Chapter XIV: Health to the King! 278 (1)

COLAS BREUGNON

COLAS BREUGNON

I

THE LARK OF CANDLEMAS-DAY

Thanks be to St. Martin, business is bad, so there is no use in breaking one’s back; and Lord knows I have worked hard enough in my time to take a little rest and comfort here at my table, with a bottle of wine on my right hand, the ink-well on the left, and a new quire of paper before me.

“Your good health, old boy!” I say to myself, “I am to have a talk with you now.” Downstairs I can hear my wife raging while the wind roars outside and I am told there are threatenings of war. Well, let them be!--How jolly it is to be alone face to face with the best fellow in the world (I am talking of course of my other self, of you, Colas, with your old red phiz, and queer grin, with your long Burgundian nose all askew like a hat on one ear). Tell me if you can why it is so good to see you like this, just our two selves; to look closely at your elderly countenance, touching lightly, as it were, on the wrinkles, and to drink a bumper of old remembrance from the bottom of my heart which is like a deep well, worse luck! It is pleasant enough to dream, but still better to pin one’s dreams down to paper! However, I am no visionary, but wide-awake, full of fun and clear-sighted, with no idle fancies in my head. I only tell what I have seen, done, and said; and for whom do I write? Certainly not for fame; for I am no fool, and know what I amount to, the Lord be praised!

I write for my grandchildren? Little will be left of all my scribblings in ten years, as the old woman is jealous of them, and burns whatever she can lay hands on. For whom, then? Why, for my other self, of course, for our good pleasure.--I am sure I should burst if I did not write! Truly I am not for nothing the child of my grandfather, who could not sleep unless he had put down on the edge of his pillow the number of flagons he had emptied. I feel I must talk, and here in Clamecy I have had my fill of word contests. I must break loose, like the fellow who shaved King Midas. I know my tongue runs away with me; and it would be at the risk of my neck if I were heard; but what’s the odds! without its dangers life would be flat enough. I am like our big white oxen, and love to chew the cud of the day’s food. How good it is to taste, feel, and handle all one has thought, observed, or picked up; to smack one’s lips, to relish, as one tells it over to one’s self, something one snapped up hastily--it seems to melt in one’s mouth, and slip down softly; and how good it is to glance around one’s little world and say, “All this is mine, here I am lord and master, no frost or cold can nip me; here reigns no king, no pope! Not even my old shrew!” But now I must take an account of this world of mine.

The first and best of my possessions is myself. Colas Breugnon, a good Burgundian, plain and straightforward, with a well-rounded waistcoat. I am not exactly in my first youth--fifty last birthday,--but well set-up, my teeth still good, and my sight as clear as a fish’s. My beard still sprouts vigorously, but is undoubtedly grayish, and I can’t help regretting the fair hair of my youth, and would not say no, if you offered to set my clock back twenty or thirty years. But after all ten lusters are a fine thing. The youngsters may laugh, but how many of them could have paraded up and down France as I have done, for all these years? Lord! how much sun and rain have hit this old back! I have been roasted, soaked, and warmed over dozens of times and my body, like a cracked leather sack, is full of joy and sorrow, spite and good-humor, wisdom and folly, hay and straw, figs and grapes, fruit ripe and unripe, roses and haws--what I have seen, felt and known, owned and lived, all jumbled together in the game-bag, and what fun to dive into it;--but hold on, Colas! We will go into that tomorrow, we shall never be done if we take it up today, so just now we will draw up the inventory of all property belonging to me.

I own a house, a wife, four boys, and a girl (thank God she is married!), eighteen grandchildren, a gray donkey, a dog, six hens, and a pig.--So, I may be called rich. I want to look closely at these treasures, so I must put on my glasses, for, to tell the truth, the latter items exist only in memory. Wars have swept over them, soldiers of the enemy and friends too, so the pig was long ago salted down, the ass foundered, the cellar emptied, and the fowls plucked. I have the wife still, by Heavens! It is not easy to forget my happiness when I hear that squalling tongue,--she’s a fine old bird, and mine to the last feather. The whole town envies Breugnon, the old scamp. Come on then, gentlemen, speak up, if you would like to have her! She is a saving, active, sober, good woman, with all the virtues, but they do not seem to fatten her, and I must confess, fellow-sinner, that I like one plump little frailty better than all the seven bony virtues. Well, since it is the will of God, let us be good for lack of something better. Hear her rushing about; her bones seem to be everywhere. She goes poking and climbing, sulking, scolding, grumbling, growling from garret to cellar; dirt and tranquillity flee at her approach. Nearly thirty years ago we were married. Devil take me if I know why! I was smitten with another girl who jilted me, and my wife doted on me because I cared nothing for her. At that time she was small, dark and pale, with hard bright eyes which seemed to eat into me as two drops of acid burn steel; but she loved and _loved_ me fit to kill herself! Men are such fools, that by dint of running after me (through pity, vanity too, because I was tired of it all, and because I wanted to get rid of her; a fine way I took to do it!) I became her husband; Johnnie the fool, who kept out of the rain when he jumped in the pool. Ever since, she and all the cardinal virtues dwell in my house, but she would like to get even with me, sweet creature that she is! to make up for the love she threw at me. She wants to stir me up; but it can’t be done, I like my ease too much, and I am not such a fool as to make myself unhappy for a word more or less. Let the rain come down, my voice echoes the thunder and I only laugh when she screams. Why shouldn’t she scream if she likes it? Why should I keep a woman from such a simple pleasure when I do not want to kill her? Women and silence do not dwell together; so let her sing her song, and I will sing mine. As long as she does not try to shut my mouth (and she will not attempt that, if she is wise) she may warble as she likes, each to his own music.

