"He was a poacher in the forest of Rambouillet; and it is not a year ago that he was supposed to have fired at a keeper who had fired at him, the vagabond! However, there was no proof of the fact, but Martial was obliged to leave that part of the country. Then he came to Paris to try and be a locksmith, and then I first saw him. As he was too wild to be on good terms with his master, he preferred returning to his relations at Asnières, and poach in the river; it is not so slavish. Still he always regrets the woods, and some day or other will return to them. From his talking to me of poaching and forests, he has crammed my head with these ideas, and I now think that is the life I was born for. But it is always so. What your man likes, you like. If Martial had been a thief, I should have been a thief. When one has a man, we like to be like him."
"And where are your own relations, La Louve?"
"How should I know?"
"Is it long since you saw them?"
"I don't know whether they are dead or alive."
"Were they, then, so very unkind to you?"
"Neither kind nor unkind. I was about eleven years old, I think, when my mother went off with a soldier. My father, who was a day-labourer, brought home a mistress with him into our garret, and two boys she had,—one six, and the other my own age. She was a barrow-woman. She went on pretty well at first, but after a time, whilst she was out with her fruit, a fish-woman used to come and drink with my father, and this the apple-woman found out. Then, from this time, every evening, we had such battles and rows in the house that I and the two boys were half dead with fright. We all three slept together, for we had but one room. One day,—it was her birthday, Sainte Madeleine's fête,—and she scolded him because he had not congratulated her on it. From one word another arose, and my father concluded by breaking her head with the handle of the broom. I really thought he had killed her. She fell like a lump of lead, but la mère Madeleine was hard-lived, and hard-headed also. After that she returned my father with interest all the blows he had given her, and once bit him so savagely in the hand that the piece of flesh remained between her teeth. I must say that these contests were what we may call the grandes eaux at Versailles. On common and working-days the skirmishes were of a lighter sort,—there were bruises, but no blood."
"Was this woman unkind to you?"
"Mère Madeleine? No; on the contrary. She was a little hasty, but, otherwise, a good sort of woman enough. But at last my father got tired, and left her and the little furniture we had. He came out of Burgundy, and most probably returned to his own country. I was fifteen or sixteen at this time."
"And were you still with the old mistress of your father?"