(*) The reputation which the Seigneur de Pleumartin has left behind him in the province will preserve the story of Mauprat from the reproach of exaggeration.  Pen would refuse to trace the savage obscenities and refinements of cruelty which marked the life of this madman, and which perpetuated the traditions of feudal brigandage in Berry down to the last days of the ancient monarchy.  His chateau was besieged, and after a stubborn resistance he was taken and hanged.  There are many people still living, nor yet very advanced in years, who knew the man.

My uncles had long thought of making common cause with this country squire in his marauding expeditions and his resistance to authority.  However, just as Pleumartin, about to fall into the hands of his enemies, had given his word of honour that he would welcome us as friends and allies if we went to his assistance, we had heard of his defeat and tragic end.  Thus we ourselves were now on our guard night and day.  It was a question of either fleeing the country or bracing ourselves for a decisive struggle.  Some counselled the former alternative; the others declared their resolve to follow the advice of their dying father and to find a grave under the ruins of the keep.  Any suggestion of flight or compromise they denounced as contemptible cowardice.  The fear, then, of incurring such a reproach, and perhaps in some measure an instinctive love of danger, still kept me back.  However, my aversion to this odious existence was only lying dormant, ready to break out violently at any moment.

One evening, after a heavy supper, we remained at table, drinking and conversing—­God knows in what words and on what subject!  It was frightful weather.  The rain, driven through the broken windows, was running in streams across the stone floor of the hall; and the old walls were trembling in the storm.  The night wind was whistling through chinks in the roof and making the flames of our resin torches flicker weirdly.  During the meal my uncles had rallied me very much on what they called my virtue; they had treated my shyness in the presence of women as a sign of continence; and it was especially in this matter that they urged me to evil by ridiculing my modesty.  While parrying these coarse gibes and making thrusts in the same strain, I had been drinking enormously.  Consequently, my wild imagination had become inflamed, and I boasted that I would be bolder and more successful with the first woman brought to Roche-Mauprat than any of my uncles.  The challenge was accepted amid roars of laughter.  Peals of thunder sent back an answer to the infernal merriment.

All at once the horn was heard at the portcullis.  Everybody stopped talking.  The blast just blown was the signal used by the Mauprats to summon each other or make themselves known.  It was my Uncle Laurence, who had been absent all day and who was now asking to be let in.  We had so little confidence in others that we acted as our own turnkeys in the fortress.  John rose and took down the keys, but he stopped immediately on hearing a second blast of the horn.  This meant that Laurence was bringing in a prize, and that we were to go and meet him.  In the twinkling of an eye all the Mauprats were at the portcullis, torch in hand—­except myself, whose indifference at this moment was profound, and whose legs were seriously conscious of wine.