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When he had had his laugh, he was quite willing to enter a discussion with me, and to take the matter seriously. He had just the very thing, a nice cow which gave delicious milk real cream! and she hardly ate anything. If I would put down fifty écus, the cow was mine. Although I had had trouble in making him talk at first, once he commenced it was difficult to stop him.
Rest assured that were I so minded I could follow no braver or more generous prince than Antony of Vendôme, but my sword is hung to the wall. My name is Broussel. I am bourgeois, as you see, and having a small estate of fifty écus have all that suffices for the simple needs of a citizen such as I. Monseigneur, the little service I rendered is small; let it be forgotten.
He was such an ardent no, such a frozen-up, mummified Royalist that he used in current conversation turns of speech contemporary, I should say, with the good Henri Quatre; and when talking of money matters, reckoned not in francs, like the common, godless herd of post-Revolutionary Frenchmen, but in obsolete and forgotten ecus ecus of all money units in the world! as though Louis Quatorze were still promenading in royal splendour the gardens of Versailles, and Monsieur de Colbert busy with the direction of maritime affairs.
There were 13,500 "beautiful, agreeable and spacious" houses, and the rents varied from 200 to 500 écus yearly. The inhabitants "are well and gaily clothed; their houses are well kept, well ordered and furnished with all sorts of household objects. The air of the country is thick and damp, but it is healthy and encourages the appetite and the fecundity of the people."
On one occasion we find the learned gentleman humanely visiting an unfortunate detenu no other person, in fact, than his friend M. Bertrand, who has fallen into some trouble, and is awaiting the sentence of the law. He begins "Mon cher Bertrand, donne moi cent ecus, je te fais acquitter d'emblee." "J'ai pas d'argent." "He bien, donne moi cent francs." "Pas le sou." "Tu n'as pas dix francs?"
Of course all the young men of the district paid court to her, more on account of her ecus than her pretty ways. At last she made a choice which scandalized the community. On the opposite bank of the Morelle lived a tall youth named Dominique Penquer. He did not belong to Rocreuse.
The man cast a troubled look toward his family, standing close behind him. He hesitated a minute longer, and then suddenly made up his mind to obey the order. "I was coming home one night at about ten o'clock, the night after you got here. You and your soldiers had taken more than fifty ecus worth of forage from me, as well as a cow and two sheep.
"En ecus bien comptes?" "There's no doubt whatever about her fortune. I've seen it, as I may say." "Satisfactory woman! I mean you. And if I go to see her shall I see the mother?" "The mother? She has none nor father either." "The aunt then whom did you say? Mrs. Touchett. I can easily keep her out of the way." "I don't object to her," said Osmond; "I rather like Mrs. Touchett.
Not a single cardinal uttered a word in praise of the new confrere, but many openly disapproved his nomination. Alberoni's good fortune did not stop here. At the death, some little time after, of the Bishop of Malaga, that rich see, worth thirty thousand ecus a year, was given to him. He received it as the mere introduction to the grandest and richest sees of Spain, when they should become vacant.
And now, heralded by a convulsive flourish from the President's bugle, a young Chicard, whose dilapidated outer man sufficiently contradicted the burthen of his song, shouted with better will than skill, a chanson of Beranger's, every verse of which ended with: "J'ai cinquante écus, J'ai cinquante écus, J'ai cinquante écus de rente!"
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