After these events everything settled down into its usual course, and in our little town, far removed from public news, isolated in the heart of a forest, one might readily believe that nothing had been changed; one or two folk had had nightmare, like Mocquet, and that was all.
We were among the number. It will be well understood that Napoleon's return and the events of the Hundred Days had made M. Deviolaine forget all about M. Creton's prosecution, and there was no longer any talk about either the fifty francs compensation or about the confiscation of my gun.
Nevertheless, my gun had been almost as completely confiscated as though it had fallen into the hands of the Inspector of the Forest. It had been hidden. Not for fear the Prussians would seize it as a weapon of war, but lest they should make off with it because of its beauty. It became rusty during its concealment, so I had to take it to my good friend Montagnon to be put right again.
When there, as can be imagined, it was always at my disposition.
Among the people who frequented our house was a M. Picot, a solicitor—brother of Picot de Noue and of Picot de l'Épée, a great hunter before the Lord, and almost as much envied by me as a sportsman in the open country as M. Deviolaine was as a hunter in the forest. His brother was very proud of his preserves, although he did not shoot at all and his son shot but little, and as the farm ran to three or four thousand hectares, M. Picot, the solicitor, and his pointer, had the freedom of three or four of the best stocked preserves round Villers-Cotterets. So, although he was not considered one of the best shots in our parts, he made splendid bags, which filled me with envy when their bulging sides revealed what had happened as he passed by our house to "return to his own fireside," as he used to put it.
I made up my mind that it was not sufficient that M. Picot should be one of our friends, but that it was very necessary I should be one of his. When this resolution was well fixed in my mind, I began coaxing him.
How did I manage it? I can hardly say, for the man was not easy to seduce; I only know that after a month's wheedling M. Picot offered to take me shooting with him.
But he would not take me without my mother's consent, and there lay the difficulty!