“But really,” exclaimed Pitou, “do you know that you are saying abominable things to me, Monsieur l’abbé Do you know that, in point of fact, you are insulting me?”
“I insult you?”
“Do you know that if this continues I will complain to the National Assembly? Ah! but—”
The abbé laughed with a sinister irony.
“Lay your information,” said he.
“And that punishment is awarded to ill-disposed persons who insult the good?”
“The lamp-post!”
“You are a bad citizen.”
“The rope! the rope!”
Then he exclaimed, as if suddenly enlightened and struck with a movement of generous indignation:—
“Ah, the helmet! the helmet! ‘t is he!”
“Well,” said Pitou, “what is the matter with my helmet?”
“The man who tore out the still smoking heart of Berthier—the cannibal who carried it still bleeding, and laid it on the table of the electors—wore a helmet; that man with the helmet was you, Pitou! it was you, monster that you are! avaunt! avaunt! avaunt!”
And each time that the abbé pronounced the word “avaunt,” which he did with much tragic emphasis, he advanced one step towards Pitou, who retreated in the same proportion.
But on hearing this accusation, of which the reader knows Pitou to be perfectly innocent, the poor lad threw far from him the helmet of which he was so proud, which rolled over upon the pavement of the courtyard, with the heavy, hollow sound of copper lined with pasteboard.
“You see, wretch!” cried the abbé, “you acknowledge it.”
And he assumed the attitude of Lekain, 1 in Orosmanes, at the moment when, after finding the letter, he accuses Zaïre.
“Come, now,” said Pitou, completely taken aback by so horrible an accusation, “you are exaggerating, Monsieur l’Abbé.”
“I exaggerate! that is to say, that you only hanged a little; that is to say, that you only ripped up a little; poor, weak child!”
“Monsieur Abbé, you know full well it was not I, you well know that it was Pitt.”
“And who is Pitt?”
“Pitt the Second, the son of Pitt the First, of Lord Chatham. He who has distributed money, saying, ‘Spend it; you need not give any account of it.’ If you understood English, I would tell it you in English, but you do not know that language.”
“You know it then, you?”
“Monsieur Gilbert taught it me.”
“In three weeks? Monsieur Impostor!”
Pitou saw that he had made a false step.
“Hear me, Monsieur Abbé,” said he, “I will not contend with you any farther. You have your own ideas—”
“Really”
“That is but right.”
“You acknowledge that: Monsieur Pitou allows me to have my own ideas! Thanks, Monsieur Pitou”
“Good! There, you are getting angry again. You must comprehend that if this continues I shall not be able to tell you the object which brought me here.”
“Wretch! You had an object in coming here, then You were deputed, perhaps”
And the abbé laughed ironically.
“Sir,” said Pitou, placed by the abbé himself upon the, footing in which he wished to find himself since the commencement of the discussion, “you know the great respect I have always had for your character.”
“Ah, yes! let us talk of that.”
“And the admiration I have always entertained for your knowledge,” added Pitou.
“Serpent!” exclaimed the abbé.
“What! I?” cried Pitou; “that, for example!”
“Come, now, let us hear what you have to ask of me! That I should take you back here? No, no; I would not spoil my scholars. No; you would still retain the noxious venom; you would infect my young plants. Infecit pabula tabo.”
“But, good Monsieur Abbé—”
“No, do not ask me that; if you must absolutely eat,—for I presume that the hangers of Paris eat as well as honest people. They eat—oh, God! In short, if you require that I should throw you your portion of raw meat, you shall have it, but at the door on the spatula, as at Rome the masters did to their dogs.”
“Monsieur Abbé,” cried Pitou, drawing himself up proudly, “I do not ask you for my food; I have wherewith to provide food, God be thanked; I will not be a burden to any one.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the abbé, with surprise.