and peasants. The procession 
 drew to one side to let them pass. 
 
 As the cart approached, we observed that 
 three men were sitting upon the same seat, and 
 that the one in the middle was chained, the other 
 two evidently guarding him. Soon the name 
 " Bauzec the Black," which, spoken low, went 
 from one to the other throughout the procession, 
 left no doubt upon my mind that it was the mur- 
 derer on his way to prison. Indeed he himself 
 took good care to give me every opportunity of 
 recognizing him ; for scarcely had the cart come 
 up with the procession, than he raised himself 
 from the stooping attitude he had before main- 
 tained, looked around him with the greatest au- 
 dacity, and called out, to such as he was ac- 
 quainted with, words of jesting or abuse, so that 
 the good people seemed at first quite petrified by 
 his profligacy. However, when the universal 
 horror and displeasure had found a vent in ejac- 
 ulations and execrations, he seemed to take even 
 increased delight in his own lawless conduct, and 
 was not to be controlled by his companions. 
 
 But in the midst of his most daring defiance, 
 he suddenly uttered a cry of mingled rage and 
 anguish ; and after one violent effort to break his 
 9 
 
130 THE VIRGINS GOD-CHILD. 
 
 chains, suddenly sank down powerless, with his 
 head bowed on his breast and his eyes closed. 
 
 The reason of this transformation was soon 
 evident to me. The cart had passed the men, and 
 reached the part of the procession formed by the 
 women. There stood Dinorah, pale as a corpse, 
 her little hands convulsively clasped, her lips 
 quivering, but with a look of the deepest sorrow 
 in her eyes, as she fixed them upon the lost being 
 before her. When this look met his, all his wild 
 audacity was at once at an end. 
 
 The procession again put itself, singing, into 
 motion, and was soon lost in a by-way behind the 
 bushes ; while the cart with the prisoner went on 
 its way to Crozon, where I arrived soon after it, 
 but was not able to remain. After a while, the 
 newspapers gave me an account of Bauzec's 
 execution. 
 
 Many years afterwards, on visiting a friend 
 at Brest who occupied a position in its largest 
 hospital, I recognized in one of the Sceurs grises, 
 to whom the care of its sick was intrusted, the 
 Virgin's god-daughter, Dinorah. 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY 
 
 BY 
 GUSTAVE DROZ 
 
From " The Sempstress* Story," by Gustave Droz. 
 
 Translated by E. T. D, Myers. Published by 
 
 West, Johnston & Co. 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY 
 
 BY GUSTAVE DROZ 
 
 X7ES, Ma'm'selle Adele," said the semp- 
 jL stress, the real happiness of this world 
 is not so unevenly distributed after all." Louise, 
 as she said this, took from the reserve in the 
 bosom of her dress a lot of pins, and applied them 
 deftly to the trimming of a skirt which I was hold- 
 ing for her. 
 
 " A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I an- 
 swered, " but it does seem to me as if some peo- 
 ple were born to live and to die unhappy." 
 
 " It is only folks who never find anybody to 
 love enough ; and I think it 's nobody's fault but 
 their own." 
 
 " But, my good Louise, would n't you have suf- 
 fered much less last year, when you came so 
 near losing your boy, if you had n't cared so much 
 for him ? " 
 
 I was only drawing her on, you see : Louise's 
 chat was the greatest resource to me at that 
 time. 
 
 " Why, Ma'm'selle Adele, you are surely joking. 
 
 133 
 
134 THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. 
 
 You 'd as well tell me to cut off my feet to save 
 my shoes. You '11 know one of these days and 
 not so far off neither, maybe ^how mighty easy 
 and sensible it would be not to love your chil- 
 dren. They are a worry, too ; but oh, the delight 
 of 'em ! I 'd like to have had anybody tell me 
 not to love my darling because it might grieve 
 me, when he lay there in his mother's lap, with 
 blue lips, gasping for his breath, and wellnigh 
 dead ; his face blackish, and his hands like this 
 piece of wax. You could see that everything 
 was going against him ; and with his great big 
 eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if 
 the child was tugging at my very heartstrings. 
 I kept smiling at him, though, through the tears 
 that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them. 
 Oh ! such tears are bitter salt indeed, ma'm'selle ! 
 And there was my poor husband on his knees, 
 making paper figures to amuse him, and singing 
 a funny song he used to laugh at. Now and then 
 the corners of his mouth would pucker, and his 
 cheeks would wrinkle a little bit under the eyes. 
 You could tell he was still amused, but in such a 
 dreamy way. Oh ! our child seemed no longer 
 with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait a minute. 
 You must excuse me, for I can't help crying 
 when I think of it." 
 
 And the poor creature drew out her handker- 
 chief and fairly sobbed aloud. In the midst of 
 it, however, she smiled and said, " Well, that 's 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. I$5 
 
 over now ; 't was nothing, and I 'm too silly. 
 And, ma'm'selle, here I 've gone and cried upon 
 your mother's dress, and that 's a pretty busi- 
 ness." 
 
 I took her hand in mine and pressed it. 
 
 " Are n't you afraid you '11 stick yourself, 
 ma'm'-selle ? I 've got my needle in that hand," 
 she said playfully. " But you did not mean what 
 you said just now, did you?" 
 
 "What did I say?" 
 
 " That it would be better not to love your 
 children with all your heart, on account of the 
 great anxiety. Don't you know such thoughts 
 are wicked ? When they come into your head 
 your mind wants purifying. But I 'm sure I beg 
 your pardon for saying so." 
 
 " You are entirely right, Louise," I returned. 
 
 " Ah ! so I thought. And now, let me see. 
 Let 's fix this ruche ; pull it to the left a little, 
 please." 
 
 " But about the sick boy. Tell me about his 
 recovery." 
 
 " That was a miracle I ought to say two 
 miracles. It was a miracle that God restored 
 him to us, and a miracle to find anybody with 
 so much knowledge and feeling, such talent. 
 Such a tender heart, and so much, so much ! 
 I 'in speaking of the doctor. A famous one he 
 was, too, you must know ; for it was no less than 
 Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how he is run 
 
136 THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY. 
 
 after ; and how rich and celebrated he is ! Are n't 
 you surprised to hear that it was he who at- 
 tended our little boy ? Indeed, the wonders be- 
 gin with that. You may imagine my husband 
 was at his wits' end when he saw how it was 
 with the child ; and all of a sudden I saw him 
 jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and put 
 them on." 
 
 " ' Where are you going ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' To bring Doctor Faron.' 
 
 " Why, if he had said, ' To bring the Prime 
 Minister,' it would have seemed as likely. 
 
 " ' Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going 
 to trouble himself about such as we. They will 
 turn you out of doors/ 
 
 " But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was 
 already on the stairs, and I heard him running 
 away as if the house was on fire. Fire, indeed ; 
 worse, far worse than any fire ! 
 
 " And there I was, left alone with the child 
 upon my knees. He would n't stay in bed ; and 
 was quieter so, wrapped up in his little blanket. 
 Here will he die, I thought. Soon will his eyes 
 close, and then it will be all over ; and I held my 
 own breath to listen to his feeble and oppressed 
 pantings. 
 
 "About an hour had passed, when I heard a 
 rapid step on the stairs (we are poor, and live 
 in attic rooms). The door opened, and my hus- 
 band-Came in, wet with perspiration and out of 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY. 137 
 
 breath. If I live a century I '11 not forget his 
 look when he said : 
 
 " ' Well ? ' 
 
 " I answered, * No worse. But the doctor? ' 
 
 "'He's coming/ 
 
 " Oh ! those blessed words ! It actually 
 seemed as if my child were saved already. If 
 you but knew how folks love their little ones. 
 I kissed the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, 
 I cried, and I no longer felt the faintest doubt. 
 It is by God's mercy that such gleams of hope 
 are sent to strengthen us in our trials. It was 
 very foolish, too; for something might easily 
 have prevented the doctor's coming, after all. 
 
 " ' You found him at home, then ? ' I inquired 
 of my husband. 
 
 " Then he told me, in an undertone, what he 
 had done, stopping every now and then to wipe 
 his face and gather breath : 
 
 " ' I ran to the Children's Hospital, which he 
 manages, hoping to find him there. The porter 
 showed me a low door at the end of the court- 
 yard. I knocked and was let into a room full of 
 young fellows, all smoking, talking and laughing 
 away at a great rate.' 
 
 " Ah ! the wretches ! and with dying folks all 
 round 'em." 
 
 " Don't say that until you know all. ' What 
 do you want here, friend ? ' says a tall one in a 
 white apron and black sleeves, and who, seeing 
 
138 THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY. 
 
 my troubled looks, took me on one side. * What 's 
 the matter ? ' 
 
 " ' I'm sorry to trouble you, sir,' I began. 
 
 " * No ceremony, man. Speak out.' 
 
 " ' I 'm looking for Doctor Faron, to come and 
 save my child, sir. He 's dying with croup. 
 I'm not rich, but all I can raise I will give.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! that 's all right,' says he. < How old 's 
 the child/ 
 
 " * Four years old, sir.' 
 
 " * Who 's been attending it ? ' 
 
 " ' A doctor who gives him little white pills in 
 a heap of water, sir.' 
 
 " ' Ah ! hah ! ' says he, smiling ; ' well, don't 
 be downhearted,' and with that he threw off his 
 apron and black sleeves, and wrote something on 
 a bit of paper.' 
 
 " Take this to Doctor Faron. That 's his ad- 
 dress. Where do you live ? I '11 come when J 
 get my coat on.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! how kind, sir ! ' 
 
 "I could have hugged him. But he said, 
 'Come, no nonsense, friend. Away with you ! ' 
 So I hurried off to Doctor Faron's house, with 
 the note ; but he was dining out. 
 
 " ' Where ? ' I asked, as the servant held the 
 door ajar. 
 
 "' Don't know,' says he, very short ; and shut 
 the door in my face. 
 
 " At that I got angry, and it seemed to me the 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS* STORY. 1 39 
 
 child came before my eyes. I pushed open the 
 door, and in I went. 
 
 "'That won't do,' I said. 'One of the 
 hospital doctors sent me here, and I must know 
 where to find your master, and quick, too. ' 
 
 " Seeing that I wouldn't stand trifling, he gave 
 me the direction, and growled, * Now clear out, 
 and shut that door.' 
 
