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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Five hundred thousand crowns yes, I'll give them," cried the victim. "Well, where are they?" answered Pille-Miche, tranquilly. "Under the first apple-tree Holy Virgin! at the bottom of the garden to the left you are brigands thieves! Ah! I'm dying there's ten thousand francs " "Francs! we don't want francs," said Marche-a-Terre; "those Republican coins have pagan figures which oughtn't to pass."
Suddenly, at a slight sign from Marche-a-Terre, Pille-Miche pulled off d'Orgemont's shoes and stockings, Mene-a-Bien and Galope-Chopine seized him round the body and carried him to the fire. Then Marche-a-Terre took one of the thongs that tied the fagots and fastened the miser's feet to the crane.
The deep silence was broken only by the rippling of the Nancon, by the regular and lugubrious tolling from the belfries, by the heavy steps of the sentinels or the rattle of arms as the guard was hourly relieved. "The night's as thick as a wolf's jaw," said the voice of Pille-Miche. "Go on," growled Marche-a-Terre, "and don't talk more than a dead dog." "I'm hardly breathing," said the Chouan.
The hapless man knocked against the wooden bedstead of his son, and several five-franc pieces rolled on the floor. Pille-Miche picked them up. "Ho! ho! the Blues paid you in new money," cried Marche-a-Terre. "As true as that's the image of Saint-Labre," said Galope-Chopine, "I have told nothing. Barbette mistook the Fougeres men for the gars of Saint-Georges, and that's the whole of it."
"Is there any?" asked Marche-a-Terre, roughly, shaking Marie by the arm. "Yes, about a hundred crowns." The two Chouans looked at each other. "Well, well, friend," said Pille-Miche, "we won't quarrel for a female Blue; let's pitch her into the lake with a stone around her neck, and divide the money."
As Barbette reached this verse of the song, where Pille-Miche had begun it, she was entering the courtyard of her home; her tongue suddenly stiffened, she stood still, and a great cry, quickly repressed, came from her gaping lips. "What is it, mother?" said the child. "Walk alone," she cried, pulling her hand away and pushing him roughly; "you have neither father nor mother."
"Monsieur le marquis," said Marche-a-Terre, as he ended his account of the quarrel, "it is all the more unreasonable in them to find fault with me because I have left Pille-Miche behind me; he'll know how to save the coach for us."
"Patience," replied Marche-a-Terre; "if I examined right this morning, we must be at the foot of the Papegaut tower between the ramparts and the Promenade, that place where they put the manure; it is like a feather-bed to fall on." "If Saint-Labre," remarked Pille-Miche, "would only change into cider the blood we shall shed to-night the citizens might lay in a good stock to-morrow."
"Do you think," she said, opening her eyes, "that Marche-a-Terre will hear of it?" "The Gars will certainly inquire who betrayed him." "Will he tell it to Marche-a-Terre?" "Marche-a-Terre and Pille-Miche were both at Florigny." Barbette breathed a little easier. "If they touch a hair of your head," she cried, "I'll rinse their glasses with vinegar." "Ah!
These actions and the horrible celerity with which they were done brought cries from the victim, which became heart-rending when Pille-Miche gathered the burning sticks under his legs. "My friends, my good friends," screamed d'Orgemont, "you hurt me, you kill me! I'm a Christian like you." "You lie in your throat!" replied Marche-a-Terre.
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