The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

Pitou entered the familiar cottage with a bland smile, and went straight up to the cupboard where the food was kept. He used in his boyish days to ogle the crust and the hunk of cheese with the wish to have magical powers to conjure them out into his mouth.

Now he was a man: he went up to the safe, opened it, opened also his pocket-knife, and taking out a loaf, cut off a slice which might weigh a fair two pounds.

He seemed to hear Aunt Angelique snarl at him, but it was only the creak of the door hinges.

In former times, the old fraud used to whine about poverty and palm him off with cheap cheese and few flavors. But since he had left she got up little delicacies of value which lasted her a week, such as stewed beef smothered in carrots and onions; baked mutton with potatoes as large as melons; or calves-foot, decked with pickled shallots; or a giant omelet sprinkled with parsley or dotted with slices of fat pork of which one sufficed for a meal even when she had an appetite.

Pitou was in luck. He lighted on a day when Aunt Angelique had cooked an old rooster in rice, so long that the bones had quitted the flesh and the latter was almost tender. It was basking in a deep dish, black outside but glossy and attractive within. The coxcomb stuck up in the midst like Ceuta in Gibraltar Straits.

Pitou had been so spoilt by the good living at Paris that he never even reflected that he had never seen such magnificence in his relative’s house.

He had his hunk of bread in his right hand: he seized the baking dish in his left and held it by the grip of his thumb in the grease. But at this moment it seemed to him that a shadow clouded the doorway.

He turned round, grinning, for he had one of those characters which let their happiness be painted on their faces.

The shadow was cast by Angelique Pitou, drier, sourer, bonier, not bonnier, and more mean than ever.

Formerly, at this sight, Pitou would have dropped the bread and dish and fled.

But he was altered. His helmet and sword had not more changed his aspect than his mind was changed by frequenting the society of the revolutionary lights of the capital.

Far from fleeing, he went up to her and opening his arms he embraced her so that his hands, holding the knife, the bread and the dish, crossed behind her skeleton back.

“It is poor Pitou,” he said in accomplishing this act of nepotism.

She feared that he was trying to stifle her because she had caught him red-handed in plundering her store. Literally, she did not breathe freely until she was released from this perillous clasp.

She was horrified that he did not express any emotion over his prize and at his sitting in the best chair: previously he would have perched himself on the edge of a stool or the broken chair. Thus easily lodged he set to demolishing the baked fowl. In a few minutes the pattern of the dish began to appear clean at the bottom as the rocks and sand on the seashore when the tide goes out.

In her frightful perplexity she endeavored to scream but the ogre smiled so bewitchingly that the scream died away on her prim lips.

She smiled, without any effect on him, and then turned to weeping. This annoyed the devourer a little but did not hinder his eating.

“How good you are to weep with joy at my return,” he said. “I thank you, my kind aunt.”

Evidently the Revolution had transmogrified this lad.

Having tucked away three fourths of the bird he left a little of the Indian grain at the end of the dish, saying:

“You are fond of rice, my dear auntie: and, besides, it is good for your poor teeth.”

At this attention, taken for a bitter jest, Angelique nearly suffocated. She sprang upon Pitou and snatched the lightened platter from his hand, with an oath which would not have been out of place in the mouth of an old soldier.

“Bewailing the rooster, aunt?” he sighed.

“The rogue – I believe he is chaffing me,” cried the old prude.

“Aunt,” returned the other, rising majestically, “my intention was to pay you. I have money. I will come and board with you, if you please, only I reserve the right to make up the bill of fare. As for this snack, suppose we put the lot at six cents, four of the fowl and two of bread.”

“Six? when the meat is worth eight alone and the bread four,” cried the woman.

“But you did not buy the bird – I know the old acquaintance by his nine years comb. I stole him for you from under his mother and by the same token, you flogged me because I did not steal enough corn to feed him. But I begged the grain from Miss Catherine Billet; as I procured the bird and the food, I had a lien on him, as the lawyers say. I have only been eating my own property.”

“Out of this house,” she gasped, almost losing her voice while she tried to pulverize him with her gaze.

Pitou remarked with satisfaction that he could not have swallowed one grain more of rice.

“Aunt, you are a bad relative,” he said loftily. “I wanted you to show yourself as of old, spiteful and avaricious. But I am not going to have it said that I eat my way without paying.”

