“This girl will be perfectly bewitching! but if my pupil remains much longer with her—hum! The flesh is weak, the devil is very powerful, especially when he takes the face of a pretty girl. I am not always here; Jacquinot is almost always drunk, and Mère Nicole allows these children to run about together in the fields, looking for flowers among the grain, playing together in the grass,—all very hazardous amusements. I absolutely must look to all this. The best way would be to induce my pupil to return to Paris. I should go with him, there is not the slightest doubt, for his education is not yet complete enough for him to do without a tutor. I shall take care that he needs one for a long time yet, forever, if possible. I shall live in my pupil’s mansion at Paris. That will be infinitely pleasanter than to live in this village; and then I can continue to keep an eye on little Louise at a distance; I will protect her, I will push her on in the world. As for Chérubin, after a few months in Paris, he will have forgotten his little friend of the fields.—All this is reasoned out with the wisdom of Cato, and it only remains to put it into execution.”
And to attain his object, Monsieur Gérondif for some time past had not failed to talk constantly of Paris while giving Chérubin his lessons; he drew a fascinating, enchanting picture of that city; he praised its theatres, its promenades, its monuments, and the innumerable pleasures which one finds there at every step.
Young Chérubin was beginning to listen to these observations. The idea of going to Paris terrified him less; and his tutor would say:
“At least, come and spend a little time in the capital, to see your mansion, the house of your fathers, it is all so close at hand, and we will come back at once.”
But Louise always wept when she saw that Chérubin was on the point of consenting to go to Paris; she would take her playmate’s hand and exclaim:
“If you go to Paris, I am very sure that you won’t come back here again; you’ll forget Gagny and those who live here.”
Nicole said the same, as she lovingly embraced her foster-child, whereupon Chérubin would instantly cry out:
“No, no, I won’t go, since it makes you feel sad; I am happy here, and I shall always stay here.”
At that, Monsieur Gérondif would bite his lips, trying to smile; but in the depths of his heart, he consigned nurses and childhood friends to the devil.
As for Jasmin, when the professor reproached him for not seconding him and urging his young master to go to Paris, he would reply, with that air of good humor which was natural to him: