“Yes, and even a great many,” replied the farmer, passing his hand over his still painful body.
“And as to me,” said Pitou, “I had one eye almost put out.”
“And all that for nothing,” added Billot.
“Well, my children, if instead of there being only ten, fifteen, twenty of your courage, there had been a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, you would have saved the unhappy man from the frightful death which was inflicted on him; you would have spared the nation the blot which has sullied it. And that is the reason why, instead of returning to the country, which is tolerably tranquil,—that is why, Billot, I exact as far as I can exact anything of you, my friend, that you should remain at Paris; that I may have always near me a vigorous arm, an upright heart; that I may test my mind and my works on the faithful touchstone of your good sense and your pure patriotism; and, in fine, that we may strew around us, not gold, for that we have not, but our love of country and of the public welfare, in which you will be my agent with a multitude of misled, unfortunate men,—my staff, should my feet slip; my staff, should I have occasion to strike a blow.”
“A blind man’s dog,” said Billot, with sublime simplicity.
“Precisely,” said Gilbert, in the same tone.
“Well,” said Billot, “I accept your proposal. I will be whatever you may please to make me.”
“I know that you are abandoning everything,—fortune, wife, child, and happiness,—Billot. But you may be tranquil; it will not be for long.”
“And I,” said Pitou, “what am I to do?”
“You?” said Gilbert, looking at the ingenuous and hardy youth who boasted not much of his intelligence,—”you will return to the farm, to console Billot’s family, and explain to them the holy mission he has undertaken.”
“Instantly!” cried Pitou, trembling with joy at the idea of returning to Catherine.
“Billot,” said Gilbert, “give him your instructions.”
“They are as follows,” said Billot.
“I am all attention.”
“Catherine is appointed by me as mistress of the house. Do you understand?”
“And Madame Billot?” exclaimed Pitou, somewhat surprised at this slight offered to the mother, to the advancement of the daughter.
“Pitou,” said Gilbert, who had at once caught the idea of Billot, from seeing a slight blush suffuse the face of the honest farmer, “remember the Arabian proverb, ‘to hear is to obey.'”
Pitou blushed in his turn. He had almost understood, and felt the indiscretion of which he had been guilty.
“Catherine has all the judgment of the family,” added Billot, unaffectedly, in order to explain his idea.
Gilbert bowed in token of assent.
“Is that all?” inquired the youth.
“All that I have to say,” replied Billot.”
“But not as regards me,” said Gilbert.
“I am listening,” observed Pitou, well disposed to attend to the Arabian proverb cited by Gilbert.
“You will go with a letter I shall give you to the College Louis-le-Grand,” added Gilbert. “You will deliver that letter to the Abbé Bérardier; he will intrust Sebastien to you, and you will bring him here. After I have embraced him, you will take him to Villers-Cotterets, where you will place him in the hands of the Abbé Fortier, that he may not altogether lose his time. On Sunday and Thursdays he will go out with you. Make him walk frequently in the meadows and in the woods. It will be more conducible to my tranquillity and his health that he should be in the country yonder than here.”
“I have understood you perfectly,” said Pitou, delighted to be thus restored to the friend of his childhood, and to the vague aspirations of a sentiment somewhat more adult, which had been awakened within him by the magic name of Catherine.
He rose and took leave of Gilbert, who smiled, and of Billot, who was dreaming.
Then he set off, running at full speed, to fetch Sebastien Gilbert, his foster-brother, from the college.
“And now we,” said Gilbert to Billot,—”we must set to work.”
Chapter XV
Medea
A DEGREE of calmness had succeeded at Versailles to the terrible moral and political agitations which we have placed before the eyes of our readers.