第56章

FARRABESCHE

Veronique hastened to mount her horse and rejoin the servants, who were beginning to be uneasy about her; for the strange unhealthiness of the Roche-Vive was well known throughout the neighborhood. Colorat begged his mistress to go down into the little valley which led to the plain. It would be dangerous, he said, to return by the hills, or by the tangled paths they had followed in the morning, where, even with his knowledge of the country, they were likely to be lost in the dusk.

Once on the plain Veronique rode slowly.

"Who is this Farrabesche whom you employ?" she asked her forester.

"Has madame met him?" cried Colorat.

"Yes, but he ran away from me."

"Poor man! perhaps he does not know how kind madame is."

"But what has he done?"

"Ah! madame, Farrabesche is a murderer," replied Champion, simply.

"Then they pardoned him!" said Veronique, in a trembling voice.

"No, madame," replied Colorat, "Farrabesche was tried and condemned to ten years at the galleys; he served half his time, and then he was released on parole and came here in 1827. He owes his life to the rector, who persuaded him to give himself up to justice. He had been condemned to death by default, and sooner or later he must have been taken and executed. Monsieur Bonnet went to find him in the woods, all alone, at the risk of being killed. No one knows what he said to Farrabesche. They were alone together two days; on the third day the rector brought Farrabesche to Tulle, where he gave himself up.

Monsieur Bonnet went to see a good lawyer and begged him to do his best for the man. Farrabesche escaped with ten years in irons. The rector went to visit him in prison, and that dangerous fellow, who used to be the terror of the whole country, became as gentle as a girl; he even let them take him to the galleys without a struggle. On his return he settled here by the rector's advice; no one says a word against him; he goes to mass every Sunday and all the feast-days.

Though his place is among us he slips in beside the wall and sits alone. He goes to the altar sometimes and prays, but when he takes the holy sacrament he always kneels apart."

"And you say that man killed another man?"

"One!" exclaimed Colorat; "he killed several! But he is a good man all the same."

"Is that possible?" exclaimed Veronique, letting the bridle fall on the neck of her horse.

"Well, you see, madame," said the forester, who asked no better than to tell the tale, "Farrabesche may have had good reason for what he did. He was the last of the Farrabesches,--an old family of the Correze, don't you know! His elder brother, Captain Farrabesche, died ten years earlier in Italy, at Montenotte, a captain when he was only twenty-two years old. Wasn't that ill-luck? and such a lad, too! knew how to read and write, and bid fair to be a general. The family grieved terribly, and good reason, too. As for me, I heard all about his death, for I was serving at that time under L'AUTRE. Oh! he made a fine death, did Captain Farrabesche; he saved the army and the Little Corporal. I was then in the division of General Steingel, a German,-- that is, an Alsacian,--a famous good general but rather short-sighted, and that was the reason why he was killed soon after Captain Farrabesche. The younger brother--that's this one--was only six years old when he heard of his brother's death. The second brother served too; but only as a private soldier; he died a sergeant in the first regiment of the Guard, at the battle of Austerlitz, where, d'ye see, madame, they manoeuvred just as quietly as they might in the Carrousel.

I was there! oh! I had the luck of it! went through it all without a scratch! Now this Farrabesche of ours, though he's a brave fellow, took it into his head he wouldn't go to the wars; in fact, the army wasn't a healthy place for one of his family. So when the conion caught him in 1811 he ran away,--a refractory, that's what they called them. And then it was he went and joined a party of /chauffeurs/, or maybe he was forced to; at any rate he /chauffed/! Nobody but the rector knows what he really did with those brigands--all due respect to them! Many a fight he had with the gendarmes and the soldiers too;

I'm told he was in seven regular battles--"

"They say he killed two soldiers and three gendarmes," put in Champion.

"Who knows how many?--he never told," went on Colorat. "At last, madame, they caught nearly all his comrades, but they never could catch him; hang him! he was so young and active, and knew the country so well, he always escaped. The /chauffeurs/ he consorted with kept themselves mostly in the neighborhood of Brives and Tulle; sometimes they came down this way, because Farrabesche knew such good hiding- places about here. In 1814 the conion took no further notice of him, because it was abolished; but for all that, he was obliged to live in the woods in 1815; because, don't you see? as he hadn't enough to live on, he helped to stop a mail-coach over there, down that gorge; and then it was they condemned him. But, as I told you just now, the rector persuaded him to give himself up. It wasn't easy to convict him, for nobody dared testify against him; and his lawyer and Monsieur Bonnet worked so hard they got him sentenced for ten years only; which was pretty good luck after being a /chauffeur/--for he did /chauffe/."

"Will you tell me what /chauffeur/ means?"

"If you wish it, madame, I will tell you what they did, as far as I know about it from others, for I never was /chauffed/ myself. It wasn't a good thing to do, but necessity knows no law. Well, this is how it was: seven or eight would go to some farmer or land-owner who was thought to have money; the farmer would build a good fire and give them a supper, lasting half through the night, and then, when the feast was over, if the master of the house wouldn't give them the sum demanded, they just fastened his feet to the spit, and didn't unfasten them till they got it. That's how it was. They always went masked.