“Let those who think themselves more numerous come forward!” Rose resumed gayly.  “And then we will count one another.”

“Come, be quiet!” said her mother, who, after alighting from the wagon, had set Nicolas on the ground.  “You will end by making people hoot us.”

“Hoot us!  Why, they admire us:  just look at them!  How funny it is, mamma, that you are not prouder of yourself and of us!”

“Why, I am so very proud that I fear to humiliate others.”

They all began to laugh.  And Mathieu, standing near Marianne, likewise felt proud at finding himself, as he put it, among “the sacred battalion” of his sons and daughters.  To that battalion worthy Madame Desvignes herself belonged, since her daughter Charlotte was adding soldiers to it and helping it to become an army.  Such as it was indeed, this was only the beginning; later on the battalion would be seen ever increasing and multiplying, becoming a swarming victorious race, great-grandchildren following grandchildren, till there were fifty of them, and a hundred, and two hundred, all tending to increase the happiness and beauty of the world.  And in the mingled amazement and amusement of Janville gathered around that fruitful family there was certainly some of the instinctive admiration which is felt for the strength and the healthfulness which create great nations.

“Besides, we have only friends now,” remarked Mathieu.  “Everybody is cordial with us!”

“Oh, everybody!” muttered Rose.  “Just look at the Lepailleurs yonder, in front of that booth.”

The Lepailleurs were indeed there—­the father, the mother, Antonin, and Therese.  In order to avoid the Froments they were pretending to take great interest in a booth, where a number of crudely-colored china ornaments were displayed as prizes for the winners at a “lucky-wheel.”  They no longer even exchanged courtesies with the Chantebled folks; for in their impotent rage at such ceaseless prosperity they had availed themselves of a petty business dispute to break off all relations.  Lepailleur regarded the creation of Chantebled as a personal insult, for he had not forgotten his jeers and challenges with respect to those moorlands, from which, in his opinion, one would never reap anything but stones.  And thus, when he had well examined the china ornaments, it occurred to him to be insolent, with which object he turned round and stared at the Froments, who, as the train they were expecting would not arrive for another quarter of an hour, were gayly promenading through the fair.

The miller’s bad temper had for the last two months been increased by the return of his son Antonin to Janville under very deplorable circumstances.  This young fellow, who had set off one morning to conquer Paris, sent there by his parents, who had a blind confidence in his fine handwriting, had remained with Maitre Rousselet the attorney for four years as a petty clerk, dull-witted and extremely idle.  He had not made