 " So I rushed away to the Rue de Lille. The 
 courtyard was full of carriages, and the windows 
 all in a blaze of light ; but in I went, for all that. 
 
 " * My boy will die ! my boy will die ! ' I kept 
 repeating, as I elbowed thiough the people. An 
 old servant stopped me in the ante-chamber. 
 ' Where now ? ' says he. 
 
 " * I want to speak to Doctor Faron,' says I ; * I 
 must speak to him. Get him to come out here, 
 won't you, please ? ' 
 
 " The old fellow looked at me hard, and then 
 said very kindly, * Sit down there an instant, and 
 I '11 try.' 
 
 " What possessed me to sit there and cry, 
 with all those servants hurrying about with 
 plates and dishes, I can't tell ; but I could n't 
 help it. 
 
 " In a minute or so, here comes a large gentle- 
 man with a white cravat on. ' Where 's the man 
 that wants me ? ' he asks in a gruff voice. Then 
 seeing me there in the corner in such a state, 
 with a searching look at me, he took the note, 
 
140 THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. 
 
 read it, and said quietly, * Ah ! the noble boy.' 
 Then, turning to me, ' Go home, my man ; I '11 
 be there directly. Cheer up ; I '11 lose no 
 time/" 
 
 " My husband had scarcely uttered these 
 words," continued Louise, " when I heard a step 
 on the stairs. It was he ! it was that blessed 
 angel of a doctor come to help us in our sore 
 distress. 
 
 " And what do you think he said in his deep 
 voice when he got into the room ? 
 
 " * God bless you, my friends, but I nearly 
 broke my neck on those stairs. Where 's that 
 child ? ' 
 
 " ' Here he is, my dear, darling doctor.' I 
 knew no better way to speak to him, with his 
 dress-cravat showing over his great coat, and his 
 decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys 
 at his buttonhole. 
 
 " He took off his wrappings, stooped over the 
 child, turned him over, more gently even than 
 his mother could have done, and laid his own 
 head first against his back, then against his 
 breast. How I tried to read his eyes ! but they 
 know how to hide their thoughts. 
 
 " * We must perform an operation here,' says 
 he ; ' and it is high time.' 
 
 " Just at this moment the hospital doctor came 
 in, and whispered to him, ' I am afraid you 
 did n't want to be disturbed, sir.' 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. 141 
 
 " Oh, never mind. I am sorry it was n't sooner, 
 though. Get everything ready now.' 
 
 " But, Ma'm'selle Adele, why should I tell you 
 all this ? I 'd better mind my work." 
 
 " Oh ! go on, Louise, go on ! " 
 
 " Well, then, ma'm'selle, if you believe me,, 
 those two doctors neither of 'em kin, or even 
 friends till then went to work and made all the 
 preparations, while my husband went off to bor- 
 row lights. The biggest one tied a mattress on 
 the table, and the assistant spread out the bright 
 little knives. 
 
 " You, who have not been through it all, ma'm'- 
 selle, can 't know what it is to have your own 
 little one in your lap, to know that those things 
 are to be used upon him, to pierce his tender 
 flesh, and, if the hand that guides them be not 
 sure, that they may kill him. 
 
 "When all was ready, Doctor Faron took 
 off his cravat, then lifted my child from my 
 arms and laid him on the mattress, in the 
 midst of the lamps, and said to my poor 
 man : 
 
 " * You will hold his head, and your wife his 
 feet. Joseph will pass me the instruments. 
 You 've brought a breathing tube with you, my 
 son?' 
 
 " * Yes, sir/ 
 
 " My husband was as white as a sheet by this ; 
 and when I saw him about to take his place with 
 
142 THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. 
 
 his hands shaking so much, it scared me, so I 
 said : 
 
 " ' Doctor, please let me hold his head ! ' 
 
 " * But, my poor woman, if you should tremble ? ' 
 
 " < Please let me do it, Doctor ! ' 
 
 " ' Be it so then/ and then added, with a bright 
 ?ook at me, and a cheering smile, ' we shall save 
 him for you, my dear ; you are a brave little 
 woman, and you deserve it.' 
 
 " Yes, and save him, did he ! God bless him ! 
 saved him as truly as if he had snatched him 
 from the depths of the river." 
 
 " And you did n't tremble, Louise ? " 
 
 " You may depend on that. If I had, it would 
 have been the last of my child." 
 
 " How in the world did you keep yourself 
 steady ? " 
 
 " The Lord knows ; but I was like a rock. 
 When you must, you must, I suppose." 
 
 " And you had to behold every detail of that 
 operation ? " 
 
 "Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it 
 over since. His poor little neck laid open, and 
 the veins, which the doctor pushed aside with his 
 fingers and the little silver tube which he inserted, 
 and all that; and then the face of the child, 
 changing as the air passed into his lungs. You Ve 
 seen a lamp almost out, when you pour in oil ? 
 It was like that. They had laid him there but 
 half alive, with his eyes all but set; and they 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS STORY. 143 
 
 gave him back to me, pale and with bloodless 
 lips, it is true, but with life in his looks, and 
 breathing breathing the free, fresh air. 
 
 " ' Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, ' and put 
 him to bed. Cover the place with some light 
 thing or other, and Joseph must stay with you to- 
 night ; won't you, Joseph ? Ah, well, that 's all 
 arranged.' 
 
 " He put on his things and wrapped himself up 
 to go. He was shaking hands with my husband, 
 when I seized one hand, and kissed it like a fool, 
 as I was but I did n't stop to think. He 
 laughed heartily, and said to my husband, * Are 
 you not jealous, friend ? Your wife is making 
 great advances to me. But I must be off now. 
 Good-night, good people.' 
 
 " And from that night he always talks so 
 friendly and familiarly to us, not a bit contempt- 
 uously either, but as if he liked us, and was glad 
 to be of service to us. 
 
 " The next morning, at half-past five, there he 
 was, as fresh as a rose, and larger, as it seemed 
 to me, than before. And no wonder, neither, 
 for don't you think he had brought four bottles 
 of old Bordeaux ! two in his pockets and two 
 under his arms. 
 
 "'The little fellow must take this, 1 says he. 
 * Everything gone on well in the night, eh ? ' 
 
 " * Admirably well, sir,' answered Mr. Joseph. 
 I call him Mr. Joseph, but I have since found 
 
144 THE SEMPSTRESS STORV. 
 
 out that he was a rising physician, nephew to 
 the old doctor, and 'way above the common run. 
 But he always spoke to the other like a soldier 
 to his general. 
 
 " Well, that 's not all the doctor did ; for dur- 
 ing the entire week after, he came every day, 
 and when I would hear his carriage rumbling 
 over our poor little street, I would say, * Heaven 
 knows what we shall ever do to pay him.' For 
 we well knew that Doctor Faron attended dukes 
 and noblemen, and charged them by the thousand. 
 
 "We had some hundred francs in the Savings, 
 to be sure, but I was thinking what we should 
 do if he charged two or three times as much. 
 You can understand how very awkward it would 
 have been. It fairly made me sick. 
 
 " At last, one morning when my husband was at 
 home, I mustered up all my courage and began : 
 
 " ' Doctor Faron, you have been so good, too 
 good to us. You have saved our boy's life.' 
 
 "'You may prate over that just as much as 
 you please, my dear ; but recollect it is my trade 
 to cut up such little chaps.' 
 
 " ' But not those who live au dnquilme in the 
 Rue Serpente, sir.' 
 
 " You see, ma'm'selle, how I was leading up 
 to the question ? 
 
 " ' How 's that ? how 's that ? Why, what are 
 you talking about ? Those before anybody else, 
 to be sure. Are they not most in need ? ' 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY. 145 
 
 " ' I know you have the best heart in the world, 
 doctor ; but that 's not what I mean. Now, that 
 the child is well, we want to. we are not rich 
 but still' 
 
 " By this time I was as red as a cock's comb, 
 and the more I tried to express myself the worse 
 it got. 
 
 " * You want to pay me. I see, I see,' said he 
 suddenly. * Well, you owe me precisely nothing, 
 if you don't think that too much/ 
 
 " ' Oh ! doctor ! we could n't we must ' 
 
 " 'Let us pay according to our means, doctor,' 
 says my husband. 
 
 "Well, then, I don't want to wound you, my 
 friends. If you prefer to pay something, my 
 charge is just fifty francs. And now don't bother 
 me any more about it. (He pretended to be 
 angry, and it was so droll.) Don't bother me, I 
 say, you lunatics. Fifty francs, I tell you, and 
 not a copper less ; in specie, too ; no paper 
 money for me. Next Sunday dress the little 
 man, and have him ready ; for I wish him to take 
 a turn in the Bois de Boulogne.' 
 
 " Ah ! there 's no end to your kindness, doctor.' 
 
 " * Do n't interrupt me, I say. After his drive, 
 bring him to see me; and let him fetch the 
 money himself. Do you hear ? ' 
 
 " Well, ma'm'selle," added Louise, " that very 
 evening here comes a basket of wine, although 
 we had n't finished the other. What a man! 
 10 
 
146 THE SEMPSTRESS' STORY. 
 
 you may well say. And I declare to you, if he 
 had wanted my right arm, I should have said, 
 * Cut it off, sir.' 
 
 " Fifty francs, indeed ! It was n't the twentieth 
 of what we owed him ; and he only took that to 
 save our feelings. And seeing this, I was still 
 more anxious to please him ; so I bought some 
 linen, the finest I could get, and did n't I make 
 him an elegant set of shirts ! " 
 
 " Why, how did you get his measure ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that was hard ; but when I make up my 
 mind nothing stops me. I went to his valet 
 who knew me, because he had brought the wine 
 and I told him the doctor wanted me to look 
 over his linen in the wash. So I got to the laun- 
 dress, and I made her think he had ordered 
 some shirts like those she had in hand, and so I 
 got the pattern. 
 
 " I was full of work at that time, but I made 
 all those shirts at night ; and it gave me such 
 satisfaction to think, ' Ah ! you won't let us pay 
 you you obstinate man but you can't prevent 
 my sitting up and working for you the livelong 
 night ; and the way I worked ! you should have 
 seen me at it ! 
 
