“I am well pleased; my son is well; continue to take good care of him, for since the air of this neighborhood agrees with him, I think that I shall do well to leave him with you a long while, a very long while, in fact. Children always have time enough to study; health before everything! eh, Jasmin?”
“Oh yes! health indeed, monsieur! You are quite right; for what good does it do to know a lot when one is dead?”
Monsieur de Grandvilain smiled at his valet’s reflection; then, after embracing Chérubin, he returned to his carriage. Jacquinot was cowering in a corner of the yard, and did not dare to stir; he contented himself with bowing to the marquis, who, as he passed the peasant, drew himself up and did his utmost to impart to his gait the ease and firmness of youth.
Several months passed. Monsieur de Grandvilain often said: “I am going to Gagny.” But he did not go; the dread of meeting the foster-father again, and of being greeted with fresh compliments after the style of the former ones, restrained the marquis, and he contented himself with sending for his son, who had become large enough to take such a short journey without danger.
At such times Nicole passed several hours at the mansion; but Chérubin did not enjoy himself there; he always wept and asked to be taken back to the village. Whereupon the marquis would embrace his son and say to his nurse:
“Go at once, we must not thwart him; perhaps it would make him ill.”
Two more years passed in this way. Chérubin was in excellent health, but he was not stout or robust, like the children of most peasants; he was a merry little fellow, he loved to play and to run about; but as soon as he was taken to Paris, as soon as he found himself with his father at the hôtel de Grandvilain, the boy lost all his merriment; to be sure, the old mansion in Faubourg Saint-Germain was not a cheerful place; and the old marquis, who was almost always suffering from the gout, was rather a dismal object himself.
However, they did what they could to make his visits to his father’s house pleasant to the youngster; they had filled a room with toys, and they always covered a table with sweetmeats; Chérubin was at liberty to eat everything, to break all that he saw; he was left free to do whatever he chose; but after looking at a few of the toys and eating a cake or two, the child would run to his nurse, take hold of her apron, gaze at her affectionately and say in an imploring voice:
“Mamma Nicole, ain’t we going home soon?”
One day the marquis assumed a solemn expression, and beckoning his son to his side, said to him: