At the expiration of half an hour, M. de Choiseul fancied that he heard a noise outside the door.
He went out.
The peasants from the neighboring villages had begun to crowd round the soldiers.
Whence came these peasants, in a country which was almost a desert?
It was surmised that some days before the inhabitants of a tract of land, near Pont-de-Somme-Vesles, belonging to Madame d’Elbœuf, had refused the payment of irredeemable rights, on the strength of which they had been threatened with military law.
But the federation of 1790 had made France one great family; and the peasants of the villages had promised the tenants of Madame d’Elbœuf to use their arms if any soldiers showed themselves in the vicinity.
As we know, forty had arrived.
On seeing them Madame d’Elbœuf’s tenants believed that they had come with hostile intentions against them; so they sent messages to all the neighboring villages, imploring them to keep their promise.
Those situate nearest arrived first, and that is how M. de Choiseul, on arising from table, found a turbulent throng of peasants surrounding the hussars.
He believed that curiosity alone had drawn them thither, and, without paying any further attention to them, gained the most elevated part of the road, which runs in a straight line through the plain of Châlons to St. Menehould.