 "You may depend on it there was plenty of 
 hemstitching on those shirts, and you know when 
 I try I can hemstitch. 
 
 " But I am trifling away my time, and this dress 
 will never be done," 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE 
 
 BY 
 
 PROSPER MERIMfiE 
 
From " Tales Before Supper." Translated by Edgar 
 Saltus. Published by Brentano's. 
 
 Copyright, 1887, by Brentantfs. 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE 
 
 JT/lecy? ijv Styw, e'ffru) 6 avdpia$ 
 xai //Tree?, oorws avdpeHos cuv. 
 
 Aouxtavou (friX 
 
 BY PROSPER MERIM&E 
 
 I WAS descending the last slope of the Ca- 
 nigou, and though the sun was already set 
 I could distinguish on the plain the houses of 
 the small town of Ille, towards which I directed 
 my steps. 
 
 " Of course," I said to the Catalan who since 
 the day before served as my guide, " you know 
 where M. de Peyrehorade lives ? " 
 
 " Just don't I ! " cried he ; "I know his house 
 like my own, and if it were not so dark I would 
 show it to you. It is the finest in Ille. He is 
 rich, M. de Peyrehorade is, and he marries his 
 son to one richer even than he." 
 
 " Does the marriage come off soon ? " I asked 
 him. 
 
 " Soon ? It may be that the violins are al- 
 ready ordered for the wedding. To-night per- 
 haps, to-morrow, or the next day, how do I know ? 
 
 149 
 
150 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 It will take place at Puygarrig, for it is Mademoi- 
 selle de Puygarrig that the son is to marry. It 
 will be a sight, I can tell you." 
 
 I was recommended to M. de Peyrehorade by 
 my friend M. de P. He was, I had been told, 
 an antiquarian of much learning and a man of 
 charming affability. He would take delight in 
 showing me the ruins for ten leagues around. 
 Therefore I counted on him to visit the outskirts 
 of Hie, which I knew to be rich in memorials of 
 the Middle Ages. This marriage, of which I 
 now heard for the first time, upset all my plans. 
 
 " I shall be a troublesome guest, I told myself. 
 But I am expected ; my arrival has been an- 
 nounced by M. de P. ; I must present my- 
 self." 
 
 When we reached the plain the guide said, 
 "Wager a cigar, sir, that I can guess what you 
 are going to do at M. de Peyrehorade's.'' 
 
 Offering him one, I answered : " It is not very 
 hard to guess. At this hour, when one has made 
 six leagues in the Canigou, supper is the great 
 thing after all." 
 
 " Yes, but to-morrow ? Here I wager that you 
 have come to Hie to see the idol. I guessed 
 that when I saw you draw the portraits of the 
 saints at Serrabona." 
 
 "The idol! what idol?" This word had 
 aroused my curiosity. 
 
 " What 1 were you not told at Perpignan how 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 1 51 
 
 iM. de Peyrehorade had found an idol in the 
 earth ? " 
 
 " You mean to say an earthen statue ? " 
 " Not at all. A statue in copper, and there is 
 enough of it to make a lot of big pennies. She 
 weighs as much as a church-bell. It was deep 
 in the ground at the foot of an olive tree that we 
 got her." 
 
 " You were present at the discovery ? " 
 u Yes, sir. Two weeks ago M. de Peyreho- 
 rade told Jean Coll and me to uproot an old 
 olive tree which was frozen last year when the 
 weather as you know was very severe. So in 
 working, Jean Coll, who went at it with all his 
 might, gave a blow with his pickaxe, and I heard 
 bimm as if he had struck a bell, and I said, 
 What is that ? We dug on and on, and there was 
 a black hand, which looked like the hand of a 
 corpse, sticking out of the earth. I was scared 
 to death. I ran to M. de Peyrehorade and I 
 said to him, ' There are dead people, master, 
 under the olive tree ! The priest must be called/ 
 " ' What dead people ? ' said he to me. He 
 came, and he had no sooner seen the hand, than 
 he cried out ' An antique ! an antique ! ' You 
 would have thought he had found a treasure. 
 And there he was with the pickaxe in his own 
 hands, struggling and doing almost as much work 
 as we two." 
 
 " And at last what did you find ? " 
 
152 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 " A huge black woman more than half naked, 
 with due respect to you, sir. She was all in 
 copper, and M. de Peyrehorade told us it was 
 an idol of pagan times the time of Charle- 
 magne." 
 
 " I see what it is, some virgin or other in 
 bronze from a destroyed convent." 
 
 " A virgin ! Had it been one I should have rec- 
 ognized it. It is an idol, I tell you ; you can 
 see it in her look. She fixes you with her great 
 white eyes one might say she stares at you. One 
 lowers one's eyes, yes indeed one does, on look- 
 ing at her." 
 
 " White eyes ? Doubtless they are set in the 
 bronze. Perhaps it is some Roman statue." 
 
 " Roman ! That 's it. M. de Peyrehorade 
 says it is Roman. Oh ! I see you are an eru- 
 dite like himself." 
 
 " Is she complete, well preserved ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, she lacks nothing. It is a hand- 
 somer .statue and better finished than the bust of 
 Louis Philippe in colored plaster which is in 
 the town-hall. But with all that the face 
 of the idol does not please me. She has a 
 wicked expression, and, what is more, she is 
 wicked." 
 
 " Wicked ! what has she done to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing to me exactly ; but wait a minute. 
 We had gotten down on all-fours to stand her 
 upright, and M. de Peyrehorade was also pull- 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 153 
 
 ing on the rope, though he has not much more 
 strength than a chicken. With much trouble we 
 got her up straight. I reached for a broken tile 
 to support her, when if she does n't tumble over 
 backwards ail in a heap. I said, ' Take care, ' 
 but not quick enough, for Jean did not have time 
 to draw away his leg " 
 
 " And it was hurt ? " 
 
 "Broken as clean as a vine-prop. When I 
 saw that I was furious, I wanted to take my pick- 
 axe and smash the statue to pieces, but M. de 
 Peyrehorade stopped me. He gave Jean Coll 
 some money, but all the same, he is in bed still, 
 though it is two weeks since it happened, and the 
 physician says that he will never walk as well 
 with that leg as with the other. It is a pity, for 
 he was our best runner, and, after M. de Peyre- 
 horade's son, the cleverest racquet player. M. 
 Alphonse de Peyrehorade was sorry I can tell 
 you, for Coll always played on his side. It was 
 beautiful to see how they returned each other the 
 balls. They never touched the ground." 
 
 Chatting in this way we entered Ille, and I 
 soon found myself in the presence of M. de Pey- 
 rehorade. He was a little old man, still hale 
 and active, with powdered hair, a red nose, and 
 a jovial, bantering manner. Before opening M. 
 de P.'s letter he had seated me at a well-spread 
 table, and had presented me to his wife and son 
 a3 a celebrated archaeologist who was to draw 
 
154 THE VENUS OF 1LLE. 
 
 Roussillon from the neglect in which the indif- 
 ference of erudites had left it. 
 
 While eating heartily for nothing makes one 
 hungrier than the keen air of the mountains I 
 scrutinized my hosts. I have said a word about 
 M. de Peyrehorade, I must add that he was ac- 
 tivity personified. He talked, got up, ran to his 
 library, brought me books, showed me engravings, 
 and rilled my glass, all at the same time. He was 
 never two minutes in repose. His wife was a 
 trifle stout, as are most Catalans when they are 
 over forty years of age. She appeared to me a 
 thorough provincial, solely occupied with her 
 housekeeping. Though the supper was sufficient 
 for at least six persons, she hurried to the kitchen 
 and had pigeons killed and a number broiled, 
 and she opened I do not know how many jars of 
 preserves. In no time the table was laden with 
 dishes and bottles, and if I had but tasted of 
 everything offered me I should certainly have 
 died of indigestion. Nevertheless, at each dish 
 I refused they made fresh excuses. They feared 
 I found myself very badly off at Ille. In the 
 provinces there were so few resources, and of 
 course Parisians were fastidious ! 
 
 In the midst of his parents' comings and 
 goings M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade was as im- 
 movable as rent-day. He was a tall young man 
 of twenty-six with a regular and handsome coun- 
 tenance, but lacking in expression. His height 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 155 
 
 and his athletic figure well justified the reputa- 
 tion of an indefatigable racquet player given him 
 in the neighborhood. 
 
 On that evening he was dressed in an elegant 
 manner ; that is to say, he was an exact copy of 
 a fashion plate in the last number of the Jour- 
 nal des Modes. But he seemed to me ill at 
 ease in his clothes ; he was as stiff as a post in 
 his velvet collar, and could only turn all of a 
 piece. In striking contrast to his costume were 
 his large sunburnt hands and blunt nails. They 
 were a laborer's hands issuing from the sleeves 
 of an exquisite. Moreover, though he examined 
 me in my quality of Parisian most curiously from 
 head to foot, he only spoke to me once during 
 the whole evening, and that was to ask me where 
 I had bought my watch-chain. 
 
 As the supper was drawing to an end M. de 
 Peyrehorade said to me : " Ah ! my dear guest, 
 you belong to me now you are here. I shall not 
 let go of you until you have seen everything of 
 interest in our mountains. You must learn to 
 know our Roussillon, and to do it justice. You 
 do not suspect all that we have to show you^ 
 Phoenician, Celtic, Roman, Arabian, and By- 
 zantine monuments ; you shall see them all from 
 the cedar to the hyssop. I shall drag you every- 
 where, and will not spare you a single stone." 
 
 A fit of coughing obliged him to pause. I 
 took advantage of it to tell him that I should be 
 
156 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 sorry to disturb him on an occasion of so much 
 interest to his family. If he would but give me 
 his excellent advice about the excursions to be 
 made, I could manage, without his taking the 
 trouble to accompany me. 
 
 " Ah ! you mean the marriage of that boy 
 there," he exclaimed, interrupting me; "stuff 
 and nonsense, it will be over the day after to- 
 morrow. You will go to the wedding with us, 
 which is to be informal, as the bride is in mourn- 
 ing for an aunt whose heiress she is. Therefore, 
 there will be no festivities, no ball. It is a pity, 
 though ; you might have seen our Catalans dance. 
 They are pretty, and might have given you the 
 desire to imitate Alphonse. One marriage, they 
 say, leads to another. Once the young people 
 married I shall be free, and we will bestir our- 
 selves. I beg your pardon for boring you with a 
 provincial wedding. For a Parisian tired of en- 
 tertainments and a wedding without a ball at 
 that ! Still you will see a bride a bride well, 
 you shall tell me what you think of her. But 
 you are a thinker and no longer notice women. 
 I have better than that to show you. You shall 
 see something ; in fact, I have a fine surprise in 
 store for you to-morrow." 
 
