And the peasantry of Sairmeuse trembled with indignation and fear.

This king, brought back by the allies, was no less to be dreaded than the allies themselves.

To them this great name of Bourbon signified only a terrible burden of taxation and oppression.

Above all, it signified ruin—­for there was scarcely one among them who had not purchased some morsel of government land; and they were assured now that all estates were to be returned to the former proprietors, who had emigrated after the overthrow of the Bourbons.

Hence, it was with a feverish curiosity that most of them clustered around a young man who, only two days before, had returned from the army.

With tears of rage in his eyes, he was recounting the shame and the misery of the invasion.

He told of the pillage at Versailles, the exactions at Orleans, and the pitiless requisitions that had stripped the people of everything.

“And these accursed foreigners to whom the traitors have delivered us, will not go so long as a shilling or a bottle of wine is left in France!” he exclaimed.

As he said this he shook his clinched fist menacingly at a white flag that floated from the tower.

His generous anger won the close attention of his auditors, and they were still listening to him with undiminished interest, when the sound of a horse’s hoofs resounded upon the stones of the only street in Sairmeuse.

A shudder traversed the crowd.  The same fear stopped the beating of every heart.

Who could say that this rider was not some English or Prussian officer?  He had come, perhaps, to announce the arrival of his regiment, and imperiously demand money, clothing, and food for his soldiers.

But the suspense was not of long duration.

The rider proved to be a fellow-countryman, clad in a torn and dirty blue linen blouse.  He was urging forward, with repeated blows, a little, bony, nervous mare, fevered with foam.

“Ah! it is Father Chupin,” murmured one of the peasants with a sigh of relief.

“The same,” observed another.  “He seems to be in a terrible hurry.”

“The old rascal has probably stolen the horse he is riding.”

This last remark disclosed the reputation Father Chupin enjoyed among his neighbors.

He was, indeed, one of those thieves who are the scourge and the terror of the rural districts.  He pretended to be a day-laborer, but the truth was, that he held work in holy horror, and spent all his time in sleeping and idling about his hovel.  Hence, stealing was the only means of support for himself, his wife, two sons—­terrible youths, who, somehow, had escaped the conscription.

They consumed nothing that was not stolen.  Wheat, wine, fuel, fruits—­all were the rightful property of others.  Hunting and fishing at all seasons, and with forbidden appliances, furnished them with ready money.