The Hero of the People
Copyright© 2024 by Alexandre Dumas
Chapter 8: Another Blow.
AS everybody in his village would be abed by ten o’clock, Pitou was glad to find accommodation at the inn, where he slept till seven in the morning. At that hour everybody had risen.
On leaving the Dolphin Tavern, he noticed that his sword and casque won universal attention. A crowd was round him in a few steps.
Undoubtedly he had attained popularity.
Few prophets have this good fortune in their own country. But few prophets have mean and acrimonious aunts who bake fowls in rice for them to eat up the whole at a sitting. Besides, the brazen helmet and the heavy dragoon’s sabre recommended Pitou to his fellow-villager’s attention.
Hence, some of the Villers Cotterets folk, who had escorted him about their town, were constrained to accompany him to his village of Haramont. This caused the inhabitants of the latter to appreciate their fellow-villager at his true worth.
The fact is, the ground was prepared for the seed. He had flitted through their midst before so rapidly that it was a wonder he left any trace of memory: but they were impressed and they were glad of his second appearance. They overwhelmed him with tokens of consideration, begged him to lay aside his armor, and pitch his tent under the four lime trees shading the village green.
Pitou yielded all the more readily as it was his intention to take up residence here and he accepted the offer of a room which a bellicose villager let him have furnished. Settling the terms, the rent per annum being but six livres, the price of two fowls baked in rice, Ange took possession, treated those who had accompanied him to mugs of cider all round, and made a speech on the doorsill.
His speech was a great event, with all Haramont encircling the doorstep. Pitou had studied a little; he had heard Paris speechifying inexhaustibly; there was a space between him and General Lafayette as there is between Paris and Haramont, mentally speaking.
He began by saying that he came back to the hamlet as into the bosom of his only family. This was a touching allusion to his orphanage for the women to hear.
Then he related that he and Farmer Billet had gone to Paris on hearing that Dr. Gilbert had been arrested and because a casket Gilbert had entrusted to his farmer had been stolen from him by the myrmidons of the King under false pretences. Billet and he had rescued the doctor from the Bastile by attacking it, with a few Parisians at their back. At the end of his story his helmet was as grand as the cupola of an observatory.
He ascribed the outbreak to the privileges of the nobility and clergy and called on his brothers to unite against the common enemy.
At this point he drew his sabre and brandished it.
This gave him the cue to call the Haramontese to arms after the example of revolted Paris.
The Revolution was proclaimed in the village.
All echoed the cry of “To arms!” but the only arms in the place were those old Spanish muskets kept at Father Fortier’s.
A bold youth, who had not, like Pitou, been educated under his knout, proposed going thither to demand them. Ange wavered, but had to yield to the impulse of the mob.
“Heavens,” he muttered: “if they thus lead me before I am their leader, what will it be when I am at their head?”
He was compelled to promise to summon his old master to deliver the firearms. Next day, therefore, he armed himself and departed for Father Fortier’s academy.
He knocked at the garden door loud enough to be heard there, and yet modestly enough not to be heard in the house.
He did it to tranquilize his conscience, and was surprised to see the door open; but it was Sebastian who stood on the sill.
He was musing in the grounds, with an open book in his hand.
He uttered a cry of gladness on seeing Pitou, for whom he had a line in his father’s letter to impart.
“Billet wishes you to remind him to Pitou and tell him not to upset the men, and things on the farm.”
“Me? a lot I have to do with the farm,” muttered the young man: “the advice had better be sent on to Master Isidore.”
But all he said aloud was: “Where is the father?”
Sebastian pointed and walked away. Priest Fortier was coming down into the garden. Pitou composed his face for the encounter with his former master.
Fortier had been almoner of the old hunting-box in the woods and as such was keeper of the lumber-room. Among the effects of the hunting establishment of the Duke of Orleans were old weapons and particularly some fifty musketoons, brought home from the Ouessant battle by Prince Joseph Philip, which he had given to the township. Not knowing what to do with them, the section selectmen left them under charge of the schoolmaster.
The old gentleman was clad in clerical black, with his cat-o’-nine tails thrust into his girdle like a sword. On seeing Pitou, who saluted him, he folded up the newspaper he was reading and tucked it into his band on the opposite side to the scourge.
“Pitou?” he exclaimed.
“At your service as far as he is capable,” said the other.
“But the trouble is that you are not capable, you Revolutionist.”
This was a declaration of war, for it was clear that Pitou had put the abbe out of temper.
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