"They are at some mischief in Grelot," he said.
"Against me?"
"It looks that way."
"How? I saw nothing of it yesterday."
The day before being Sunday, Germain had gone over alone in his coach to attend High Mass in the parish church. The people standing about the front doors greeted him respectfully, and he passed up the aisle and took his seat in his raised and curtained pew. The priest, as was customary, had named him in the prayers as patron of the church, he was the first to be passed the blessed bread, and the congregation even received with subdued approbation a warm reference in the sermon to his distribution of wheat to the poor. His leaving was treated in as respectful a manner. How then, one day later, could the Grelotins be at mischief against him?
"It was that Mule and that trash of a Cliquet. They were haranguing the people after Mass—something about a thing Mule calls the Third Estate. Nobody knows what it is—but everybody thinks it belongs to himself and that the aristocrats want to take it from him. So everybody got into a rage against the aristocrats (save your honour), and Mule brought them over to the tavern hall, ordered everybody's fill of brandy, and read out something from the King. He told them the King was on their side, and for all to tell out their complaints against the Seigneur. So everybody began to think if he had complaints, and Master Mule wrote them into a copybook. When Mule read it out, the people groaned and cried that they never knew they had had so many miseries. Cliquet shouted that you were the cause of all these miseries; that you had grain while the peasants were starving, and that they ought to drive you out of the country and then would all be well."
They were startled by a musket-shot so near the house that Dominique hastened to the window to look. Germain sprang up too. The office faced at the rear, close to the old château and lake.
A rough fellow with a gun was coolly standing near the great dovecot and shooting at the pigeons. Dominique threw open the window and shouted. The answer was a gesture of derision.
Germain rang furiously for the lackeys. For answer Jovite and 'Lexandre ran up, pale, and out of their wits, reporting that "the brigands" were invading the front of the house.
"Go and find what is the matter, Dominique," Lecour said, and sprang up to seek for Cyrène, but checking himself, crossed the corridor and went to a front window.