ny.

"And how may the lord of Blangy be?" said little Sarcus, justice of the
peace.

"Lord!" replied Rigou, bitterly, "I am not even cock of my own village
now."

"The hens don't say so, scamp!" exclaimed Madame Soudry, tapping her fan
on his arm.

"All well, my dear master?" said the notary, bowing to his chief client.

"Pretty well," replied Rigou, again putting his fore-finger into his
interlocutor's hand.

This gesture, by which Rigou kept down the process of hand-shaking to
the coldest and stiffest of demonstrations would have revealed the whole
man to any observer who did not already know him.

"Let us find a corner where we can talk quietly," said the ex-monk,
looking at Lupin and at Madame Soudry.

"Let us return to the salon," replied the queen.

"What has the Shopman done now?" asked Soudry, sitting down beside his
wife and putting his arm about her waist.

Madame Soudry, like other old women, forgave a great deal in return for
such public marks of tenderness.

"Why," said Rigou, in a low voice, to set an example of caution, "he has
gone to the Prefecture to demand the enforcement of the penalties; he
wants the help of the authorities."

"Then he's lost," said Lupin, rubbing his hands; "the peasants will
fight."

"Fight!" cried Soudry, "that depends. If the prefect and the general,
who are friends, send a squadron of cavalry the peasants can't fight.
They might at a pinch get the better of the gendarmes, but as for
resisting a charge of cavalry!--"

"Sibilet heard him say something much more dangerous than that," said
Rigou; "and that's what brings me here."

"Oh, my poor Sophie!" cried Madame Soudry, sentimentally, alluding to
her _friend_, Mademoiselle Laguerre, "into what hands Les Aigues has
fallen! This is what we have gained by the Revolution!--a parcel of
swaggering epaulets! We might have foreseen that whenever the bottle was
turned upside down the dregs would spoil the wine!"

"He means to go to Paris and cabal with the Keeper of the Seals and
others to get the whole judiciary changed down here," said Rigou.

"Ha!" cried Lupin, "then he sees his danger."

"If they appoint my son-in-law attorney-general we can't help ourselves;
the general will get him replaced by some Parisian devoted to his
interests," continued Rigou. "If he gets a place in Paris for Gendrin
and makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre, he'll knock
down our skittles! The gendarmerie is on his side