“What has the Shopman done now?” asked Soudry, sitting down beside his wife and putting his arm about her waist.
Madame Soudry, like other old women, forgave a great deal in return for such public marks of tenderness.
“Why,” said Rigou, in a low voice, to set an example of caution, “he has gone to the Prefecture to demand the enforcement of the penalties; he wants the help of the authorities.”
“Then he’s lost,” said Lupin, rubbing his hands; “the peasants will fight.”
“Fight!” cried Soudry, “that depends. If the prefect and the general, who are friends, send a squadron of cavalry the peasants can’t fight. They might at a pinch get the better of the gendarmes, but as for resisting a charge of cavalry!—”
“Sibilet heard him say something much more dangerous than that,” said Rigou; “and that’s what brings me here.”
“Oh, my poor Sophie!” cried Madame Soudry, sentimentally, alluding to her friend, Mademoiselle Laguerre, “into what hands Les Aigues has fallen! This is what we have gained by the Revolution!—a parcel of swaggering epaulets! We might have foreseen that whenever the bottle was turned upside down the dregs would spoil the wine!”
“He means to go to Paris and cabal with the Keeper of the Seals and others to get the whole judiciary changed down here,” said Rigou.
“Ha!” cried Lupin, “then he sees his danger.”
“If they appoint my son-in-law attorney-general we can’t help ourselves; the general will get him replaced by some Parisian devoted to his interests,” continued Rigou. “If he gets a place in Paris for Gendrin and makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre, he’ll knock down our skittles! The gendarmerie is on his side now, and if he gets the courts as well, and keeps such advisers as the abbe and Michaud we sha’n’t dance at the wedding; he’ll play us some scurvy trick or other.”