He stood on the threshold and called out with a voice which was not only heard by the starers without but by anybody within five hundred paces:

“I call these honest folk for witnesses, that I have come from Paris afoot, after having taken the Bastile. I was hungered and tired, and I have sat down under my only relation’s roof, and eaten, but my keep is thrown up at me, and I am driven away pitilessly!”

He infused so much pathos in this exordium that the hearers began to murmur against the old maid.

“I want you to bear witness that she is turning from her door a poor wayfarer who has tramped nineteen leagues afoot; an honest lad, honored with the trust of Farmer Billet and Dr. Gilbert; who has brought Master Sebastian Gilbert here to Father Fortier’s; a conqueror of the Bastile, a friend of Mayor Bailly and General Lafayette.”

The murmuring increased.

“And I am not a beggar,” he pursued, “for when I am accused of having a bite of bread, I am ready to meet the score, as proof of which I plank down this silver bit – in payment of what I have eaten at my own folk’s.”

He drew a silver crown from his pocket with a flourish, and tossed it on the table under the eyes of all, whence it bounced into the dish and buried itself in the rice. This last act finished the mercenary aunt; she hung her head under the universal reprobation displayed in a prolonged groan. Twenty arms were opened towards Pitou, who went forth, shaking the dust off his brogans, and disappeared, escorted by a mob eager to offer hospitality to a captor of the Bastile, and boon-companion of General Lafayette.

CHAPTER VII

THE ABDICATION IN A FARMHOUSE

AFTER having appeased the duties of obedience, Pitou wished to satisfy the cravings of his heart. It is sweet to obey when the order chimes in with one’s secret sympathies.

Ange Pitou was in love with Catherine, daughter of farmer Billet who had succored him when he fled from his aunt’s and with whom he had taken the trip to Paris which returned him a full-fledged hero to his fellow-villagers.

When he perceived the long ridge of the farmhouse roofs, measured the aged elms which twisted to stand the higher over the smoking chimneys, when he heard the distant lowing of the cattle, the barking of the watchdogs, and the rumbling of the farm carts, he shook his casque on his head to tighten its hold, hung the calvary sabre more firmly by his side, and tried to give himself the bold swagger of a lover and a soldier. As nobody recognized him at the first it was a proof that he had fairly succeeded.

The farmhands responded to his hail by taking off their caps or pulling their forelocks.

Through the dininghall window pane Mother Billet saw the military visitor. She was a comely, kind old soul who fed her employes like fighting cocks. She was, like other housewives, on the alert, as there was talk of armed robbers being about the country. They cut the woods down and reaped the green corn. What did this warrior’s appearance signify? attack or assistance?

She was perplexed by the clodhopper shoes beneath a helmet so shining and her supposition fluctuated between suspicion and hope.

She took a couple of steps towards the new-comer as he strode into the kitchen, and he took off his headpiece not to be outdone in politeness.

“Ange Pitou?” she ejaculated. “Whoever would have guessed that you would enlist.”

“Enlist indeed?” sneered Pitou, smiling loftily.

As he looked round him, seeking someone, Mistress Billet smiled, divining who he was after.

“Looking for Catherine?” she asked unaffectedly.

“To present her with my duty,” said Pitou.

“She is ironing,” responded Mrs. Billet; “but sit ye down and talk to me.”

“Quite willing, mother.” And he took a chair.

In all the doorways and windows the servants and laboring men flocked to see their old fellow. He had a kindly glance for them all, a caress in his smile for the most part.

“So you come from town, Ange?” began Mother Billet. “How did you leave the master?”

“He is all right, but Paris is all wrong.”

The circle of listeners drew in closer.

“What about the King?” inquired the mistress.

Pitou shook his head and clacked his tongue in a way humiliating to the head of the monarchy.

“And the Queen?”

Pitou said never a word.

“Oh,” groaned the crowd.

Pitou was aching for Catherine’s coming.

“Why are you wearing a helmet?”

“It is a trophy of war,” rejoined the young peasant. “A trophy is a tangible testimonial that you have vanquished an enemy.”

“Have you vanquished an enemy, Pitou?”

