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This order quieted for a time the poor creature, who was moaning like a child that has lost its nurse. At this moment Rouget, who hated Max, thought his tormentor an angel. A passion like that of this miserable old man for Flore is astonishingly like the emotions of childhood. At six o'clock, the Pole, who had merely taken a walk, returned to announce that Flore had driven towards Vatan.
This order quieted for a time the poor creature, who was moaning like a child that has lost its nurse. At this moment Rouget, who hated Max, thought his tormentor an angel. A passion like that of this miserable old man for Flore is astonishingly like the emotions of childhood. At six o'clock, the Pole, who had merely taken a walk, returned to announce that Flore had driven towards Vatan.
Eighty persons arrived from Vatan, Saint-Florent, Vierzon and the neighboring country, all in deep mourning, widows with sons, children with their fathers, some in carrioles, some in wicker gigs, others in dilapidated carts. Imagine the scene between the old woman's servants and the first arrivals! and the consultations among the notaries! It created a sort of riot in Issoudun.
You will understand that Monsieur Gilet can no longer be my guest after staying with you at Vatan. I send this letter by Captain Carpentier, who will put it into your own hands. I hope you will listen to his advice; he will speak to you with authority from me. Your affectionate J.-J. Rouget.
"Hey! are not we all under a Republic that is one and indivisible?" cried the uncle from his station. "We are under a Directory," said the doctor, "and I know of no law which allows a man to come from Vatan and fish in the territory of Issoudun"; then he said to Flore, "Have you got a mother, little one!" "No, monsieur; and my father is in the asylum at Bourges.
"Do you think I've not kept my ears open, and reflected about how we stand? Send to Pere Cognette for a horse and a char-a-banc, and say we want them instantly: they must be here in five minutes. Pack all your belongings, take Vedie, and go to Vatan. Settle yourself there as if you mean to stay; carry off the twenty thousand francs in gold which the old fellow has got in his drawer.
The situation of Flore Brazier would have been very embarrassing were it not for the condition into which she was thrown by Max's death. A brain-fever set in, combined with a dangerous inflammation resulting from her escapade to Vatan. If she had had her usual health, she might have fled the house where, in the room above her, Max's room, and in Max's bed, lay and suffered Max's murderer.
The traveller arriving from Vierzon, Vatan, or Chateauroux, his eyes weary with monotonous plains, is agreeably surprised by the meadows of Issoudun, the oasis of this part of Berry, which supplies the inhabitants with vegetables throughout a region of thirty miles in circumference.
"Where do you come from, little girl? I have never seen you before," said the old doctor, then sixty-two years of age. This scene took place in the month of September, 1799. "I belong in Vatan," she answered. Hearing Rouget's voice, an ill-looking man, standing at some distance in the deeper waters of the brook, raised his head.
"What are you about, Flore?" he said, "While you are talking instead of catching, the creatures will get away." "Why have you come here from Vatan?" continued the doctor, paying no heed to the interruption. "I am catching crabs for my uncle Brazier here."
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