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Updated: May 15, 2025
"No, no!" cried Madame Tonsard; "he needn't complain of the midwife who cut his string, she made a good job of it." "It is enough to make a man dumb, thinking from morning till night of some way to escape Rigou," said the premature old man, gloomily. "Bah!" said old Mother Tonsard, "you've got a pretty daughter, seventeen years old.
"Let him talk, Tonsard," whispered his wife, "you know they're just his notions, poor dear man." Bonnebault and Marie, Catherine and her brother came in at this moment in a state of exasperation, which had begun with Nicolas's failure, and was raised to the highest pitch by Michaud's advice to the countess about Bonnebault.
"Pere Fourchon and his son-in-law Tonsard," said the abbe, "are the strength and the intelligence of the lower classes of this valley, who consult them on all occasions. The Machiavelism of these people is beyond belief. Ten peasants meeting in a tavern are the small change of great political questions." Just then Francois announced Monsieur Sibilet.
The two old women squabbled as to which of them should be sold by her children. The noise of the quarrel woke up the household. Tonsard and Bonnebault took sides for their respective mothers. "Pull straws," suggested Tonsard's wife. The short straw gave it in favor of the tavern.
Besides, the relations of those estimable functionaries with Tonsard and his wife tied a bandage over their eyes. The cows, held by long ropes, obeyed a mere twitch or a special low call back to the roadside, knowing very well that, the danger once past, they could finish their browsing in the next field.
Nicolas, who was soon to appear before the examining board, had little hope of the general's intervention because of the harm done to Les Aigues by all the members of the Tonsard family.
"But I tell you," said Marie, continuing her topic, "they won't be cajoled; I don't know what's the matter with them; that bully at the pavilion, he's married, but Vatel, Gaillard, and Steingel are not; they've not a woman belonging to them; indeed, there's not a woman in the place who would marry them." "Well, we shall see how things go at the harvest and the vintage," said Tonsard.
"If it was Bonnebault," cried Fourchon, "he who is one of the pillars of the place, I'll I'll Enough!" "You old sot, what has all that got to do with having sold your clothes? You sold them because you did sell them; you're of age!" said Tonsard, slapping the old man's knee. "Come, do honor to my drink and redden up your throat!
Then, leaving the little man thoroughly bewildered, Rigou got into the carriole beside Marie Tonsard. "Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think you can keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence?
He thinks he loves her! Well, I'll share their danger, and if I can't save them I'll suffer with them." That night Marie Tonsard was stationed on the road to Soulanges, sitting on the rail of a culvert waiting for Bonnebault, who had spent the day, as usual, at the Cafe de la Paix.
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