“Have you no mother?” asked Madame de Montcornet, unable otherwise to explain the child’s nakedness.
“No, ma’am; m’ma died of grief for losing p’pa, who went to the army in 1812 without marrying her with papers, and got frozen, saving your presence. But I’ve my Grandpa Fourchon, who is a good man,—though he does beat me bad sometimes.”
“How is it, my dear, that such wretched people can be found on your estate?” said the countess, looking at the general.
“Madame la comtesse,” said the abbe, “in this district we have none but voluntary paupers. Monsieur le comte does all he can; but we have to do with a class of persons who are without religion and who have but one idea, that of living at your expense.”
“But, my dear abbe,” said Blondet, “you are here to improve their morals.”
“Monsieur,” replied the abbe, “my bishop sent me here as if on a mission to savages; but, as I had the honor of telling him, the savages of France cannot be reached. They make it a law unto themselves not to listen to us; whereas the church does get some hold on the savages of America.”
“M’sieur le cure, they do help me a bit now,” remarked Mouche; “but if I went to your church they wouldn’t, and the other folks would make game of my breeches.”
“Religion ought to begin by giving him trousers, my dear abbe,” said Blondet. “In your foreign missions don’t you begin by coaxing the savages?”
“He would soon sell them,” answered the abbe, in a low tone; “besides, my salary does not enable me to begin on that line.”
“Monsieur le cure is right,” said the general, looking at Mouche.