“No less,” replied the other. “A deacon and sacred palm and sprinkle of holy water would do for a cottage, or even for a little manor house, with twelve candles burning, and a hymn to the Virgin. But in a king’s house—”
“It’s not the King’s house.”
“But yes, it is the King’s house, though his Most Christian Majesty lives in France. The Marquis de Vaudreuil stands for the King, and we are sentinels in the King’s house. But, my faith, I’d rather be fighting against Frederick, the Prussian boar, than watching this mad Englishman.”
“But see you, my brother, that Englishman’s a devil. Else how has he not been hanged long ago? He has vile arts to blind all, or he would not be sitting there. It is well known that M’sieu’ Doltaire, even the King’s son—his mother worked in the fields like your Nanette, Bamboir—”
“Or your Lablanche, my friend. She has hard hands, with warts, and red knuckles therefrom—”
“Or your Nanette, Bamboir, with nose that blisters in the summer, as she goes swingeing flax, and swelling feet that sweat in sabots, and chin thrust out from carrying pails upon her head—”
“Ay, like Nanette and like Lablanche, this peasant mother of M’sieu’ Doltaire, and maybe no such firm breasts like Nanette—”
“Nor such an eye as has Lablanche. Well, M’sieu’ Doltaire, who could override them all, he could not kill this barbarian. And Gabord—you know well how they fought, and the black horse and his rider came and carried him away. Why, the young M’sieu’ Duvarney had him on his knees, the blade at his throat, and a sword flashed out from the dark—they say it was the devil’s—and took him in the ribs and well-nigh killed him.”
“But what say you to Ma’m’selle Duvarney coming to him that day, and again yesterday with Gabord?”
“Well, well, who knows, Bamboir? This morning I said to Nanette, ‘Why is’t, all in one moment, you send me to the devil, and pray to meet me in Abraham’s bosom too?’ What think you she answered me? Why, this, my Bamboir: ‘Why is’t Adam loved his wife and swore her down before the Lord also, all in one moment?’ Why Ma’m’selle Duvarney does this or that is not for muddy brains like ours. It is some whimsy. They say that women are more curious about the devil than about St. Jean Baptiste. Perhaps she got of him a magic book.”