CHAPTER V

My mother realises that I am fifteen years old, and that _la marette_ and _la pipée_ will not lead to a brilliant future for me--I enter the office of Me. Mennesson, notary, as errand-boy, otherwise guttersnipe--Me. Mennesson and his clerks--La Fontaine-Eau-Claire.

Although all these hunting parties procured me a most delightful existence, one which might have been indefinitely prolonged had I possessed an income of 20,000 livres, they did not provide a future for a poor devil whose patrimony, in spite of maternal economy, was melting away day by day in a terrible fashion.

I was fifteen years old. It was considered quite time I learnt some profession, and it was decided I should become a lawyer.

At that period, when a veil hid my future from me, and I had not yet felt any of those ambitions which have since led me into other paths, every profession, with the exception of that of the priesthood, was equally indifferent to me.

My mother left home one fine morning, and, crossing the square diagonally, went to ask her solicitor if he would be kind enough to take me as his third clerk.

The solicitor replied that he would be most happy to receive me, but it appeared to him, unless he were mistaken, that I cared too much for _la marette, la pipée_, and hunting, ever to become an assiduous pupil of Cujas and of Pothier.

My mother heaved a sigh; this was probably her own opinion, too, but she persisted all the same, and the lawyer replied:

"Very well, my dear Madame Dumas, since it will give you so much pleasure, send him to me, and we will see."

So it was decided that I should go to Maître Mennesson the following Monday; polite folk would say in the capacity of third clerk--others in that of errand-boy or guttersnipe, _saute-ruisseau_, to give the rank its slang name.

It gave me some pain to give up my sweet independence; but it gave my mother great pleasure when I yielded to her decision; all her friends told her it was such a good opening for me; Lafarge (you remember the spruce and clever son of the coppersmith who lived near us) had carved a brilliant and lucrative career for himself in the same profession; the thought that my profession would lead to an income of 12,000 or 15,000 francs per annum, and that then I could give bird-snaring parties in grand style, as he had done, took my fancy so enormously that--I went to M. Mennesson.

M. Mennesson would be at that time a man of about thirty-five, rather under the average height, thick-set, sturdy, well proportioned throughout his frame, almost to massiveness; his hair reddish and short, his eyes sharp, his mouth inclined to teasing. He was a clever man; often short in his manner, always obstinate; he was a fanatic, a Voltairian and a Republican, before anyone had yet thought of becoming a Republican.

The poem of _la Pucelle_ was his favourite reading; he knew whole passages of it by heart, and would repeat them in his good-humoured moments or after dinner.

Of course he selected the most impious and licentious passages.

I am told that he has since, without renouncing Republicanism, become extravagantly religious, and that he now takes part in processions, taper in hand, whereas previously he would keep his head covered when they passed.

May God have mercy on his soul!

Two members of that legal hierarchy stand out in my memory--the head and second clerks.

The first was called Niguet. He was a young man of twenty-six or twenty-eight, the son of a lawyer, grandson of a lawyer, nephew of a lawyer; one of those individuals who come into this world possessed of the equipment of spidery handwriting, an illegible signature, and a tremendous flourish after it.

The second was a lad of about my own age. He was fat and yellow-skinned; he had a pointed nose; he studied ten years to become a lawyer, and ended by being a forest keeper.

I never heard whether he ever raised himself above the grade of a common keeper, although he had influential connections in the administration of the forest lands, and three or four thousand livres income from his mother's family.

He was called Cousin.

My apprenticeship to the law was agreeable enough. M. Mennesson was not a bad sort of fellow, provided one did not in his presence say anything good concerning priests, or pronounce a panegyric upon the Bourbons.

If anybody did, his little grey eyes would flash; he would seize hold of an Old Testament or a History of France, open the Old Testament at the Book of Ezekiel, the History of France at the Reign of Henri III., and begin commenting on either after the fashion of the _Citateur_ of Pigault-Lebrun.

I have said that I entered M. Mennesson's as errand-boy; at first the title caused me some feeling of shame; but I soon saw, on the contrary, that quite the pleasantest side of the profession of a lawyer's clerk fell to my share.

M. Mennesson drew up many deeds for the peasants of neighbouring villages. When these peasants could not make it convenient to come to him, I was commissioned to go and get their signatures to the deeds in their homes. I was told over night of the direction I was to be sent next day, and I made my plans accordingly.

