The Two Brothers

fter the peace had remained in the neighborhood, where he did a small business in grain, came early one morning to market, leaving his empty cart at the foot of the tower of Issoudun.

shins over it. Let us get it up on the embankment of the tow

is only approached by a series of steps. To give in a few words an idea of the height of this tower, we may compare it to the obelisk of Luxor on its pedestal. The pedestal of the tower of Issoudun, which hid within its breast such archaeological treasures, was eighty feet high on the side towards the town. In an hour the cart was taken off its wheels and hoisted, piece by piece, to the top of the embankment at t

ery night, they always met during the day, enjoying together the legitimate pleasures of hunting, or the autumn vintages and the winter skating. Among this assemblage of twenty youths, all of them at war with the social somnolence of the place, there are some who were more closely allied than others to Max, and who made him their idol. A character like his often fascinates other youths. The two grandsons of Madame Hochon-Francois Hochon and Baruch Borniche-were his henchmen. These young fellows, accepting the gen

that was rather ill lighted by the fuliginous gleams of four tallow candles of eight to the pound. A dozen to fifteen bottles of various wines had just been drunk, for only eleven o

atened in you

mean by tha

is her goddaughter, saying that she and her son are coming h

g up his glass and swallowing the co

charm to an outline like that which Raphael gave to the faces of his Madonnas, and to a well-cut mouth whose lips smiled graciously, giving an expression of countenance which Max had made distinctively his own. The rich coloring which blooms on a Berrichon cheek added still further to his look of kindly good-humor. When he laughed heartily, he showed thirty-two teeth worthy of the mouth of a pretty woman. In height about five feet six inches, the young man was admirably well-proportioned,-nei

the other end of the table, "that Madame Hochon's goddaughter is the sister of Rouget? If she is coming here with

other all round the table, he watched the effect of this ann

s that

if old Rouget revoked his will,-in case he

d to meddle with you, my dear Francois," he said; "and this is the way you pay your debts?

held him. He had therefore never allowed any one, no matter who, to speak to him on the subject of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier, the servant-mistress of Jean-Jacques Rouget, so energetically termed a "slut" by the respectable Madame Hochon. Everybody knew it was too ticklish a subject with Max, ever to speak of it unless he

of Jean-Jacques Rouget where

d, "the girl is a worthless piece, and if

e catch up the thread of his ideas; but he was sti

o

o!" cried

t we all be mortal enemies if we remembered outside what is said, or thought, or done here? All the town calls Flore Brazie

p. However, I thought better of it; I recollected w

came so embarrassing for the whole co

d bachelor, who can never have any children!-you think, I say, that that woman supplies all my wants ever since I came back to Issoudun. If I am able to throw three hundred francs a month to the dogs, and treat you to suppers,-as I do to-n

her to son," observed

to marry Flore when Pere Rouget dies, and so this sister and her son,

t it," crie

hinks who is sitting roun

? Oh! within the limits we have marked out for our fooleries," he added hastily, perceiving a general hesitation. "Do you suppose I want to kill them,-poison them? Thank God I'm not an idiot. Besides, if th

ounted for much in the reported passion of the younger Goddet for the mother. Frankness

a fine fe

Max; we'll s

or the B

bridl

only three swains

dame Rouget; isn't it better to lo

was Max's father, the a

f opinion

ah fo

h all hyp

lth to the be

sy to see what interest Max had in becoming their grand master. By leading the young men of the best families in their follies and amusements, and by doing them services, he meant to cr

equal to the beautiful Flore! As to this irruption of relations, I don't

us forget F

's safe enough

ax. "Be in the market-place early, all of you, and

ck home. His experience on the hulks at Cabrera had taught him a dissimulation as deep and thorough as his corruption. First, and above all else, the forty thousand francs a year from landed property which old Rouget owned was, let it be clearly understood, the constituent element of Max's passion for Flore Brazier. By his present bearing it is easy to see how much confidence the woman had given him in the financial future she expected to ob

and fifty thousand francs placed with different notaries at Bourges, and Vierzon, and Chateauroux, can't be turned into money and put into the Funds in a week, without everybody knowing

himself into Pere Rouget's house, and went to b

y thoughts wi

aint-Jean picked up the nickname of "Rabouilleuse," and how sh

of his son; he then treated him harshly, trying to break him into a routine that might serve in place of intelligence. H

of brown and white, full of holes and very ragged. A sheet of rough writing paper, tied on by a shred of osier, served her for a hat. Beneath this paper-covered with pot-hooks and round O's, from which it derived the name of "schoolpaper"-the loveliest mass of blonde hair that ever a daughter of Eve could have desired, was twisted up, and held in place by a species of comb made to comb out the tails of horses. Her pretty tanned bosom, and her neck, scarcely covered by a ragged fichu which was once a Madres handkerchief, showed edges of the white skin below the exposed and sun-burned parts. One end of her petticoat was drawn between the legs and fastened with a huge pin in front, givin

ou before," said the old doctor, then sixty-two years of

n Vatan," s

deeper waters of the brook, raised his head. "What are you about, Flore?" he

tan?" continued the doctor, pay

rabs for my uncl

ble with a branch whose end-shoots spread out like a racket. The crabs, frightened by this operation, which they do not understand, come hastily to the surface, and in thei

got permission

blic that is one and indivisible?

