Александр Дюма
The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE EASY-CHAIR
Pitou would have pondered more deeply on what the doctor told him, only he spied Catherine running up, with her boy in her arms.
Since there was no doubt that Aunt Angelique had died of privation, the eagerness of the neighbors to help her nephew had lessened. So Catherine arrived most timely. As she might be considered the wife of Pitou, it was her place to attend to his aunt, which the good creature set about doing with the same tenderness she had shown awhile before to her own mother.
Meanwhile, Pitou ran out to arrange for the funeral, which would be at two days' time, as the suddenness of the death compelled retention of the remains forty-eight hours. Religious ceremonies being suppressed for funerals as for marriages, he had only to do business with the sexton and the grave digger, after the mayor.
Before he departed, Catherine suggested that the marriage should be deferred for a day or two, as it would look strange for an act so important and joyous as a wedding to be performed on the same day as he conducted his aunt's remains to the cemetery.
"Besides, my dear, it is bad luck to have a wedding while a grave is open."
"Stuff," said Pitou; "from the moment I am your husband, I defy misfortune to get a grip on me."
"Dear Pitou, let us put it off till Monday," said the bride, holding up her hand to him; "you see that I am trying to make your wishes suit proprieties."
"But two days is a deuce of a long time, Catherine."
"Not when you have been waiting five years."
"A lot of things may happen in forty-eight hours," moaned Pitou.
"My falling off in love can not happen, Ange; and as you pretend that is the only thing in the world which concerns you – "
"Lord, yes, Catherine; the only – only thing!"
"Why, then, look here, Isidore, say to Papa Pitou: 'Do not be afraid, Papa Pitou; mamma loves you dearly, and will always love you.'"
The child repeated this in his pretty voice.
On this assurance, Pitou made no difficulty about going to the mayor's. He returned in about an hour, with all settled and paid for. With what money he had left he laid in a stock of wood and food for a couple of days.
It was high time that the firing had come into the old, weather-worn house, where the wind poured in at many a chink, and they might perish of cold. Pitou had found Catherine half frozen when he got back.
According to Catherine's wish, the marriage was postponed until Monday.
The intermediate time passed with the pair mourning by the death-bed.
Despite the huge fire Pitou kept roaring, the wind came in so sharp and chill that Pitou acknowledged that if his aunt had not died of hunger she must have been carried off by cold.
The time came for the removal of the corpse, the transit not taking long, as Aunt Angelique's dwelling adjoined the burial-ground.
All of that quarter and other representatives of the town went to the funeral, which Pitou and Catherine led as the chief mourners.
When the ceremony terminated, Pitou thanked those attending in his name and that of the dead, and they all filed before him, throwing holy water into the old maid's grave.
When left alone, Pitou looked round for Catherine, and saw her and Isidore kneeling on another grave where cypresses were planted. It was Mother Billet's. Pitou had dug those four cypresses in the woods and transplanted them. He did not care to disturb them in this pious occupation, but thinking that Catherine would be very cold at the end of her devotions, he determined to run on before and have a good fire blazing at her return.
Unfortunately, one thing opposed the realization of this good intention – they were out of wood. Pitou was in a pinch, for he was out of money, too.
He looked around him to see if there was nothing good to burn. There was Aunt Angelique's bread-safe, bed, and easy-chair. The bed and cupboard were not unworn, but they were still good; while the arm-chair was so rickety that nobody but the owner had ever risked themselves in it. It was therefore condemned.
Like the Revolutionary Tribunal, Pitou had no sooner condemned a thing than he proceeded to execute it.
Pitou set his knee to the seat, and seizing one of the sides, gave a pull. At the third of such tugs, it gave way at the joints. It uttered a kind of squeak, as if an animal capable of feeling pain and expressing emotion. If Pitou had been superstitious, he might have imagined that the aunt's spirit had located itself in her old arm-chair.
But Pitou had no superstition except his love for Catherine. This article of furniture was doomed to warm her, and though it had bled in each limb like an enchanted tree, it would have been rent to pieces.
He grasped the other arm with the same fierceness, and tore that from the carcass, which began to look dismantled.
Again the chair sent forth a sound strange and metallic.
Pitou remained insensible. He took up the chair by one leg, and swinging the whole round his head, he brought it down on the floor.
This split the seat in half, and to the great astonishment of the destroyer, out of the yawning chasm spouted torrents of gold.
Our readers will remember that it was Angelique's habit to change all her coppers into silver, and them into gold pieces, which she stowed away inside her chair.
When Pitou recovered from his surprise and dismay, his first impulse was to run out to Catherine and little Isidore and bring them in to view the riches he had discovered.
But the dreadful terror seized him that Catherine would not marry him if he were a rich man, and he shook his head.
"No," he said, "she would refuse me."
After reflecting for an instant, careworn and motionless, a smile passed over his face. No doubt he had hit on a means of surmounting the obstacle which this sudden wealth had raised. He gathered up the coin scattered on the floor and poked about in the cushion with his knife for still more of the golden eggs. They were literally crammed into the lining.
He reckoned, and there were fifteen hundred and fifty louis, otherwise, thirty-seven thousand and two hundred livres or francs, and at the discount in the favor of gold, he was the master of one million three hundred and twenty-six thousand livres!
And at what a moment had this slice of good luck befallen him! When he was obliged to smash up the furniture from having no means to buy fuel for his wife.
What a lucky thing that Pitou was so poor, the weather was so cold, and the old chair so rotten!