 "Good heavens!" said I; "it is difficult to 
 have a treasure in the house without the public 
 being aware of it. I think I know the surprise 
 in reserve for me. But if it is your statue which 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 157 
 
 is in question, the description my guide gave me 
 of it has only served to excite my curiosity and 
 prepared me to admire." 
 
 " Ah ! So he spoke to you about the idol, as 
 he calls my beautiful Venus Tur ; but I will tell 
 you nothing. To-morrow you shall see her by 
 daylight, and tell me if I am right in thinking 
 the statue a masterpiece. You could not have 
 arrived more opportunely. There are inscrip- 
 tions on it which I, poor ignoramus that I am, 
 explain after my own fashion ; but you, a Paris- 
 ian erudite, will probably laugh at my interpreta- 
 tion ; for I have actually written a paper about 
 it, I, an old provincial antiquary, have launched 
 myself in literature. I wish to make the press 
 groan. If you would kindly read and correct it 
 I might have some hope. For example, I am 
 very anxious to know how you translate this in- 
 scription from the base of the statue : CAVE. 
 But I do not wish to ask you yet ! Wait until 
 to-morrow. Not a word more ahout the Venus 
 to-day ! " 
 
 " You are right, Peyrehorade," said his wife; 
 " drop your idol. Can you not see that you pre- 
 vent our guest from eating ? You may be sure 
 that he has seen in Paris much finer statues than 
 yours. In the Tuilleries there are dozens, and 
 they also are in bronze." 
 
 " There you have the saintly ignorance of the 
 provinces I " interrupted M. de Peyrehorade. 
 
158 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 " The idea of comparing an admirable antique 
 to the insipid figures of Coustou ! 
 
 ' How irreverently my housekeeper 
 Speaks of the gods ! ' 
 
 Do you know that my wife wanted me to melt my 
 statue into a bell for our church. She would 
 have been the godmother. Just think of it, to 
 melt a masterpiece by Myron, sir ! " 
 
 " Masterpiece ! Masterpiece ! A charming 
 masterpiece she is ! to break a man's leg." 
 
 " Madam, do you see that ? " said M. de Pey- 
 rehorade in a resolute tone, extending toward her 
 his right leg in its changeable silk stocking ; " if 
 my Venus had broken that leg there for me I 
 should not regret it." 
 
 " Good gracious ! Peyrehorade, how can you 
 say such a thing ! Fortunately, the man is better. 
 And yet I cannot bring myself to look at a statue 
 which has caused so great a disaster. Poor Jean 
 Coll ! " 
 
 " Wounded by Venus, sir," said M. de Peyre- 
 horade, with a loud laugh ; " wounded by Venus, 
 and the churl complains ! 
 
 ' Veneris nee praemia n6ris.' 
 
 Who has not been wounded by Venus ?" 
 
 M. Alphonse, who understood French better 
 than Latin, winked one eye with an air of intel- 
 ligence, and looked at me as if to ask, " And you, 
 Parisian, do you understand ? " 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 159 
 
 The supper came to an end. I had ceased 
 eating an hour before. I was weary, and I could 
 not manage to hide the frequent yawns which 
 escaped me. Madame de Peyrehorade was the 
 first to notice them, and remarked that it was 
 time to go to bed. Then followed fresh apolo- 
 gies for the poor accommodations I would have. 
 I would not be as well off as in Paris. It was 
 so uncomfortable in the provinces ! Indulgence 
 was needed for the Roussillonnais. Notwith- 
 standing my protests that after a tramp in the 
 mountains a bundle of straw would seem to me a 
 delicious couch, they continued begging me to 
 pardon poor country people if they did not treat 
 me as well as they could have wished. 
 
 Accompanied by M. de Peyrehorade I ascended 
 at last to the room arranged for me. The stair- 
 case, the upper half of which was in wood, ended 
 in the centre of a hall, out of which opened 
 several rooms. 
 
 " To the right," said my host, " is the apart- 
 ment which I propose to give the future Madame 
 Alphonse. Your room is at the opposite end of 
 the corridor. You understand," he added in a 
 manner which he meant to be sly, " you under- 
 stand that newly married people must be alone. 
 You are at one end of the house, they at the 
 other." 
 
 We entered a well-furnished room where the 
 first object on which my gaze rested was a bed 
 
160 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 seven feet long, six wide, and so high that one 
 needed a chair to climb up into it. 
 
 Having shown me where the bell was, and as- 
 sured himself that the sugar-bowl was full and 
 the cologne bottles duly placed on the toilet- 
 stand, my host asked me a number of times if 
 anything was lacking, wished me good-night, and 
 left me alone. 
 
 The windows were closed. Before undressing 
 I opened one to breathe the fresh, night air so de- 
 lightful after a long supper. Facing me was the 
 Canigou. Always magnificent, it appeared to me 
 on that particular evening, lighted as it was by a 
 resplendent moon, as the most beautiful mountain 
 in the world. I remained a few minutes con- 
 templating its marvellous silhouette, and was 
 about to close the window when, lowering my 
 eyes, I perceived a dozen yards from the house, 
 the statue on its pedestal. It was placed at the 
 corner of a hedge that separated a small garden 
 from a vast, perfectly level quadrangle, which I 
 learned later was the racquet court of the town. 
 This ground was the property of M. de Peyre- 
 horade, and had been given by him to the parish 
 at the solicitation of his son. 
 
 Owing to the distance it was difficult for me to 
 distinguish the attitude of the statue ; I could 
 only judge of its height, which seemed to be about 
 six feet. At that moment two scamps of the 
 town, whistling the pretty Roussillon tune, Mon- 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. l6l 
 
 tagnes rtgalades, were crossing the racquet court 
 quite near the hedge. They paused to look at 
 the statue, and one of them even apostrophized 
 it aloud. He spoke Catalonian, but I had been 
 long enough in Roussillon to understand pretty 
 well what he said. 
 
 "There you are, you wench!" (The Cata- 
 lonian word was much more forcible.) " There 
 you are ! " he said. " It was you then who broke 
 Jean Coil's leg ! If you belonged to me I 'd 
 break your neck." 
 
 "Bah! what with?" said the other youth. 
 " It is of the copper of pagan times, and harder 
 than I don't know what." 
 
 " If I had my chisel " (it seems he was a lock- 
 smith's apprentice), " I would soon force out its 
 big white eyes, as I would pop an almond from 
 its shell. There are more than a hundred pen- 
 nies' worth of silver in them." 
 
 They went on a few steps. 
 
 " I must wish the idol good-night," said the 
 taller of the apprentices, stopping suddenly. 
 
 He stooped and probably picked up a stone. 
 I saw him unbend his arm and throw something. 
 A blow resounded on the bronze, and immediately 
 the apprentice raised his hand to his head with a 
 cry of pain. 
 
 " She threw it back at me ! " he exclaimed. 
 And my two rascals ran off as fast as they could. 
 
 It was evident that the stone had rebounded 
 II 
 
1 62 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 from the metal and had punished the wag for the 
 outrage he had done the goddess. Laughing 
 heartily, I shut the window. 
 
 Another Vandal punished by Venus ! May all 
 the desecrators of our old monuments thus get 
 their due ! 
 
 With this charitable wish I fell asleep. 
 
 When I awoke it was broad day. On one side 
 of my bed stood M. de Peyrehorade in a dressing- 
 gown ; a servant sent by his wife was on the 
 other side with a cup of chocolate in his hand. 
 
 " Come, come, you Parisian, get up ! This is 
 qnite the laziness of the capital ! " said my host, 
 while I dressed in haste. " It is eight o'clock, 
 and you are still in bed ! I have been up since 
 six. This is the third time I have been to your 
 door. I approached on tiptoe : no one, not a 
 sign of life. It is bad for you to sleep too much 
 at your age. And my Venus, which you have 
 not yet seen ! Come, hurry up and take this cup 
 of Barcelona chocolate. It is real contraband 
 chocolate, such as cannot be found in Paris. Pre- ' 
 pare yourself, for when you are once before my 
 Venus no one will be able to tear you away from 
 her." 
 
 I was ready in five minutes ; that is to say, I 
 was half shaved, half dressed, and burned by the 
 boiling chocolate I had swallowed. I descended 
 to the garden and saw an admirable statue be- 
 fore me. It was truly a Venus, and of marvel- 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 163 
 
 lous beauty. The upper part of the body was 
 nude, as great divinities were usually represented 
 by the ancients. The right hand was raised as 
 high as the breast, the palm turned inwards, the 
 thumb and two first fingers extended, and the 
 others slightly bent. The other hand, drawn 
 close to the hip, held the drapery which covered 
 the lower half of the body. The attitude of this 
 statue reminded one of that of the mourre player 
 which is called, I hardly know why, by the name 
 of Germanicus. Perhaps it had been intended 
 to represent the goddess as playing at mourre. 
 However that may be, it is impossible to find 
 anything more perfect than the form of this 
 Venus, anything softer and more voluptuous than 
 her outlines, or more graceful and dignified than 
 her drapery. I had expected a work of the de- 
 cadence ; I saw a masterpiece of statuary's best 
 days. 
 
 What struck me most was the exquisite reality 
 of the figure ; one might have thought it moulded 
 from life, that is, if Nature ever produced such 
 perfect models. 
 
 The hair, drawn back from the brow, seemed 
 once to have been gilded. The head was small, 
 like nearly all those of Greek statues, and bent 
 slightly forward. As to the face, I shall never 
 succeed in describing its strange character; it 
 was of a type belonging to no other Greek statue 
 which I can remember. It had not the calm, 
 
1 64 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 severe beauty of the Greek sculptors, who syste- 
 matically gave a majestic immobility to all the 
 features. On the contrary, I noticed here, with 
 surprise, a marked intention on the artist's part 
 to reproduce malice verging on viciousness. All 
 the features were slightly contracted. The eyes 
 were rather oblique, the mouth raised at the cor- 
 ners, the nostrils a trifle dilated. Disdain, irony, 
 and cruelty were to be read in the nevertheless 
 beautiful face. 
 