hich allows a man to come from Vatan and fish in the territory of Is

he asylum at Bourges. He went mad fr

ch do y

I catch 'em as far as the Braisne. In h

out twelve

mons

u shall be well fed and well dre

to God and man for her," said Uncle Brazier who

un and rain, eaten like the leaves of a cabbage that has harbored several caterpillars, and mended, here and there, with white thread. Beneath the hat was a dark

uardian of the child, bring her to my house, in the place Saint-J

"rabouilleuse," Doctor Rouget set spurs to his horse and returned to Issoudun. He had hardly

the doctor to the

ked round the doctor's dining-room with wonde

to the house of Monsieur Hochon, and has three windows in front on the first storey, and a porte-cochere on the ground-floor which gives entrance to a courtyard, beyond which lies the garden. Under the archway of the porte-cochere is the door of a large hall lighted by two windows on the street. The kitchen is behind this

the abbeys of Deols, Issoudun, Saint-Gildas, La Pree, Chezal-Beniot, Saint-Sulpice, and the convents of Bourges and Issoudun, which the liberality of our kings had enriched with the precious gifts of the glorious works called forth by the Renaissance. Among the pictures obtained by the Descoings and inherited by Rouget, was a Holy Family by Albano, a Saint-Jerome of Demenichino, a Head of Christ by Gian Bellini, a Vir

uperb silver candlesticks with six branches, had an ecclesiastical splendor which revealed the hand of Boulle. The armchairs of carved oak, covered with tapestry-work due to the devoted industry of women of high rank, would be treasured in these days, for each was surmounted with a crown and coat-of-arms. Between the windows stood a rich console, brought from some castle, on whose marble slab stood an immense China jar, in which the doctor kept his tobacco. But neither Rouget, nor his son, nor the cook, took the slightest care of al

o his cook, "bring two glasses; a

han even La Cognette, ran in to receive the order with a celerity which sai

n your parts?" asked the doctor, pou

red francs

; she shall have three hundred francs in wages,

d Brazier, with his ey

he doctor. "She is an orphan; up to eight

Ay, she's a pretty one, gentle as a lamb, well made and active, and

r in advance," ob

you than with us; my wife beats her, she can't abide her. There's none but I to sta

d took him out into the courtyard and from thence to the garden; leaving the Rabouilleuse at the table with Fanche

ad; "you can well say I've made your happiness by leaving you with this kind and worthy father of the po

she is worthy of the name-will sleep there in future. To-morrow, we'll send for a sh

little "rabouilleuse" in Doctor Rouget's house. In that region of satire the nickname

illed into Flore such deep repugnance to the bitter cup of knowledge, that the doctor stopped her education at that point. His intentions with regard to the child, whom he cleansed and clothed, and taught, and formed with a care which was all the more remarkable because he was thought to be utterly devoid of tenderness, were interpreted in a variety of ways by the cackling society of the town, whose gossip often gave rise to fatal blunders, like those relating to the birth of Agathe and that of Max. It is not easy for the community of a country town to disentangle the truth from the mass of conjecture and contradictory

th a little girl only fifteen years old?" society was sti

nswered, "his days of mer

; it may be that he has been living a decent life for the last two years, intending to marry little Flore; suppose

likely that either of them would have children at sixty-five years of age? The old villain has re

ts in Vatan that he cheated him," cried one of

hbor; what won't th

razier's, that she yielded no doubt to the exactions of her master as if she had been an Eastern slave. With due deference to the makers of idylls and to philanthropists, the inhabitants of the provinces have very little idea of certain virtues; and their scruples are of a kind that is roused by self-interest, and not by any sentiment of the right or the becoming.

ted these country regions, then deprived of priests and faith and altars and religious ceremonies; where marriage was nothing more than legal coupling, and revolutionary maxims left a deep impression. This was markedly the case at Issoudun, a land where, as we have seen, revolt of all kinds is

ose to suppose, the cynical doctor was compelled by his age to respect a child of fifteen, the Rabouilleuse was none the less considered very "wide awake," a term much used in that region. Still, some perso

y, finding him on his death-bed, draped as it were, in the mantle of encyclopaedic philoso

cynically; "my death

self-interest. In those words the notary read the concentrated hatred of a man whose calculations had been balked by Nature herself, and who revenged himself upon the innocent object of an impotent love

ill make her