Who knows what would have happened but for this happy conjunction of circumstances?
He stuffed the coin away in all his pockets, and scraping the splinters together he built a fire, which he managed to kindle with the unused flint and steel.
He was no more than in time, for in came Catherine and little Isidore, shivering with cold.
Pitou gave the boy a hug, kissed the woman's icy hands, and dashed out, crying:
"Get warm. I have a piece of business to go through."
"Where does Papa Pitou go?" asked the boy.
"I do not know, but judging by the gait he is going at, it is for you or me."
She might have said, "For you and me."
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHAT PITOU DID WITH THE FIND
It has not been forgotten that the Charny estate and the Gilbert and Billet farms were in the market at a price. On the sale day, Mayor Longpre bought for "Mr. Cash" the properties at the price of 1,350 gold louis, for the equivalent of assignats.
This happened on Sunday, the eve of the day when Catherine and Pitou were married.
At eleven on the following day, all the crowd were grieving that a fine fellow like Pitou should throw himself away upon a girl who was ruined utterly, with a child who was even more poverty-stricken than herself.
When Mayor Longpre had pronounced Citizen Pierre Ange Pitou and Citizeness Anne Catherine Billet united in wedlock, he beckoned little Isidore to him. The youngster had been sitting upon the desk, whence he slipped down and came to him.
"My boy," he said, "here are some papers which you will please give your Mamma Catherine when Papa Pitou takes her home."
"Yes, sir," said the little fellow, taking two papers in his little hand.
All was finished, only, to the great astonishment of the spectators, Pitou pulled out five gold pieces and handed them to the mayor, saying:
"For the poor of the parish."
"Are we rich?" asked Catherine, smiling.
"Happy folks are always rich," returned Pitou, "and you have made me the happiest man in creation."
He offered his arm to the wife, who leaned on it affectionately.
On going forth, they found the crowd to which we have alluded.
Unanimous cheers greeted the couple. Pitou saluted his friends and gave many hand-shakes; Catherine nodded to hers and gave many smiles.
Pitou turned to the right.
"Why, where are you going, dearest?" asked Madame Pitou.
"Come, my dearly beloved," he replied, "to a place you will be glad to see again."
"Why, you are going toward our old farm," she said.
"Come on, all the same," he persisted.
"Oh, Pitou!" she sighed, as he brought her over the well-remembered way.
"And I thought to make you happy," he sighed, too.
"How could you think to make me happy by taking me again to a place which was my parents', and might have been mine, but which was sold yesterday to some stranger whose name even I do not know."
"Only a couple of steps farther; that is all I ask of you."
They turned the corner of the wall, and had the farm entrance before them.
All the farm-hands, carters, cow-men, dairy-maids, plowmen, were there, with Father Clovis marshaling them, a bunch of flowers in his hand.
"I understand; you wanted me to be welcomed once more in the old home by those who, like me, will leave it forever. I thank you, dear."
Leaving her husband's arm and Isidore's hand, she ran forward to meet the people, who surrounded her and bore her into the house.
Pitou led Isidore, who was still carrying the papers, into the door-way, and they saw Catherine seated in the main room, staring about her as in a dream.
"In Heaven's name, tell me what they are saying!" she cried. "I do not understand a bit of what they are saying."
"Perhaps these papers which the child has for you will make it all clear, dear Catherine," replied the husband.
She took the papers from the little hand, and read one by chance:
"I acknowledge that the manor-house of Boursonnes and the lands dependent were bought and paid for by me, yesterday, on behalf of Jacques Philip Isidore, minor son of Catherine Billet, and that consequently said house and lands are the property of the said son.
"Longpre, Mayor of Villers Cotterets."
"What does this mean, Pitou? You must understand that I can not make head or tail of it."
"Better read the other document," suggested the husband.
Unfolding the second paper, Catherine read as follows:
"I hereby acknowledge that the farm called Billet's, with the lands and buildings thereon and the appurtenances thereof, were bought and paid for by me, on behalf and for the account of Citizeness Anne Catherine Billet, and that it follows the said farm and lands and buildings belong to the said Citizeness Ann Catherine Billet.
"Longpre, Mayor of Villers Cotterets."
"In Heaven's name, tell me what this all means, or I shall go mad!" said Catherine.
"The meaning is," rejoined Pitou, "that thanks to some gold found in my Aunt Angelique's old easy-chair, which I broke up to warm you, the house and manor of Charny will not go out of the family, or the farm from the Billets."
Catherine understood all at last. She opened her arms to Pitou, but he pushed Isidore into them. But she leaned forward and infolded husband and child in the same embrace.
"Oh, God!" exclaimed Pitou, stifling with bliss and yet unable to repress one tear for the old maid, "to think there are people who die of hunger and cold, like poor Aunt Angelique!"
"Faith!" said a stout teamster, nudging a rosy milk-maid for her to take particular heed of their new master and mistress, "I do not think that pair is going to die in any such way."
Let us turn from these truly happy ones, in the peaceful country, to the bereaved widow of Louis XVI. In her lonesome jail she mourns over the loss of all – husband, lover, friend. What can replace a Charny or an Andrea? She thinks there is no champion of the blood of either, for she knows not that Cagliostro's surmise was not baseless. When the son of Andrea shall know how his mother fell, he will fly to arms to avenge that loss and to spite her foes, who are also the queen's! We shall trace his gallant, and desperate attempts to rescue the royal captive in the pages of the conclusion of this series, entitled: "The Knight of Redcastle: or, The Captivity of Marie Antoinette."
