Chapter 20

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_ CHAPTER XX

DURING the ten years which followed, the vigorous sprouting of the Froments, suggestive of some healthy vegetation of joy and strength, continued in and around the ever and ever richer domain of Chantebled. As the sons and the daughters grew up there came fresh marriages, and more and more children, all the promised crop, all the promised swarming of a race of conquerors.

First it was Gervais who married Caroline Boucher, daughter of a big farmer of the region, a fair, fine-featured, gay, strong girl, one of those superior women born to rule over a little army of servants. On leaving a Parisian boarding-school she had been sensible enough to feel no shame of her family's connection with the soil. Indeed she loved the earth and had set herself to win from it all the sterling happiness of her life. By way of dowry she brought an expanse of meadow-land in the direction of Lillebonne, which enlarged the estate by some seventy acres. But she more particularly brought her good humor, her health, her courage in rising early, in watching over the farmyard, the dairy, the whole home, like an energetic active housewife, who was ever bustling about, and always the last to bed.

Then came the turn of Claire, whose marriage with Frederic Berthaud, long since foreseen, ended by taking place. There were tears of soft emotion, for the memory of her whom Berthaud had loved and whom he was to have married disturbed several hearts on the wedding day when the family skirted the little cemetery of Janville as it returned to the farm from the municipal offices. But, after all, did not that love of former days, that faithful fellow's long affection, which in time had become transferred to the younger sister, constitute as it were another link in the ties which bound him to the Froments? He had no fortune, he brought with him only his constant faithfulness, and the fraternity which had sprung up between himself and Gervais during the many seasons when they had ploughed the estate like a span of tireless oxen drawing the same plough. His heart was one that could never be doubted, he was the helper who had become indispensable, the husband whose advent would mean the best of all understandings and absolute certainty of happiness.

From the day of that wedding the government of the farm was finally settled. Though Mathieu was barely five-and-fifty he abdicated, and transferred his authority to Gervais, that son of the earth as with a laugh he often called him, the first of his children born at Chantebled, the one who had never left the farm, and who had at all times given him the support of his arm and his brain and his heart. And now Frederic in turn would think and strive as Gervais's devoted lieutenant, in the great common task. Between them henceforth they would continue the father's work, and perfect the system of culture, procuring appliances of new design from the Beauchene works, now ruled by Denis, and ever drawing from the soil the largest crops that it could be induced to yield. Their wives had likewise divided their share of authority; Claire surrendered the duties of supervision to Caroline, who was stronger and more active than herself, and was content to attend to the accounts, the turnover of considerable sums of money, all that was paid away and all that was received. The two couples seemed to have been expressly and cleverly selected to complete one another and to accomplish the greatest sum of work without ever the slightest fear of conflict. And, indeed, they lived in perfect union, with only one will among them, one purpose which was ever more and more skilfully effected--the continual increase of the happiness and wealth of Chantebled under the beneficent sun.

At the same time, if Mathieu had renounced the actual exercise of authority, he none the less remained the creator, the oracle who was consulted, listened to, and obeyed. He dwelt with Marianne in the old shooting-box which had been transformed and enlarged into a very comfortable house. Here they lived like the founders of a dynasty who had retired in full glory, setting their only delight in beholding around them the development and expansion of their race, the birth and growth of their children's children. Leaving Claire and Gervais on one side, there were as yet only Denis and Ambroise--the first to wing their flight abroad--engaged in building up their fortunes in Paris. The three girls, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, who would soon be old enough to marry, still dwelt in the happy home beside their parents, as well as the three youngest boys, Gregoire, the free lance, Nicolas, the most stubborn and determined of the brood, and Benjamin, who was of a dreamy nature. All these finished growing up at the edge of the nest, so to say, with the window of life open before them, ready for the day when they likewise would take wing.

With them dwelt Charlotte, Blaise's widow, and her two children, Berthe and Guillaume, the three of them occupying an upper floor of the house where the mother had installed her studio. She was becoming rich since her little share in the factory profits, stipulated by Denis, had been increasing year by year; but nevertheless, she continued working for her dealer in miniatures. This work brought her pocket-money, she gayly said, and would enable her to make her children a present whenever they might marry. There was, indeed, already some thought of Berthe marrying; and assuredly she would be the first of Mathieu and Marianne's grandchildren to enter into the state of matrimony. They smiled softly at the idea of becoming great-grandparents before very long perhaps.

