On the 4th of September, Pierre Langevin, miller at Vergaville, celebrated the marriage of Cadet Langevin, his second son. The miller's family was numerous, respectable, and in comfortable circumstances. First, there was the grandfather, a fine, hale old man, who took his four meals a day, and doctored his little ailings with the wine of Bar or Thiaucourt. The grandmother, Catharine, had been pretty in her day, and a little frivolous; but she expiated by absolute deafness the crime of having listened too tenderly to gallants. M. Pierre Langevin, alias Pierrot, alias Big Peter, after having sought his fortune in America (a custom becoming quite general in the rural districts), had returned to the village in pretty much the condition of the infant Saint John, and God only knows how many jokes were perpetrated over his ill luck. The people of Lorraine are terrible wags, and if you are not fond of personal jokes, I advise you not to travel in their neighborhood. Big Peter, stung to the quick, and half crazed at having run through his inheritance, borrowed money at ten per cent., bought the mill at Vergaville, worked like a plough-horse in heavy land, and repaid his capital and the interest. Fortune, who owed him some compensations, gave him gratis pro Deo, a half dozen superb workers—six big boys, whom his wife presented him with, one annually, as regularly as clock-work. Every year, nine months, to a day, after the fête of Vergaville, Claudine (otherwise known as Glaudine) presented one for baptism. At last she died after the sixth, from eating four huge pieces of quiche before her churching. Big Peter did not marry again, having concluded that he had workers enough, and he continued to add to his fortune nicely. But, as standing jokes last a long time in villages, the miller's comrades still spoke to him about those famous millions which he did not bring back from America, and Big Peter grew very red under his flour, just as he used to in his earlier days.
On the 4th of September, then, he married his second son to a good big woman of Altroff, who had fat and blazing cheeks: this being a kind of beauty much affected in the country. The wedding took place at the mill, because the bride was orphaned of father and mother, and had previously lived with the nuns of Molsheim.
A messenger came and told Pierre Langevin that a gentleman wearing decorations had something to say to him, and Fougas appeared in all his glory. "My good sir," said the miller, "I am far from being in a mood to talk business, as we just took a good pull at white wine before mass; but we are going to drink some red wine that's by no means bad, at dinner, and if your heart prompts you, don't be backward! The table is a long one. We can talk afterwards. You don't say no? Then that's yes."
"For once," thought Fougas, "I am not mistaken. This is surely the voice of Nature! I would have liked a soldier better, but this genial rustic, so comfortably rounded, satisfies my heart. I cannot be indebted to him for many gratifications of my pride; but never mind! I am sure of his good-will."
Dinner was served, and the table more heavily laden with viands than the stomach of Gargantua. Big Peter, as proud of his big family as of his little fortune, made the Colonel stand by as he enumerated his children. And Fougas was joyful at learning that he had six welcome grandchildren.
He was seated at the right of a little stunted old woman who was presented to him as the grandmother of the youngsters. Heavens! how changed Clementine appeared to him. Save the eyes which were still lively and sparkling, there was no longer anything about her that could be recognized. "See," thought Fougas, "what I would have been like to-day, if the worthy John Meiser had not desiccated me!" He smiled to himself on regarding Grandfather Langevin, the reputed progenitor of this numerous family. "Poor old fellow," murmured Fougas, "you little think what you owe to me!"
They dine boisterously at village weddings. This is an abuse which, I sincerely hope, Civilization will never reform. Under cover of the noise, Fougas entered into conversation, or thought he did, with his left-hand neighbor. "Clementine!" he said to her. She raised her eyes, and her nose too, and responded:
"Yes, monsieur."
"My heart has not deceived me, then?—you are indeed my Clementine!"
"Yes, monsieur."