At this particular moment Francois and Baruch (we will call them by their Christian names for the sake of clearness) were sitting, one on each side of Max, at the middle of a table that was rather ill lighted by the fuliginous gleams of four tallow candles of eight to the pound.  A dozen to fifteen bottles of various wines had just been drunk, for only eleven of the Knights were present.  Baruch—­whose name indicates pretty clearly that Calvinism still kept some hold on Issoudun—­said to Max, as the wine was beginning to unloose all tongues,—­

“You are threatened in your stronghold.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Max.

“Why, my grandmother has had a letter from Madame Bridau, who is her goddaughter, saying that she and her son are coming here.  My grandmother has been getting two rooms ready for them.”

“What’s that to me?” said Max, taking up his glass and swallowing the contents at a gulp with a comic gesture.

Max was then thirty-four years old.  A candle standing near him threw a gleam upon his soldierly face, lit up his brow, and brought out admirably his clear skin, his ardent eyes, his black and slightly curling hair, which had the brilliancy of jet.  The hair grew vigorously upward from the forehead and temples, sharply defining those five black tongues which our ancestors used to call the “five points.”  Notwithstanding this abrupt contrast of black and white, Max’s face was very sweet, owing its charm to an outline like that which Raphael gave to the faces of his Madonnas, and to a well-cut mouth whose lips smiled graciously, giving an expression of countenance which Max had made distinctively his own.  The rich coloring which blooms on a Berrichon cheek added still further to his look of kindly good-humor.  When he laughed heartily, he showed thirty-two teeth worthy of the mouth of a pretty woman.  In height about five feet six inches, the young man was admirably well-proportioned,—­neither too stout nor yet too thin.  His hands, carefully kept, were white and rather handsome; but his feet recalled the suburb and the foot-soldier of the Empire.  Max would certainly have made a good general of division; he had shoulders that were worth a fortune to a marshal of France, and a breast broad enough to wear all the orders of Europe.  Every movement betrayed intelligence; born with grace and charm, like nearly all the children of love, the noble blood of his real father came out in him.

“Don’t you know, Max,” cried the son of a former surgeon-major named Goddet—­now the best doctor in the town—­from the other end of the table, “that Madame Hochon’s goddaughter is the sister of Rouget?  If she is coming here with her son, no doubt she means to make sure of getting the property when he dies, and then—­good-by to your harvest!”

Max frowned.  Then, with a look which ran from one face to another all round the table, he watched the effect of this announcement on the minds of those present, and again replied,—­