After the lapse of four years, Gregoire, first of the younger children, flew away. There was a great deal of trouble, quite a little drama in connection with the affair, which Mathieu and Marianne had for some time been anticipating. Gregoire was anything but reasonable. Short, but robust, with a pert face in which glittered the brightest of eyes, he had always been the turbulent member of the family, the one who caused the most anxiety. His childhood had been spent in playing truant in the woods of Janville, and he had afterwards made a mere pretence of studying in Paris, returning home full of health and spirits, but unable or unwilling to make up his mind with respect to any particular trade or profession. Already four-and-twenty, he knew little more than how to shoot and fish, and trot about the country on horseback. He was certainly not more stupid or less active than another, but he seemed bent on living and amusing himself according to his fancy. The worst was that for some months past all the gossips of Janville had been relating that he had renewed his former boyish friendship with Therese Lepailleur, the miller's daughter, and that they were to be met of an evening in shady nooks under the pollard-willows by the Yeuse.

One morning Mathieu, wishing to ascertain if the young coveys of partridges were plentiful in the direction of Mareuil, took Gregoire with him; and when they found themselves alone among the plantations of the plateau, he began to talk to him seriously.

"You know I'm not pleased with you, my lad," said he. "I really cannot understand the idle life which you lead here, while all the rest of us are hard at work. I shall wait till October since you have positively promised me that you will then come to a decision and choose the calling which you most fancy. But what is all this tittle-tattle which I hear about appointments which you keep with the daughter of the Lepailleurs? Do you wish to cause us serious worry?"

Gregoire quietly began to laugh.

"Oh, father! You are surely not going to scold a son of yours because he happens to be on friendly terms with a pretty girl! Why, as you may remember, it was I who gave her her first bicycle lesson nearly ten years ago. And you will recollect the fine white roses which she helped me to secure in the enclosure by the mill for Denis' wedding."

Gregoire still laughed at the memory of that incident, and lived afresh through all his old time sweethearting--the escapades with Therese along the river banks, and the banquets of blackberries in undiscoverable hiding-places, deep in the woods. And it seemed, too, that the love of childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus recalled those distant times.

"Poor Therese! We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock. It's true that last spring we made it up again on finding ourselves face to face in the little wood at Monval over yonder. But come, father, do you mean to say that it's a crime if we take a little pleasure in speaking to one another when we meet?"

Rendered the more anxious by the fire with which Gregoire sought to defend the girl, Mathieu spoke out plainly.

"A crime? No, if you just wish one another good day and good evening. Only folks relate that you are to be seen at dusk with your arms round each other's waist, and that you go stargazing through the grass alongside the Yeuse."

Then, as Gregoire this time without replying laughed yet more loudly, with the merry laugh of youth, his father gravely resumed:

"Listen, my lad, it is not at all to my taste to play the gendarme behind my sons. But I won't have you drawing some unpleasant business with the Lepailleurs on us all. You know the position, they would be delighted to give us trouble. So don't give them occasion for complaining, leave their daughter alone."

"Oh! I take plenty of care," cried the young man, thus suddenly confessing the truth. "Poor girl! She has already had her ears boxed because somebody told her father that I had been met with her. He answered that rather than give her to me he would throw her into the river."

"Ah! you see," concluded Mathieu. "It is understood, is it not? I shall rely on your good behavior."

Thereupon they went their way, scouring the fields as far as the road to Mareuil. Coveys of young partridges, still weak on the wing, started up both to the right and to the left. The shooting would be good. Then as the father and the son turned homeward, slackening their pace, a long spell of silence fell between them. They were both reflecting.

"I don't wish that there should be any misunderstanding between us," Mathieu suddenly resumed; "you must not imagine that I shall prevent you from marrying according to your tastes and that I shall require you to take an heiress. Our poor Blaise married a portionless girl. And it was the same with Denis; besides which I gave your sister, Claire, in marriage to Frederic, who was simply one of our farm hands. So I don't look down on Therese. On the contrary, I think her charming. She's one of the prettiest girls of the district--not tall, certainly, but so alert and determined, with her little pink face shining under such a wild crop of fair hair, that one might think her powdered with all the flour in the mill."