 Truly, the more one gazed at the statue the 
 more one experienced a feeling of pain that such 
 wonderful beauty could be allied to such an ab- 
 sence of all sensibility. 
 
 " If the model ever existed," I said to M. de 
 Peyrehorade, " and I doubt if heaven ever pro- 
 duced such a woman, how I pity her lovers ! She 
 must have taken pleasure in making them die of 
 despair. There is something ferocious in her ex- 
 pression, and yet I have never seen anything 
 more beautiful." 
 
 " * Cest Venus tout entiere b sa proie attachee ! ' * 
 bried M. de Peyrehorade, delighted with my en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 But the expression of demoniac irony was per- 
 haps increased by the contrast of the bright silver 
 eyes with the dusky green hue which time had 
 given to the statue. The shining eyes produced 
 a sort of illusion which simulated reality and life. 
 I remembered what my guide had said, that those 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 1 6$ 
 
 who looked at her were forced to lower their eyes. 
 It was almost true, and I could not prevent a 
 movement of anger at myself when I felt ill at 
 ease before this bronze figure. 
 
 " Now that you have seen everything in detail, 
 my dear colleague in antiquities, let us, if you 
 please, open a scientific conference. What do 
 you say to this inscription which you have not 
 yet noticed?" He pointed to the base of the 
 statue, and I read these words : 
 
 CAVE AMANTEM. 
 
 " Quid dicis doctissime? " he asked, rubbing his 
 hands. " Let us see if we agree as to the mean- 
 ing of cave amantem ! " 
 
 " But," I replied, " it has two meanings. You 
 can translate it : ' Guard against him who loves 
 thee,' that is, ' distrust lovers.' But in this sense 
 I do not know if cave amantem would be good 
 Latin. After seeing the diabolical expression of 
 the lady I should sooner believe that the artist 
 meant to warn the spectator against this terrible 
 beauty. I should then translate it : ' Take care of 
 thyself if she loves thee.' " 
 
 " Humph ! " said M. de Peyrehorade ; " yes, it 
 is an admissible meaning : but, if you do not 
 mind, I prefer the first translation, which I would, 
 however, develop. You know Venus's lover ? " 
 
 "There are several." 
 
 " Yes ; but the first is Vulcan. Why should 
 
1 66 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 it not mean : ' Notwithstanding all thy beauty, 
 thine air of disdain, thou wilt have a blacksmith, 
 a wretched cripple for a lover'? A profound 
 lesson, sir, for coquettes ! " 
 
 The explication seemed so far-fetched that I 
 could not help smiling. 
 
 To avoid formally contradicting my antiquarian 
 friend, I observed, " Latin is a terrible language 
 in its conciseness," and I drew back several steps 
 to better contemplate the statue. 
 
 " Wait a moment, colleague ! " said M. de 
 Peyrehorade, catching hold of my arm; "you 
 have not seen all. There is another inscription. 
 Climb up on the pedestal and look at the right 
 arm." So saying, he helped me up, and without 
 much ceremony I clung to the neck of the Venus 
 with whom I was becoming more familiar. For 
 a second I even looked her straight in the eyes, 
 and on close inspection she appeared more 
 wicked, and, if possible, more beautiful than be- 
 fore. Then I noticed that on the arm were 
 engraved, as it seemed to me, characters in 
 ancient script. With the aid of my spectacles I 
 spelt out what follows, and M. de Peyrehorade, 
 approving with voice and gesture, repeated each 
 word as I uttered it. Thus I read : 
 
 VENERI TVRBVL . 
 EVTVCHES MYRO. 
 IMPERIO FECIT. 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 167 
 
 After the word " Tvrbvl " in the first line it 
 looked to me as if there were several letters ef- 
 faced ; but " Tvrbvl " was perfectly legible. 
 
 " Which means to say ? " my host asked radi- 
 antly, with a mischievous smile, for he thought 
 the " Tvrbvl " would puzzle me. 
 
 " There is one word which I do not yet undei- 
 stand," I answered ; " all the rest is simple. 
 Eutyches Myron has made this offering to Venus 
 by her command." 
 
 "Quite right But 'Tvrbvl,' what do you 
 make of it ? What does it mean ? " 
 
 " * Tvrbvl ' perplexes me very much. I am try- 
 ing to think of one of Venus's familiar character- 
 istics which may enlighten me. But what do you 
 say to ' Tvrbvlenta ' ? The Venus who troubles, 
 agitates. You see I am still preoccupied by her 
 wicked expression. ' Tvrbvlenta ' is not too bad 
 a quality for Venus," I added modestly, for I was 
 not too well satisfied with my explanation. 
 
 " A turbulent Venus ! A noisy Venus ! Ah ! 
 then you think my Venus is a public-house Venus ? 
 Nothing of the kind, sir; she is a Venus of good 
 society. I will explain * Tvrbvl ' to you that is, 
 if you promise me not to divulge my discovery 
 before my article appears in print. Because, you 
 see, I pride myself on such a find, and, after all, 
 you Parisian erudites are rich enough to leave a 
 few ears for us poor devils of provincials to 
 glean 1 " 
 
1 68 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 From the top of the pedestal, where I was still 
 perched, I promised him solemnly that I would 
 never be so base as to filch from him his dis- 
 covery. 
 
 " ' Tvrbvl,' sir," said he, coming nearer and 
 lowering his voice for fear some one besides 
 myself might hear him, " read ' Tvrbvlnerae.' " 
 
 " I understand no better." 
 
 " Listen to me attentively. Three miles from 
 here at the foot of the mountain is a village called 
 Boulternere. The name is a corruption of the 
 Latin word * Tvrbvlnera.' Nothing is more com- 
 mon than these transpositions. Boulternere was 
 a Roman town. I always suspected it, but I 
 could get no proof till now, and here it is. This 
 Venus was the local goddess of the city of Boul- 
 ternere ; and the word Boulternere, which I have 
 shown is of ancient origin, proves something very 
 curious, namely, that Boulternere was a Phoeni- 
 cian town before it was Roman ! " 
 
 He paused a moment to take breath and en- 
 joy my surprise. I succeeded in overcoming a 
 strong inclination to laugh. 
 
 " ' Tvrbvlnera ' is, in fact, pure Phoenician," he 
 continued. " ' Tvr,' pronounce ' tour ' ' Tour ' 
 and ' Sour ' are the same word, are they not ? 
 ' Sour ' is the Phoenician name of Tyr ; I do not 
 need to recall the meaning to you. * Bvl ' is 
 Baal ; Bal, Bel, Bui, are slight differences of pro- 
 nunciation. As to ; Nera,' that troubles me a 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 169 
 
 little. I am tempted to believe, for want of a 
 Phoenician word, that it comes from the Greek 
 v7?/?o?, moist, marshy. In that case, it is a mon- 
 grel word. To justify vypos I will show you at 
 Boulternere how the mountain streams form 
 stagnant pools. Then, again, the ending * Nera ' 
 may have been added much later in honor of 
 Nera Pivesuvia, wife of Tetricus, who may have 
 benefited the city of Turbul. But on account of 
 the marshes, I prefer the etymology of vypos." 
 
 He took a pinch of snuff in a complacent way, 
 and continued : 
 
 " But let us leave the Phoenicians and return 
 to the inscription. I translate it then : To Venus 
 of Boulternere Myron dedicates by her order this 
 statue, his work." 
 
 I took good care not to criticise his etymology, 
 but I wished in my turn to give a proof of pene- 
 tration, so I said : 
 
 " Stop a moment, M. de Peyrehorade. Myron 
 has dedicated something, but I by no means see 
 that it is this statue." 
 
 " What ! " he cried, " was not Myron a famous 
 Greek sculptor ? The talent was perpetuated in 
 his family, and it must have been one of his 
 descendants who executed this statue. Nothing 
 can be more certain." 
 
 " But," I replied, " on this arm I see a small 
 hole. I think it served to fasten something a 
 bracelet, for example which this Myron, being 
 
17 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 an unhappy lover, gave to Venus as an expiatory 
 offering. Venus was irritated against him; he 
 appeased her by consecrating to her a gold 
 bracelet. Notice that/eat is often used for con- 
 seer avit. The terms are synonymous. I could 
 show you more than one example if I had at 
 hand Gruter or Orellius. It is natural that a 
 lover should see Venus in a dream and imagine 
 that she commands him to give a gold bracelet 
 to her statue. Myron consecrated the bracelet 
 to her. Then the barbarians or some other 
 sacrilegious thieves " 
 
 " Ah ! it is easy to see you have written ro- 
 mances ! " cried my host, helping me down from 
 the pedestal. " No, sir; it is a work of Myron's 
 school. You have only to look at the workman- 
 ship to be convinced of that." 
 
 Having made it a rule never to contradict self- 
 opinionated antiquarians, I bowed with an air of 
 conviction, saying : 
 
 " It is an admirable piece of work." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " exclaimed M. dc Peyre- 
 horade, " another act of vandalism ! Some one 
 must have thrown a stone at my statue ! " 
 
 He had just perceived a white mark a little 
 above the bosom of the Venus. I noticed a 
 similar mark on the fingers of the right hand. I 
 supposed it had been touched by the stone as it 
 passed, or that a bit of the stone had been broken 
 off as it struck the statue, and had rebounded on 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 1 71 
 
 the hand. I told my host of the insult I had 
 witnessed, and the prompt punishment which 
 had followed it. 
 
 He laughed heartily, and, comparing the ap- 
 prentice to Diomede, wished he might, like the 
 Greek hero, see all his comrades turned into 
 white birds. 
 
 The breakfast bell interrupted this classical 
 conversation, and, as on the preceding evening, 
 I was obliged to eat enough for four. Then 
 came M. de Peyrehorade's farmers, and, while 
 he was giving them an audience, his son led me 
 to inspect an open carriage, which he had bought 
 at Toulouse for his betrothed, and which it is 
 needless to say I duly admired. After that I 
 went into the stable with him, where he kept me 
 a half-hour, boasting about his horses, giving 
 me their genealogy, and telling me of the prizes 
 they had won at the county races. At last he 
 began to talk to me about his betrothed in con- 
 nection with a gray mare which he intended for 
 her. 
 
