Nothing could be more beautiful than this avenue, a fit approach to a palace; and the stranger who beheld it could understand the naively vain proverb of the country:  “He does not know the real beauty of France, who has never seen Sairmeuse nor the Oiselle.”

The Oiselle is the little river which one crosses by means of a wooden bridge on leaving the village, and whose clear and rapid waters give a delicious freshness to the valley.

At every step, as one ascends, the view changes.  It is as if an enchanting panorama were being slowly unrolled before one.

On the right you can see the saw-mills of Fereol.  On the left, like an ocean of verdure, the forest of Dolomien trembles in the breeze.  Those imposing ruins on the other side of the river are all that remain of the feudal manor of the house of Breulh.  That red brick mansion, with granite trimmings, half concealed by a bend in the river, belongs to the Baron d’Escorval.

And, if the day is clear, one can easily distinguish the spires of Montaignac in the distance.

This was the path traversed by M. Lacheneur after Chupin had delivered his message.

But what did he care for the beauties of the landscape!

Upon the church porch he had received his death-wound; and now, with a tottering and dragging step, he dragged himself along like one of those poor soldiers, mortally wounded upon the field of battle, who go back, seeking a ditch or quiet spot where they can lie down and die.

He seemed to have lost all thought of his surroundings—­all consciousness of previous events.  He pursued his way, lost in his reflections, guided only by force of habit.

Two or three times his daughter, Marie-Anne, who was walking by his side, addressed him; but an “Ah! let me alone!” uttered in a harsh tone, was the only response she could draw from him.

Evidently he had received a terrible blow; and undoubtedly, as often happens under such circumstances, the unfortunate man was reviewing all the different phases of his life.

At twenty Lacheneur was only a poor ploughboy in the service of the Sairmeuse family.

His ambition was modest then.  When stretched beneath a tree at the hour of noonday rest, his dreams were as simple as those of an infant.

“If I could but amass a hundred pistoles,” he thought, “I would ask Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not refuse me.”  A hundred pistoles!  A thousand francs!—­an enormous sum for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the depths of his straw mattress.

Still he did not despair.  He had read in Martha’s eyes that she would wait.

And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his god-mother; and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps, interest her in his love-affair.