第121章

"Monsieur le comte is perfectly right," said Sibilet."I know that Godain bought that land three days before Catherine came to speak to Madame.She is quite capable, that girl, of pretending she is with child, to get the money; very likely Godain has had nothing to do with it."

"What a community!" said Blondet; "the scoundrels of Paris are saints by comparison."

"Ah, monsieur," said Sibilet, "self-interest makes people guilty of horrors everywhere.Do you know who betrayed the old woman?"

"No."

"Her granddaughter Marie; she was jealous of her sister's marriage, and to get the money for her own--"

"It is awful!" said the count."Why! they'd murder!"

"Oh yes," said Sibilet, "for a very small sum.They care so little for life, those people; they hate to have to work all their lives.Ah monsieur, queer things happen in country places, as queer as those of Paris,--but you will never believe it."

"Let us be kind and benevolent," said the countess.

The evening after the arrest Bonnebault came to the tavern of the Grand-I-Vert, where all the Tonsard family were in great jubilation.

"Oh yes, yes!" said he, "make the most of your rejoicing; but I've just heard from Vaudoyer that the countess, to punish you, withdraws the thousand francs promised to Godain; her husband won't let her give them."

"It's that villain of a Michaud who has put him up to it," said Tonsard."My mother heard him say he would; she told me at Ville-aux-

Fayes where I went to carry her some money and her clothes.Well; let that countess keep her money! our five hundred francs shall help Godain buy the land; and we'll revenge ourselves for this thing.Ha!

Michaud meddles with our private matters, does he? it will bring him more harm than good.What business is it of his, I'd like to know? let him keep to the woods! It's he who is at the bottom of all this trouble--he found the clue that day my mother cut the throat of his dog.Suppose I were to meddle in the affairs of the chateau? Suppose I were to tell the general that his wife is off walking in the woods before he is up in the morning, with a young man."

"The general, the general!" sneered Courtecuisse; "they can do what they like with him.But it's Michaud who stirs him up, the mischief-

maker! a fellow who don't know his business; in my day, things went differently."

"Ah!" said Tonsard, "those were the good days for all of us--weren't they, Vaudoyer?"

"Yes," said the latter, "and the fact is that if Michaud were got rid of we should be left in peace."

"Enough said," replied Tonsard."We'll talk of this later--by moonlight--in the open field."

Towards the end of October the countess returned to Paris, leaving the general at Les Aigues.He was not to rejoin her till some time later, but she did not wish to lose the first night of the Italian Opera, and moreover she was lonely and bored; she missed Emile, who was recalled by his avocations, for he had helped her to pass the hours when the general was scouring the country or attending to business.

November was a true winter month, gray and gloomy, a mixture of snow and rain, frost and thaw.The trial of Mother Tonsard had required witnesses at Auxerre, and Michaud had given his testimony.Monsieur Rigou had interested himself for the old woman, and employed a lawyer on her behalf who relied in his defence on the absence of disinterested witnesses; but the testimony of Michaud and his assistants and the field-keeper was found to outweigh this objection.

Tonsard's mother was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the lawyer said to her son:--

"It was Michaud's testimony which got her that."