 "We will see her to-day," he said. "I do 
 not know if you will find her pretty. In Paris 
 people are hard to please. But every one here 
 and in Perpignan thinks her lovely. The best 
 of it is that she is very rich. Her aunt from 
 Prades left her a fortune. Oh ! I shall be very 
 happy." 
 
 I was profoundly shocked to see a young man 
 
172 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 appear more affected by the dower than by the 
 beauty of his bride. 
 
 "You are a judge of jewels," continued M. 
 Alphonse ; "what do you think of this ? Here 
 is the ring I shall give her to-morrow." 
 
 He drew from his little finger a heavy ring, 
 enriched with diamonds, and fashioned into two 
 clasped hands, an allusion which seemed to me 
 infinitely poetic. The workmanship was antique, 
 but I fancied it had been retouched to insert the 
 diamonds. Inside the ring these words in Gothic 
 characters could be discerned : Sempr J ab ti, 
 which means, thine for ever. 
 
 " It is a pretty ring," I said, " but the diamonds 
 which have been added have made it lose a little 
 of its style." 
 
 "Oh! it is much handsomer now," he an- 
 swered, smiling. "There are twelve hundred 
 francs' worth of diamonds in it. My mother 
 gave it to me. It is a very old family ring, it 
 dates from the days of chivalry. It was my 
 grandmother's, who had it from her grandmother. 
 Heaven knows when it was made." 
 
 " The custom in Paris," I said, " is to give a 
 perfectly plain ring, usually composed of two dif- 
 ferent metals, such as gold and platina. The 
 other ring which you have on would be very suit- 
 able. This one with its diamonds and its clasped 
 hands is so thick that it would be impossible to 
 wear a glove over it." 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 173 
 
 " Madame Alphonse must arrange that as she 
 pleases. I think she will be very glad to have 
 it all the same. Twelve hundred francs on the 
 finger is pleasant. That other little ring," he 
 added, looking in a contented way at the plain 
 ring he wore, " that one a woman in Paris gave 
 me on Shrove Tuesday. How I did enjoy my- 
 self when I was in Paris two years ago ! That 
 is the place to have a good time ! " and he sighed 
 regretfully. 
 
 We were to dine that day at Puygarrig with 
 the relations of the bride ; so we got into the car- 
 riage, and drove to the chateau, which was four 
 or five miles from Ille. I was presented and re- 
 ceived as the friend of the family. I will not 
 speak of the dinner, or the conversation which 
 followed. I took but little part in it. M. Al- 
 phonse was seated beside his betrothed, and 
 whispered a word or two in her ear now and 
 then. As for her, she hardly raised her eyes; 
 and every time her lover spoke to her she 
 blushed modestly, but answered without embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Puygarrig was eighteen years 
 of age. Her slender, graceful figure formed a 
 striking contrast to the stalwart frame of her 
 future husband. She was not only beautiful, she 
 was alluring. I admired the perfect naturalness 
 of all her replies. Her kind look, which yet was 
 not free from a touch of malice, reminded me, in 
 
174 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 spite of myself, of my host's Venus. While mak- 
 ing this inward comparison, I asked myself if the 
 incontestably superior beauty of the statue did 
 not in great measure come from its tigress-like 
 expression ; for strength, even in evil passions, 
 always arouses in us astonishment, and a sort of 
 involuntary admiration. 
 
 " What a pity," I thought, on leaving Puy- 
 garrig, "that such an attractive girl should be 
 rich, and that her dowry makes her sought by a 
 man quite unworthy of her." 
 
 While returning to Ille, I spoke to Mme. de 
 Peyrehorade, to whom I thought it only proper 
 to address myself now and then, though I did 
 not very well know what to say to her : " You 
 must be strong-minded people in Roussillon," I 
 said. " How is it, madam, that you have a wed- 
 ding on a Friday ? We would be more supersti- 
 tious in Paris ; no one would dare be married on 
 that day." 
 
 " Do not speak of it," she replied : " if it had 
 depended on me, certainly another day would 
 have been chosen. But Peyrehorade wished it, 
 and I had to give in. All the same, it troubles 
 me very much. Supposing an accident should 
 happen ? There must be some reason in it, or 
 else why is every one afraid of Friday ? " 
 
 " Friday ! " cried her husband, " is Venus's 
 day ! Just the day for a wedding ! You see, 
 my dear colleague, I think only of my Venus. 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 175 
 
 I chose Friday on her account. To-morrow, if 
 you like, before the wedding, we will make a 
 little sacrifice to her a sacrifice of two doves 
 and if I only knew where to get some in- 
 cense " 
 
 " For shame, Peyrehorade ! " interrupted his 
 wife, scandalized to the last degree. " Incense 
 to an idol ! It would be an abomination ! 
 What would they say of us in the neighbor- 
 hood ? " 
 
 " At least," answered M. de Peyrehorade, 
 " you will allow me to place a wreath of roses 
 and lilies on her head : Manibus date liliaplenis. 
 You see, sir, freedom is an empty word. We 
 have not liberty of worship ! " 
 
 The next day's arrangements were ordered in 
 the following manner : Every one was to be 
 dressed and ready at ten o'clock punctually. 
 After the chocolate had been served we were to 
 be driven to Puygarrig. The civil marriage was 
 to take place in the town-hall of the village, and 
 the religious ceremony in the chapel of the 
 chateau. Afterwards there would be a break- 
 fast. After the breakfast people would pass the 
 time as they liked until seven o'clock. At that 
 hour every one would return to M. de Peyreho- 
 rade's at Ille, where the two families were to 
 assemble and have supper. It was natural that 
 being unable to dance they should wish to eat as 
 much as possible. 
 
176 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 By eight o'clock I was seated in front of the 
 Venus, pencil in hand, recommencing the head 
 of the statue for the twentieth time without 
 being able to catch the expression. M. de Pey- 
 rehorade came and went about me, giving me 
 advice, repeating his Phoenician etymology, and 
 laying Bengal roses on the pedestal of the statue 
 while he addressed vows to it in a tragi-comic 
 tone for the young couple who were to live under 
 his roof. Towards nine o'clock he went in to 
 put on his best, and at the same moment M. 
 Alphonse appeared looking very stiff in a new 
 coat, white gloves, chased sleeve-buttons, and 
 varnished shoes. A rose decorated his button- 
 hole. 
 
 " Will you make my wife's portrait ? " he 
 asked, leaning over my drawing. " She also is 
 pretty." 
 
 On the racquet-court of which I have spoken 
 there now began a game which immediately at- 
 tracted M. Alphonse's attention. And I, tired, 
 and despairing of ever being able to copy the 
 diabolical face, soon left my drawing to look at 
 the players. There were among them some 
 Spanish muleteers who had arrived the night be- 
 fore. They were from Aragon and Navarre, and 
 were nearly all marvellously skilful at the game. 
 Therefore the Illois, though encouraged by the 
 presence and advice of M. Alphonse, were 
 promptly beaten by the foreign champions. The 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 177 
 
 native spectators were disheartened. M. Al- 
 phonse looked at his watch. It was only half- 
 past nine. His mother's hair he knew was not 
 dressed. He hesitated no longer, but taking oft 
 his coat asked for a jacket, and defied the Span- 
 iards. I looked on smiling and a little surprised. 
 " The honor of the country must be sustained," 
 he said. 
 
 Then I thought him really handsome. He 
 seemed full of life, and his costume, which but 
 now occupied him so entirely, no longer con- 
 cerned him. A few minutes before he would 
 have dreaded to turn his head for fear of disar- 
 ranging his cravat. Now he did not give a 
 thought to his curled hair or his fine shirt-front. 
 And his betrothed ? If it had been necessary I 
 think he would have postponed the wedding. I 
 saw him hurriedly put on a pair of sandals, roll 
 up his sleeves, and, with an assured air, take his 
 stand at the head of the vanquished party like 
 Caesar rallying his soldiers at Dyrrachium. I 
 leaped the hedge and placed myself comfortably 
 in the shade of a tree so as to command a good 
 view of both sides. 
 
 Contrary to general expectation, M. Alphonse 
 missed the first ball. It came skimming along 
 the ground, it is true, and was thrown with as- 
 tonishing force by an Aragonese who appeared 
 to be the leader of the Spaniards. 
 
 He was a man of about forty, nervous and 
 
 12 
 
178 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 agile, and at least six feet tall. His olive skin 
 was almost as dark as the bronze of the Venus. 
 
 M. Alphonse threw his racquet angrily on the 
 ground. 
 
 " It is this cursed ring," he cried, " which 
 squeezes my finger, and makes me miss a sure 
 ball." 
 
 He drew off his diamond ring with some dif- 
 ficulty; I approached to take it, but he fore- 
 stalled me by running to the Venus and shoving 
 it on her fourth finger. He then resumed his 
 post at the head of the Illois. 
 
 He was pale, but calm and resolute. From 
 that moment he did not miss a single ball, and 
 the Spaniards were completely beaten. The en- 
 thusiasm of the spectators was a fine sight ; some 
 threw their caps in the air and shouted for joy, 
 while others wrung M. Alphonse's hands, calling 
 him the honor of the country. If he had re- 
 pulsed an invasion I doubt if he would have 
 received warmer or sincerer congratulations. 
 The vexation of the vanquished added to the 
 splendor of the victory. 
 
 " We will play other games, my good fellow," 
 he said to the Aragonese in a tone of superiority, 
 "but I will give you points." 
 
 I should have wished M. Alphonse to be more 
 modest, and I was almost pained by his rival's 
 humiliation. 
 
 The Spanish giant felt the insult deeply. I 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 179 
 
 saw him pale beneath his tan. He looked sul- 
 lenly at his racquet and clinched his teeth, then 
 in a smothered voice he muttered : 
 
 " Me lo pagards" 
 
 M. de Peyrehorade's voice interrupted his 
 son's triumph. Astonished at not finding him 
 presiding over the preparation of the new car- 
 riage, my host was even more surprised on 
 seeing him racquet in hand and bathed in per- 
 spiration. M. Alphonse hurried to the house, 
 washed his hands and face, put on again his 
 new coat and patent-leather shoes, and in five 
 minutes we were galloping on the road to Puy- 
 garrig. All the racquet players of the town and 
 a crowd of spectators followed us with shouts of 
 joy. The strong horses which drew us could 
 hardly keep ahead of the intrepid Catalans. 
 