If it was in the shooting season, I took an excellent companion for the wayside in the shape of my gun; if the season was over, I would go over night and set bird snares at all the pools which lay along my route.

In the first instance, it was very seldom that I did not bring back a hare or a couple of rabbits; in the second, half a dozen thrushes, blackbirds or jays, and a score of robins and other small birds.

One day my employer gave me notice that I was to go to Crespy on the day following, to collect information about a deed from his confrère, Me. Leroux.

As the distance was rather longer than usual (it is three and a half leagues from Villers-Cotterets to Crespy), I engaged a baker, who was a client of M. Mennesson, and who was concerned in the business I was going about, to lend me his horse.

It was always a treat to me to be on horseback, even though only astride a baker's steed.

I set off next morning with instructions to return the same evening, at all costs.

Besides the pleasure of the ride, there was yet another attraction for me at Crespy; I should be able to call and see once more that worthy family from whom we had received hospitality at the time of the invasion and also my friends the de Longprés.

I have related Madame de Longpré's story. She was the widow of a groom of the bedchamber to King Louis XV. She had gradually sold all her magnificent china, inherited from her husband. Her oldest son was a quartermaster in the chasseurs, a brave fellow all round, but one who would shake with fear and hide himself under the bed when there was a thunderstorm.

I set off, promising to return as quickly as possible: and I kept my word scrupulously.

First of all, I fulfilled my commission to Me. Leroux; then, when that was over, I began my calls.

I remounted my horse at seven in the evening, and started on my homeward way.

It was the month of September. The days were visibly becoming shorter; and, as the weather was gloomy on that particular evening, and almost raining, it was already dark when I set off from Crespy and put spur to my horse.

The road between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy, or rather from Crespy to Villers-Cotterets--to be topographically accurate in our descriptions--is almost a highroad, but nearly deserted by business traffic; half-way between Crespy and Villers-Cotterets it rejoins the highroad from Villers-Cotterets to Paris, describing a huge Y by its divergence.

A quarter of a league from Crespy, a portion of forest, called the Tillet Wood, extends to the roadside, but does not cross to the other side.

A league and a half farther on, the road, which hitherto is flat, drops into a kind of ravine, at the bottom of which runs a stream; the sides of this ravine are intersected on the left by quarries long since deserted and unworked.

The stream has given its name to the place, which is called _la Fontaine-Eau-Claire._

Several of these quarries open their dark and deep mouths on the road, and give the place a solitary and threatening character, which inspires the people of the countryside with terror.

There are traditions belonging to this ravine of armed robbers and assassinations--connected with obscure periods, it is true, but which are handed down in popular couplets, like the traditions connected with the forest of Bondy.

We will content ourselves by quoting the following, which, although poor enough in rhyme, is a product of the locality, and is not given as an example of poetry:--

"A la Fontaine-Eau-Claire, Bois quand le jour est dans son clair."

The charming valley of Vauciennes crosses transversely that of la Fontaine-Eau-Claire, half a league farther on; this valley of Vauciennes leads to the mill of Walue à Coyolle, at the bottom of which winds a stream of liquid silver ending in the noted marsh where Moinat used to practise his skill on squirrels with M. Deviolaine.

The road descends here at a steep gradient and climbs up beyond at a still steeper slope. In frosty weather these two hills are the terror of drivers, who descend the one too quickly, and do not know how to ascend the other.

Yokes of oxen are stationed in the village on purpose to perform the office of haulers.

The summit of the second hill, from which Villers-Cotterets can be seen at about a league's distance, is crowned by a windmill belonging to M. Picot, who owes, moreover, also part of the plain of Noue, of Coyolle, and of Largny.

This windmill plays an important rôle in the remainder of my story--for it will have been gathered that I have not described the road between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy (a road which would little interest my readers) for the mere love of description. The mill is totally isolated from all other dwelling-houses, it stands well above Vouffly, nearly three kilomètres from Largny, and a league from Villers-Cotterets.

This then was the road I followed, at as fast a trot as my baker's horse would permit, the highway of His Majesty King Louis XVIII. resounding heavily under its hoofs.

