“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the peasants; “let us go at once!”

They were starting, when a villager who sometimes read the papers, checked them by saying: 

“Take care what you do.  Do you not know that since the return of the Bourbons Monsieur d’Escorval is of no account whatever?  Fouche has him upon the proscription list, and he is under the surveillance of the police.”

This objection dampened the enthusiasm.

“That is true,” murmured some of the older men; “a visit to Monsieur d’Escorval would, perhaps, do us more harm than good.  And, besides, what advice could he give us?”

Chanlouineau had forgotten all prudence.

“What of that?” he exclaimed.  “If Monsieur d’Escorval has no counsel to give us about this matter, he can, perhaps, teach us how to resist and to defend ourselves.”

For some moments Father Chupin had been studying, with an impassive countenance, the storm of anger he had aroused.  In his secret heart he experienced the satisfaction of the incendiary at the sight of the flames he has kindled.

Perhaps he already had a presentiment of the infamous part he would play a few months later.

Satisfied with his experiment, he assumed, for the time, the role of moderator.

“Wait a little.  Do not cry before you are hurt,” he exclaimed, in an ironical tone.  “Who told you that the Duc de Sairmeuse would trouble you?  How much of his former domain do you all own between you?  Almost nothing.  A few fields and meadows and a hill on the Borderie.  All these together did not in former times yield him an income of five thousand francs a year.”

“Yes, that is true,” replied Chanlouineau; “and if the revenue you mention is quadrupled, it is only because the land is now in the hands of forty proprietors who cultivate it themselves.”

“Another reason why the duke will not say a word; he will not wish to set the whole district in commotion.  In my opinion, he will dispossess only one of the owners of his former estates, and that is our worthy ex-mayor—­Monsieur Lacheneur, in short.”

Ah! he knew only too well the egotism of his compatriots.  He knew with what complacency and eagerness they would accept an expiatory victim whose sacrifice should be their salvation.

“That is a fact,” remarked an old man; “Monsieur Lacheneur owns nearly all the Sairmeuse property.”

“Say all, while you are about it,” rejoined Father Chupin.  “Where does Monsieur Lacheneur live?  In that beautiful Chateau de Sairmeuse whose gable we can see there through the trees.  He hunts in the forests which once belonged to the Ducs de Sairmeuse; he fishes in their lakes; he drives the horses which once belonged to them, in the carriages upon which one could now see their coat-of-arms, if it had not been painted out.