"Yes, isn't that so, father?" interrupted Gregoire enthusiastically. "And if you only knew how affectionate and courageous she is! She's worth a man any day. It's wrong of them to smack her, for she will never put up with it. Whenever she sets her mind on anything she's bound to do it, and it isn't I who can prevent her."

Absorbed in some reflections of his own, Mathieu scarcely heard his son.

"No, no," he resumed; "I certainly don't look down on their mill. If it were not for Lepailleur's stupid obstinacy he would be drawing a fortune from that mill nowadays. Since corn-growing has again been taken up all over the district, thanks to our victory, he might have got a good pile of crowns together if he had simply changed the old mechanism of his wheel which he leaves rotting under the moss. And better still, I should like to see a good engine there, and a bit of a light railway line connecting the mill with Janville station."

In this fashion he continued explaining his ideas while Gregoire listened, again quite lively and taking things in a jesting way.

"Well, father," the young man ended by saying, "as you wish that I should have a calling, it's settled. If I marry Therese, I'll be a miller."

Mathieu protested in surprise: "No, no, I was merely talking. And besides, you have promised me, my lad, that you will be reasonable. So once again, for the sake of the peace and quietness of all of us, leave Therese alone, for we can only expect to reap worry with the Lepailleurs."

The conversation ceased and they returned to the farm. That evening, however, the father told the mother of the young man's confession, and she, who already entertained various misgivings, felt more anxious than ever. Still a month went by without anything serious happening.

Then, one morning Marianne was astounded at finding Gregoire's bedroom empty. As a rule he came to kiss her. Perhaps he had risen early, and had gone on some excursion in the environs. But she trembled slightly when she remembered how lovingly he had twice caught her in his arms on the previous night when they were all retiring to bed. And as she looked inquisitively round the room she noticed on the mantelshelf a letter addressed to her--a prettily worded letter in which the young fellow begged her to forgive him for causing her grief, and asked her to excuse him with his father, for it was necessary that he should leave them for a time. Of his reasons for doing so and his purpose, however, no particulars were given.

This family rending, this bad conduct on the part of the son who had been the most spoilt of all, and who, in a fit of sudden folly was the first to break the ties which united the household together, was a very painful blow for Marianne and Mathieu. They were the more terrified since they divined that Gregoire had not gone off alone. They pieced together the incidents of the deplorable affair. Charlotte remembered that she had heard Gregoire go downstairs again, almost immediately after entering his bedroom, and before the servants had even bolted the house-doors for the night. He had certainly rushed off to join Therese in some coppice, whence they must have hurried away to Vieux-Bourg station which the last train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes past midnight. And it was indeed this which had taken place. At noon the Froments already learnt that Lepailleur was creating a terrible scandal about the flight of Therese. He had immediately gone to the gendarmes to shout the story to them, and demand that they should bring the guilty hussy back, chained to her accomplice, and both of them with gyves about their wrists.

He on his side had found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own free will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Gregoire with her, and was quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know what she was about. Lepailleur's fury was largely due to this letter which he did not dare to show abroad; besides which, his wife, ever at war with him respecting their son Antonin, not only roundly abused Therese, but sneeringly declared that it might all have been expected, and that he, the father, was the cause of the gad-about's misconduct. After that, they engaged in fisticuffs; and for a whole week the district did nothing but talk about the flight of one of the Chantebled lads with the girl of the mill, to the despair of Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom in particular grieved over the sorry business.

Five days later, a Sunday, matters became even worse. As the search for the runaways remained fruitless Lepailleur, boiling over with rancor, went up to the farm, and from the middle of the road--for he did not venture inside--poured forth a flood of ignoble insults. It so happened that Mathieu was absent; and Marianne had great trouble to restrain Gervais as well as Frederic, both of whom wished to thrust the miller's scurrilous language back into his throat. When Mathieu came home in the evening he was extremely vexed to hear of what had happened.

"It is impossible for this state of things to continue," he said to his wife, as they were retiring to rest. "It looks as if we were hiding, as if we were guilty in the matter. I will go to see that man in the morning. There is only one thing, and a very simple one, to be done, those unhappy children must be married. For our part we consent, is it not so? And it is to that man's advantage to consent also. To-morrow the matter must be settled."

