“Let us put up the coach at that inn which I see over there,” said the patriot; “we can hide it till we know the result of the fight.”
The advice seemed so good that Coupiau followed it. The patriot helped him to conceal the coach behind a wood-pile; the abbe seized the occasion to pull Coupiau aside and say to him, in a low voice: “Has he really any money?”
“Hey, Monsieur Gudin, if it gets into the pockets of your Reverence, they won’t be weighed down with it.”
When the Blues marched by, after the encounter on La Pelerine, they were in such haste to reach Ernee that they passed the little inn without halting. At the sound of their hasty march, Gudin and the innkeeper, stirred by curiosity, went to the gate of the courtyard to watch them. Suddenly, the fat ecclesiastic rushed to a soldier who was lagging in the rear.
“Gudin!” he cried, “you wrong-headed fellow, have you joined the Blues? My lad, you are surely not in earnest?”
“Yes, uncle,” answered the corporal. “I’ve sworn to defend France.”
“Unhappy boy! you’ll lose your soul,” said the uncle, trying to rouse his nephew to the religious sentiments which are so powerful in the Breton breast.
“Uncle,” said the young man, “if the king had placed himself at the head of his armies, I don’t say but what—”
“Fool! who is talking to you about the king? Does your republic give abbeys? No, it has upset everything. How do you expect to get on in life? Stay with us; sooner or later we shall triumph and you’ll be counsellor to some parliament.”
“Parliaments!” said young Gudin, in a mocking tone. “Good-bye, uncle.”