Ferron asked me what I meant to do, and I answered that, if I could go as far as Ostend, I would take ship for Jersey, where I should find my uncle de Bedée; from there I should be able to join the Royalists in Brittany.
And catch the smallpox.
The fever was sapping my strength; I could only with difficulty support myself on my swollen thigh. I felt a new ailment lay hold of me. After twenty-four hours' vomiting, my face and body were covered with an eruption: confluent smallpox broke out; it appeared to be affected by the temperature of the air. In this condition, I set out on foot to make a journey of two hundred leagues, rich as I was to the extent of eighteen livres Tournois: all this for the greater glory of the Monarchy. Ferron, who had lent me my six small crowns of three francs, left me, he having arranged to be met in Luxembourg.
*
As I was leaving Arlon, a peasant took me up in his cart for the sum of four sous, and put me down five leagues farther on a heap of stones. I hopped a few paces with the aid of my crutch, and washed the bandage round my scratch, which had developed into a sore, in a spring rustling by the roadside, which did me a great deal of good. The smallpox had come quite out, and I felt relieved. I had not abandoned my knapsack, the straps of which cut my shoulders.
I spent that first night in a barn, and had nothing to eat. The wife of the farmer who owned the barn refused payment for my lodging. At daybreak she brought me a great basin of coffee and milk, with a black loaf which I thought excellent. I resumed my road quite merrily, although I often fell. I was joined by four or five of my comrades, who carried my knapsack; they were also very ill. We met villagers; by taking cart after cart we covered a sufficient distance in the Ardennes, in five days, to reach Attert, Flamizoul, and Bellevue. On the sixth day I found myself alone. My smallpox had grown paler and was less puffy.
After walking two leagues, which took me six hours, I saw a gipsy family encamped behind a ditch around a furze fire, with two goats and a donkey. I had no sooner reached them than I let myself drop to the ground, and the strange creatures hastened to succour me. A young woman in rags, lively, dark, and mischievous, sang, leaped, skipped around, holding her child aslant upon her breast, as though it were a hurdy-gurdy with which she was enlivening her dance; she next squatted on her heels close by my side, examined me curiously by the light of the fire, took my dying hand to tell me my fortune, and asked me for "a little sou:" it was too dear. It would be difficult to possess more knowledge, charm, and wretchedness than my sybil of the Ardennes. I do not know when the nomads, of whom I should have been a worthy son, left me; they were not there when I woke from my torpor at dawn. My fortune-teller had gone away with the secret of my future. In exchange for my "little sou," she had laid by my head an apple which served to refresh my mouth. I shook myself, like John Rabbit, among the "thyme" and the "dew"; but I was not able to "browse," nor to "trot," nor to cut many "pranks[126]." Nevertheless, I rose with the intention of "paying my court to Aurora:" she was very beautiful and I very ugly; her rosy face proclaimed her good health; she was better than the poor Cephalus[127] of Armorica. Although both of us young, we were old friends, and I imagined that her tears that morning were shed for me.
I penetrated into the forest, feeling not too sad; solitude had restored me to my own nature. I hummed the ballad by the ill-fated Cazotte[128]:
Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes,
Est un château sur le haut d'un rocher[129].