On the following day, Monday, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Mathieu set out for the mill. But certain complications, a tragic drama, which he could not possibly foresee, awaited him there. For years now a stubborn struggle had been going on between Lepailleur and his wife with respect to Antonin. While the farmer had grown more and more exasperated with his son's idleness and life of low debauchery in Paris, the latter had supported her boy with all the obstinacy of an illiterate woman, who was possessed of a blind faith in his fine handwriting, and felt convinced that if he did not succeed in life it was simply because he was refused the money necessary for that purpose. In spite of her sordid avarice in some matters, the old woman continued bleeding herself for her son, and even robbed the house, promptly thrusting out her claws and setting her teeth ready to bite whenever she was caught in the act, and had to defend some twenty-franc piece or other, which she had been on the point of sending away. And each time the battle began afresh, to such a point indeed that it seemed as if the shaky old mill would some day end by falling on their heads.

Then, all at once, Antonin, a perfect wreck at thirty-six years of age, fell seriously ill. Lepailleur forthwith declared that if the scamp had the audacity to come home he would pitch him over the wheel into the water. Antonin, however, had no desire to return home; he held the country in horror and feared, too, that his father might chain him up like a dog. So his mother placed him with some people of Batignolles, paying for his board and for the attendance of a doctor of the district. This had been going on for three months or so, and every fortnight La Lepailleur went to see her son. She had done so the previous Thursday, and on the Sunday evening she received a telegram summoning her to Batignolles again. Thus, on the morning of the day when Mathieu repaired to the mill, she had once more gone to Paris after a frightful quarrel with her husband, who asked if their good-for-nothing son ever meant to cease fooling them and spending their money, when he had not the courage even to turn a spit of earth.

Alone in the mill that morning Lepailleur did not cease storming. At the slightest provocation he would have hammered his plough to pieces, or have rushed, axe in hand, and mad with hatred, on the old wheel by way of avenging his misfortunes. When he saw Mathieu come in he believed in some act of bravado, and almost choked.

"Come, neighbor," said the master of Chantebled cordially, "let us both try to be reasonable. I've come to return your visit, since you called upon me yesterday. Only, bad words never did good work, and the best course, since this misfortune has happened, is to repair it as speedily as possible. When would you have us marry off those bad children?"

Thunderstruck by the quiet good nature of this frontal attack, Lepailleur did not immediately reply. He had shouted over the house roofs that he would have no marriage at all, but rather a good lawsuit by way of sending all the Froments to prison. Nevertheless, when it came to reflection, a son of the big farmer of Chantebled was not to be disdained as a son-in-law.

"Marry them, marry them," he stammered at the first moment. "Yes, by fastening a big stone to both their necks and throwing them together into the river. Ah! the wretches! I'll skin them, I will, her as well as him."

At last, however, the miller grew calmer and was even showing a disposition to discuss matters, when all at once an urchin of Janville came running across the yard.

"What do you want, eh?" called the master of the premises.

"Please, Monsieur Lepailleur, it's a telegram."

"All right, give it here."

The lad, well pleased with the copper he received as a gratuity, had already gone off, and still the miller, instead of opening the telegram, stood examining the address on it with the distrustful air of a man who does not often receive such communications. However, he at last had to tear it open. It contained but three words: "Your son dead"; and in that brutal brevity, that prompt, hasty bludgeon-blow, one could detect the mother's cold rage and eager craving to crush without delay the man, the father yonder, whom she accused of having caused her son's death, even as she had accused him of being responsible for her daughter's flight. He felt this full well, and staggered beneath the shock, stunned by the words that appeared on that strip of blue paper, reading them again and again till he ended by understanding them. Then his hands began to tremble and he burst into oaths.

"Thunder and blazes! What again is this? Here's the boy dying now! Everything's going to the devil!"

But his heart dilated and tears appeared in his eyes. Unable to remain standing, he sank upon a chair and again obstinately read the telegram; "Your son dead--Your son dead," as if seeking something else, the particulars, indeed, which the message did not contain. Perhaps the boy had died before his mother's arrival. Or perhaps she had arrived just before he died. Such were his stammered comments. And he repeated a score of times that she had taken the train at ten minutes past eleven and must have reached Batignolles about half-past twelve. As she had handed in the telegram at twenty minutes past one it seemed more likely that she had found the lad already dead.

