e best Roussillon, the wine
of the ex-marquis,--we are not babes. You'll find a couple of bottles on
the empty cask near the door, and a bottle of white wine."

"Very good," said Violette, who never got drunk. "Let us drink."

"You have fifty thousand francs beneath the floor of your bedroom under
your bed, pere Violette; you will give them to me two weeks after we
sign the deed of sale before Grevin--" Violette stared at Michu and grew
livid. "Ah! you came here to spy upon a Jacobin who had the honor to be
president of the club at Arcis, and you imagine he will let you get the
better of him! I have eyes, I saw where your tiles have been freshly
cemented, and I concluded that you did not pry them up to plant wheat
there. Come, drink."

Violette, much troubled, drank a large glass of wine without noticing
the quality; terror had put a hot iron in his stomach, the brandy was
not hotter than his cupidity. He would have given many things to be
safely home and able to change the hiding-place of his treasure. The
three women smiled.

"Do you like that wine?" said Michu, refilling his glass.

"Yes, I do."

After a good half-hour's decision on the time when the buyer might take
possession, and on the various punctilios which the peasantry bring
forward when concluding a bargain,--in the midst of assertions and
counter-assertions, the filling and emptying of glasses, the giving of
promises and denials, Violette suddenly fell forward with his head on
the table, not tipsy, but dead-drunk. The instant that Michu saw his
eyes blur he opened the window.

"Where's that scamp, Gaucher?" he said to his wife.

"In bed."

"You, Marianne," said the bailiff to his faithful servant, "stand in
front of his door and watch him. You, mother, stay down here, and keep
an eye on this spy; keep your eyes and ears open and don't unfasten the
door to any one but Francois. It is a question of life or death," he
added, in a deep voice. "Every creature beneath my roof must remember
that I have not quitted it this night; all of you must assert that--even
though your heads were on the block. Come," he said to Marthe,
"come, wife, put on your shoes, take your coat, and let us be off! No
questions--I go with you."

For the last three quarters of an hour the man's demeanor and glance
were of despotic authority, all-powerful, irresistible, drawn from the
same mysterious source from which great generals on fields of battle who
inflame an army, grea