He who had taken so active a part in the crusade of the Parisians against the nobility, found himself but very insignificant in opposition to the country nobility represented by Monsieur Isidore de Charny.
Alas! so handsome a youth, a man likely to please even at first sight, a cavalier who wore buckskin breeches and a velvet riding-coat.
How would it be possible to contend against such a man?
With a man who had long riding-boots, and spurs on the heels of those boots,—with a man whose brother many people still called Monseigneur.
How was it possible to contend against such a rival How could he avoid at once feeling shame and admiration?—two feelings which, to the heart of a lover, inflict a double torture,—a torture so frightful that it has never yet been decided whether a jealous man prefers a rival of higher or lower condition than himself.
Pitou, therefore, but too well knew the pangs of jealousy, the wounds of which are incurable and fertile in agony, and of which up to this time the ingenuous heart of our hero had remained ignorant,—jealousy, a plant of marvellous and venomous growth, which sprang up without seed being sown, from a soil that had never seen germinate any noxious passion, not even self-love, that evil root which chokes up even the most sterile lands.
A heart thus tortured stands in need of much philosophy in order to regain its habitual calmness.
Was Pitou a philosopher,—he who the day following that on which he had experienced this sensation could think of waging war against the hares and rabbits of his Highness the Duke of Orléans, and the day after that, of making the long harangues we have reported?
Was his heart, then, as hard as flint, from which every fresh blow draws a spark? Or did it possess only the soft resistance of a sponge, which has the quality of absorbing tears, and of mollifying, without receiving a wound, the shock of every misfortune?
This the future will indubitably testify; therefore let us not prejudge, but go on with our story.
After having received the visit we have related, and his harangues being terminated, Pitou, compelled by his appetite to attend to minor matters, set to work and cooked his young rabbit, regretting that it was not a hare.
But, in fact, had the rabbit been really a hare, Pitou would not have eaten, but would have sold it.
That would not have been a very trifling concern. A hare, according to its size, is worth from eighteen to twenty-four sous; and although he was still the possessor of a few louis given to him by Doctor Gilbert, Pitou, without being as avaricious as his Aunt Angélique, had a good dose of economy, which he had inherited from his mother. Pitou would therefore have added eighteen sous to his treasure, which would thus have been increased instead of diminished.
For Pitou had justly reflected that it was not necessary for a man to make repasts which would cost him one day half a crown, another eighteen sous. He was not a Lucullus; and Pitou said that with the eighteen sous his hare would have brought him, he could have lived during a whole week.
Now, during that week, supposing that he had caught a hare on the first day, he might very well have taken three during the six following days, or rather, the six following nights. In a week, therefore, he would have gained food for a month.
Following up this calculation, forty-eight hares would have sufficed for a year’s keep; all the rest would have been clear profit.
Pitou entered into this economical calculation while he was eating his rabbit, which, instead of bringing him anything, cost him a sous’ worth of butter and a sous’ worth of lard. As to the onions, he had gleaned them upon the common land.
“After a repast, the fireside or a walk,” says the proverb. After his repast, Pitou went into the forest to seek a snug corner where he could take a nap.
It is scarcely necessary to say that as soon as the unfortunate youth had finished talking politics and found himself alone, he had incessantly before his eyes the spectacle of Monsieur Isidore making love to Mademoiselle Catherine.