"Curse it! curse it!" he shouted; "a cursed telegram, it tells you nothing, and it murders you! She might, at all events, have sent somebody. I shall have to go there. Ah the whole thing's complete, it's more than a man can bear!"

Lepailleur shouted those words in such accents of rageful despair that Mathieu, full of compassion, made bold to intervene. The sudden shock of the tragedy had staggered him, and he had hitherto waited in silence. But now he offered his services and spoke of accompanying the other to Paris. He had to retreat, however, for the miller rose to his feet, seized with wild exasperation at perceiving him still there in his house.

"Ah! yes, you came; and what was it you were saying to me? That we ought to marry off those wretched children? Well, you can see that I'm in proper trim for a wedding! My boy's dead! You've chosen your day well. Be off with you, be off with you, I say, if you don't want me to do something dreadful!"

He raised his fists, quite maddened as he was by the presence of Mathieu at that moment when his whole life was wrecked. It was terrible indeed that this bourgeois who had made a fortune by turning himself into a peasant should be there at the moment when he so suddenly learnt the death of Antonin, that son whom he had dreamt of turning into a Monsieur by filling his mind with disgust of the soil and sending him to rot of idleness and vice in Paris! It enraged him to find that he had erred, that the earth whom he had slandered, whom he had taxed with decrepitude and barrenness was really a living, youthful, and fruitful spouse to the man who knew how to love her! And nought but ruin remained around him, thanks to his imbecile resolve to limit his family: a foul life had killed his only son, and his only daughter had gone off with a scion of the triumphant farm, while he was now utterly alone, weeping and howling in his deserted mill, that mill which he had likewise disdained and which was crumbling around him with old age.

"You hear me!" he shouted. "Therese may drag herself at my feet; but I will never, never give her to your thief of a son! You'd like it, wouldn't you? so that folks might mock me all over the district, and so that you might eat me up as you have eaten up all the others!"

This finish to it all had doubtless appeared to him, confusedly, in a sudden threatening vision: Antonin being dead, it was Gregoire who would possess the mill, if he should marry Therese. And he would possess the moorland also, that enclosure, hitherto left barren with such savage delight, and so passionately coveted by the farm. And doubtless he would cede it to the farm as soon as he should be the master. The thought that Chantebled might yet be increased by the fields which he, Lepailleur, had withheld from it brought the miller's delirious rage to a climax.

"Your son, I'll send him to the galleys! And you, if you don't go, I'll throw you out! Be off with you, be off!"

Mathieu, who was very pale, slowly retired before this furious madman. But as he went off he calmly said: "You are an unhappy man. I forgive you, for you are in great grief. Besides, I am quite easy, sensible things always end by taking place."

Again, a month went by. Then, one rainy morning in October, Madame Lepailleur was found hanging in the mill stable. There were folks at Janville who related that Lepailleur had hung her there. The truth was that she had given signs of melancholia ever since the death of Antonin. Moreover, the life led at the mill was no longer bearable; day by day the husband and wife reproached one another for their son's death and their daughter's flight, battling ragefully together like two abandoned beasts shut up in the same cage. Folks were merely astonished that such a harsh, avaricious woman should have been willing to quit this life without taking her goods and chattels with her.

As soon as Therese heard of her mother's death she hastened home, repentant, and took her place beside her father again, unwilling as she was that he should remain alone in his two-fold bereavement. At first it proved a terrible time for her in the company of that brutal old man who was exasperated by what he termed his bad luck. But she was a girl of sterling courage and prompt decision; and thus, after a few weeks, she had made her father consent to her marriage with Gregoire, which, as Mathieu had said, was the only sensible course. The news gave great relief at the farm whither the prodigal son had not yet dared to return. It was believed that the young couple, after eloping together, had lived in some out of the way district of Paris, and it was even suspected that Ambroise, who was liberally minded, had, in a brotherly way, helped them with his purse. And if, on the one hand, Lepailleur consented to the marriage in a churlish, distrustful manner--like one who deemed himself robbed, and was simply influenced by the egotistical dread of some day finding himself quite alone again in his gloomy house--Mathieu and Marianne, on the other side, were delighted with an arrangement which put an end to an equivocal situation that had caused them the greatest suffering, grieved as they were by the rebellion of one of their children.

