"What is a faussonier?"
"There is one yonder, comrade—that young peasant who walks like a calf and seems to know not whither he is bound. He is condemned because he bought some salt for his young wife, who was ill."
"Is that a crime?"
"It depends where you buy it. You must know, my friend, that in most of the provinces of France salt is very dear. A pint will cost you four francs and a little over. Therefore the poor cannot afford it for their soup, and some, for lack of it, go fasting most of the week. So they starve and languish and fall sick, as did this young man's wife. But in my native Burgundy—blessed be its name!—and also in the country of Doubs, salt is cheap enough. Now this young man dwelt close on the frontier of Burgundy—I have seen him times and again at the vintage work—and because he was very fond of his wife, and could not bear to see her die, he ventured across the frontier to buy salt cheaply; and, being taken, he has been condemned to the galleys for six years. In the meantime his wife will perish. But the King's taxes must be paid. Else how shall we exterminate his enemies?"
"But," Tristram exclaimed, trembling with indignation, "how can you be cheerful in this fearful land?"
"What! I? Well, I am cheerful, to begin with, because my nose is not slit."
"That appears to me a very slight reason."
"You would not say so if you had run so near it as I."
"Are you a deserter, then?"
"Thanks for your good opinion, comrade! No. I was never guilty of disloyalty to King Lewis, But I killed my wife's mother, pardieu!— which the judge seemed to think almost as vile, till I sent a friend to grease his palm with the last sou of my patrimony. And, by good fortune, it became greasy enough to let me slip out of the worst."