We may not have been exactly in tune, but none the less we played some pretty pieces together; a girl and four boys, all good and well-built regardless of expense, but of the lot the only one in whom I see my own flesh is my girl, Martine, the little witch! What a time I had with her before I got her safely married! She has settled down now, though I don’t count too much on it, but it is no longer my business to look after her and trot about at her heels; my son-in-law can take his turn. She and I always wrangle whenever we meet, but at bottom we understand each other as no one else does; she is a good sort, cautious even when she seems most reckless, good too, if there is fun in it; for boredom is to her worse than wickedness. She does not mind trouble, for that means effort, which is joy, and she loves life and has an eye for what is good. My blood runs in her veins, the only trouble is I gave her too much of it.

The boys are not quite so successful. There was an undue share of the mother in them and the dough did not rise; two out of the four are bigots like her, and what is worse their bigotries are antagonistic, for one is always running after priests’ skirts, while the other is a Huguenot. I cannot think how I came to hatch out such a couple of ducks. My third son is a soldier, and has to fight, when he is not loafing about, God knows where! and the fourth is just a nonentity; a little sheepish, insignificant shopkeeper--it makes me yawn to think of him, but when the whole of us are seated round the table, each with a fork in his fist, then I feel indeed that we are all of one breed, all of one mind; and well worth looking at, our jaws going like clockwork, bread and wine disappearing down the trapdoor.

You have heard of the furniture, now let us talk of the house itself, which is like another daughter to me, for I built it with my own hands bit by bit, and some parts over and over again, on the banks of the Beuvron, which flows along slowly smooth and green, full of grass, mud and slime, just where the suburbs begin on the other side of the bridge which is like a crouching hound with the water licking below. Directly in front the tower of St. Martin rises light and proud, its edges like an embroidered skirt. They tell us the steps leading to Paradise are dark and steep; so are those of Old Rome leading up to the carved doorway. My shell, my niche is outside the walls, and the result of that is that when from the top of St. Martin’s tower they spy an enemy in the plain the town shuts its gates, and the enemy comes to me;--I could get along without that sort of visit, though I like conversation as a general thing. So I leave the key under the door, and get out, but when I come back it sometimes happens that both door and key have disappeared, leaving only the four walls, and then I have to rebuild. My friends say to me, “Stupid! to take all this trouble for the enemy. Come out of your mole-hill into the town where you will be safe.” But I always answer, “I know when I am well off. Perhaps I should be safer behind a thick wall, but what could I see there? the wall, and nothing else.” That would bore me to death, for I need elbow room; and I like to spread myself out along my river bank, and when I am in my little garden, with nothing to do, I love to watch the reflections in the still water, the bubbles the fish make on the surface and the long-tressed weeds stirring at the bottom. I fish there too, or even wash my clothes, and empty my pots in it. Good or bad, here I have always been, it is too late for me to change; and, after all, nothing can happen worse than what has happened before. Even if the house is burned down again (for you never can tell), I do not propose to build for all eternity, but here where I have taken root it is not easy to pull me up. I have rebuilt twice, if necessary I can do it ten times more; not that I look upon it as an amusement, but it would be still less amusing to change, and I should be like a man stripped of his skin; there would be no use in offering me a fine new white one; I know it would not fit; it would wrinkle on me or I should burst it. On the whole I prefer the old one.