Curiously enough, it came to pass that Gregoire, once married and installed at the mill in accordance with his wife's desire, agreed with his father-in-law far better than had been anticipated. This resulted in particular from a certain discussion during which Lepailleur had wished to make Gregoire swear, that, after his death, he would never dispose of the moorland enclosure, hitherto kept uncultivated with peasant stubbornness, to any of his brothers or sisters of the farm. Gregoire took no oath on the subject, but gayly declared that he was not such a fool as to despoil his wife of the best part of her inheritance, particularly as he proposed to cultivate those moors and, within two or three years' time, make them the most fertile land in the district. That which belonged to him did not belong to others, and people would soon see that he was well able to defend the property which had fallen to his lot. Things took a similar course with respect to the mill, where Gregoire at first contented himself with repairing the old mechanism, for he was unwilling to upset the miller's habits all at once, and therefore postponed until some future time the installation of an engine, and the laying down of a line of rails to Janville station--all those ideas formerly propounded by Mathieu which henceforth fermented in his audacious young mind.

In this wise, then, people found themselves in presence of a new Gregoire. The madcap had become wise, only retaining of his youthful follies the audacity which is needful for successful enterprise. And it must be said that he was admirably seconded by the fair and energetic Therese. They were both enraptured at now being free to love each other in the romantic old mill, garlanded with ivy, pending the time when they would resolutely fling it to the ground to install in its place the great white meal stores and huge new mill-stones, which, with their conquering ambition, they often dreamt of.

During the years that followed, Mathieu and Marianne witnessed other departures. The three daughters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, in turn took their flight from the family nest. All three found husbands in the district. Louise, a plump brunette, all gayety and health, with abundant hair and large laughing eyes, married notary Mazaud of Janville, a quiet, pensive little man, whose occasional silent smiles alone denoted the perfect satisfaction which he felt at having found a wife of such joyous disposition. Then Madeleine, whose chestnut tresses were tinged with gleaming gold, and who was slimmer than her sister, and of a more dreamy style of beauty, her character and disposition refined by her musical tastes, made a love match which was quite a romance. Herbette, the architect, who became her husband, was a handsome, elegant man, already celebrated; he owned near Monvel a park-like estate, where he came to rest at times from the fatigue of his labors in Paris.

At last, Marguerite, the least pretty of the girls--indeed, she was quite plain, but derived a charm from her infinite goodness of heart--was chosen in marriage by Dr. Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly fellow, who had inherited his father's practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor. And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with Mathieu and Marianne in the slowly emptying nest were their two last boys, Nicolas and Benjamin.

At the same time, however, as the youngsters flew away and installed themselves elsewhere, there came other little ones, a constant swarming due to the many family marriages. In eight years, Denis, who reigned at the factory in Paris, had been presented by his wife with three children, two boys, Lucien and Paul, and a girl, Hortense. Then Leonce, the son of Ambroise, who was conquering such a high position in the commercial world, now had a brother, Charles, and two little sisters, Pauline and Sophie. At the farm, moreover, Gervais was already the father of two boys, Leon and Henri, while Claire, his sister, could count three children, a boy, Joseph, and two daughters, Lucile and Angele. There was also Gregoire, at the mill, with a big boy who had received the name of Robert; and there were also the three last married daughters--Louise, with a girl two years old; Madeleine, with a boy six months of age; and Marguerite, who in anticipation of a happy event, had decided to call her child Stanislas, if it were a boy, and Christine, if it should be a girl.

Thus upon every side the family oak spread out its branches, its trunk forking and multiplying, and boughs sprouting from boughs at each successive season. And withal Mathieu was not yet sixty, and Marianne not yet fifty-seven. Both still possessed flourishing health, and strength, and gayety, and were ever in delight at seeing the family, which had sprung from them, thus growing and spreading, invading all the country around, even like a forest born from a single tree.

