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Detricand stirred him with his foot, as one might a pile of dirt. "Listen," said he. "In the Vier Marchi they're cutting off the ear of a man and nailing it to a post, because he ill-used a cow. What do you suppose they'd do to you, if I took you down there and told them it was through you Rullecour landed, and that you'd have seen them all murdered eh, maitre cormorant?"
He had at last been forced to give up the little watchmaker's shop in the Vier Marchi, where for so many years, in simple independence, he had wrought, always putting by, from work done after hours, Jersey bank-notes and gold, to give Guida a dot, if not worthy of her, at least a guarantee against reproach when some great man should come seeking her in marriage.
In truth, the sleek beast, with its feet planted in fearsome rocks and tides, and its ravening head set to defy the onslaught of the main, might, but for its ensnaring beauty, seem some monstrous foot-pad of the deep. To this day the tiger's head is the lonely part of Jersey; a hundred years ago it was as distant from the Vier Marchi as is Penzance from Covent Garden.
And "Little Burney," treading on thinner ice, once remarked, "If Sir Joshua ever embraces a fair sitter and imprints upon her forehead a chaste kiss, I am sure that Giuseppe Marchi will never tell." It is too late to accuse Sir Joshua Reynolds of ingratitude towards Giuseppe; he was grateful, and once referred to Marchi as "an angel sent from God to help me do my work."
In the Vier Marchi the French flag was flying, French troops occupied it, French sentries guarded the five streets entering into it. Rullecour, the French adventurer, held the Lieutenant-Governor of the isle captive in the Cohue Royale; and by threats of fire and pillage thought to force capitulation.
This French adventurer, Detricand, after years of riotous living, could pick up the threads of life again with a laugh and no shame, while he felt himself going down, down, down, with no hope of ever rising again. As he stood buried in his reflections the town crier entered the Vier Marchi, and, going to La Pyramide, took his place upon the steps, and in a loud voice began reading a proclamation.
Poising a half-loaf of bread on the ledge of the roof, he began to slowly toll the cracked bell at his hand for Rullecour the filibuster. The bell clanged out: Chicane-chicane! Chicane-chicane! Another bell answered from the church by the square, a deep, mournful note. It was tolling for Peirson and his dead comrades. Against the statue in the Vier Marchi leaned Ranulph Delagarde.
Giuseppe had thrown away the painting-kit and walked the three hundred miles in eight days, begging or stealing by the way the food he needed. When Joshua Reynolds opened his studio in Saint Martin's Lane, his faithful helper was Giuseppe Marchi. Giuseppe painted just as Joshua did, and just as well.
Part went by the Grande Rue, and part by the Rue d'Driere, converging to the point of attack; and as the light infantry came down from the hill by the Rue des Tres Pigeons, Peirson entered the Vier Marchi by the Route es Couochons. On one side of the square, where the Cohue Royale made a wall to fight against, were the French.
The results of these studies in Rome and Venice were at once observable on his return to England in the beautiful portrait of Giuseppe Marchi, one of the treasures belonging to the Royal Academy. It was altogether too much for the ignorant British artists, and it excited lively comment.
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