Towards about eight o'clock, I reached the neighbourhood of la Fontaine-Eau-Claire.

I have already pointed out that the weather was gloomy; the moon, in its first quarter, was shrouded in large clouds, which sped rapidly across the sky, ending off in flecks of greyish, foam-like scud.

I had money about me, I was unarmed, I was barely fifteen years old; the traditions of Fontaine-Eau-Claire were vividly present to my mind; therefore my heart was beating slightly.

Half-way down the hill I urged my horse into a trot, and, by the help of an oak branch that I had gathered in Tillet Wood, I succeeded in making him pass from a trot to a gallop.

I got past the dangerous place, the _malo sitio_, as they say in Spain, without accident, and, although it was behind me, I decided that I must still keep my steed to his gallop.

I was obliged, however, to slacken his pace down the steep and up the rising of Vauciennes; but I had hardly cleared the top of the hill, when I urged him into a gallop again by the help of a dig from my spur, and a couple of good lashes with my switch.

Everything round me seemed asleep. The landscape, steeped in darkness, was not even rendered less sombre by a light on the horizon or by a falling star; not even a dog bayed, a sound that would have indicated the presence, in the invisible distance, of a farmhouse, which I knew was there, and which my eyes searched for in vain.

The windmill seemed asleep with the rest of nature; its sails were stiff and motionless, and looked like the arms of a skeleton raised to the heavens in a despairing attitude.

Only the trees along the roadside seemed alive; they twisted and groaned in the wind, which tore their leaves off roughly, sending them flying away down into the plain, like flocks of dark feathered birds.

Suddenly, my horse, which was keeping to the middle of the road and galloping fast, shied to one side so violently, and so unexpectedly, that he sent me spinning fifteen paces off across the road; then, instead of waiting for me, he went on his way at double speed, snorting noisily as he went.

I picked myself up, stunned by my fall, which might have been my death, if, instead of falling on the wet side paths, I had fallen on the paved road itself.

My first thought was to run after my horse, but he had already gone so far that I decided it would be quite useless. Then, curiosity overcame me to know what object had so terribly frightened him.

I rose and tottered into the roadway.

I had hardly gone four steps before I perceived a man laid right across the road. I thought he must be some drunken peasant, and, congratulating myself that my horse had not trodden on his body, I stooped to help him to get up.

I touched his hand: it was stiff and icy.

I stood up, looked all round me, and thought I could discern a human form creeping in the ditch some ten paces away.

Then it occurred to me that the motionless man had been assassinated, and that the moving figure was very likely his murderer.

I did not wait to push my inquiries any further. I leapt over the corpse, and I took the road to Villers-Cotterets at full speed, as my horse had done.

Without stopping, without turning round, breathless, I did the remaining league of my journey in about ten minutes' time, and I reached my mother's house panting, covered with mud and sweat, just as the baker had come to tell her that his horse had returned to its stable without me.

My mother was already terribly alarmed, but her alarm was greatly increased when she caught sight of me.

I took her aside and told her everything.

My mother recommended me not to say a single word of what I had seen.

She reflected that if it were really a murdered man, there would be an inquest, an inquiry at Soissons, assizes at Laon; I should be involved in the whole thing, and compelled to appear as witness at both inquiry and assizes; and it would mean expense and waste time, and annoyance.

My mother made the excuse that I was very tired, and went herself to take the answer I had brought for M. Mennesson from Maître Leroux, whilst I changed my clothes throughout. My underclothing was saturated with perspiration, my suit was covered with mud.

My mother's visit to M. Mennesson was a brief one. She was in haste to return to me, and to ask me fresh details.

The return of the horse without its rider was put down to an ordinary fall, and as there was nothing unusual in such an occurrence the baker's suspicions were not roused.

We spent half the night without closing our eyes. My mother and I still slept in the same room, and even our beds were in the same recess. She did not give over asking questions, and I did not weary of repeating the same details over and over again, so profound was the impression they had left upon me.

Towards one o'clock we fell asleep; but that did not prevent us from waking at seven in the morning.

The whole town was in a flutter.

A carter, from Villers-Cotterets, whom I had passed half-way from the hill of Vauciennes, had come across the corpse, had put it in his waggon, had brought it to the town, and had reported the occurrence to the authorities.