“An enemy – pooh!” said the valiant one, disdainfully. “Ah, good Mother Billet, you do not know that Farmer Billet and yours truly took the Bastile between us.”

This speech electrified the auditory. Pitou felt the breath on his hair and the helmet mane, while their hands grasped the back of his chair.

“Do tell us what our master has done,” pleaded Mrs. Billet, proud and tremulous at the same time.

Pitou was hurt that Catherine did not leave her linen to come and hear such a messenger as he was. He shook his head for he was growing discontented.

“It will take a time,” he observed.

“Are you hungry, or thirsty?”

“I am not saying no.”

Instantly all the men and maids bustled about so that Pitou found under his hand goblets, mugs, bread, meat, cheese, without realizing the extent of his hint. He had a hot liver, as the rustics say: that is, he digested quickly. But he had not shaken down the Angelican fowl in rice; he tried to eat again but had to give up at the second mouthful.

“If I begin now,” he said, “I should have to do it all over again when Miss Catherine comes.”

While they were all hunting after the young girl, Pitou happened to look up and saw the girl in question leaning out of a window on the upper landing. She was gazing towards Boursonne Woods.

“Oh,” he sighed, “she is looking towards the manor of the Charnys. She is in love with Master Isidor Charny, that is what it is.”

He sighed again, much more lamentably than before.

Taking the farmer’s wife by the hand as the searchers returned fruitless in their search, he took her up a couple of the stairs and showed her the girl, mooning on the window sill among the morning glories and vines.

“Catherine!” she called: “Come, Catherine, here is Ange Pitou, with news from town.”

“Ah,” said Catherine coldly.

So coldly that Pitou’s heart failed him as he anxiously waited for her reply.

She came down the stairs with the phlegm of the Flemish girls in the old Dutch paintings.

“Yes, it is he,” she said, when on the floor.

Pitou bowed, red and trembling.

“He’s wearing a soldier’s helmet,” said a servant-woman in her young mistress’s ear.

Pitou overheard and watched for the effect. But her somewhat pallid though evercharming face showed no admiration for the brazen cap.

“What is he wearing that thing for?” she inquired.

This time indignation got the upperhand in the peasant.

“I am wearing helmet and sabre,” he retorted proudly, “because I have been fighting and have killed Swiss and dragoons: and if you doubt me, Miss Catherine, you can ask your father, and that is all.”

She was so absent-minded that she appeared to catch the latter part of the speech alone.

“How is my father?” asked she; “and why does he not return home with you? Is the news from Paris bad?”

“Very,” replied the young man.

“I thought that all was settled,” the girl objected.

“Quite true, but all is unsettled again.”

“Have not the King and the people agreed and is not the recall of Minister Necker arranged?”

“Necker is not of much consequence now,” said Pitou jeeringly.

“But that ought to satisfy the people.”

“It falls so short of that, that the people are doing justice on their own account and killing their enemies.”

“Their enemies? who are their enemies?” cried the girl astonished.

“The aristocrats, of course,” answered the other.

“Whom do you call aristocrat?” she asked, turning paler.

“Why, naturally, they that have grand houses, and big properties, and starve the nation – those that have everything while we have nothing; that travel on fine horses or in bright coaches while we jog on foot.”

“Heavens,” exclaimed the girl, so white as to be corpselike.

“I can name some aristo’s of our acquaintance,” continued he, noticing the emotion. “Lord Berthier Sauvigny, for instance, who gave you those gold earrings you wore on the day you danced with Master Isidore. Well, I have seen men eat the heart of him!”

A terrible cry burst from all breasts and Catherine fell back in the chair she had taken.

“Did you see that?” faltered Mother Billet, quivering with horror.

“And so did Farmer Billet. By this time they have killed or burnt all the aristocrats of Paris and Versailles. What do you call it dreadful for? you are not of the higher classes, Mother Billet.”

“Pitou, I did not think you were so bloodthirsty when you started for Paris,” said Catherine with sombre energy.

“I do not know as I am so, now; but – “

“But then do not boast of the crimes which the Parisians commit, since you are not a Parisian and did not do them.”

“I had so little hand in them that Farmer Billet and me were nigh slaughtered in taking the part of Lord Berthier – though he had famished the people.”

“Oh, my good, brave father! that is just like him,” said Catherine, excitedly.

