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Updated: June 16, 2025
The fault lies here," he added, tapping his head, "and it will remain until we remove the ones with the other. But now for the business that brings me," he proceeded, more briskly. "Four years ago, Citizen Bellecour, you laid your whip across my face in the woods out yonder, and when I spoke of seeking satisfaction action you threatened me with your grooms.
He caught hold of the Marquis's bridle with such a strength and angry will that the horse was forced to back before him. "Insolent clod!" exclaimed Bellecour, with an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground.
"For ourselves," he concluded calmly, tapping his gold snuffbox and holding it out to Bellecour, for all the world with the air of one who was discussing the latest fashion in wigs, "I can understand your repugnance at coming to blows with this obscene canaille. It is doing them an honour of which they are not worthy.
Mademoiselle gave no outward sign of the deep wound her pride was receiving. The girl of nineteen, who had scorned the young secretary-lover in the park of Bellecour that morning four years ago, was developed into a handsome lady of three-and-twenty. "It would be beneath the dignity of his station to soil his hands in such a conflict as my father has suggested," she said at last.
Within the schoolmaster's study he whom Duhamel called Maximilien strode to and fro, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent, his chin thrust forward, denouncing the seigneurial system, of whose atrocity he had received that evening instances enough for he had heard the whole story of La Boulaye's rebellion against the power of Bellecour and the causes that had led to it.
A volley of musketry from below came to warn them of the happenings there. The air was charged with the hideous howls of the besieging mob, and presently there was a cry from one of the ladies, as a sudden glare of light crimsoned the window-panes. "What is that?" asked Madame de Bellecour of her husband. "They have fired the stables," he answered, through set teeth.
His eye alighted on Cecile's roses, and, scarce knowing why he did it, he picked them up and flung them behind a bookcase. It was but done when again the door opened, and his official ushered in Mademoiselle de Bellecour. Oddly enough, at sight of her, La Boulaye grew master of himself. He received her with a polite and very formal bow a trifle over-graceful for a patriot.
Before they had recovered from their surprise the Marquis de Bellecour stood before them. He was a tall man of some fifty years of age, but so powerful of frame and so scrupulous in dress that he might have conveyed an impression of more youth. His face, though handsome in a high-bred way, was puffed and of an unhealthy yellow.
Next day he proceeded to the Square of Bellecour, where, amidst the plaudits of the people, he laid the first stone of some new buildings destined to efface one of the disasters of the Revolution. We left Lyons that evening and continued our journey by way of Dijon. On our arrival in that town the joy of the inhabitants was very great.
He received the whip from the hands of the soldier and he now advanced towards Bellecour, unwinding the lash as he came. Ombreval barred his way with an oath. "By Heaven: you shall not!" he cried. "Shall not?" echoed La Boulaye, his lips curling. "You had best stand aside you that are steeped in musk and fierceness."
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