"I shall only leave when my mother shall no longer be here," she replied.
She spoke with such firmness that he saw it was an irrevocable resolve.
"When you do go, you know you have two homes, Father Clovis' and my house."
Pitou's "house" was his sitting room and bedroom.
"I thank you," she replied, her smile and nod meaning that she accepted both offers.
She went into her room without troubling about the young man, who had the knack of finding some burrow.
At ten next day all the farmers for miles around flocked to the farm. The Mayor came, too. At half after ten up marched the Haramont National Guards, with colors tied up in black, without a man being missing. Catherine, dressed in black, with her boy in mourning, welcomed all comers and it must be said that there was no feeling for her but of respect.
At eleven, some three hundred persons were gathered at the farm. The priest and his attendants alone were absent. Pitou knew Father Fortier and he guessed that he who had refused the sacraments to the dying woman, would withhold the funeral service under the pretext that she had died unconscious. These reflections, confided to Mayor Longpre, produced a doleful impression. While they were looking at each other in silence, Maniquet, whose opinions were anti-religious, called out:
"If Abbé Fortier does not like to say mass, we will get on without it."
But it was evidently a bold act, although Voltaire and Rousseau were in the ascendancy.