Then he turned to the overseer.
"Mathurin!" he called peremptorily.
"Yes, mon Général!"
"Give Leroux the money that is due to him. He is no longer in my employ."
"Name of a dog ..." came with an ominous imprecation from Leroux, "is this the way to treat an honest citizen?..."
"There is no honest citizen, my man," spoke de Maurel firmly, "save he who toils for France. Get you gone! Get you gone, I say! France has no use for slackers."
"You'll rue that, General, on my faith," here interposed one of Leroux' mates in tones that held an overt threat. "No one can finish this crushing save Leroux. If you dismiss him now, some of us go with him ... and the twelve hundred cannon-balls of this high calibre which the Emperor hath ordered will not be completed for want of a few skilled men."
"Those of you who wish to go," retorted de Maurel loudly, "can go hence at once, and to hell with the lot of you," he added, with a sudden outburst of contemptuous anger. "Have I not said that France hath no use for slackers? You grumblers! you miserable, dissatisfied curs! Go an you wish! The workshop stinks of your treachery!"
Then as some of the men, somewhat awed by his aspect and by the flame of unbridled wrath which shot from his glowing eyes, congregated in a little group of malcontents, egging one another on to more open revolt, he went close up to them, forcing the group to scatter before him, till he stood right in the midst of them, looking down from his great height on the skulking heads which were obstinately turned away from him and on the furtive glances which equally stubbornly avoided his own.
"You miserable cowards!" he exclaimed. "Have you no entrails, no hearts, no mind? When the sons of France—her true sons—bleed and die on the fields of Prussia and in the mountains of Italy—sometimes unfed, always ill-clothed, under a grilling sun or in snowstorms and blizzards—dragging half-shattered limbs up the precipitous heights of the Alps, or falling uncared for, unattended and unshriven, into the nearest ditch—when your brothers and your sons die for France with a 'Vive l'Empereur' upon their lips, with the unsullied flag held victorious in their dying hands, you murmur here because food is dear and work heavy! To hell, I say! to hell! Give me that, tool, Mathurin. The Emperor shall not lack for gunpowder because a few traitors refuse to toil for France!"