“Vive Monseigneur! Vive le Duc de Sairmeuse!”
It was as d’Escorval had thought.
“The same pitiful farce that was played in Paris, only on a smaller scale,” he murmured. “Avarice and human cowardice are the same the world over!”
Meanwhile, Chanlouineau was going on with his recital.
“To make the fete complete, the devil must have warned all the nobility in the neighborhood, for they all came running. They say that Monsieur de Sairmeuse is a favorite with the King, and that he can get anything he wishes. So you can imagine how they all greeted him! I am only a poor peasant, but never would I lie down in the dust before any man as these old nobles who are so haughty with us, did before the duke. They kissed his hands, and he allowed them to do it. He walked about the square with the Marquis de Courtornieu——”
“And his son?” interrupted Maurice.
“The Marquis Martial, is it not? He is also walking before the church with Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu upon his arm. Ah! I do not understand how people can call her pretty—a little bit of a thing, so blond that one might suppose her hair was gray. Ah! how those two laughed and made fun of the peasants. They say they are going to marry each other. And even this evening there is to be a banquet at the Chateau de Courtornieu in honor of the duke.”
He had told all he knew. He paused.
“You have forgotten only one thing,” said M. Lacheneur; “that is, to tell us how your clothing happened to be torn, as if you had been fighting.”
The young farmer hesitated for a moment, then replied, somewhat brusquely: