ever interfered with your duties and privileges. I am nothing but a
good old fellow, a friend of peace and of studies.

"'Sum piger et senior, Pieridumque comes.'"

"Then," exclaimed M. Seneschal, "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, witho