TAKING THE BASTILE.
CHAPTER I.
THE SON OF GILBERT.
It was a winter night, and the ground around Paris was covered withsnow, although the flakes had ceased to fall since some hours.
Spite of the cold and the darkness, a young man, wrapped in a mantle sovoluminous as to hide a babe in his arms, strode over the white fieldsout of the town of Villers Cotterets, in the woods, eighteen leaguesfrom the capital, which he had reached by the stage-coach, towards ahamlet called Haramont. His assured step seemed to indicate that he hadpreviously gone this road.
Soon above him streaked the leafless boughs upon the grey sky. Thesharp air, the odor of the oaks, the icicles and beads on the tips ofbranches, all appealed to the poetry in the wanderer.
Through the clumps he looked for the village spire and the blue smokeof the chimneys, filtering from the cottages through the naturaltrellis of the limbs.
It was dawn when he crossed a brook, bordered with yellow cress andfrozen vines, and at the first hovel asked for the laborer's boy totake him to Madeline Pitou's home.
Mute and attentive, not so dull as most of their kind, the childrensprang up and staring at the stranger, led him by the hand to a ratherlarge and good-looking cottage, on the bank of the rivulet running bymost of the dwellings.
A plank served as a bridge.
"There," said one of the guides nodding his head towards it.
Gilbert gave them a coin, which made their eyes open still morewidely, and crossed the board to the door which he pushed open, whilethe children, taking one another's hand, started with all their mightat the handsome gentleman in a brown cloth coat, buckled shoes andlarge cloak, who wanted to find Madeline Pitou.
Apart from them, Gilbert, for such was the young man's name, simply sofor he had no other, saw no living things: Haramont was the desertedvillage he was seeking.
As soon as the door was open, his sight was struck by a scene full ofcharm, for almost anybody, and particularly for a young philosopherlike our roamer.
A robust peasant woman was suckling a baby, while another child, asturdy boy of four or five, was saying a prayer in a loud voice.
In the chimney corner, near a window or rather a hole in the wallin which was stuck a pane of glass, another woman, going on forthirty-five or six, was spinning, with a stool under her feet, and afat poodle on an end of this stool.
Catching sight of the visitor the dog barked in a civil and hospitablemanner just to show that he had not been caught napping. The prayingboy turned, cutting the devotional phrase in two, and both femalesuttered an exclamation between joy and surprise.
"I greet you, good mother Madeline," said Gilbert with a smile.
"The gentleman has my name," she cried out with a start.
"As you notice; but please do not interrupt me. Instead of one babe atthe breast, you are to have the pair."
In the rude country-made crib he laid his burden, a little boy.
"What a pretty darling!" ejaculated the spinner.
"Quite a dear, yes, Aunt Angelique," said Madeline.
"Your sister?" inquired the visitor, pointing to the spinner who wasalso a spinster.
"No my man's sister."
"Yes, my auntie, my aunt 'Gelique," mumbled the boy, striking into thetalk without being asked.
"Be quiet, Ange," rebuked his mother: "you are interrupting thegentleman."
"My business is very plain, good woman. The child you see is sonof one of my master's farmers, the farmer being ruined. My master,his godfather, wants him brought up in the country to become a goodworkman, hale, and with good manners. Will you undertake this rearing?"
"But, master?----"
"Born yesterday and never nursed," went on Gilbert. "Besides, this isthe nursling which Master Niquet, the lawyer at Villers Cotterets,spoke to you about."
Madeline instantly seized the babe and supplied it with the nourishmentit craved with a generous impetuosity deeply affecting the young man.
"I have not been misled," said he: "you are a good woman. In mymaster's name, I confide the child to you. I see that he will fare wellhere, and I trust he will bring into this cabin a dream of happinesstogether with his own. How much does Master Niquet pay you for hischildren?"
"Twelve livres a-month, sir: but he is rich, and he adds a few piecesfor sugar and toys."
"Mother Madeline," replied Gilbert proudly, "this child will bring youtwenty livres a-month, or two hundred and forty a-year."
