“Well,” said she, when she reached the kitchen floor, “why, it is really Pitou!”
Pitou bowed, blushing deeply, and trembling in every nerve.
“He has a helmet,” said a servant-maid, whispering into her mistress’s ear.
Pitou overheard her, and watched the effect produced on Catherine’s countenance.
A lovely countenance, perhaps somewhat paler, but still full and peach-like.
But Catherine did not evince any admiration for Pitou’s helmet.
“Ah! he has a helmet,” she said; “and for what purpose?”
This time indignation mastered every other feeling in the mind of the bold youth.
“I have a helmet and a sabre,” said he, proudly, “because I have fought and killed German dragoons and Swiss soldiers; and if you doubt it, Mademoiselle Catherine, ask your father, and he will tell you.”
Catherine’s mind was so preoccupied that she heard only the last words uttered by Pitou.
“And how is my father?” inquired she. “How happens it that he did not return with you? Is there bad news from Paris?”
“Very bad,” replied Pitou.
“I thought that everything had been arranged,” observed Catherine.
“Yes, that is true; but everything is disarranged again,” rejoined Pitou.
“Was there not a reconciliation between the king and the people, and was not Monsieur Necker recalled?”
“But little is thought of Monsieur Necker,” said Pitou.
“And yet that satisfied the people, did it not?”
“It so well satisfied them that the people are now about to do themselves justice and to kill all their enemies.”
“All their enemies!” exclaimed Catherine, with astonishment; “who, then, are the enemies of the people?”
“The aristocrats, to be sure,” said Pitou.
Catherine turned pale.
“But whom do they call aristocrats?” she asked.
“Why, those who have large estates; those who have fine country-seats; those who starve the nation; those who have all while we have nothing.”
“Go on! go on!” impatiently cried Catherine.
“Those who have beautiful horses and fine carriages, when we are obliged to go on foot.”
“Great God!” exclaimed the young girl, becoming so pale as to be positively livid.
Pitou remarked this change in her countenance.
“I call aristocrats some persons of your acquaintance.”
“Of my acquaintance!”
“Of our acquaintance!” said Dame Billot.
“But who is it, then?” said Catherine, persistingly.
“Monsieur Berthier de Sauvigny, for instance.”
“Monsieur Berthier de Sauvigny?”
“Who gave you the gold buckles which you wore the day you danced with Monsieur Isidore!”
“Well?”
“Well; I saw people eating his heart,—I who am now speaking to you.”
A cry of terror was uttered by all present. Catherine threw herself back in the chair which she had taken.
“You saw that?” cried Madame Billot, trembling with horror.
“And Monsieur Billot saw it too.”
“Oh, good God!”
“Yes, and by this time they must have killed or burned all the aristocrats of Paris and Versailles.”
“It is frightful!” murmured Catherine.
“Frightful! and why so? You are not an aristocrat,—you, Mademoiselle Billot?”
“Monsieur Pitou,” said Catherine, with gloomy energy, “it appears to me that you were not so ferocious before you went to Paris.”
“And I am not more so now, Mademoiselle,” said Pitou, somewhat staggered; “but—”
“But, then, do not boast of the crimes committed by the Parisians, since you are not a Parisian, and you did not commit these crimes.”
“I was so far from committing them,” said Pitou, “that Monsieur Billot and myself narrowly escaped being murdered while defending Monsieur Berthier.”
“Oh, my good father! my brave father! I recognize him there!” enthusiastically exclaimed Catherine.
“My good, my worthy man!” cried Madame Billot, her eyes streaming with tears. “Tell me, what did he do?”
Pitou then related the whole of the dreadful scene which had occurred on the Place de Grève, the despair of Billot, and his desire to return to VillersCotterets.
“Why did he not return, then?” cried Catherine, in an accent that, like a presentiment of evil, deeply moved Pitou’s heart.
Dame Billot clasped her hands.
“Monsieur Gilbert would not allow it,” replied Pitou.
“Does Monsieur Gilbert wish, then, that my husband should be killed?” said Madame Billot, sobbing.
“Does he wish, then, that my father’s house should be ruined?” added Catherine, in the same tone of gloomy melancholy.
“Oh, by no means!” cried Pitou; “Monsieur Billot and Monsieur Gilbert understand each other; Monsieur Billot will remain still some time at Paris, to finish the Revolution.”