A somewhat alarming confidential letter might have accounted, in case of need, for the postmaster’s anxious lookout, a letter in which his son asked his sanction for a marriage; but Madame Minoret-Levrault, fully occupied in preparing a sumptuous meal in honor of the success and the return of the fully-fledged lawyer, had sent her husband out on the road, desiring him to ride forward if he saw no signs of the diligence. The diligence by which this only son was to arrive usually reached Nemours at about five in the morning, and it was now striking nine! What could cause such a delay? Had there been an upset? Was Désiré alive? Had he even broken a leg?
Three volleys of cracking whips rattle out, rending the air like the report of firearms; the red waistcoats of the postboys are just in sight, ten horses neigh at once! The master takes off his cap and waves it; and he is seen. The best mounted of the postilions, who is returning with two dappled gray post-horses, touches up the beast he is riding, outstripping five sturdy diligence horses, and the Minorets of the stable, three carriage horses, and comes up to the master.
“Have you seen the ‘Ducler’?”
On the highroads all the coaches have names—fantastical enough: they are spoken of as the “Caillard,” the “Ducler” (the diligence between Nemours and Paris), the “Grand-Bureau.” Every new company’s coach is the “Rival.” At the time when the Lecomtes ran coaches, their vehicles were known as the “Comtesses.”
“The ‘Caillard’ did not overtake the ‘Comtesse’ but the ‘Grand-Bureau’ caught her skirts, anyhow!—The ‘Caillard’ and the ‘Grand-Bureau’ have done for the ‘Françaises’ ”—the coaches of the Messageries Françaises or royal mails. If you see a postboy going fit to split, and refusing a glass of wine, question the guard; he will cock his nose and stare into space, and reply, “The Rival is ahead!” “And we cannot even see her!” adds the postilion. “The wretch! he has not given his passengers time to eat!” “As if he had any!” retorts the guard. “Whip up Polignac!” All the worst horses are called Polignac. These are the standing jokes and subjects of conversation between the postilions and the guards at the top of the coaches. In France every profession has its own slang.
“Did you see inside the ‘Ducler’?”
“Monsieur Désiré?” says the postilion, interrupting his master. “Why, you must have heard us! Our whips gave due notice of her. We made sure you would be on the road.”
“Why is the diligence four hours late?”
“The tire of one of the wheels came off between Essonne and Ponthierry. But there was no accident; Cabirolle fortunately discovered it as we were going up the hill.”
At this instant a woman in her Sunday best—for the bells of all the churches of Nemours were summoning the inhabitants to midday Mass—a woman of about six-and-thirty, addressed the postmaster.
“Well, cousin,” said she, “you would not believe me! Our uncle is in the High Street with Ursule, and they are going to Mass.”
In spite of the license of modern romance in the matter of local coloring, it is impossible to carry realism so far as to repeat the horrible abuse, mingled with oaths, which this news, so undramatic as it would seem, brought from the wide mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his thin voice became a hiss, and his face had the appearance which the country folk ingeniously refer to as “sunstroke.”
“Are you certain?” he asked after his first explosion of rage.
The postilions as they went by touched three hats to the master, who seemed neither to see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for his son, Minoret-Levrault returned up the High Street with his cousin.
“Did I not always tell you so?” she went on. “When Doctor Minoret has fallen into his dotage, that sanctimonious little slut will make a bigot of him; and as those who rule the mind rule the purse, she will get all our money.”
“But, Madame Massin,” said the postmaster, quite confounded.
“Oh yes!” cried Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin, “you will say as Massin does: ‘Is a girl of fifteen likely to invent and execute such a plot? To make a man of eighty-three, who never set foot in a church excepting to be married, give up all his opinions?—A man who has such a horror of priests that he did not even go to the parish church with the child the day of her first communion.’ But, I say, if Doctor Minoret has such a horror of priests, why, for the last fifteen years, has he spent almost every evening of the week with the Abbé Chaperon? The old hypocrite never fails to give Ursule twenty francs to pay for a taper when she presents the wafer for the Mass. Why, do you not remember the gift Ursule made to the Church as a thank-offering to the curé for having prepared her for her first communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather gave it back to her doubled. You men pay no heed to anything! When I heard all these details: ‘Put away your baskets,’ said I; ‘the grapes are not for you!’ A rich uncle does not behave in that way to a little hussy he has picked out of the gutter unless he means something by it.”
“Pooh! cousin,” replied the postmaster, “the good man is escorting her as far as the church by mere chance. It is a fine day, and he is going to take a walk.”
“I tell you, cousin, our uncle has a prayerbook in his hand; and he looks that smug! However, you will see!”
“They have been playing a very sly game,” observed the burly postmaster, “for old Bougival told me that there never was any religious discussion between the doctor and the
