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"'Yes and this is my wife, Françoise Simon, the best of women, who has consoled me in many sorrows, and this is Jacques, my eldest, and you know Francinette. Perhaps you will give me your name now? "'One moment you have not introduced yourself. "'I am called Simon, he answered with a frown. "'Simon and nothing else? "'Nothing else. If I ever bore another name, I have forgotten it.
Little Francinette carried the glass to him. He drank it, looking the while at the child with admiration and sad envy. Then taking her on his knee, he looked around him at the honest faces, and said: "My name is Michel Michel Charmoze. There are thirty of us down on the road, all wounded, in a big wagon. The horses have fallen, one is dead, and we have come for help."
"It is a subterranean passage, and leads to the Fongereues estate. You have a league to go. God guard you!" Another deafening discharge of musketry. The mother sank on her knees. "Save Francinette!" she moaned. "They have killed my mother!" sobbed the boy. "Go!" cried Lasvène, "they are coming in!"
"If I go there," he said to himself, "I can find people who will look for Francinette with me." He tried to run; his foot slipped. He looked down and beheld a pool of blood. A dead body lay near, and then another, and another death and slaughter everywhere! These were French soldiers who had been surprised and shot.
The father lifted her in his arms. "No, no," he said, "little Francinette was dreaming. There was no one there!" "Yes, I saw him; he climbed over the wall!" Simon took his gun and went out. Presently he returned, and with a look towards his wife that contradicted his words, he said, "No, it is nothing."
At the same time he wrote a few words on a bit of paper, and laid it on the table near his wife. This is what she read: "The child is right; there are footprints on the wall a spy undoubtedly." He said aloud: "And now, wife, make haste; there is no time to lose. Francinette, go to the other window and see if your brother is anywhere about.
The trap door closed on the two children, leaving them in total darkness. Lasvène had not thought of that. The boy hesitated. His mother had bidden him save Francinette here was safety, even if there were also darkness. He kissed his little sister tenderly. "Can you walk, dear?" he said. "No I am afraid!"
It was not until eighteen months had elapsed that he was able to tell me he came from Leigoutte, among the Vosges mountains." "Ah!" The Marquis drew his breath with pain. "Go on! go on!" he muttered in a hoarse voice. "He said his father's name was Simon, his mother's name Françoise, and a little sister was called Francinette, but he gave me no family name.
Jacques remembered that he was ten, and that Francinette, who was only six, had a right to be afraid. "Afraid!" he repeated, "what is there to fear? I am not afraid!" He was not speaking the truth, but he had a vague idea that it was not wrong to tell a falsehood on this occasion. He placed Francinette on the ground, and she clung to his legs.
Lasvène is a man of sense, and will not be guilty of any imprudence." Suddenly Francinette, who was looking out of a window, uttered a shrill cry, and ran to her mother. "What is it?" exclaimed Simon, rushing to the window, which he threw open, but could see nothing. Françoise soothed the little girl and questioned her. The child, still wild with fear, pointed to the window. "A man! a bad man!"
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