“Doesn’t madame know the story?” said Olympe.  “Well, the son of the old sexton at Blangy, a splendid fellow, so the people about here tell me, was drafted at the great conscription.  In 1809 young Niseron was still only an artilleryman, in a corps d’armee stationed in Illyria and Dalmatia when it received sudden orders to advance through Hungary and cut off the retreat of the Austrian army in case the Emperor won the battle of Wagram.  Michaud told me all about Dalmatia, for he was there.  Niseron, being so handsome a man, captivated a Montenegrin girl of Zahara among the mountains, who was not averse to the French garrison.  This lost her the good-will of her compatriots, and life in her own town became impossible after the departure of the French.  Zena Kropoli, called in derision the Frenchwoman, followed the artillery, and came to France after the peace.  Auguste Niseron asked permission to marry her; but the poor woman died at Vincennes in January, 1810, after giving birth to a daughter, our Genevieve.  The papers necessary to make the marriage legal arrived a few days later.  Auguste Niseron then wrote to his father to come and take the child, with a wetnurse he had got from its own country; and it was lucky he did, for he was killed soon after by the bursting of a shell at Montereau.  Registered by the name of Genevieve and baptized at Soulanges, the little Dalmatian was taken under the protection of Mademoiselle Laguerre, who was touched by her story.  It seems as if it were the destiny of the child to be taken care of by the owners of Les Aigues!  Pere Niseron obtained its clothes, and now and then some help in money from Mademoiselle.”

The countess and Olympe were just then standing before a window from which they could see Michaud approaching the abbe and Blondet, who were walking up and down the wide, semi-circular gravelled space which repeated on the park side of the pavilion the exterior half-moon; they were conversing earnestly.

“Where is she?” said the countess; “you make me anxious to see her.”

“She is gone to carry milk to Mademoiselle Gaillard at the gate of Conches; she will soon be back, for it is more than an hour since she started.”

“Well, I’ll go and meet her with those gentlemen,” said Madame de Montcornet, going downstairs.

Just as the countess opened her parasol, Michaud came up and told her that the general had left her a widow for probably two days.

“Monsieur Michaud,” said the countess, eagerly, “don’t deceive me, there is something serious going on.  Your wife is frightened, and if there are many persons like Pere Fourchon, this part of the country will be uninhabitable—­”

“If it were so, madame,” answered Michaud, laughing, “we should not be in the land of the living, for nothing would be easier than to make away with us.  The peasant’s grumble, that is all.  But as to passing from growls to blows, from pilfering to crime, they care too much for life and the free air of the fields.  Olympe has been saying something that frightened you, but you know she is in state to be frightened at nothing,” he added, drawing his wife’s hand under his arm and pressing it to warn her to say no more.