 We were at Puygarrig, and the procession 
 was about to set out for the town-hall, when 
 M. Alphonse, striking his forehead, whispered 
 to me : 
 
 " What a mess ! I have forgotten the ring ! 
 It is on the finger of the Venus ; may the devil 
 carry her off ! Do not tell rny mother at any 
 rate. Perhaps she will not notice it." 
 
 " You can send some one for it," I replied. 
 
 " My servant remained at Ille. I do not trust 
 these here. Twelve hundred francs' worth of 
 diamonds might well tempt almost any one. 
 Moreover, what would they think of my forget- 
 
l8o THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 fulness ? They would laugh at me. They would 
 call me the husband of the statue. If it only is 
 not stolen ! Fortunately, the rascals are afraid 
 of the idol. They do not dare approach it by an 
 arm's length. After all, it does not matter ; I 
 have another ring." 
 
 The two ceremonies, civil and religious, were 
 accomplished with suitable pomp, and Made- 
 moiselle de Puygarrig received the ring of a 
 Parisian milliner without suspecting that her 
 betrothed was making her the sacrifice of a love- 
 token. Then we seated ourselves at table, where 
 we ate, drank, and even sang, all at great length. 
 I suffered for the bride at the coarse merriment 
 which exploded around her ; still, she faced it 
 better than I would have expected, and her em- 
 barrassment was neither awkward nor affected. 
 
 Perhaps courage comes with difficult situa- 
 tions. 
 
 The breakfast ended when heaven pleased. 
 It was four o'clock. The men went to walk in 
 the park, which was magnificent, or watched the 
 peasants, in their holiday attire, dance on the 
 lawn of the chateau. In this way we passed 
 several hours. Meanwhile the women were 
 eagerly attentive to the bride, who showed them 
 her presents. Then she changed her dress, and 
 I noticed that she had covered her beautiful hair 
 with a befeathered bonnet ; for women are in no 
 greater hurry than to assume, as soon as pos- 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. l8l 
 
 sible, the attire which custom forbids their wear- 
 ing while they are still young girls. 
 
 It was nearly eight o'clock when preparations 
 were made to start for Ille. But first a pathetic- 
 scene took place. Mile, de Puygarrig's aunt, a 
 very old and pious woman, who stood to her in a 
 mother's place, was not to go with us. Before 
 the departure she gave her niece a touching ser 
 mon on her wifely duties, from which sermon re- 
 sulted a flood of tears and endless embraces. 
 
 M. de Peyrehorade compared this separation 
 to the Rape of the Sabines. 
 
 At last, however, we got off, and, on the way, 
 every one exerted himself to amuse the bride and 
 make her laugh ; but all in vain. 
 
 At Ille supper awaited us, and what a supper ! 
 If the coarse jokes of the morning had shocked 
 me, I was now much more so by the equivoca- 
 tions and pleasantries of which the bride and 
 groom were the principal objects. The bride- 
 groom, who had disappeared for a moment be- 
 fore seating himself at the table, was pale, cold, 
 and grave. 
 
 He drank incessantly some old Collioure wine 
 almost as strong as brandy. I sat next to him, 
 and thought myself obliged to warn him. " Be 
 careful ! they say that wine " I hardly know 
 what stupid nonsense I said to be in harmony 
 with the other guests. 
 
 He touched my knee, and whispered : 
 
1 82 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 " When we have left the table ... let me have 
 two words with you." 
 
 His solemn tone surprised me. I looked more 
 'closely at him, and noticed a strange alteration in 
 his features. 
 
 " Do you feel ill ? " I asked. 
 
 " No." 
 
 And he began to drink again. 
 
 Meanwhile, amidst much shouting and clap- 
 ping of hands, a child of twelve, who had slipped 
 under the table, held up to the company a pretty 
 pink and white ribbon which he had untied from 
 the bride's ankle. It was called her garter, and 
 at once cut into pieces and distributed among the 
 young men, who, following an old custom still pre- 
 served in some patriarchal families, ornamented 
 their buttonholes with it. This was the time 
 for the bride to flush up to the whites of her eyes. 
 But her confusion was at its height when M. de 
 Peyrehorade, having called for silence, sang 
 several verses in Catalan, which he said were im- 
 promptu. Here is the meaning, if I understood 
 it correctly : 
 
 " What is this, my friends ? has the wine I have 
 drunk made me see double ? There are two 
 Venuses here . . ." 
 
 The bridegroom turned his head suddenly with 
 a frightened look, which made every one laugh. 
 
 " Yes, " continued M. de Peyrehorade, " there 
 are two Venuses under my roof. The one I 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 183 
 
 found in the ground like a truffle ; the other, 
 descended from heaven, has just divided among 
 us her belt." 
 
 He meant her garter. 
 
 " My son, choose between the Roman Venus 
 and the Catalan the one you prefer. The rascal 
 takes the Catalan, and his choice is the best. 
 The Roman is black, the Catalan is white. The 
 Roman is cold, the Catalan enflames all who 
 approach her." 
 
 This equivocal allusion excited such a shout, 
 such noisy applause, and sonorous laughter, that 
 I thought the ceiling would fall on our heads. 
 Around the table there were but three serious 
 faces, those of the newly-married couple and 
 mine. I had a terrible headache ; and besides, I 
 do not know why, a wedding always saddens me. 
 This one, moreover, even disgusted me a little. 
 
 The final verses having been sung, and very 
 lively they were, I must say, every one adjourned 
 to the drawing-room to enjoy the withdrawal of 
 the bride, who, as it was nearly midnight, was soon 
 to be conducted to her room. 
 
 M. Alphonse drew me into the embrasure of a 
 window, and, turning away his eyes, said : 
 
 " You will laugh at me But I don't 
 know what is the matter with me ... I am 
 bewitched ! " 
 
 My first thought was that he fancied himself 
 threatened with one of those misfortunes of 
 
184 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 which Montaigne and Madame de Se'vigne' 
 speak. 
 
 " All the world of love is full of tragic his- 
 tories," etc. 
 
 " I thought only clever people were subject to 
 this sort of accident," I said to myself. 
 
 To him I said : " You drank too much Col- 
 lioure wine, my dear Monsieur Alphonse ; I 
 warned you against it." 
 
 "Yes, perhaps. But something much more 
 terrible than that has happened." 
 
 His voice was broken. I thought him com- 
 pletely inebriated. 
 
 " You know about my ring ? " he continued, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Well, has it been stolen ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then you have it ? " 
 
 " No I I cannot get it off the finger of that 
 infernal Venus." 
 
 " You did not pull hard enough." 
 
 "Yes, indeed I did But the Venusshe 
 has bent her finger." 
 
 He stared at me wildly, and leaned against the 
 window-sash to prevent himself from falling. 
 
 "What nonsense ! " I said. " You pushed the 
 ring on too far. You can get it off to-morrow 
 with pincers. But be careful not to damage the 
 statue." 
 
 " No, I tell you. The Venus's finger is crooked, 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 185 
 
 bent under ; she clinches her hand, do you hear 
 me ? ... She is my wife apparently, since I have 
 given her my ring. . . . She will not return it." 
 
 I shivered, and, for a moment, I was all goose- 
 flesh. Then a great sigh from him brought me a 
 whiff of wine, and all my emotion disappeared. 
 
 The wretch, I thought, is dead drunk. 
 
 " You are an antiquarian, sir," added the bride- 
 groom, in a mournful tone ; " you understand 
 those statues; there is, perhaps, some hidden 
 spring, some deviltry which I do not know about. 
 Will you go and see ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I replied. " Come with me." 
 
 " No, I would prefer to have you go alone." 
 
 I left the drawing-room. 
 
 The weather had changed during supper, and 
 a heavy rain had begun to fall. I was about to 
 ask for an umbrella, when a sudden thought 
 stopped me. I should be a great fool, I re- 
 flected, to go and verify what had been told me 
 by a drunken man ! Besides, he may have wished 
 to play some silly trick on me to give cause for 
 laughter to the honest country people ; and the 
 least that can happen to me from it is to be 
 drenched to the bone and catch a bad cold. 
 
 From the door I cast a glance at the statue 
 running with water, and I went up to my room 
 without returning to the drawing-room. I went 
 to bed ; but sleep was long in coming. All the 
 scenes of the day passed through my mind. I 
 
1 86 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 thought of the young girl, so pure and lovely, 
 abandoned to a drunken brute. What an odious 
 thing a marriage of convenience is ! A mayor 
 dons a tri-colored scarf, a priest a stole, and then 
 the most virtuous girl in the world is delivered 
 over to the Minotaur ! What can two people who 
 do not love each other find to say at a moment, 
 which two lovers would buy at the price of their 
 lives ? Can a woman ever love a man whom she 
 has once seen coarse ? First impressions are 
 never effaced, and I am sure M. Alphonse will 
 deserve to be hated. 
 
 During my monologue, which I abridge very 
 much, I had heard a great deal of coming and 
 going in the house. Doors opened and shut, and 
 carnages drove away. Then I seemed to hear 
 on the stairs the light steps of a number of wo- 
 men going towards the end of the hall opposite 
 my room. It was probably the bride's train of 
 attendants leading her to bed. After that they 
 went downstairs again. Madame de Peyreho- 
 rade's door closed. How troubled and ill at 
 ease that poor girl must be, I thought. I tossed 
 about in my bed with bad temper. A bachelor 
 plays a stupid part in a house where a marriage 
 is accomplished. 
 
 Silence had reigned for some time when it was 
 disturbed by a heavy tread mounting the stairs. 
 The wooden steps creaked loudly. 
 