But the great and glorious festival of Chantebled at that period was the birth of Mathieu and Marianne's first great-grandchild--a girl, called Angeline, daughter of their granddaughter, Berthe. In this little girl, all pink and white, the ever-regretted Blaise seemed to live again. So closely did she resemble him that Charlotte, his widow, already a grandmother in her forty-second year, wept with emotion at the sight of her. Madame Desvignes had died six months previously, passing away, even as she had lived, gently and discreetly, at the termination of her task, which had chiefly consisted in rearing her two daughters on the scanty means at her disposal. Still it was she, who, before quitting the scene, had found a husband for her granddaughter, Berthe, in the person of Philippe Havard, a young engineer who had recently been appointed assistant-manager at a State factory near Mareuil. It was at Chantebled, however, that Berthe's little Angeline was born; and on the day of the churching, the whole family assembled together there once more to glorify the great-grandfather and great-grandmother.

"Ah! well," said Marianne gayly, as she stood beside the babe's cradle, "if the young ones fly away there are others born, and so the nest will never be empty."

"Never, never!" repeated Mathieu with emotion, proud as he felt of that continual victory over solitude and death. "We shall never be left alone!"

Yet there came another departure which brought them many tears. Nicolas, the youngest but one of their boys, who was approaching his twentieth birthday, and thus nigh the cross-roads of life, had not yet decided which one he would follow. He was a dark, sturdy young man, with an open, laughing face. As a child, he had adored tales of travel and far-away adventure, and had always evinced great courage and endurance, returning home enraptured from interminable rambles, and never uttering complaints, however badly his feet might be blistered. And withal he possessed a most orderly mind, ever carefully arranging and classifying his little belongings in his drawers, and looking down with contempt on the haphazard way in which his sisters kept their things.

Later on, as he grew up, he became thoughtful, as if he were vainly seeking around him some means of realizing his two-fold craving, that of discovering some new land and organizing it properly. One of the last-born of a numerous family, he no longer found space enough for the amplitude and force of his desires. His brothers and sisters had already taken all the surrounding lands, and he stifled, threatened also, as it were, with famine, and ever sought the broad expanse that he dreamt of, where he might grow and reap his bread. No more room, no more food! At first he knew not in which direction to turn, but groped and hesitated for some months. Nevertheless, his hearty laughter continued to gladden the house; he wearied neither his father nor his mother with the care of his destiny, for he knew that he was already strong enough to fix it himself.

There was no corner left for him at the farm where Gervais and Claire took up all the room. At the Beauchene works Denis was all sufficient, reigning there like a conscientious toiler, and nothing justified a younger brother in claiming a share beside him. At the mill, too, Gregoire was as yet barely established, and his kingdom was so small that he could not possibly cede half of it. Thus an opening was only possible with Ambroise, and Nicolas ended by accepting an obliging offer which the latter made to take him on trial for a few months, by way of initiating him into the higher branches of commerce. Ambroise's fortune was becoming prodigious since old uncle Du Hordel had died, leaving him his commission business. Year by year the new master increased his trade with all the countries of the world. Thanks to his lucky audacity and broad international views, he was enriching himself with the spoils of the earth. And though Nicolas again began to stifle in Ambroise's huge store-houses, where the riches of distant countries, the most varied climes, were collected together, it was there that his real vocation came to him; for a voice suddenly arose, calling him away yonder to dim, unknown regions, vast stretches of country yet sterile, which needed to be populated, and cleared and sowed with the crops of the future.

For two months Nicolas kept silent respecting the designs which he was now maturing. He was extremely discreet, as are all men of great energy, who reflect before they act. He must go, that was certain, since neither space nor sufficiency of sunlight remained for him in the cradle of his birth; but if he went off alone, would that not be going in an imperfect state, deficient in the means needed for the heroic task of populating and clearing a new land? He knew a girl of Janville, one Lisbeth Moreau, who was tall and strong, and whose robust health, seriousness, and activity had charmed him. She was nineteen years of age, and, like Nicolas, she stifled in the little nook to which destiny had confined her; for she craved for the free and open air, yonder, afar off. An orphan, and long dependent on an aunt, who was simply a little village haberdasher, she had hitherto, from feelings of affection, remained cloistered in a small and gloomy shop. But her aunt had lately died, leaving her some ten thousand francs, and her dream was to sell the little business, and go away and really live at last. One October evening, when Nicolas and Lisbeth told one another things that they had never previously told anybody, they came to an understanding. They resolutely took each other's hand and plighted their troth for life, for the hard battle of creating a new world, a new family, somewhere on the earth's broad surface, in those mysterious, far away climes of which they knew so little. 'Twas a delightful betrothal, full of courage and faith.

