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Jealousy, distorting Hulot's face, made him look as terrible as the late Marshal Montcornet leading a cavalry charge against a Russian square. Being such a handsome man, he had never known any ground for jealousy, any more than Murat knew what it was to be afraid. He had always felt sure that he should triumph.
Hardly had the words left her lips when she heard the movement of troops beyond the Porte Saint-Leonard and distinguished Hulot's gruff voice in the tumult. "God's thunder!" he cried, "I never saw such fog as this for a reconnaissance! The Gars must have ordered the weather." "What are you complaining of?" said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, grasping his arm.
Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to divert Hulot's thoughts, for his depression grieved her. "On my word, almost as pretty as you are," said the Baron artfully. "And monstrously droll? So I have been told. What does she do, I say?
Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well.
These people had been saved from a bankruptcy, which would have reduced them to misery, by the Baroness, acting in behalf of Madame de la Chanterie. In a few months comfort had taken the place of poverty, and Religion had found a home in hearts which once had cursed Heaven with the energy peculiar to Italian stove-fitters. So one of Madame Hulot's first visits was to this family.
"If you ever want a sabre to deal some special blow, my life is yours. I am good for that. My name is Jean Falcon, otherwise called Beau-Pied, sergeant of the first company of Hulot's veterans, seventy-second half-brigade, nicknamed 'Les Mayencais. Excuse my vanity; I can only offer you the soul of a sergeant, but that's at your service." He turned on his heel and walked off whistling.
Observing this manoeuvre the Chouans set up a cry to warn their leader; then, having fired on the Blues and their contingent with the gusto of poachers, they boldly made a rush for them; but Hulot's men sprang through the hedge which served them as a rampart and took a bloody revenge.
These family catastrophes, Baron Hulot's dismissal, and the knowledge that he was a mere cipher in that immense stir of men and interests and things which makes Paris at once a paradise and a hell, quite quelled Lisbeth Fischer.
Hulot's men advanced at a run to save Gudin, who, being without arms, retreated from tree to tree, seizing his opportunity as the Chouans reloaded. His danger was soon over. Hulot and the Blues met him at the spot where the marquis had thrown his musket.
Madame Hulot's eye fell on a print of the group of "Delilah" by Count Steinbock, under which were the words, "The property of Madame Marneffe." The very first lines of the article, signed V., showed the talent and friendliness of Claude Vignon. "Poor child!" said the Baroness.
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