Now let us add it all up: Wife, children, house; have I reckoned up all my goods? I have kept the best to the last, my trade. I am a carpenter and woodworker, belonging to the brotherhood of St. Anne, and when we have a procession I am the one who carries the staff with the device of a compass on a lyre, and there you may see God’s grandmother teaching the little Mary to read, a Virgin full of grace no bigger than your thumb. Armed with hatchet, chisel, and auger, with my plane at hand, I rule over knotted oak and smooth walnut from my workbench, and the result rests with me--and with my customer’s pocket. Many shapes lie hidden there! To rouse Beauty sleeping in the wood, her lover must penetrate to the heart of it, but the loveliness which is unveiled under my plane has no unrealities. You know those slim Dianas of the early Italians, straight behind and before?--a good Burgundy piece is better yet, bronzed, strong, covered like a grapevine with fruit; a fine bulging cupboard, a carved wardrobe, such as Master Hugues Tambin wrought fantastically. I dress my houses with panels, and moldings, and winding staircases in long twists and my furniture is like trained fruit trees, full and robust, sprouting from the wall, made for the very spot where I place it. The best of all is when I can fix on my wood something I see smiling in my mind’s eye, a gesture, a movement, a bending back or swelling breast, flowery curves, garlands and grotesques, or when I catch the face of some passerby on the wing and pin it to my plank. The finest thing I ever turned out, the choir stalls in the Church of Montreal, show two men at table drinking and laughing with a jug between them, and two lions snarling over a bone. I did that to please myself and the vicar. To work after a good drink, and drink after good work, is my idea of a fine life!... I see all sorts of useless grumblers around me; they say I have picked out a queer time to shout in, that we are in a sad state now; but no state is sad, there are only dreary people, and I am not one of them, the Lord be praised! Men ill-treat you and rob you?--so it ever shall be. I would wager my neck that centuries from now our great-grandnephews will be equally keen to claw and scratch each other’s eyes. No doubt they will have thought of forty new ways to do the trick better than we, but I bet they cannot find out a new way to drink, and I defy them to do better in that line than I. Who knows what those fellows will be up to in four hundred years? The Curé of Meudon had an herb, the wonderful Pantagruelion; maybe thanks to that our descendants will visit the glimpses of the moon, the forge of the thunder, and the sluices of the rain; perhaps stay a while in Heaven to sport with the gods. Good enough! I’ll go with them. Are they not the fruit of my loins, and seed of my own sowing? The future is yours, my sons--but I like it better where I am, it is safer on the whole, and how can I be sure that wine will be as good in four centuries from now? My wife reproaches me because I am too fond of a spree, but I own that I can’t bear to lose a trick. I take what the gods provide, good food, good drink, pretty plump pleasures, and then those soft tender downy things that a man enjoys in a day dream, that divine do-nothing state where all things are possible, where you are young, handsome, triumphant, with the world at your feet, and you work miracles, hear the grass grow and talk with trees, beasts, and gods. There is one old chum that never goes back on me, my other self, my friend,--my work. How good it is to stand before the bench with a tool in my hand and then saw and cut, plane, shave, curve, put in a peg, file, twist and turn the strong fine stuff, which resists yet yields--soft smooth walnut, as soft to my fingers as fairy flesh; the rosy bodies or brown limbs of our wood-nymphs which the hatchet has stripped of their robe. There is no pleasure like the accurate hand, the clever big fingers which can turn out the most fragile works of art, no pleasure like the thought which rules over the forces of the world, and writes the ordered caprices of its rich imagination on wood, iron, and stone. I am king of a magic realm; my field yields me its flesh, my vine its blood, and to serve my art the elves of the sap push out the fair limbs of the trees, lengthen and fatten them until they are polished fit for my caresses. My hands are docile workmen, directed by their foreman, my old brain here, and he plays the game as I like it, for is he not my servant too? Was ever man better served than I? I’m a true little king, and really must drink my majesty’s health, and that of my faithful subjects, for I am not ungrateful. Blessed be the day when I saw the light! How many glorious things there are on this round ball, things which smile at you, and taste sweet. Life is good, by the Lord! I always hunger for more, no matter how much I stuff myself; but I am afraid that I shall make myself sick; sometimes, I give you my word, my mouth fairly waters before the feast spread for me by the earth and the sun.

But while I am boasting, old boy, the sun has gone, and left my little world all chilled. That beastly old winter has pushed his way into my very room, so that the pen trembles in my stiff fingers; there is actually ice in my glass, and my nose is blue. Detestable color! it makes me think of graveyards. I hate anything pale.--Hullo, wake up! St. Martin is ringing his chimes; it is Candlemas today. “When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen,” does it indeed? then we must do likewise, we will go out and meet it face to face. It is cold, and no mistake; my cheeks sting with the frost needles, and the north wind lies in wait at the corner to catch me by the beard, but I am beginning to warm up, thank the Lord! and my complexion is once more brilliant. I like the ring of the hard ground under my feet, it makes me as merry as a grig, but what ails all these folks that they are so pinched and wretched-looking?

“Well, Mrs. Neighbor, what has put you out? It’s the wind, hey, rumpling up your skirts? I don’t blame him, young rascal! I wish I were young myself; he knows the right spot--greedy scamp! he picks out the toothsome morsels. Have patience, old girl; live and let live. And where are you running, as if the devil were after you? To church? God will always get the better of Satan. Those who weep will rejoice, and frost will burn. Now you are laughing yourself? good, good; I am on the run for church too, yes I am off to Mass like you, only it will not be said by the Curé,--Mass in the fields is what I mean.”

