"We have quarrelled with most kings," said Adolphe, with a laugh.
This phrase, uttered with magnificent indifference, quite finished me off. Luckily, at that moment, our fair companions appeared on the threshold of the farm, a bevy of pink and white damsels. Two or three chars-à-bancs were in readiness to take them to the appointed place. The gentlemen were to go on foot. The rendezvous was barely a quarter of a league's distance from the village. A long table of thirty covers was laid under a leafy canopy, ten paces off a limpid, clear purling spring called the Fontaine-aux-Princes. All these young folks, maidens, mothers, children, seemed like so many woodland flowers opening to the sweet-breathed breeze: some pale, that sought for shade and solitude; others of brilliant hues, seeking light and stir and the sunshine of admiration.
Oh! those glorious woods, those shady depths, the haunts of my cherished moods of solitude, I have revisited you since; but no shade glides now beneath your green vaults and in your dark alleys.... What have you done with all that delightful world which vanished with my youth? Why have not other generations come in their turn, pale or rosy, lively or careless, noisy or silent like ours? Has that ephemeral efflorescence disappeared for ever? Is it really wanting, or is it that my eyes have lost the power of seeing?
We returned that night to Villers-Hellon. Everything was so beautifully arranged in that luxurious little château that each of us had a separate room and bed, and sometimes there were as many as thirty or forty of us there.
I have related what nocturnal persecutions poor Hiraux was made a victim of when he came to see us at les Fossés. It was now our turn to undergo the like. Our rooms were prepared beforehand for the pantomime that followed. The family doctor, Manceau, was the stage manager. He had replaced an old doctor from Soissons named M. Paroisse. I will explain presently why this change took place. The assistant stage managers were Louise, Cécile and Augustine. The appointed victims were Hippolyte Leroy, de Leuven and myself. Hippolyte Leroy was at this period a young man of between twenty-five and twenty-six. He was a cousin of M. Leroy de Corey. He had been one of the body-guard, and was now Secretary to the Inspection at Villers-Cotterets. Later, he became my cousin, by his marriage with Augustine Deviolaine. Our three rooms communicated with one another. We retired to our rooms about half-past twelve. De Leuven was the first to get into bed. He had scarcely lain down before he began to complain of a most intolerable tickling: his bed was sprinkled with the stuff charlatans sell which they call scratching powder. Those unacquainted with this powder should recall the famous scene in Robert Macaire, where the two heroes of the book find a trunk, and in that trunk a quantity of tiny packets, containing some unknown substance, whose property was revealed when they touched it. In about five minutes' time Adolphe de Leuven began to scratch himself like both Robert Macaire and Bertrand put together. We offered de Leuven our sincere sympathy. We advised him to rub it off as best he could, to wrap himself in his bed-curtain and to sleep on a couch. Then we went to our own beds, quite convinced that we should find them like Adolphe's. But we searched them in vain: they seemed perfectly free from any preparation of the like nature. We lay down. In five minutes' time Hippolyte Leroy uttered a sharp cry. In stretching himself, he felt a piece of string at the foot of the bed; he pulled this thread, and in doing so, he untied a bag full of frogs. The frogs, gaining their liberty, hastened to disport themselves about the bed, and it was the contact of his human flesh with their animal hide which produced Hippolyte's yell above mentioned. He flung off the bed-clothes and leapt out of bed. The frogs leaped out after him. He had been given good measure; there were quite two dozen of them.
I was beginning to think I was the only one spared, when I thought I heard a great stirring inside a cupboard against which the head of my bed had been put. I looked at the lock. It was keyless. However, I felt no doubt that some sort of animal was shut up in that cupboard. Only, what sort of an animal was it? I was not kept long in suspense: as one o'clock struck a cock crowed at the head of my bed, and renewed his crowing every hour till day came. I did not deny Christ, like St. Peter, but I confess I took His name in vain. We fell asleep by seven o'clock,—de Leuven in spite of his itching powder, Hippolyte Leroy in spite of his frogs, and I in spite of my cock,—when Manceau entered our rooms and woke us by telling us that as he had heard in roundabout ways we had spent a bad night, he had come to offer us his professional services: Manceau denounced his own handiwork!
We had slept so badly, through that horrible night, that, with terrible imprecations, we had consigned our persecutor, whoever he might be, to the infernal regions. Manceau, as I have said, denounced himself: expiation must follow the crime; our sworn oath must be fulfilled. At a sign, de Leuven shut the door: I fell upon Manceau, Hippolyte gagged him; we stripped him naked, we wrapped him in a sheet off Adolphe's bed, we tied him up like a sausage, we took him down a disused staircase and we deposited him in the most unfrequented part of the park, in the very middle of the little river, at a place where he could stand, but where, entangled as he was, he ran great risk of losing his foothold at the first step he took. We then quietly returned to our beds, and resumed our interrupted sleep.
We went down to the morning meal at ten o'clock. Our arrival was eagerly expected. Everybody burst out laughing when we came within view. The young ladies each played a part: some pretended to scratch, others imitated in a low voice the croaking of frogs, and others simulated the crowing of a cock. We were quite imperturbable: we merely asked carelessly where Manceau was. Nobody had seen him. We sat down to table. The fowl was tough, Cécile remarked; one would have said it was an old cock which had crowed all the night. Augustine asked where the frogs were that she had seen, she said, in the kitchen the night before. Had they been moved?... Were the frogs lost?... The frogs must be found again. Louise asked Adolphe if he was not attacked by a contagious affection; for since he had offered her his arm to lead her into the dining-room, her skin had felt fearfully irritable.
"If Manceau were here," I said to Louise, "you could ask him for a prescription to allay it."
"But, joking apart, where is Manceau?" asked Madame Collard.