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Inasmuch as, years ago, you hunted brave men who through you were condemned to death, which they suffered on the wheel; inasmuch as you wickedly murdered the starving peasants of the parishes of Eaux Tranquilles while in the pursuit of liberty; inasmuch as you resisted the sovereign people and sided with the cut-throats of Versailles, when you participated in the crimes of the Bodyguard; inasmuch as you have been of the party of conspirators against the Revolution, and have plotted with the tyrant Capet and his widow for the Counter-revolution; inasmuch as you are a suspect, inasmuch as you are an emigré; inasmuch as you are a rich and an aristocrat; inasmuch as you, Germain Lecour, son of François Xavier Lecour, peasant of Canada, and grandson of a butcher of Paris, did thus oppress the people without the excuse of hereditary illusion, but were a cheat and adventurer sprung from their own bosom; inasmuch as in order to do so you have broken many laws of the land and natural rights of mankind, have outraged the sacred names of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and have brought, especially upon yourself, the retribution of that Order of the Galley-on-Land, part of which was assembled before you in the cave of Fontainebleau; know now then, for the first time, that through all these dealings you have been tracked by them in your every movement; that your misdeeds were collected, not forgotten; that our vengeance was on your path and waited but the time that suited us; that to hundreds unknown to you it will be a day of feasting to see you die; that they will drink wine for your blood and eat bread for your flesh, and when your head drops into the basket, they will regret the days of tyranny for this only that the humanity of these times does not allow of breaking you in turn on the wheel."
"Ah-h-h!" they cry, grinning broadly; "ah, ah, ha! ha-a-a-a!" putting into this utterance a world of amused scorn. The "regulator" of the establishment a solemn man in a tail-coat who walks about the hall preserving order gets angry at this. "Restez tranquilles," he says to the jeerers, with expressive and emphatic forefinger leveled at the group.
Packet after packet the precious archives of the Lecours de Lincy went upon the pile until he had emptied the muniment-chest; the fire raged and reddened into a solid mass, and they were irrevocably gone. Next he took up de Bailleul's will sorrowfully and hesitatingly, for it was his title to Eaux Tranquilles but the following instant he threw it also on the flames.
Eight or nine days after the event, the time arrived when it was customary at Eaux Tranquilles for the tenants to pay their feudal dues, and Germain was alone in the office of the château, looking over the ancient titles of de Bailleul's inheritances, preparatory to receiving the "faith and homage" of his subjects. "I must go no farther," he was saying to himself.
Half a dozen peasants, bronzed and sweaty and trudging in a group, meeting him, took off their hats. One of them said in his hearing: "Baptiste, there is one of the white-wigs." The carriage rolled through the forest, then out into the open country, and shortly after turned under a stately gate of gilded ironwork, and the grounds of Eaux Tranquilles were entered.
It was almost too grand to seem by any possibility his, yet in very truth he was lord of Eaux Tranquilles and all its manors. Sounds of unseemly revelry within fell upon his ear. He listened a moment, and then stepping up to the great door struck the knocker. The butler himself opened.
The first few days by Germain and Cyrène, after the death of de Bailleul, were spent in genuine sorrow. Their thoughts were recalled to those dear and delicious weeks at Fontainebleau, and they decided that Germain should revisit Eaux Tranquilles and prepare it for their bridal.
The difference between these and the kind in the Menagerie is that it is we who are within the bars." "You need not offer the breed as a novelty; I saw plenty of them at Eaux Tranquilles." The speakers were Grancey and Germain. The Baron's face was full of indignation; Lecour's of platonic contempt.
Of us who think ourselves stronger, how many ever had such a temptation? In a few hours he had left Eaux Tranquilles for Paris. Dominique brought him to a house in the Quartier du Temple where there was an apartment which de Bailleul often occupied: there they installed themselves.
Towards evening he was forced by a hail storm to stop at the inn of Grelot, a hamlet which adjoined the park of Eaux Tranquilles. In the morning he was roused by voices in the village street, and saw by the sunlight pouring in at the window that the day was well up and the storm over.
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