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Updated: July 6, 2025
Three days later, in the forest of Ville-aux-Fayes at daybreak, the gendarmes arrested old Mother Tonsard caught "in flagrante delicto" by the bailiff, his assistants, and the field-keeper, with a rusty file which served to tear the tree, and a chisel, used by the delinquent to scoop round the bark just as the insect bores its way.
"It is true, it is so true that Nicolas, the handsomest man in the canton, is mad about you; he dreams of you, he is losing his mind; and yet all the other girls are in love with him. He is a fine lad! If you'll put on a white dress and yellow ribbons, and come to Socquard's for the midsummer ball, you'll be the handsomest girl there, and all the fine people from Ville-aux-Fayes will see you.
"Monsieur le comte, Gaubertin is not such a fool as to let himself be brought into collision with you. Besides, you could not openly insult the mayor of so important a place as Ville-aux-Fayes." "I'll have him turned out; the Troisvilles can do that for me; it is a question of income."
In the months when the three Tonsards were unable to hunt with a gun, they set traps. If the traps caught more game than they could eat, La Tonsard made pies of it and sent them to Ville-aux-Fayes.
From Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, workmen came there to meet and make their bargains and hear the news collected by the Tonsard women and by Mouche and old Fourchon, or supplied by Vermichel and Brunet, that renowned official, when he came to the tavern in search of his practitioner. There the price of hay and of wine was settled; also that of a day's work and of piece-work.
The news circulated rapidly; and those whom it chiefly interested were much surprised to learn from others, who lived on high ground, that a detachment commanded by the lieutenant of Ville-aux-Fayes had marched through the forest of Les Aigues. Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard and his family, Godain, and an old vine-dresser named Laroche, were there early in the morning.
Nevertheless, though all these worthy bourgeois, proud of their accomplishments, considered their society as far superior in attractions to that of Ville-aux-Fayes, and repeated with comic pomposity the local dictum, "Soulanges is a town of society and social pleasures," it must not be supposed that Ville-aux-Fayes accepted this supremacy.
On his head was a horrible cap, evidently cast off and picked up in the doorway of some bourgeois house in Ville-aux-Fayes. Clear-sighted enough to estimate the elements of good fortune that centred in Catherine Tonsard, his ambition was to succeed her father at the Grand-I-Vert.
If Montcornet had courted the mayor's good-will, if he had sought his friendship, perhaps the influence of the renegade might have neutralized that of Gaubertin. Far from that, three suits were now pending in the courts of Ville-aux-Fayes between the general and the ex-monk.
Here it is the eighth of August." "I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at Ville-aux-Fayes, to be printed," replied Vermichel; "they do talk of fireworks on the lake." "What crowds of people we shall have!" cried Fourchon. "Profits for Socquard!" said Tonsard, spitefully. "If it doesn't rain," said his wife, by way of comfort.
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