I stop at my daughter’s first to get my little Glodie, for we walk together every day. Best little friend that she is to me! my lambling, my little chirping frog, just five years old; as wide-awake as a mouse and keen as mustard. She comes running to meet me, for she knows I always have a lot of new stories for her, it is hard to say which she loves most;--so we go on hand in hand.

“Come along, darling, to meet the lark.”

“What lark?”

“It is Candlemas. Did you never hear that today the lark comes back to us out of the skies?”

“What did he do up there?”

“He went to look for fire.”

“What fire?”

“Fire to make sunshine, fire to boil the kettle.”

“Did the fire fly away then?”

“Why yes, on All Saints’ Day. In November every year it leaves us to go and warm up the stars.”

“And how do we get him back again?”

“We send three little birds to fetch him.”

“Oh, do tell me!”

There she is trotting along the road, all warmly snuggled in a jacket of soft white wool, looking like a little robin in her red hood. She doesn’t mind the cold, not she! but her fat cheeks are like rosy apples, and her little nose runs.

“Ah, this little candle needs the snuffers, is that because of Candlemas? and the lights in Heaven?”

“Oh, Grandfather, do tell about the three little birds.”

“Three little birds set off on a journey, three bold companions; the Wren, the Red-Breast, and their friend the Lark; Wren, brisk as quicksilver and proud as Artaban, soon spied a bright spark floating in the air. He snapped at it, crying, ‘I have it! I, I, I!’ The others joined in the same cry, but as Wren flew down he screamed, ‘Fire! I am burning!’ He rolled the hot morsel from one corner of his beak to the other, and at last his tongue was peeling, and he could bear no more, so he spit it out and hid it under his little wings. Did you ever notice the red spots, and his frizzled feathers?--Red-Breast rushed to help him. He seized the spark of fire and put it carefully on his soft waistcoat, but the fine waistcoat got red and redder and poor Red-Breast screamed, ‘Enough--my clothes are burning.’ Then came the Lark, the brave little friend, catching the spark which was flying off to Heaven, and quick, prompt, and swift as an arrow she fell to the earth; then with her little beak she buried the bright spark of sunshine in the frozen ground, and, oh, how glad it was to feel it!” My story came to an end, and it was Glodie’s turn to tell one; then when we got outside the town, I took her on my back as we climbed the hill. The sky is gray and the snow creaks under our wooden shoes; the delicate little skeletons of the trees and bushes are all wadded with white, and the smoke mounts up straight from the cottage chimneys slow and blue. There is no sound but the chirp of my little frog,--but here we are at the top. Below at our feet lies my town, wrapped about by the lazy Yonne and the trifling Beuvron, like silver ribbons, covered with snow, frozen, chilled and shivering, yet somehow it warms my heart only to look at the place.

City of bright reflections and rolling hills, the soft lines of tilled slopes surround you like the twisted straw of a nest. The undulations of five or six ranges of wooded mountains in the distance are faintly blue like the sea, but it is not the perfidious element which overthrew Ulysses and his fleet. Here are no storms, no ambuscades; all is calm, save that here and there a breath seems to swell the breast of a hill. From the crest of one wave to the other, the roads run deliberately straight, leaving, as it were, a wake behind them, and beyond the edge of the waters, far away the spires of St. Marie Madeleine of Vézelay rise like masts. Close by, in a bend of the Yonne, you can see the rocks of Basseville sticking up through the underbrush like boars’ tusks, and in the center of the circle of hills the town, carelessly adorned, leans over the water with her gardens, her buildings, her rags, and her jewels. Here is filth; but here also is the harmony of her long limbs, and her head crowned with the pierced tower. You see the snail admires his shell. The chimes of the church float up from the valley and their pure voices spread like a crystal flood through the thin clear air. As I stand happily drinking in the music, suddenly a ray of sunshine breaks through the gray mantle which hides the sky, and Glodie claps her hands, crying:

“Grandad, I hear him--the lark, the lark!” Her dear little fresh voice made me laugh as I kissed her and said:

“I hear him too, my sweet little spring Lark!”

II

THE SIEGE

OR

THE LAMB, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE WOLF

“Three lambs of Chamoux can put to flight
Any wolf who comes in the night.”