"Lord bless us! I thank you kindly, master," said the peasant.
"And here is the first year's money down on the nail," went on Gilbert,placing ten fine gold coins on the table, which made the two women opentheir eyes and little Ange Pitou stretch out his devastating hand.
"But if the little thing should not live?" queried the nurse timidly.
"It would be a great blow--such a misfortune as seldom happens,"responded the gentleman; "Here is the hire settled--are you satisfied?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Let us now pass to the future payments."
"Then we are to keep the child?"
"Probably, and be parents to it," said Gilbert, in a stifled voice andlosing color.
"Dear, dear, is he an outcast?"
Gilbert had not expected such feeling and questions: but he recoveredfrom the emotion.
"I did not tell you the whole truth," he said; "the poor father died onthe shock of hearing that his wife gave up her life in bearing him thechild."
The women wrung their hands with sympathy.
"So that the child can reckon on no love from his parents," continuedGilbert, breathing painfully.
At this point in tramped Daddy Pitou with a calm and jolly manner.His was one of those round and honest characters, overflowing withhealth and good will, such as Greuze paints in his natural domesticpictures. A few words showed him how matters stood. Out of good naturehe understood things--even those beyond his comprehension.
Gilbert made it clear that the keep-money would be paid until the boywas a man and able to live alone with his mind and arm.
"All right," said Pitou, "I rather think we shall take to the kid,though he is a tiny creature."
"Look at that," said the women together, "he thinks it a little dearjust like us."
"I should like you to come over to Master Niquet's where I will leavethe money required so that you may be content and the child happy."
Gilbert took leave of the women and bent over the cradle in which thenew-comer had ousted the rightful heir. He wore a sombre air.
"You look little like me," he muttered, "for you have the aspect ofyour proud mother, the aristocratic Andrea, daughter of Baron Taverney."
The trait broke his heart: he pressed his nails into his flesh to keepdown the tears flowing from his aching breast. He left a kiss timidand tremulous on the babe's fresh cheek and tottered out. He gavehalf a louis to little Ange, who was stumbling between his legs, andshook hands with the women who thought it an honor. So many emotionsoppressed the father of eighteen years that little more would haveprostrated him. Pale and nervous, his brain was spinning.
"Let us be off," he said to Pitou, waiting on the sill.
"Master!" called out Madeline from the threshold: "his name--what didyou say his name is?"
"Call him Gilbert," replied the young man with manly pride.
The business at the notary's was quickly done. Money was banked forthe child's keep and bringing up as became a farmhand's offspring.For fifteen years education and training was to be given him, and thebalance was to be devoted to fitting him in a trade or buying a plot ofland. At his eighteenth year some two thousand livres were to be paidthe nurse and her husband, who would have the other sum yearly from theintermediary.
As a reward Niquet was to have the interest of the funds.
Ten years passed and the Pitou woman, who had lost her husband whileAnge was hardly able to remember him, felt herself dying. Three yearsbefore she had seen Gilbert, returned a man of twenty-seve
n, stiff,dogmatic of speech, cold at the outset. But his mask of ice thawed whenhe saw his son again, hearty, smiling and strong, brought up as he hadplanned. He shook the good widow's hand and said:
"Rely on me if ever in need."
He took the child away, went to see the tomb of Rousseau thephilosopher, musician and poet, and returned to Villers Cotterets.Seduced by the good air and the praise of the Abbe Fortier's schoolfor youth, he left Gilbert at that institution. He had thought highlyof the tutor's philosophical mien; for philosophy was a great power atthis revolutionary period and had glided into the bosom of the Church.He left him his address and departed for Paris.
Ange Pitou's mother knew these particulars.
At her dying hour she remembered the pledge of Gilbert to be the friendat need. It was a bright light. No doubt Providence had brought him toHaramont to provide poor Pitou with more than he lost in losing lifeand family.
Not able to write, she sent for the parish priest, who wrote a letterfor her, and this was given to Abbe Fortier to be sent off by the post.
It was time, for she died next day.