“My worthy man,” said Mrs. Billet with tearful eyes. “What has he been about?”

Pitou related that the mob had seized Foulon and Berthier for being the active agents for higher personages in the great Grain Ring which held the corn from the poor, and torn them to pieces, though Billet and he had tried to defend them.

“The farmer was sickened and wanted to come home, but Dr. Gilbert would not let him.”

“Does he want my man to get killed there?” sobbed poor Mother Billet.

“Oh, no,” replied Pitou. “It is all fixed between master and the doctor. He is going to stay a little longer in town to finish up the revolution. Not alone, you understand, but with Mayor Bailly and General Lafayette.”

“Oh, I am not so much alarmed about him as long as in the gentlemen’s company,” said the good old soul with admiration.

“When does he think of returning?” inquired the daughter.

“I don’t know in the least.”

“Then, what have you come back for?”

“To bring Sebastian Gilbert to Father Fortier’s school, and you, Farmer Billet’s instructions.”

Pitou spoke like a herald, with so much dignity that the farmer’s wife dismissed all the gapers.

“Mrs. Billet,” began the messenger, “the master wants you to be worried as little as possible, so he thinks that while he is away, the management of the farm should be in other hands, younger and livelier.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, and he has selected Miss Catherine.”

“My daughter to rule in my house,” cried the woman, with distrust and inexpressible jealousy.

“Under your orders,” the girl hastened to say, while reddening.

“No, no,” persisted Pitou, who went on well since he was in full swing: “I bear the commission entire: Master Billet delegates and authorizes Miss Catherine to see to all the work and govern the house and household in his stead.”

As Billet was infallible in his wife’s eyes, all her resistance ceased instantly.

“Billet is right,” she declared after a glance at her daughter; “she is young but she has a good head, and she can even be headstrong. She can get along outdoors better than me; she knows how to make folks obey. But to be running about over field and hills will make a tomboy of her – “

“Fear nothing for her,” interposed Pitou with a consequential air; “I am here and I will go around with her.”

This gracious offer, by which Ange probably intended to make an effect, drew such a strange glance from Catherine that he was dumbfounded.

Pitou was not experienced in feminine ways but he guessed by her blush that she was not giving complete acquiescence, for he said with an agreeable smile which showed his strong teeth between the large lips:

“Even the Queen has a Lifeguard. Besides, I may be useful in the woods.”

“Is this also in my husband’s instructions?” queried Madam Billet who showed some tendency towards cutting sayings.

“Nay,” said Catherine, “that would be an idle errand and father would not have set it for Master Pitou while he would not have accepted it.”

Pitou rolled his frightened eyes from one to the other: all his castle in the air came tumbling down. A true woman, the younger one understood his painful disappointment.

“Did you see the girls in Paris with the young men tagging at their gown-tails?”

“But you are not a girl, after you become mistress of the house,” remonstrated Pitou.

“Enough chatter,” interrupted Mother Billet; “the mistress of the house has too much work to do. Come, Catherine, and let me turn over things to you, as your father bids us.”

As soon as the house was placed under the new ruler the servants and workmen were presented to her as the one from whom in the future orders would flow. Each departed with the alacrity shown by the new officials at the beginning of a fresh term.

“What about me?” inquired Pitou, left alone and going up to the girl.

“I have no orders for you. What do you think of doing?”

“What I did before I went away.”

“Then you worked for my father and mother. I have nothing in your line, for you are a scholar and a fine Paris gentleman now.”

“But look at the muscle in my arms,” protested the poor fellow in desperation. “Why do you force me to die of hunger under the pretence that I am a learned man? Are you ignorant that Epictetus the philosopher was a tavern waiter to earn his bread, and that Æsop the fabulist had to work for a living? and yet they were more learned than ever I shall be. But Master Billet sent me down here to help on the farm.”

“Be it so; but my father can force you to do things that I should shrink from imposing upon you.”

“Don’t shrink, and impose on me. You will see that I can stand anything. Besides you have books to keep and accounts to make out; and my strong point is figuring and ciphering.”

“I do not think it enough for a man,” rejoined Catherine.

“Am I good for nothing, then?” groaned Pitou.

“Well, live here a bit,” she said; “I will think it over and we shall see what turns up.”

