or.

"They are at some mischief in Grelot," he said.

"Against me?"

"It looks that way."

"How? I saw nothing of it yesterday."

The day before being Sunday, Germain had gone over alone in his coach to
attend High Mass in the parish church. The people standing about the
front doors greeted him respectfully, and he passed up the aisle and
took his seat in his raised and curtained pew. The priest, as was
customary, had named him in the prayers as patron of the church, he was
the first to be passed the blessed bread, and the congregation even
received with subdued approbation a warm reference in the sermon to his
distribution of wheat to the poor. His leaving was treated in as
respectful a manner. How then, one day later, could the Grelotins be at
mischief against him?

"It was that Mule and that trash of a Cliquet. They were haranguing the
people after Mass--something about a thing Mule calls the Third Estate.
Nobody knows what it is--but everybody thinks it belongs to himself and
that the aristocrats want to take it from him. So everybody got into a
rage against the aristocrats (save your honour), and Mule brought them
over to the tavern hall, ordered everybody's fill of brandy, and read
out something from the King. He told them the King was on their side,
and for all to tell out their complaints against the Seigneur. So
everybody began to think if he had complaints, and Master Mule wrote
them into a copybook. When Mule read it out, the people groaned and
cried that they never knew they had had so many miseries. Cliquet
shouted that you were the cause of all these miseries; that you had
grain while the peasants were starving, and that they ought to drive you
out of the country and then would all be well."

They were startled by a musket-shot so near the house that Dominique
hastened to the window to look. Germain sprang up too. The office faced
at the rear, close to the old chateau and lake.

A rough fellow with a gun was coolly standing near the great dovecot and
shooting at the pigeons. Dominique threw open the window and shouted.
The answer was a gesture of derision.

Germain rang furiously for the lackeys. For answer Jovite and 'Lexandre
ran up, pale, and out of their wits, reporting that "the brigands" were
invading the front of the house.

"Go and find what is the matter, Dominique," Lecour said, and sprang up
to seek for Cyrene, but checking himself, crossed the corridor and went
to a front window.