"Did the crop fail utterly hereabouts?" I asked.
"Utterly, Monsieur," said Mathilde Duhesme, the innkeeper's daughter, as she brought us our coffee. "Not a bunch of grapes."
Mathilde was a perfectly charming French girl, of the type that you will come upon, here and there, even in the remotest part of that country. England breeds few such women, in her station of life. That easy, graceful manner, and natural amiability and dignity are found here—when they are found at all—only among the educated or the high-born.
"Yes, yes; mon Dieu, you have come in the wrong year for the vines," said the brigand, thumping the table. "You should have chosen a good season. Then lots of visitors come. They come in carts, full of belles anges with gentlemen standing behind in top-hats. And they all take photographs. This very day we ought to have been in full vendange."
His pride would have been solely hurt, had he guessed how little his description allured us.
"Let's drink to a full vendange," said I. Mathilde ran off for another bottle.
"What do you earn, you vignerons, in a good year?"
"Four francs, and a litre of wine, per man, per day. And it is worth it; for we make good stuff here on the hillside, though this village of Auxey is the end of it. Yes, good wines!"
"Tell me more about them," I said.