How, you must know that the last house of the village, whose square front is pierced by two glazed casements, and whose low door opens on to the muddy street, belonged in 1813 to Jean-Claude Hullin, an old volunteer of '92, but at that time a shoemaker in the village of Charmes, and held in high esteem among the simple mountaineers. Hullin was a short, stout, thick-set man, with gray eyes, thick lips, a short nose, with a strongly-marked division at the end, and thick, grayish eyebrows. He was a jovial, good-natured fellow, and didn't know how to refuse anything to his daughter, Louise, a child whom he had rescued from a troop of those wretched heimatshlos—half-tinkers, half-blacksmiths[2]—who travel from village to village, soldering saucepans, melting spoons, and mending broken crockery. He looked upon her as his own daughter, and had completely forgotten that she was not of his blood.
Besides Louise, the worthy man had other objects of affection. He loved, above all, his cousin, the old mistress of the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, Catherine Lefévre, and her son, Gaspard, drawn in that year's conscription, a handsome young fellow, betrothed to Louise, and whose return at the end of the campaign was anxiously expected by all the family.
Hullin always dwelt proudly on the memory of his campaigns of Sambro-et-Meuse, of Italy, and Egypt. Sometimes of an evening, when his day's work was done, he would set off to the great saw-works at Valtin, formed of the trunks of trees still covered with their bark, and which you can perceive down below there at the bottom of the gorge. There, seated in the midst of the woodcutters, charcoal-burners, and schlitteurs,[3] opposite the great fire made of sawdust and shavings, and whilst the heavy wheel went for ever round, amid the never-ceasing thunder of the mill-dam and the constant grinding of the saw, with his elbow on his knee, and pipe in mouth, he would talk to them of Hoche, of Kleber, and finally, of General Bonaparte, whom he had seen a hundred times, and whose spare figure, piercing eyes, and eagle glance he could paint to the very life.
Such was Jean-Claude Hullin.
He was a man of the old Gallic stock, loving extraordinary adventures and hair-breadth 'scapes, but sticking to work from a principle of duty, from year's end to year's end.
As for Louise, that waif snatched from the travelling tinkers, she had a slender, lithe figure, long delicate hands, eyes of so deep and tender a blue that they went straight to the very bottom of your soul, a complexion like snow, hair of a light straw colour, soft and fine as silk, shoulders a little rounded like those of a kneeling maid at prayer. Her innocent smile, her pensive brow, in short, her whole presence reminded you of the old lied[4] of the minnesinger,[5] Erhart, where he says, "I have beheld a ray of light; my eyes are still dazzled with its brightness. Was it the moon's beam through the foliage? Was it Aurora's smile in the depth of the woods? No; it was the beautiful Edith, my love, who passed. I have seen her, and my eyes are still dazzled."
Louise dearly loved the fields, gardens, and flowers. In spring, the first note of the lark caused her to shed tears of tender pleasure. She delighted to watch the first opening of the blue-bells and sweet-scented May that blossomed on the hillside; and eagerly awaited the return of the swallows to build their snug little nests under the eaves. She was still the child of a wandering race, only a little less wild; but Hullin made excuses for everything; he understood her nature, and would sometimes say, with a smile:
"My poor Louise, if we had nothing to live on but what you bring us—your pretty handfuls of wild flowers—we should be starved to death in three days."
Upon which she would throw her arms round his neck, and smile upon him so sweetly that he would set contentedly to work again, saying:
"Ah! What business have I to scold her? She's quite right; she loves the sun and the green fields, poor child. Gaspard must work for two; he'll have happiness enough for four. I don't pity him, not I. There's plenty of women to work, and it does not improve their looks: but women who love and are kind to you—what a chance to meet with one—what a chance!"