“They eat when they have vanquished the tyrants,” replied Pitou. “Did any one eat on the 14th of July? Did they even think of eating on that day? No; they had not time even to think of it.”
“Ah! ah!” cried some of the most zealous, “the takng of the Bastille must have been a fine sight.”
“But,” continued Pitou, disdainfully, “as to drinking, I will not say no; it was so hot, and gunpowder has so acrid a taste.”
“But what had they to drink?”
“What had the people to drink? Why, water, wine, and brandy. It was the women who had taken this in charge.”
“The women?”
“Yes, and handsome women, too, who had made flags of the front part of their dresses.”
“Can it be possible?” cried the auditors, with much astonishment.
“But at all events,” observed the sceptic, “they must have eaten the next day.”
“I do not say that they did not,” replied Pitou.
“Then,” rejoined Boniface, triumphantly, “if they ate, they must have worked.”
“Monsieur Boniface,” replied Pitou, “you are speaking of things without understanding them. Paris is not a hamlet. It is not composed of a heap of villagers accustomed to think only of their bellies,—obedientia ventri, as we say in Latin, we who are learned. No; Paris, as Monsieur de Mirabeau says, is the head of all nations; it is a brain which thinks for the whole world. The brain, sir, never eats.”
“That is true,” thought the auditors.
“And yet,” said Pitou, “the brain, though it does not eat, still feeds itself.”
“But then how does it feed itself?” answered Boniface.
“Invisibly, with the nutriment of the body.”
Here the Haramontese were quite at a loss; the question was too profound for them to understand.
“Explain this to us, Pitou,” said Boniface.
“That is easily done,” replied Pitou: “Paris is the brain, as I have said; the provinces are the members. The provinces will work, drink, eat; and Paris will think.”
“Then I will leave the provinces and go to Paris,” rejoined the sceptical Boniface. “Will you come to Paris with me, my friends?”
A portion of the audience burst into a loud laugh, and appeared to side with Boniface.
Pitou perceived that he would be discredited by this sarcastic railer.
“Go, then, to Paris,” cried he in his turn; “and if you find there a single face as ridiculous as yours, I will buy of you such young rabbits as this at a louis apiece.”
And with one hand Pitou held up the young rabbit he had caught, and with the other made the louis, which remained of Doctor Gilbert’s munificence jingle, in his pocket.
Pitou this time had the laugh in his favor.
Upon this, Boniface became positively purple with rage.
“Why, Master Pitou, you are playing the insolent to call us ridiculous.”
“Ridiculus tu es,” majestically replied Pitou.
“But look at yourself,” retorted Boniface.
“It would be but to little purpose,” replied Pitou. “I might see something as ugly as yourself, but never anything half so stupid.”
Pitou had scarcely said these words, when Boniface—at Haramont they are almost as passionate as in Picardy—struck at him with his fist, which Pitou adroitly parried, but to which he replied by a kick in the true Parisian fashion.
This kick was followed by a second, which sent the sceptic flying some few feet, when he fell heavily to the ground.
Pitou bent down over his adversary so as to give the victory the most fatal consequences, and all were already rushing to save poor Boniface, when, raising himself up,—
“Learn,” said Pitou, “that the conquerors of the Bastille do not fight with fists. I have a sabre; take another sabre, and let us end the matter at once.”
Upon this, Pitou drew his sword, forgetting, or perhaps not forgetting, that the only sabre in all Haramont was his own, with the exception of that of the rural guard, at least two feet shorter than his own.
It is true that to establish a more perfect equilibrium he put on his helmet.
This greatness of soul electrified the assembly. It was agreed by all that Boniface was a rascallion, a vile fellow, an ass unworthy of being admitted to share in any discussion on public affairs.