"So," said Materne, turning to the innkeeper, and apparently resuming a conversation that had been interrupted, "you think, Father Dubreuil, that we may hunt without fear in the wood of Baronies?"
"Oh! as for that I can't say," replied mine host, shrugging his shoulders; "I only know that at present the Allies have not got beyond Mutzig. But they don't injure any one; but receive all well-disposed people—who wish to fight the usurper."
"The usurper? Who is that?"
"Eh? Why, Napoleon Bonaparte, the usurper, to be sure. Look on the wall there."
He pointed to a large placard hanging near the clock.
"Look there, and you will see that the Austrians are our true friends."
Old Materne's brows knitted, but he repressed his feelings, and said,
"But I cannot read, Monsieur Dubreuil, nor my boys. Explain the matter to us."
Then the old publican, raising himself with much difficulty from his armchair, and puffing like a porpoise with the unwonted exertion, placed himself before the placard, with his arms folded across his enormous breast, and in a majestic tone read a proclamation of the allied sovereigns setting forth that they, said sovereigns, were waging war against Napoleon and not against France, and that, consequently, it behoved all good people to remain at home and to mind their own business, under pain of having their houses, goods, and chattels pillaged and burnt, and themselves shot.
The three hunters listened to all this, and then looked at each other.