Only then, everything having been settled, did Nicolas speak out, announcing his departure to his father and mother. It was an autumn evening, still mild, but fraught with winter's first shiver, and the twilight was falling. Intense grief wrung the parents' hearts as soon as they understood their son. This time it was not simply a young one flying from the family nest to build his own on some neighboring tree of the common forest; it was flight across the seas forever, severance without hope of return. They would see their other children again, but this one was breathing an eternal farewell. Their consent would be the share of cruel sacrifice, that life demands, their supreme gift to life, the tithe levied by life on their affection and their blood. To pursue its victory, life, the perpetual conqueror, demanded this portion of their flesh, this overplus of the numerous family, which was overflowing, spreading, peopling the world. And what could they answer, how could they refuse? The son who was unprovided for took himself off; nothing could be more logical or more sensible. Far beyond the fatherland there were vast continents yet uninhabited, and the seed which is scattered by the breezes of heaven knows no frontiers. Beyond the race there is mankind with that endless spreading of humanity that is leading us to the one fraternal people of the accomplished times, when the whole earth shall be but one sole city of truth and justice.

Moreover, quite apart from the great dream of those seers, the poets, Nicolas, like a practical man, whatever his enthusiasm, gayly gave his reasons for departing. He did not wish to be a parasite; he was setting off to the conquest of another land, where he would grow the bread he needed, since his own country had no field left for him. Besides, he took his country with him in his blood; she it was that he wished to enlarge afar off with unlimited increase of wealth and strength. It was ancient Africa, the mysterious, now explored, traversed from end to end, that attracted him. In the first instance he intended to repair to Senegal, whence he would doubtless push on to the Soudan, to the very heart of the virgin lands where he dreamt of a new France, an immense colonial empire, which would rejuvenate the old Gallic race by endowing it with its due share of the earth. And it was there that he had the ambition of carving out a kingdom for himself, and of founding with Lisbeth another dynasty of Froments, and a new Chantebled, covering under the hot sun a tract ten times as extensive as the old one, and peopled with the people of his own children. And he spoke of all this with such joyous courage that Mathieu and Marianne ended by smiling amid their tears, despite the rending of their poor hearts.

"Go, my lad, we cannot keep you back. Go wherever life calls you, wherever you may live with more health and joy and strength. All that may spring from you yonder will still be health and joy and strength derived from us, of which we shall be proud. You are right, one must not weep, your departure must be a fete, for the family does not separate, it simply extends, invades, and conquers the world."

Nevertheless, on the day of farewell, after the marriage of Nicolas and Lisbeth there was an hour of painful emotion at Chantebled. The family had met to share a last meal all together, and when the time came for the young and adventurous couple to tear themselves from the maternal soil there were those who sobbed although they had vowed to be very brave. Nicolas and Lisbeth were going off with little means, but rich in hopes. Apart from the ten thousand francs of the wife's dowry they had only been willing to take another ten thousand, just enough to provide for the first difficulties. Might courage and labor therefore prove sturdy artisans of conquest.

Young Benjamin, the last born of the brothers Froment, was particularly upset by this departure. He was a delicate, good-looking child not yet twelve years old, whom his parents greatly spoiled, thinking that he was weak. And they were quite determined that they would at all events keep him with them, so handsome did they find him with his soft limpid eyes and beautiful curly hair. He was growing up in a languid way, dreamy, petted, idle among his mother's skirts, like the one charming weakling of that strong, hardworking family.

"Let me kiss you again, my good Nicolas," said he to his departing brother. "When will you come back?"

"Never, my little Benjamin."

The boy shuddered.

"Never, never!" he repeated. "Oh! that's too long. Come back, come back some day, so that I may kiss you again."

"Never," repeated Nicolas, turning pale himself. "Never, never."

He had lifted up the lad, whose tears were raining fast; and then for all came the supreme grief, the frightful moment of the hatchet-stroke, of the separation which was to be eternal.

"Good-by, little brother! Good-by, good-by, all of you!"

While Mathieu accompanied the future conqueror to the door for the last time wishing him victory, Benjamin in wild grief sought a refuge beside his mother who was blinded by her tears. And she caught him up with a passionate clasp, as if seized with fear that he also might leave her. He was the only one now left to them in the family nest. _

Read next: Chapter 21

Read previous: Chapter 19

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