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Updated: May 27, 2025
"Fourchon has frightened her; and it is very desirable to keep her here in the interests of religion and of the throne, and, indeed, in those of the people themselves." Michaud, the bailiff of Les Aigues, had come to the chateau in consequence of the assault on Vatel's eyes.
I know of no point on the littoral of the Rhone that offers so excellent an opportunity of observing the processes of that river than at Aigues Mortes. The river has, indeed, long ago deserted the branch that once discharged itself here, and it has left four lines behind it, making successive stages of advance, four bars, with their several backwaters, now converted into ponds or meres.
No spot was ever more adapted for revenge or murder, for the road to Ronquerolles continues to the bridge over the Avonne in front of the pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux leads off above the mail-road; so that between the four roads, to Les Aigues, Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles, and Cerneux, a murderer could choose his line of retreat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.
From September to March, hares, rabbits, partridges, deer, in short, all the game that was not eaten at the chateau, was sold at Blangy and at Soulanges, where Tonsard's two daughters peddled milk in the early mornings, coming back with the news of the day, in return for the gossip they carried about Les Aigues, and Cerneux, and Conches.
Young Soudry, a companion of Gaubertin's son in Paris as well as at Les Aigues, had just been appointed assistant attorney in the capital of the department. Before the elder Soudry, a quartermaster in the artillery, became a brigadier of gendarmes, he had been wounded in a skirmish while defending Monsieur de Soulanges, then adjutant-general.
I could walk about and amuse myself if I liked, but I must be at the inn before the return of my master and mistress to arrange a light repast collected at Arles, as we should have to lunch later at Nîmes, and the resources of Aigues Mortes were not supposed to be worthy of millionaires in search of the picturesque.
'Sire, replied Joinville, 'it seems to me that you ought to land; for Madame de Bourbon, being once in this very port, put again to sea to land at Aigues Mortes, and she was tossed about for seven long weeks before she could make that harbour.
"If Mademoiselle," thought Gaubertin, "were to manage Les Aigues herself, she would never get thirty thousand francs a year out of it; the peasants, the dealers, the workmen would rob her of the rest. It is much better that I should have it, and so enable her to live in peace." The Catholic religion, and it alone, is able to prevent these capitulations of conscience.
"Here's a refractory, Monsieur Brunet; Pere Fourchon wants to drop off." "He has had too many drops already," said the sheriff; "but the law in this case does not require that he shall be sober." "Please excuse me, Monsieur Brunet," said Fourchon, "I am expected at Les Aigues on business; they are in treaty for an otter."
The waters, laden with timber from the river and the rapids which fed the mill-races and the sluices of a few manufactories, presented an animated scene, all the more charming because inclosed in the greenery of forests, while the long valley of Les Aigues offered a glorious contrast to the dark foil of the heights above the town itself.
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