



Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed
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ANGELOT
A Story of the First Empire

By
ELEANOR C. PRICE

_Author of
"The Heiress of the Forest"_

NEW YORK
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
PUBLISHERS

_Copyright, 1902, by_ THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

[Illustration: "YOU FORGET YOURSELF--YOU ARE MAD," SHE SAID HAUGHTILY.]




CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

      I. In the Depths of Old France                                   1

     II. How the Owls hooted in the Daytime                           13

    III. "Je suis le General Bim-Bam-Boum!"                           26

     IV. How the Breakfast cooked for Those was eaten by These        41

      V. How Angelot made an Enemy                                    59

     VI. How La Belle Helene took an Evening Walk                     78

    VII. The Sleep of Mademoiselle Moineau                            95

   VIII. How Monsieur Joseph met with Many Annoyances                112

     IX. How Common Sense fought and triumphed                       129

      X. How Angelot refused what had not been offered               147

     XI. How Monsieur Urbain smoked a Cigar                          160

    XII. How the Prefect's Dog snapped at the General                173

   XIII. How Monsieur Simon showed himself a little too Clever       187

    XIV. In which Three Words contain a Good Deal of Information     202

     XV. How Henriette read History to Some Purpose                  223

    XVI. How Angelot played the Part of an Owl in an Ivy-bush        242

   XVII. How Two Soldiers came Home from Spain                       266

  XVIII. How Captain Georges paid a Visit of Ceremony                285

    XIX. The Treading of the Grapes                                  299

     XX. How Angelot climbed a Tree                                  309

    XXI. How Monsieur Joseph found himself Master of the Situation   324

   XXII. The Lighted Windows of Lancilly                             340

  XXIII. A Dance with General Ratoneau                               353

   XXIV. How Monsieur de Sainfoy found a Way Out                     369

    XXV. How the Cure acted against his Conscience                   385

   XXVI. How Angelot kept his Tryst                                  398

  XXVII. How Monsieur Joseph went out into the Dawn                  416

 XXVIII. How General Ratoneau met his Match                          437

   XXIX. The Disappointment of Monsieur Urbain                       456





ANGELOT

A Story of the First Empire




CHAPTER I

IN THE DEPTHS OF OLD FRANCE


"Drink, Monsieur Angelot," said the farmer.

His wife had brought a bottle of the sparkling white wine of the
country, and two tall old treasures of cut glass. The wine slipped out
in a merry foam. Angelot lifted his glass with a smile and bow to the
mistress.

"The best wine in the country," he said as he set it down.

The hard lines of her face, so dark, so worn with perpetual grief and
toil, softened suddenly as she looked at him, and the farmer from his
solemn height broke into a laugh.

"Martin's wine," he said. "That was before they took him, the last boy.
But it is still rather new, Monsieur Angelot, though you are so amiable.
Ah, but it is the last good wine I shall ever have here at La
Joubardiere. I am growing old--see my white hair--I cannot work or make
other men work as the boys did. Our vintage used to be one of the sights
of the country--I needn't tell you, for you know--but now the vines
don't get half the care and labour they did ten years ago; and they feel
it, like children, they feel it. Still, there they remain, and give us
what fruit they can--but the real children, Monsieur Angelot, their
life-blood runs to waste in far-away lands. It does not enrich France.
Ah, the vines of Spain will grow the better for it, perhaps--"

"Hush, hush, master!" muttered the wife, for the old man was not
laughing now; his last words were half a sob, and tears ran suddenly
down. "I tell you always," she said, "Martin will come back. The good
God cannot let our five boys die, one after the other. Madame your
mother thinks so too," she said, nodding at Angelot. "I spoke to her
very plainly. I said, '_They_ cannot be unjust--and surely, to take all
the five children of a poor little farmer, and to leave not one, not
even the youngest, to do the work of the farm--come, what sort of
justice is that!' And she said: 'Listen, maitresse: the good God will
bring your Martin back to you. He cannot be unjust, as you say. If my
Angelot had to go to the war--and I always fear it--I should expect him
back as surely as I expect my husband back from Lancilly at this
moment.'"

