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Updated: June 28, 2025
At seven o'clock in the evening, Valmond and Lagroin were in the streets, after they had marched their men back to camp. A crowd had gathered near the church, for His Excellency was on his way to visit the Cure. As he passed, they cheered him. He stopped to speak to them. Before he had ended, some one came crying wildly that the soldiers, the red-coats were come.
Here the avocat stopped him with a quick, protesting gesture. "Your Excellency! your Excellency!" he said in a shaking voice, "my heart has been with the man as with the cause." Other legacies were given to Medallion, to the family of Lagroin, of whom he still spoke as "my beloved General who died for me;" and ten francs to each recruit who had come to his standard.
But it would have its hour yet, and Valmond knew this as well as did the young Seigneur. It was no jest of Valmond's that he would, or could, have five hundred followers in two weeks. Lagroin and Parpon were busy, each in his own way Lagroin, open, bluff, imperative; Parpon, silent, acute, shrewd. Two days before the feast of St.
Presently a match was struck, and Elise came forward with a candle raised level with her dusky head. Lagroin looked at her in indignant astonishment. "Do you not see who is here, girl?" he demanded. "Your Excellency!" she said confusedly to Valmond, and, bowing, offered him a chair. "You must pardon her, sire," said the old sergeant. "She has never been taught, and she's a wayward wench."
"Even for our dear Lagroin," Valmond continued, "it was no tragedy. He was fighting for the cause, not for a poor fellow like me. As a soldier loves to die, he died in the dream of his youth, sword in hand." "You loved the cause, my son?" was the troubled question. "You were all honest?" Valmond made as if he would rise on his elbow, in excitement, but the Cure put him gently back.
Parish interchanged with parish; but, because it was so remote, Pontiac was its own goal of pleasure, and few fared forth, though others came from Ville Bambord and elsewhere to join the fete. As Lagroin and the dwarf came to the door of the smithy, they heard the loud laugh of Lajeunesse. "Good!" said Parpon. "Hear how he tears his throat!"
As they filed past the house of Elise Malboir, the girl stood in the glow of a bonfire, beside the oven where Valmond had first seen her. All around her was the wide awe of night, enriched by the sweet perfume of a coming harvest. He doffed his hat to her, then to the Tricolor, which Lagroin had fastened on a tall staff before the house.
Yet she did not know whether she thought him sire or sinner, gentleman or comedian, as she watched him go down the hill with Lagroin and Parpon. But she had the portrait. How did he get it? No matter, it was hers now. Curious to know more of the episode in the village below, she ordered her carriage, and came driving slowly past the Louis Quinze at an exciting moment.
The roll of a drum came out of the street somewhere, and presently the people fell back before sixty armed men, marching in columns, under Lagroin, while from the opposite direction came Lajeunesse with sixty others, silent all, till they reached the drays and formed round them slowly.
Lagroin then put five gold pieces each into the hands of Muroc and Duclosse, and said: "I take you into the service of Prince Valmond Napoleon, and you do hereby swear to serve him loyally, even to the shedding of your blood, for his honour and the honour of France; and you do also vow to require a like loyalty and obedience of all men under your command. Swear."
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