My cellar will soon be empty, for the soldiers whom our lord the Duke of Nevers sent to defend us have tapped my last cask, so there is no time to be lost. I must drink with them. Taken in the right spirit, I do not object to being ruined, and it is not by any means the first time, but God send it may be the last! The soldiers, good fellows that they are, felt worse than I did when I told them that the liquor was running low. Some of my neighbors take such things tragically, but that is not my way. I have been too often to the play in the course of my life to be impressed by clowns. Since I was born into this world, how many of these masqueraders I have seen! Swiss, German, Gascons, Lorrainers; all dogs of war, with harness on their back and arms at their side; victual swallowers, hungry hounds, always ready to devour us fellows. No one can tell for what they are fighting. Today it is for the King; tomorrow for the League; now for the Black-beetles; now for the Protestants; but one side is as good as another. The best of them is not worth the powder it would take to shoot them. What difference does it make to us which robber ruffles it at court? And as for the way they appeal to Heaven, ye gods and little fishes! The Lord is old enough to know what to do. If your hide itches, scratch yourself. God is not left-handed that He should need you, and He acts as He pleases. But the worst of all is when they make it out that I too must try to pull the wool over His eyes! With all due reverence, Lord, I can say without boasting, You and I meet several times in the twenty-four hours; that is, if the good old French saying is true, “He who can good wine afford has a chance to see the Lord!” But these frauds say something else that would never enter my head. They say that I know Thee like a brother; that I am to carry out Thy will; but Thou wilt do me the justice to admit that if I leave Heaven in peace I only ask that it will do as much for me. Each of us has enough to do to keep his own house in order, Thou in Thy big world, and I in my little one. Since Thou hast made me free, Lord, Thou shouldst be free also! But these fools want me to mix myself up in Thy concerns, to speak in Thy name, to decide how men are to take Thy Sacraments, and if they do otherwise, to declare them my enemies and Thine. Mine indeed! By no means; I have none; for all men are my friends. Let them fight, then, if it likes them, I am out of the game;--that is if they will let me alone, but that is just what the rascals will not do. If I will not be the enemy of one of them they will both set on me, so between two fires I must be hit. Here goes then! I will get to fighting myself, for I would rather on the whole be first anvil and then hammer, than anvil all the time. I wish some one would tell me why such brutes came into the world? marauders, politicians, great nobles, who bleed our France while they blow her trumpet and stick their fingers in her pocket. They are not content to devour our own substance, but they must needs attack the stores of others. They threaten Germany, cast the eye of longing on Italy, and even poke their noses into the harem of the Grand Turk! They would like to absorb half the earth, they who would not know enough to grow cabbages on it! Never mind, old boy, do not let us fret over it, since all is for the best as it is until the happy day when we can make it better in the shortest possible time. It is a poor beast that is of no use, and I heard a story once about the good Lord;--(Pardon, Almighty, my head is full of Thee today)--He was walking with Peter in one of our suburbs, Béyant,[1] and a woman sat cooling her heels on her doorstep. She looked so bored that our Father, out of the goodness of His heart, drew a hundred fleas from his pocket and threw them to her, saying, “There is something to amuse yourself with, my daughter!” The woman roused herself to see what she could catch, and every time she caught one of the beasts she laughed for joy.

Through this same charity, no doubt, Heaven has bestowed on us those big two-legged beasts who shear our wool. They keep us busy, so let us be joyful. Vermin is a sign of health, they say, (and our masters are certainly vermin), so I say again, be joyful, my friends, for if that is true no one is healthier than we are. Let me whisper a word in your ear; we shall have the best of it if we are patient; cold and frost, good-for-nothings at court or in camp, will have their day. They too will pass, but the good ground remains and we are there to enrich it. One crop will put all to rights, meanwhile let us suck up the bottom of my cask, if only to make room for the vintage of next year.

* * * * *

My daughter, Martine, said to me one day, “You are a braggart. To hear you one would think that you only work with your mouth, idling, gossiping like a bell-clapper, yawning, and staring; you pretend to live only for feasting, and are ready to drink up the sea; yet really you cannot be happy one day without work. You want people to think you are careless, wasteful, and idle as a cock-chafer; you pretend not to count what goes into your purse nor what comes out of it, but it would make you ill if your day was not marked off hour by hour like a striking clock, and you know to a penny what you have spent since last Easter, and the man does not live who ever got ahead of you. Dear old stupid head, innocent lamb that he is! ‘Three lambs of Chamoux can put to flight any wolf who comes in the night.’”

I laughed, but did not answer Madame Saucy-Tongue. Besides, the child is right, though she ought not to say so, but a woman only hides what she knows nothing about. It is true that she understands me, for did I not make her?

Come, Colas Breugnon, you may as well confess you commit many follies, but you are not a fool. Like every one else, by Jove, you have a simpleton up your sleeve who shows when you like, but he is tucked away out of sight when you need a clear head and free hands. Like all Frenchmen, you have the sense of reason and order so firmly fixed in your noddle that you can let yourself go safely. The only danger is for those poor fools who look at you with an open mouth and try to imitate you. Fine speeches, sounding verse, daring projects, are all enjoyable. They exalt and kindle the soul. But _we_ only burn up our chips, and leave the big logs in order on the wood-pile. My reason sits at ease and looks on at the freaks of my imagination, and all for my own amusement. The world is my theater, and without stirring from my seat, I am the play; I can applaud Matamore or Francatrippa; I witness tourneys and royal processions, I shout “At him again!” when a man gets his head cracked all for our good pleasure, and to add to it, I pretend to take part in the farce and to believe in it only just enough to keep up the joke. No more, you may be sure. That is the way to listen to fairy tales and not to them only! There is Some One up there above the clouds for whom we have a great respect when the procession passes through our streets with cross and banner, chanting the _Oremus_; we drape the walls of our houses with white--but between ourselves?--Shut up, chatterer, you go too far! Be deaf, Lord, to my folly, and accept my humble service.