Angelot smiled at her. "Yes, yes, Martin will come back," he said. But
he shrugged his shoulders, for he could not himself see much comfort for
these poor people in his mother's argument. If you have lost four, it is
surely more logical to expect to lose a fifth. His father, a
philosopher, would not have said so much as this to the Joubards, but
would have gone on another tack altogether. He would have pointed out to
them that the glory of France depended on their sons; that this
conscription, which seemed to them so cruel, which now, in 1811, was
becoming really oppressive, was the means of making France, under her
brilliant leader, the most powerful and magnificent nation in the world.
He would have waved the tricolour before those sad eyes, would have
counted over lists of victories; and so catching was his enthusiasm that
Joubard's back would have straightened under it, and he would have gone
home--it happened more than once--feeling like a hero and the father of
heroes. But the old fellow's sudden flame of faith in his landlord and
Napoleon was not so lasting as his wife's faith in Madame and the
justice of God.

Angelot wished the maitresse good-day, left a brace of birds on the
table, and stepped out from the grimy darkness of the farm kitchen into
the dazzling sunshine of that September morning. The old white farm,
with crumbling walls about it, remnants of attempts at fortification
long ago, looked fairly prosperous in its untidiness. The fresh stacks
of corn were golden still; poultry made a great clatter, a flock of
geese on their way out charging at the two men as they left the house.
An old peasant was hammering at barrels, in preparation for the vintage;
a wild girl with a stick and a savage-looking brindled dog was starting
off to fetch the cows in from their morning graze.

All the place was bathed in crystal air and golden light, fresh and
life-giving. It stood high on the edge of the moors, the ground falling
away to the south and east into a wild yet fertile valley; vineyards,
cornfields not long reaped, small woods, deep and narrow lanes, then
tall hedges studded with trees, green rich meadows by the streams far
below. On the <DW72>, a mile or two away, there was a church spire with a
few grey roofs near it, and the larger roofs, half-hidden by trees, of
the old manor of La Mariniere, Angelot's home. On the opposite <DW72> of
the valley, rising from the stream, another spire, another and larger
village; and above it, commanding the whole country side, with great
towers and shining roofs, solid lengths of wall gleaming in newly
restored whiteness, lines of windows still gold in the morning sun,
stood the old chateau of Lancilly, backed by the dark screen of forest
that came up close about it and in old days had surrounded it
altogether. Twenty years of emptiness; twenty years, first of revolution
and emigration, then of efforts to restore an old family, which the
powerful aid of a faithful cousin and friend had made successful; and
now the Comte de Sainfoy and his family were at last able to live again
at Lancilly in their old position, though there was much yet to be done
by way of restoration and buying back lost bits of property. But all
this could not be in better hands than those of Urbain de la Mariniere,
the cousin, the friend, somewhat despised among the old splendours of a
former regime, and thought the less of because of the opinions which
kept him safe and sound on French soil all through the Revolution,
enabling him both to save Lancilly for its rightful owners, and to keep
a place in the old and loved country for his own elder brother Joseph, a
far more consistent Royalist than Herve de Sainfoy with all his grand
traditions. For the favour of the Emperor had been made one great step
to the restoration of these noble emigrants. Therefore in this small
square of Angevin earth there were great divisions of opinion: but
Monsieur Urbain, the unprejudiced, the lover of both liberty and of
glory, and of poetry and philosophy beyond either, who had passed on
with France herself from the Committee of Public Safety to the
Directory, and then into the arms of First Consul and Emperor--Monsieur
Urbain, the cousin, the brother, whose wife was an ardent Royalist and
devout Catholic, whose young son was the favourite companion of his
uncle Joseph, a more than suspected Chouan--Monsieur Urbain, Angelot's
father, was everybody's friend, everybody's protector, everybody's
adviser, and the one peacemaker among them all. And naturally, in such a
case, Monsieur Urbain's hardest task was the management of his own
wife--but of this more hereafter.