 "What a clown!" I cried to myself. "I 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 187 
 
 wager that he will fall on the stairs." All was 
 quiet again. I took up a book to change the 
 current of my thoughts. It was the county sta- 
 tistics, supplemented with an address by M. de 
 Peyrehorade on the Druidical remains of the 
 district of Prades. I grew drowsy at the third 
 page. I slept badly, and awoke repeatedly. It 
 might have been five o'clock in the morning, and 
 I had been awake more than twenty minutes, 
 when the cock crew. Day was about to dawn. 
 Then I heard distinctly the same heavy footsteps, 
 the same creaking of the stairs which I had heard 
 before I fell asleep. I thought it strange. Yawn- 
 ing, I tried to guess why M. Alphonse got up so 
 early. I could imagine no likely reason. I was 
 about to close my eyes again when my attention 
 was freshly excited by a singular trampling of 
 feet, which was soon intermingled with the ring- 
 ing of bells and the sound of doors opened 
 noisily ; then I distinguished confused cries. 
 
 " My drunkard has set something on fire," I 
 ,thought, jumping out of bed. I dressed quickly 
 and went into the hall. From the opposite end 
 came cries and lamentations, and a heartrending 
 voice dominated all the others : " My son ! my 
 son ! " It was evident that an accident had 
 happened to M. Alphonse. I ran to the bridal 
 apartment : it was full of people. The first sight 
 which struck my gaze was the young man partly 
 dressed and stretched across the bed, the wood- 
 
1 88 THE VENUS OF *ILLE. 
 
 work of which was broken. He was livid ana 
 motionless. His mother sobbed and wept be- 
 side him. M. de Peyrehorade moved about fran- 
 tically ; he rubbed his son's temples with cologne 
 water, or held salts to his nose. Alas ! his son 
 had long been dead. On a sofa at the other side 
 of the room lay the bride, a prey to dreadful con- 
 vulsions. She was making inarticulate cries, and 
 two robust maid-servants had all the trouble in 
 the world to hold her down. " Good heavens ! " 
 I exclaimed, " what has happened ? " 
 
 I approached the bed and raised the body of 
 the unfortunate young man : it was already stiff 
 and cold. His clinched teeth and black face ex- 
 pressed the most fearful anguish. It was evident 
 enough that his death had been violent and his 
 agony terrible. 
 
 Nevertheless, no sign of blood was on his 
 clothes. I opened his shirt, and on his chest I 
 found a livid mark which extended around the 
 ribs to the back. One would have said he had 
 been squeezed in an iron ring. My foot touched 
 something hard on the carpet ; I stooped and 
 saw it was the diamond ring. I dragged M. de 
 Peyrehorade and his wife into their room, and 
 had the bride carried there. 
 
 " You still have a daughter," I said to them. 
 " You owe her your care." Then I left them 
 alone. 
 
 To me it did not seem to admit of a doubt 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 189 
 
 that M. Alphonse had been the victim of a 
 murder whose authors had discovered a way to 
 introduce themselves into the bride's room during 
 the night. The bruises on the chest and their 
 circular direction, however, perplexed me, for 
 they could not have been made either by a club, 
 or an iron bar. Suddenly I remembered having 
 heard that at Valencia bravi used long leather 
 bags filled with sand to stun people whom they 
 had been paid to kill. Immediately I thought of 
 the Aragonese muleteer and his threat. Yet I 
 hardly dared suppose he would have taken such 
 a terrible revenge for a trifling jest. 
 
 I went through the house seeking everywhere 
 for traces of housebreaking, but could find none. 
 I descended to the garden to see if the assassins 
 could have made their entrance from there ; but 
 there were no conclusive signs of it. In any 
 case, the evening's rain had so softened the 
 ground that it could not have retained any very 
 clear impress. Nevertheless, I noticed some 
 deeply marked footprints ; they ran in two con- 
 trary directions, but on the same path. They 
 started from the corner of the hedge next the 
 racquet-court and ended at the door of the house. 
 They might have been made by M. Alphonse 
 when he went to get his ring from the finger of 
 the statue. Then again, the hedge at this spot 
 was narrower than elsewhere, and it must have 
 been here that the murderers got over it. Pass- 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 ing and repassing before the statue, I stopped 
 a moment to consider it. This time, I must con- 
 fess, I could not contemplate its expression of 
 vicious irony without fear; and my mind being 
 filled with the horrible scene I had just witnessed, 
 I seemed to see in it a demoniacal goddess ap- 
 plauding the sorrow fallen on the house. 
 
 I returned to my room and stayed there till 
 noon. Then I left it to ask news of my hosts. 
 They were a little calmer. Mile, de Puygarrig, 
 or I should say the widow of M. Alphonse, had 
 regained consciousness. She had even spoken 
 to the procureur du roi from Perpignan, then in 
 circuit at Ille, and this magistrate had received 
 her deposition. He asked for mine. I told him 
 what I knew, and did not hide from him my sus- 
 picions about the Aragonese muleteer. He or- 
 dered him to be arrested on the spot. 
 
 " Have you learned anything from Mme. 
 Alphonse?" I asked \htprocureur du roi, when 
 my deposition was written and signed. 
 
 " That unfortunate young woman has gone 
 crazy," he said, smiling sadly. " Crazy, quite 
 crazy. This is what she says : 
 
 " She had been in bed for several minutes with 
 the curtains drawn, when the door of her room 
 opened and some one entered. Mme. Alphonse 
 was on the inside of the bed with her face turned 
 to the wall. Assured that it was her husband 
 she did not move. Presently the bed creaked as 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 if laden with a tremendous weight. She was ter- 
 ribly frightened, but dared not turn her head. 
 Five minutes, or ten minutes perhaps she has 
 no idea of the time passed in this way. Then 
 she made an involuntary movement, or else it was 
 the other person who made one, and she felt the 
 contact of something as cold as ice : that is her 
 expression. She buried herself against the wall 
 trembling in all her limbs. 
 
 " Shortly afterwards, the door opened a sec- 
 ond time, and some one came in who said, 
 ' Good-evening, my little wife.' Then the cur- 
 tains were drawn back. She heard a stifled cry. 
 The person who was in the bed beside her sat 
 up apparently with extended arms. Then she 
 turned her head and saw her husband, kneeling 
 by the bed with his head on a level with the pil- 
 low, held close in the arms of a sort of greenish- 
 colored giant. She says, and she repeated it to 
 me twenty times, poor woman ! she says that she 
 recognized do you guess whom ? the bronze 
 Venus, M. de Peyrehorade's statue. Since it has 
 been here every one dreams about it. But to 
 continue the poor lunatic's story. At this sight 
 she lost consciousness, and probably she had al- 
 ready lost her mind. She cannot tell how long 
 she remained in this condition. Returned to her 
 senses she saw the phantom, or the statue as she 
 insists on calling it, lying immovable, the legs 
 and lower parts of the body on the bed, the bust 
 
192 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 and arms extended forward, and between the arms 
 her husband, quite motionless. A cock crew. 
 Then the statue left the bed, let fall the body, 
 and went out. Mme. Alphonse rushed to the 
 bell, and you know the rest." 
 
 The Spaniard was brought in ; he was calm, 
 and defended himself with much coolness and 
 presence of rnind. He did not deny the remark 
 which I had overheard, but he explained it, pre- 
 tending that he did not mean anything except 
 that the next day, when rested, he would beat his 
 victor at a game of racquets. I remember that 
 he added : 
 
 " An Aragonese when insulted does not wait 
 till the next day to revenge himself. If I had 
 believed that M. Alphonse wished to insult me I 
 would have ripped him up with my knife on the 
 spot." 
 
 His shoes were compared with the footprints 
 in the garden ; the shoes were much the larger. 
 
 Finally, the innkeeper with whom the man 
 lodged asserted that he had spent the entire 
 night rubbing and dosing one of his mules which 
 was sick. And, moreover, the Aragonese was a 
 man of good reputation, well known in the neigh- 
 borhood, where he came every year on business. 
 
 So he was released with many apologies. 
 
 I have forgotten to mention the statement of 
 a servant who was the last person to see M. 
 Alphonse alive. It was just as he was about to 
 
THE VENUS OF ILLE. 193 
 
 join his wife, and calling to this man he asked 
 him in an anxious way if he knew where I was. 
 The servant answered that he had not seen me. 
 M. Alphonse sighed, and stood a minute without 
 speaking, then he said : " Well ! the devil must 
 have carried him off also ! " 
 
 I asked the man if M. Alphonse had on his 
 diamond ring. The servant hesitated ; at last 
 he said he thought not ; but for that matter he 
 had not noticed. 
 
 " If the ring had been on M. Alphonse's 
 finger," he added, recovering himself, " I should 
 probably have noticed it, for I thought he had 
 given it to Mme. Alphonse." 
 
 When questioning the man I felt a little of the 
 superstitious terror which Mme. Alphonse's state- 
 ment had spread through the house. The pro- 
 cureur du roi smiled at me, and I was careful not 
 to insist further. 
 
 A few hours after the funeral of M. Alphonse 
 I prepared to leave Ille. M. de Peyrehorade's 
 carriage was to take me to Perpignan. Notwith- 
 standing his feeble condition, the poor old man 
 wished to accompany me as far as the garden 
 gate. We crossed the garden in silence, he 
 creeping along supported by my arm. As we 
 were about to part I threw a last glance at the 
 Venus. I foresaw that my host, though he did 
 not share the fear and hatred which it inspired 
 in his family, would wish to rid himself of an ob- 
 
194 THE VENUS OF ILLE. 
 
 ject which must ceaselessly recall to him a dread- 
 ful misfortune. My intention was to induce him 
 to place it in a museum. As I hesitated to open 
 the subject, M. de Peyrehorade turned his head 
 mechanically in the direction he saw I was look- 
 ing so fixedly. He perceived the statue, and im- 
 mediately melted into tears. I embraced him, 
 and got into the carriage without daring to say a 
 word. 
 
 Since my departure I have not learned that 
 any new light has been thrown on this mysteri- 
 ous catastrophe. 
 
 M. de Peyrehorade died several months after 
 his son. In his will he left me his manuscripts, 
 which I may publish some day. I did not find 
 among them the article relative to the inscrip- 
 tions on the Venus. 
 
 P. S. My friend M. de P. has just written to 
 me from Perpignan that the statue no longer ex- 
 ists. After her husband's death Madame de 
 Peyrehorade's first care was to have it cast into 
 a bell, and in this new shape it does duty in the 
 church at Ille. " But," adds M. de P., " it seems 
 as if bad luck pursues those who own the bronze. 
 Since the bell rings at Ille the vines have twice 
 been frozen." 
 
I A UOtoOO