The end of February.

An ass having eaten the grass in the meadow, said, “There is no further need to watch it,” and so went to eat (I mean watch) in another field near by. The garrison of the Duke of Nevers left us today. I was really proud of our cookery when I looked at them, for they were as fat as seals. We parted with smiles in our hearts and on our lips; they with the kindest wishes for the next season, hoping our crops would be good and our vines safe from the frost.

“Work hard, dear uncle,” said my guest, the Sergeant Fiacre Bolacre, (it is his pet name for me and one which I deserve, for that relation gives a good ration.) “Go prune your vines, no matter how much trouble it costs you, and next St. Martin’s Day we will come back to drink the wine.” Gallant fellows! Always ready to help an honest man with his bottle.

Now that they are gone, what a weight is off our shoulders! The neighbors are carefully uncovering their little hiding places. They have gone about for the last few days with long faces complaining of hunger as if a wolf were gnawing at their vitals, and now from the straw of the garret, or the earth of the cellar, they have dug out something to feed the beast. Those who bewailed their destitute state the loudest, the worst beggars of them all, found means to tuck their best wine away in some corner. I don’t know how it happened, but scarcely had my guest, Fiacre Bolacre, left me, (I went with him to the end of the Jews’ quarter,) when I suddenly remembered a small cask of Chablis left by mistake under the dunghill in a good warm place. Of course this upset me dreadfully! You can easily understand that, but when harm is done, if it is well done, one must bear it as best one can, and I bear it well. “Bolacre, my dear nephew, you don’t know what nectar you have lost, ah-h! It is not all loss to you though, my good friend, for here’s your health in it!”

We all began visiting from house to house, showing what we had found in our cellars, congratulating each other, and winking like the Roman Augurs. We spoke also of our injuries and losses; (losses of our lasses,) and as sometimes the misfortunes of one’s neighbors are an amusing consolation, we all inquired solicitously for the health of Vincent Pluviaut’s wife. (By an extraordinary chance, after a body of troops has passed through the town this brave Frenchwoman usually has to let out her belt.)

We congratulated Pluviaut, and praised him for his public services in these trying times, and by way of a joke, meaning no harm, I gave him a friendly tap, telling him he was lucky to have a house full now that all the others were empty. Every one laughed, of course, but not too loud, just enough to be heard, but Pluviaut did not much like it, and told me I had better look after my own wife. “Ah,” said I, “as far as she is concerned I may sleep in peace. No one is likely to rob me of my treasure.” And, do you know, they all agreed with me!

Feast days will soon be upon us, so, though somewhat short of means, we must live up to our reputation and that of the town. What would the world say if Shrove-Tuesday caught Clamecy without its justly celebrated meat-balls? You can hear the grease frying, and sniff the delicious fragrance in the streets. The flapjacks fairly hop from the pan for my little Glodie! Now the drums go “rub-a-dub,” and the flutes “twee-wee,” as amid cheers and shouts the “Gentlemen from Judæa” come on their car to visit “Rome.”[2] First appears the band; then the halberdiers, and the crowd actually falls back before the great noses they wear. Some are shaped like trumpets, or lances, there are snouts like hunting-horns or pea-shooters, noses stuck full of spikes, like a chestnut burr, or with a bird perched on the tip. They hustle the passers-by, and tickle the ribs of the squealing girls; and at last comes the Nose King, scattering all before him like a battering-ram with his great proboscis which rests on a gun-carriage like a bombard.

Then comes the car of Lent, Emperor of the Fish-eaters. Their masks are pale green, skinny, and chilled-looking. They shiver under hoods, or heads of fishes. One has a perch, or a carp, in each hand; another brandishes a gudgeon stuck on a fork; a third wears a hat like a pike’s head, with a roach dangling from its mouth, and little fishes falling all around. It is enough to give a man a surfeit. Some stick their fingers into their jaws and try to force down eggs too big to swallow. To right and left, high up on the car, are masks of owls and monks and fishermen dangling their lines over the heads of urchins, who jump up like goats to catch at what may be sweetmeats or perhaps only dirt rolled in sugar. Behind is a dancing devil, dressed like a cook, waving a saucepan and big spoon. Six souls of the damned stick their grinning heads through the rungs of a ladder behind the car, and the devil keeps thrusting his spoonful of disgusting stew at them.

