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"Yes, that's so; you'll be Rigou's cats-paw!" cried Fourchon, who alone understood his grandson. Just then Langlume, the miller of Les Aigues, passed the tavern. Madame Tonsard hailed him. "Is it true," she said, "that gleaning is to be forbidden?" Langlume, a jovial white man, white with flour and dressed in grayish-white clothes, came up the steps and looked in.
Montcornet became an object of general hatred. Not only were five or six lives radically changed by him, but many personal vanities were wounded. The peasants, taking their cue from words dropped by the small tradesmen of Ville-aux-Fayes and Soulanges, and by Rigou, Langlume, Guerbet, and the postmaster at Conches, thought they were on the eve of losing what they called their rights.
Ostensibly, Rigou derived about fourteen thousand francs a year from landed property actually owned by him. But as to his amassed hoard, it was represented by an "x" which no rule of equations could evolve, just as the devil alone knew the secret schemes he plotted with Langlume. This dangerous usurer, who proposed to live a score of years longer, had established fixed rules to work upon.
As Tonsard asked the question, Vaudoyer left the house to see Rigou. Langlume, who had already gone out, turned on the door-step, and answered: "Crowd of do-nothings! are you so rich that you think you are your own masters?" Though said with a laugh, the meaning contained in those words was understood by all present, as horses understand the cut of a whip.
"Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, "go and see Rigou, and then we shall know what to do; he's our oracle, and his spittle doesn't cost anything." "Another folly!" said Jean-Louis, in a low voice, "Rigou betrays everybody; Annette tells me so; she says he's more dangerous when he listens to you than other folks are when they bluster." "I advise you to be cautious," said Langlume.
They sent for Langlume, the miller, and the assistant of General Montcornet as mayor; he related what had taken place in the tavern, and gave the names of all present; none had gone out except for a minute or two into the courtyard. He had left the room for a moment with Tonsard about eleven o'clock; they had spoken of the moon and the weather, and heard nothing.
"If the peasants once know how to read and write, what will become of us?" said Langlume, naively, to the general, to excuse this anti-liberal action taken against a brother of the Christian Doctrine whom the Abbe Brossette wished to establish as a public school-master in Blangy.
The one that I suspect most, Tonsard, passed the night carousing in the Grand-I-Vert; but your assistant, general, the miller Langlume, was there, and he says that Tonsard did not leave the tavern. They were all so drunk they could not stand; they took the bride home at half-past one; and the return of the horse proves that Michaud was murdered between eleven o'clock and midnight.
Monsieur Langlume, your miller, grinds his flour gratis at my request, and my servant bakes his bread with mine." "I had quite forgotten my little protegee," said the countess, troubled at Sibilet's remark. "Your arrival," she added to Blondet, "has quite turned my head.
A copy of the "Constitutionnel," that great organ of liberalism, after making the rounds of the Cafe de la Paix, came back to Rigou on the seventh day, the subscription, standing in the name of old Socquard the keeper of the coffee-house, being shared by twenty persons. Rigou passed the paper on to Langlume the miller, who, in turn, gave it in shreds to any one who knew how to read.
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