"Upon my word they've given us a dirty job to do," said Vigouroux, the other lieutenant, in an undertone to Landri, having joined him on the square. After stationing their men, they were walking back and forth in the space left clear. "It's a hard mouthful to swallow."
"All the same, it must be done," rejoined Landri.
"Is it you who say that, Claviers?" exclaimed Vigouroux in evident amazement.
"A soldier knows only his orders," replied the other sharply.
"Oh, well! I'm not the one to blame you!" said Vigouroux. "It suits me, as you know, to have you think that way."
They continued to walk side by side without further speech. In declaring to his comrade, as he had done to his captain the evening before, his determination to go on to the end, Landri was perfectly sincere. He was keeping himself up to the mark by declarations which did not, however, make it any the less true that he had had but a single thought that day and that not of his orders! By virtue of a contradiction only too natural in a heart so deeply wounded, the nearer he approached to the moment when he might be called upon to take the decisive step after which he would have broken either with the army or with M. de Claviers, the image haunted him, ever more distinct and more touching, of that man who had not ceased to love him as his son, and whom he loved so dearly! That image was there, between Vigouroux and himself, gazing at him, and saying with those limpid blue eyes the words of the victim to his murderer: "And thou, too, my child!"
Landri did not yield to that entreaty, he was determined not to yield. It was to banish it from his mind that he had spoken so to Vigouroux. Moreover, it seemed that affairs were not likely to assume a very tragic aspect, judging from the disposition of the crowd, evidently due to orders from the curé. Those peasants were protestants, they were not rebels.
But the affair assumed a very different aspect on the arrival of a landau, preceded by gendarmes, from which three persons alighted: one in a uniform embroidered with silver, another with a scarf across his breast, the third in a frock coat. They were the sub-prefect, the special commissioner, and the recording clerk.
No sooner had they set foot to the ground, than the responses of the litany were succeeded by threatening cries of "Down with the robbers!" which attracted from the house adjoining the church a fourth personage, the curé of Hugueville himself. He was a handsome old man, bare-headed despite the cold. Two other priests accompanied him. He came forward as far as the porch of his church, the keys of which he could not, upon his soul and his conscience, surrender. He was very pale. He, too, was assuming a terrible responsibility. Blood might be shed. He raised his aged arms which had so many times exhibited the monstrance to his flock, and which at that moment implored rather than commanded respect for his wishes. The gesture was instantly understood, so unbounded was his authority, readily explained by the aspect alone of that ascetic apostle. The insulting outcries were not repeated, and a vast silence overspread the multitude, while the newcomers ascended the steps, among the women who made way for them with visible terror.
Abbé Valentin—that was the curé's name—stepped forward, and there ensued between the priest, whose face had lost its pallor, and the officials, a conversation the words of which did not reach any of the others. They noted its expressive pantomime: the curé shaking his venerable head so that his white hair fluttered in the wind, as one who meets urgent insistence with a categorical refusal, the sub-prefect almost imploring, the commissioner threatening, the recording clerk exhibiting papers. At last Abbé Valentin withdrew and the three civil functionaries, having taken counsel together, descended the steps, while the crowd, interpreting this retreat as a victory for the priest, shouted his name and began the chant:—