Hurrah! Here come the conquerors, heroes of the day! On a throne built of hams, under a canopy of smoked tongues, comes the queen of the Meat-Balls, crowned with saveloys, while her pudding fingers play coquettishly with the sausages around her neck. She is escorted by her aids, black and white puddings, and little Clamecy balls. They make a fine appearance, as their Colonel Riflandouille leads them to victory, armed with fat and greasy spits and larding needles. I like best of all those dignified old fellows with bellies like a great soup-pot, or with a body made of bread crust, bearing gifts like the Magi: a pig’s head, a bottle of black wine, or mustard from Dijon. Now to the sound of brass cymbals, skimmers, and dishpans, comes the King of Dupes, mounted on a donkey, and greeted with shouts of laughter. It is our friend, Vincent Pluviaut, who has been elected. Riding backwards, a turban on his head, a goblet in his hand, he is listening to his body-guard of horned imps, who prance along with pitchforks or rods on their shoulders, shouting out in good plain French the tale of his glory. He is too wise to betray his pride and tosses off a bumper with a careless air, but when they pass a house as distinguished as his own, he cries, “Here’s your good health, Brother!” as he raises his glass.

The procession ends with lovely Spring; a young girl, fresh and smiling, with smooth brow and fair curling locks crowned with yellow primroses, and wearing across her slender breast a chain of green catkins plucked from the young nut trees. The pouch by her side and the basket in her hands are brimming with good things. Her delicate eyebrows arch over her wide blue eyes; her sharp little teeth show as she opens her mouth like a round “O” to sing in her treble pipe about the swallow who will soon be here again. Four white oxen draw her chariot, and by her side are plump maids, well-developed, rounded and graceful, and little girls at the awkward age, sticking out like young trees in all directions. Something is lacking to each one; they are no beauties as yet, but toothsome morsels for the wolf in future none the less. Some carry migratory birds in cages, and some dip their hands in the basket of Spring and shower treasures on the crowd; cakes, sweetmeats and surprises, out of which fall hats and vests, mottoes telling your fortune, lovers’ couplets, horns of plenty, or of ill-luck.

When they come to the market-place, near the tower, the maids jump from the car and dance with the clerks and students, while Shrove-Tuesday, Lent, and King Pluviaut continue their triumphal progress, pausing every few feet to chaff the people, or toss off a glass,

“Let your goblets chink--
Drink, Drink, Drink!
Shall we go without it?
No!
See the bottom of your glass
Or we shall write you down an ass!”

After all, too much soaking is bad for one’s tongue and one’s wit, so I leave friend Vincent and his escort drawing more corks, and make for the open fields. The day is really too fine to waste between walls. My old friend Chamaille, the vicar, has come up from his village in a little donkey-cart to dine with the Archdeacon of St. Martin. As he asked me to go with him for part of the way back, we climb into the tail of the cart, little Glodie and I, and off goes the donkey! She is so small that I suggest we shall take her up on the seat between us. As the road stretches out long and white, the sun looks drowsy, as if he meant to warm his own chimney corner more than ours. The donkey drowses also and stops as if to think, so the vicar shouts indignantly, in his great voice like a bell, “Madelon!” Donkey jumps, stirs her spindle-shanks, zigzags from one rut to another, then stops again to meditate, regardless of our objurgations. “Beast of ill-omen, if you had not the sign of the Cross on your back, I would break this stick on you,” roars the vicar, all the time basting her flanks with his cane.

We stopped to rest ourselves at the inn, just where the road turns to go down to the white hamlet of Armes which lies looking at its fair reflection in the water. Near by in the field we see some girls dancing round an old nut tree whose great withered branches stretch toward the pale sky. They have been carrying Shrove-Tuesday pancakes to the magpies. “Come and dance too!” they cry.

“Look, Glodie, look at the magpie ’way up there; look at her white breast over the edge of the nest! She is peeping out to see what she can see, and she has made her little house open all around so that nothing can escape her sharp eye and her chattering tongue. The wind blows through it, so that she is wet and cold, but as long as she sees all that goes on, she is satisfied. Now she is out of humor and seems to say, ‘Rude people, be off with your presents. Do you think if I wanted your cakes I could not pick them up in your very houses? There is no fun in eating things that are given to you; stolen dainties are the only ones I relish.’”

“Grandad, why do they give her pancakes all tied up with ribbons? Why do they bring good-wishes to that old pilferer?”

“Because, darling, in this world it is better to be on good terms with evildoers.”

“What’s that, Colas Breugnon? What idea are you putting in the child’s head?” growled the vicar.

“I am not holding it up for her admiration. I only tell her that is what every one does, you yourself, vicar, among the first. Don’t stare at me like that, you know when you have a parishioner who knows everything, sees everything, pokes her nose into everything, and is as full of spite as a nut is full of meat you would stuff her mouth with cakes, if that would keep her quiet.”

“Lord, if that were enough,” sighed the vicar. “I am really not fair to old magpie, she is better than some women, and her tongue is sometimes of use!”

“What is it good for, Grandfather?”

“She screams when the wolf is near.”

