“Life!” exclaimed the countess; “you can’t mean that anybody’s life is in danger?”

“Don’t let us argue about state affairs here,” said the general, laughing.  “All this, my dear, merely means that Sibilet, in his capacity of financier, is timid and cowardly, while the minister of war is brave and, like his general, fears nothing.”

“Call me prudent, Monsieur le comte,” interposed Sibilet.

“Well, well!” cried Blondet, laughing, “so here we are, like Cooper’s heroes in the forests of America, in the midst of sieges and savages.”

“Come, gentlemen, it is your business to govern without letting me hear the wheels of the administration,” said Madame de Montcornet.

“Ah! madame,” said the cure, “but it may be right that you should know the toil from which those pretty caps you wear are derived.”

“Well, then, I can go without them,” replied the countess, laughing.  “I will be very respectful to a twenty-franc piece, and grow as miserly as the country people themselves.  Come, my dear abbe, give me your arm.  Leave the general with his two ministers, and let us go to the gate of the Avonne to see Madame Michaud, for I have not had time since my arrival to pay her a visit, and I want to inquire about my little protegee.”

And the pretty woman, already forgetting the rags and tatters of Mouche and Fourchon, and their eyes full of hatred, and Sibilet’s warnings, went to have herself made ready for the walk.

The abbe and Blondet obeyed the behest of the mistress of the house and followed her from the dining-room, waiting till she was ready on the terrace before the chateau.

“What do you think of all this?” said Blondet to the abbe.

“I am a pariah; they dog me as they would a common enemy.  I am forced to keep my eyes and ears perpetually open to escape the traps they are constantly laying to get me out of the place,” replied the abbe.  “I am even doubtful, between ourselves, as to whether they will not shoot me.”

“Why do you stay?” said Blondet.

“We can’t desert God’s cause any more than that of an emperor,” replied the priest, with a simplicity that affected Blondet.  He took the abbe’s hand and shook it cordially.

“You see how it is, therefore, that I know very little of the plots that are going on,” continued the abbe.  “Still, I know enough to feel sure that the general is under what in Artois and in Belgium is called an ‘evil grudge.’”

A few words are here necessary about the curate of Blangy.

This priest, the fourth son of a worthy middle-class family of Autun, was an intelligent man carrying his head high in his collar.  Small and slight, he redeemed his rather puny appearance by the precise and carefully dressed air that belongs to Burgundians.  He accepted the second-rate post of Blangy out of pure devotion, for his religious convictions were joined to political opinions that were equally strong.