“You want to think it over, about my staying. What have I done to you, Miss Catherine? you do not seem to be the same as before.”

Catherine shrugged her shoulders very slightly. She had no good reasons to fear Pitou and yet his persistency worried her.

“Enough of this,” she said, “I am going over to Fertemilon.”

“I will saddle a horse and go with you.”

“No; stay where you are.”

She spoke so imperiously that the peasant remained riveted to the spot, hanging his head.

“She thinks I am changed, but,” said he, “it is she who is another sort altogether.”

When he was roused by hearing the horse’s hoofs going away, he looked out and saw Catherine riding by a side path towards the highway.

It occurred to him that though she had forbid him to accompany her, she had not said he must not follow her.

He dashed out and took a short cut through the woods, where he was at home, till he reached the main road. But though he waited a half-hour, he saw nobody.

He thought she might have forgotten something at the farm and started back for it; and he returned by the highway. But on looking up a lane he spied her white cap at a distance.

Instead of going to Fertemilon, as she distinctly stated, she was proceeding to Boursonne.

He darted on in the same direction but by a parallel line.

It was no longer to follow her but to spy her.

She had spoken a falsehood. In what end?

He was answered by seeing her thrash her horse into the trot in order to rejoin a horseman who rode to meet her with as much eagerness as she showed on her part.

On coming nearer, as the pair halted at meeting, Pitou recognized by his elegant form and stylish dress the neighboring lord, Isidore Charny. He was brother of the Count of Charny, lieutenant of the Royal Lifeguards, and accredited as favorite of the Queen.

Pitou knew him well and lately from having seen him at the village dances where Catherine chose him for partner.

Dropping to the ground in the brush and creeping up like a viper, he heard the couple.

“You are late to-day, Master Isidore,” began Catherine.

“To-day?” thought the eavesdropper; “it appears that he has been punctual on other meetings.”

“It is not my fault, my darling Kate,” replied the young noble. “A letter from my brother delayed me, to which I had to reply by the bearer. But fear nothing, I shall be more exact another time.”

Catherine smiled and Isidore pressed her hand so tenderly that Pitou felt upon thorns.

“Fresh news from Paris?” she asked. “So have I. Did you not say that when something alike happens to two persons, it is called sympathy?”

“Just so. Who brings you news?”

“Pitou.”

“And pray who is Pitou?” asked the young noble with a free and easy air which changed the red of the listener’s cheek to crimson.

“You know well enough,” was her reply: “Pitou is the farmboy that my father took on out of charity: the one who played propriety for me when I went to the dance.”

“Lord, yes – the chap with knees that look like knots tied in a rope.”

Catherine set to laughing. Pitou felt lowered; he looked at his knees, so useful lately while he was keeping pace with a horse, and he sighed.

“Come, come, do not tear my poor Pitou to pieces,” said Catherine; “Let me tell you that he wanted to come with me just now – to Fertemilon, where I pretended I was going.”

“Why did you not accept the squire – he would have amused you.”

“Not always,” laughed the girl.

“You are right, my pet,” said Isidore, fixing his eyes, brilliant with love, on the pretty girl.

She hid her blushing face in his arms closing round it.

Pitou closed his eyes not to see, but he did not close his ears, and the sound of a kiss reached them. He tore his hair in despair.

When he came to his senses the loving couple were slowly riding away.

The last words he caught were:

“You are right, Master Isidore; let us ride about for an hour which I will gain by making my nag go faster – he is a good beast who will tell no tales,” she added, merrily.

This was all: the vision vanished. Darkness fell on Pitou’s spirit and he said:

“No more of the farm for me, where I am trodden on and made fun of. I am not going to eat the bread of a woman who is in love with another man, handsomer, richer and more graceful than me, I allow. No, my place is not in the town but in my village of Haramont, where I may find those who will think well of me whether my knees are like knots in a rope or not.”

He marched towards his native place, where his reputation and that of his sword and helmet had preceded him, and where glory awaited him, if not happiness. But we know that perfect bliss is not a human attribute.

CHAPTER VIII

ANOTHER BLOW

AS everybody in his village would be abed by ten o’clock, Pitou was glad to find accommodation at the inn, where he slept till seven in the morning. At that hour everybody had risen.