And at these words, all of a sudden the bird begins to cry, swear, and blaspheme. She flaps her wings, flies, and pours out abuse toward I don’t know who or what down in the valley near Armes. At the edge of the wood her feathered companions, Charlot the jay, and the crow Colas, answer sharply in the same irritated key. The villagers laugh and cry, “Wolf!” No one believes it, but still they think they will go and look (it is good to trust, but better to know), and what do you think they see? A band of armed men coming up the hill at a trot. We know them only too well; they are those rascals, the soldiers of Vézelay, who knowing our town is off its guard, think they will catch the bird on its nest. (Not this old magpie, however.)

We did not stop to look at them, as you may well believe! Every man for himself, was the cry, and we all tumbled over each other. We took to our heels by the road, across the fields; some on all fours, and some sliding on the hinder side of their anatomy. We three jumped into the donkey-cart; and, as if she understood it all, off went Madelon like an arrow from the bow. The vicar forgot in his excitement the consideration due to a donkey which has a cross marked on its back, and belabored her with all his might. We rushed along through a crowd of people screaming like blackbirds, and entered Clamecy first by a head, covered with dust and glory, but with the rest of the fugitives hard on our heels. Madelon scarcely touched the ground as we flew through Béyant at full gallop, the cart bouncing, the vicar beating, and shouting at the top of his lungs, “The enemy is upon us!”

People laughed at first as they saw us flying past them, but it did not take them long to catch the idea, and the town was soon like an ant-heap when you thrust a stick into it. Every one got to work, running in and out. Men armed themselves; women packed up their goods, piling things into baskets and wheelbarrows; and all the folks in the suburbs, abandoning their homes, fled to the shelter of the town walls. The masquers rushed to the ramparts, still wearing their costumes, masks, horns, claws, and paunches; some as Gargantua, some as Beelzebub, armed with gaffs and harpoons; and so when the advance guard of Vézelay reached the walls, the drawbridges were raised, and only some poor devils remained on the other side of the moat, who having nothing to lose made no effort to save it, and poor old King Pluviaut, deserted by his escort, full as a tick, like the Patriarch Noah, sat snoring on his beast, holding on by the tail.

Here is where you can see the advantage of having Frenchmen for your enemies. Germans, Swiss, or English, do their thinking through their fists, and are so thickheaded that it takes them till Christmas to understand what was told them on All Saints’ Day. I would not have given a button for poor Pluviaut’s chance with such people as these. They would have thought we were playing a joke on them, but no words are necessary between us. If we come from Lorraine, Touraine, Champagne, or Bretagne, geese from Beauce, asses from Beaune, or rabbits from Vézelay, a good joke hits us all in the right spot, no matter how much we may pound and beat each other. When they caught sight of our old Silenus, their whole camp burst out laughing. They laughed all over their faces, with their throats, with all their hearts, and even their stomachs, and by St. Rigobert! to see the way they laughed set us off too, all along our line. Like Ajax, and Hector the Trojan, we hurled gay defiance at each other across the moat. Our remarks, however, had much more snap than theirs. If I were not so busy, I would write them down, but if you can put up with it, I mean to include them in a collection I have been making for the last dozen years of the best jokes, quips, and witticisms that I have heard, said, or read, in the course of my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I would not lose it for a kingdom. It makes me crack my old sides only to think of it. There now! I have made a great blot on my paper.

When the noise had subsided, it was time to fight; (nothing is so restful when one has been talked to death), but neither side was keen for it. Their surprise had failed, and we were well protected. They did not care much about scrambling up our walls (you may break your bones at that game) but something had to be done at any cost; it did not matter much what, so a little powder was burned, some petards let off at random, from which the sparrows were the only sufferers. We sat with our backs to the wall inside the parapet, waiting while their plums flew over our heads for the right moment to discharge our own without taking aim, (there is no sense in exposing one’s self too much).

When we heard their prisoners squalling we ventured to look out. They had caught a dozen men and women from Béyant and were beating them as they stood in a row, with their faces turned to the wall. The poor devils were not much hurt, but they screamed like curlews. Being safe enough ourselves, we slipped down along the ramparts and brandished pikes over the walls, on which we had stuck hams, saveloys, and black-puddings. We could hear the besiegers uttering yells of hunger and rage, and how that did put new life into us! To squeeze out the last drop (for there is never too much of a good thing), when it grew late we set out tables in the open air on the slopes, sheltered by the wall, and loaded them with victuals and drink. There we had a noisy feast, singing and drinking to Shrove-Tuesday. The outsiders nearly went out of their skins with fury, and so that day went off gaily, and no harm done. There was only one drawback. When Gueneau de Pousseaux, that big fool! got too mellow, nothing would do but he must walk on top of the wall with his glass in his hand, just to defy them, and they knocked his head and his glass into splinters with a musket ball. This did not much bother us, but to make it even, we wounded one or two of them, for there can be no festivity, you know, without a little broken crockery. Chamaille waited till nightfall before leaving the town to go home. In vain we all said, “Old friend, you risk your neck. Wait here till it’s all over; God will take care of your parishioners.” He answered:

“My place is with my flock. God would be maimed without me, for I am truly His right arm. But I will not fail Him, you may swear.”