Within an Inch of His Life | Page 7

"nothing keeps us here any longer. I
am impatient to be off; my carriage is ready; let us go!"

II.
In a straight line it is only a mile from Sauveterre to Valpinson; but that
mile is as long as two elsewhere. M. Seneschal, however, had a good
horse, "the best perhaps in the county," he said, as he got into his
carriage. In ten minutes they had overtaken the firemen, who had left
some time before them. And yet these good people, all of them master
workmen of Sauveterre, masons, carpenters, and tilers, hurried along as
fast as they could. They had half a dozen smoking torches with them to
light them on the way: they walked, puffing and groaning, on the bad
road, and pulling the two engines, together with the heavy cart on
which they had piled up their ladders and other tools.
"Keep up, my friends!" said the mayor as he passed them,--"keep up!"
Three minutes farther on, a peasant on horseback appeared in the dark,
riding along like a forlorn knight in a romance. M. Daubigeon ordered
him to halt. He stopped.
"You come from Valpinson?" asked M. Seneschal.
"Yes," replied the peasant.
"How is the count?"
"He has come to at last."
"What does the doctor say?"
"He says he will live. I am going to the druggist to get some
medicines." M. Galpin, to hear better, was leaning out of the carriage.
He asked,--
"Do they accuse any one?"
"No."
"And the fire?"
"They have water enough," replied the peasant, "but no engines: so
what can they do? And the wind is rising again! Oh, what a
misfortune!"
He rode off as fast as he could, while M. Seneschal was whipping his
poor horse, which, unaccustomed as it was to such treatment, instead of
going any faster, only reared, and jumped from side to side. The
excellent man was in despair. He looked upon this crime as if it had

been committed on purpose to disgrace him, and to do the greatest
possible injury to his administration.
"For after all," he said, for the tenth time to his companions, "is it
natural, I ask you, is it sensible, that a man should think of attacking the
Count and the Countess Claudieuse, the most distinguished and the
most esteemed people in the whole county, and especially a lady whose
name is synonymous with virtue and charity?"
And, without minding the ruts and the stones in the road, M. Seneschal
went on repeating all he knew about the owners of Valpinson.
Count Trivulce Claudieuse was the last scion of one of the oldest
families of the county. At sixteen, about 1829, he had entered the navy
as an ensign, and for many years he had appeared at Sauveterre only
rarely, and at long intervals. In 1859 he had become a captain, and was
on the point of being made admiral, when he had all of a sudden sent in
his resignation, and taken up his residence at the Castle of Valpinson,
although the house had nothing to show of its former splendor but two
towers falling to pieces, and an immense mass of ruin and rubbish. For
two years he had lived here alone, busy with building up the old house
as well as it could be done, and by great energy and incessant labor
restoring it to some of its former splendor. It was thought he would
finish his days in this way, when one day the report arose that he was
going to be married. The report, for once, proved true.
One fine day Count Claudieuse had left for Paris; and, a few days later,
his friends had been informed by letter that he had married the daughter
of one of his former colleagues, Miss Genevieve de Tassar. The
amazement had been universal. The count looked like a gentleman, and
was very well preserved; but he was at least forty-seven years old, and
Miss Genevieve was hardly twenty. Now, if the bride had been poor,
they would have understood the match, and approved it: it is but natural
that a poor girl should sacrifice her heart to her daily bread. But here it
was not so. The Marquis de Tassar was considered wealthy; and report
said that his daughter had brought her husband fifty thousand dollars.
Next they had it that the bride was fearfully ugly, infirm, or at least
hunchback, perhaps idiotic, or, at all events, of frightful temper.
By no means. She had come down; and everybody was amazed at her
noble, quiet beauty. She had conversed with them, and charmed
everybody.

Was it really a love-match, as people called it at Sauveterre? Perhaps so.
Nevertheless there was no lack of old ladies who shook their heads, and
said twenty-seven years difference