Then he would rise, and we would go out together, sometimes in the mud, sometimes in the snow. We would go to sleep at my grandfather’s house, and he used to sit up and wait for us.
How plainly I can see these far-off things when I think them over!
But what I remember best is the story of the salt marshes which belonged to old Jeannette—the salt marshes she had owned in La Vendée near the sea, and which would have made the fortune of the Coustels if they had claimed their rights sooner.
It appears that, in ‘93, they drowned a great many people at Nantes, chiefly the old aristocracy. They put them into barks tied together; then they pushed the barks into the Loire, and sank them. It was during the Reign of Terror, and the peasants of La Vendée also shot down all the republican soldiers they could take; extermination was the rule on both sides, and no mercy was shown by either party. Only, whenever a republican soldier demanded in marriage one of these noble ladies who were about to be drowned, if the unfortunate girl were willing to follow him, she was immediately released. And this was how Mme. Jeannette had become the wife of Coustel.
She was on one of these barks at the age of sixteen—an age when one has a great dread of death!... She looked around to see if no one would take pity on her, and just then, at the moment the bark was leaving, Jean-Pierre Coustel was passing by with his musket on his shoulders; he saw the young girl, and called out: “Halt ... a moment!... Citoyenne, wilt thou marry me? I will save thy life!”
And Jeannette fell into his arms as if dead; he carried her away; they went to the mayoralty.
Old Jeannette never spoke of these things. In her youth, she had been very happy; she had had domestics, waiting-maids, horses, carriages; then she had become the wife of a soldier, of a poor republican; she had to cook for him, and to mend his clothes; the old ideas of the château, of the respect of the peasants of La Vendée, had passed away. So goes the world! And sometimes even the bailiff Nadasi in his impertinence would mock at the poor old woman, and call out to her: “Noble lady, a pint of wine!... a small glass.” He would also make inquiries about her estates; then she would shut her lips tight, and look at him; a faint color would come into her pale cheek, and it appeared as if she were going to answer him; but afterwards she would bend down her head, and go on spinning in silence.
If Nadasi had not spent money at the tavern, Coustel would have turned him out of doors; but, when one is poor, one is obliged to put up with many affronts, and rascals know this!... They never mock at those who would be likely to pull their ears, as my Uncle Eustache would not have failed to do: they are too prudent for that. How hard it is to put up with creatures like these!... Every one knows there are such beings. But I must go on with my story. We were at the tavern one evening at the end of the autumn of 1830; it was raining in torrents, and about eight o’clock in the evening the keeper Benassis entered, exclaiming: “What weather!... If it continues, the three ponds will overflow.”
He shook out his cap, and took his blouse off his shoulders, to dry it behind the stove. Then he came to seat himself on the end of the bench, saying to Nadasi: “Come, make room, you lazy fellow, and let me sit near the brigadier.”