"Your father's work, Monsieur Angelot," said old Joubard, pointing
across the valley to Lancilly, there in the blaze of the sun.

Angelot lifted his sleepy eyelids, his long lashes like a girl's, and
the glance that shot from beneath them was half careless, half uneasy.

"We have done without them pretty well for twenty years," the farmer
went on, "but I suppose we must be glad to see them back. Is it true
that they are coming to-day?"

"I believe so."

"Your uncle Joseph won't be glad to see them. The Emperor's people: they
may disturb certain quiet little games at Les Chouettes."

"That is my uncle's affair, Maitre Joubard."

"I know. Well, a still tongue is best for me. Monsieur Urbain is a good
landlord--and I've paid for my place in the Empire, _dame_, yes, five
times over. Yet, if I could choose my flag at this time of day, I should
not care for a variety of colours. Mind you, your father is a wise man
and knows best, I dare say. I am only a poor peasant. But taking men and
their opinions all round, Monsieur Angelot, and though some who think
themselves wise call him a fool,--with respect I say it,--your dear
little uncle is the man for me. Yes--I would back Monsieur Joseph
against all his brother's wisdom and his cousin's fine airs, and I am
sorry these Sainfoy people are coming back to trouble him and to spoil
his pretty little plots, which do no harm to any one."

Angelot laughed outright. "My uncle would not care to hear that," he
said.

"Nevertheless, you may tell him old Joubard said it. And what's more,
monsieur, your father thinks the same, or he would not let you live half
your life at Les Chouettes."

"He has other things to think of."

"Ah, I know--and Madame your mother to reckon with."

"You are too clever," said Angelot, laughing again. "Well, I must go,
for my uncle is expecting me to breakfast."

"Ah! and he has other guests. I saw them riding over from the south,
half an hour ago."

"You have a watch-tower here. You command the country."

"And my sight is a hawk's sight," said the old man. "Good-day, dear boy.
Give my duty to Monsieur Joseph."

Angelot started lightly on his way over the rough moorland road. The
high ridge of tableland extended far to the north; the _landes_, purple
and gold with the low heather and furze which covered them, unsheltered
by any tree, except where crossed in even lines by pollard oaks of
immense age, their great round heads so thick with leaves that a man
might well hide in them. These _truisses_, cut every few years, were
the peasants' store of firewood. Their long processions gave a curious
look of human life to the lonely moor, only inhabited by game, of which
Angelot saw plenty. But he did not shoot, his game-bag being already
stuffed with birds, but marched along with gun on shoulder and dog at
heel over the yellow sandy track, loudly whistling a country tune. There
was not a lighter heart than Angelot's in all his native province, nor a
handsomer face. He only wanted height to be a splendid fellow. His
daring mouth and chin seemed to contradict the lazy softness of his dark
eyes. With a clear, brown skin and straight figure, and dressed in brown
linen and heavy shooting boots, he was the picture of a healthy
sportsman.

A walk of a mile or two across the _landes_ brought him into a green
lane with tall wild hedges, full of enormous blackberries, behind which
were the vineyards, rather weedy as to soil, but loaded with the small
black and white grapes which made the good pure wine of the country.

Angelot turned in and looked at the grapes and ate a few; this was one
of his father's vineyards. The yellow grapes tasted of sunshine and the
south. Angelot went on eating them all the way down the lane; he was
thirsty, in spite of Joubard's sparkling wine, after tramping with dog
and gun since six o'clock in the morning. The green lane led to another,
very steep, rough, and stony. Corners of red and white rock stood out
in it; such a surface would have jolted a strong cart to pieces, but Les
Chouettes had no better approach on this side.

"I want no fine ladies to visit me," Monsieur Joseph would say, with his
sweet smile. "My friends will travel over any road."

Down plunged the lane, with a thick low wood on