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[Illustration: Frontispiece]


_THE MILKMAID'S WEDDING_


_Denise, beaming with love and happiness, embellishing by her charms and
her grace the modest costume she had selected, was led to the altar by
the man she loved._

_All the people of the village assembled to see the little milkmaid
married._




NOVELS

BY

Paul de Kock

VOLUME XX

THE MILKMAID

OF

MONTFERMEIL

PRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH

GEORGE BARRIE'S SONS

THE JEFFERSON PRESS
BOSTON NEW YORK

_Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons._




THE MILKMAID OF MONTFERMEIL




I

A CONVERSATION IN A CABRIOLET


"For you can't go on like this forever, lieutenant--you must agree to
that. The great Turenne didn't fight ten battles at once and didn't
carry on six intrigues on the same day."

"No, my dear Bertrand, but Cæsar dictated four letters at once in four
different languages, and Pico de la Mirandola boasted that he was
familiar with and could talk _de omni re scibili_----"

"I beg pardon, lieutenant, I don't know Latin."

"That means that he claimed to know all languages, to have gone to the
bottom of all the sciences, to be able to refute all creeds and
reconcile theologians of all breeds."

"As I don't think that you're so conceited as that, lieutenant, I won't
compare you with this Monsieur de la Mirandola, who claimed to know
everything. As for Cæsar, I've heard him spoken of as a very great man,
but I'm sure he didn't have as many mistresses as you."

"You're mistaken, Bertrand; the great men of antiquity had a great many
female slaves, concubines, and often cast off their wives and took new
ones. Love and Pleasure had temples in Greece; and those high and
mighty Romans, who are represented to us as so strait-laced, weren't
ashamed to indulge in the wildest debauchery, to crown themselves with
myrtle and roses, and sometimes to appear at their banquets in the
costumes of our first parents."

"For God's sake, lieutenant, let's drop the Romans, with whom I never
exchanged a shot, and go back to what we were talking about."

"I propose to prove to you, my dear Bertrand, that we are very far from
surpassing preceding generations in folly, and are in fact much more
virtuous."

"Is that why you have four mistresses?"

"I love women, I admit; I will say more--I am proud of it; it is a
natural inclination. I cannot see an attractive face, a fine pair of
eyes, without feeling a pleasant thrill, an agitation, an I don't know
what, in short, that proves my extreme susceptibility. Is it a crime,
pray, to be susceptible in an age when selfishness is carried to such
lengths; when self-interest is the mainspring of almost all human
actions; when we see authors prefer cash to renown, and men in office
forgetful of everything except retaining their offices, instead of
meditating on the good they might do; when we see artists begging for
the patronage of people they despise, and asking alms from stupidity
when it is in power; when we see men of letters carefully block a
confrère's path when they detect in him a talent that might outshine
theirs; when, in short, every door is closed to obscure merit, and
thrown wide open to impudence and conceit when accompanied by wealth? If
selfishness had not wormed its way into all classes of society, if love
of money had not replaced love of one's neighbor, would it be thus? And
you berate me for my susceptibility! You reproach me for being unable to
listen unmoved to the story of a noble deed, or of pathetic misfortune;
for giving money to people who deceive me; for allowing myself to be
gulled like an ass by the palaver of a child who tells me that he is
begging for his mother, or of a poor laboring man who swears that he has
no work and nothing to eat! Well, my dear Bertrand, I prefer my
susceptibility to their icy selfishness, and I find in my heart sources
of enjoyment which their indifferent hearts will never know."

This conversation took place in a stylish cabriolet, drawn by a