“What’s the matter with you, Monsieur Courtecuisse; is your tongue tied?” asked Tonsard, as the man continued silent after he had told him about the battle which had just taken place.
“No, no!” cried Madame Tonsard; “he needn’t complain of the midwife who cut his string,—she made a good job of it.”
“It is enough to make a man dumb, thinking from morning till night of some way to escape Rigou,” said the premature old man, gloomily.
“Bah!” said old Mother Tonsard, “you’ve got a pretty daughter, seventeen years old. If she’s a good girl you can easily manage matters with that old jail bird—”
“We sent her to Auxerre two years ago to Madame Mariotte the elder, to keep her out of harm’s way; I’d rather die than—”
“What a fool you are!” said Tonsard, “look at my girls,—are they any the worse? He who dares to say they are not as virtuous as marble images will have to do with my gun.”
“It’ll be hard to have to come to that,” said Courtecuisse, shaking his head. “I’d rather earn the money by shooting one of those Arminacs.”
“Well, I call it better for a girl to save a father than to wrap up her virtue and let it mildew,” retorted the innkeeper.
Tonsard felt a sharp tap on his shoulder, delivered by Pere Niseron.
“That is not a right thing to say!” cried the old man. “A father is the guardian of the honor of his family. It is by behaving as you do that scorn and contempt are brought upon us; it is because of such conduct that the People are accused of being unfit for liberty. The People should set an example of civic virtue and honor to the rich. You all sell yourselves to Rigou for gold; and if you don’t sell him your daughters, at any rate you sell him your honor,—and it’s wrong.”