Raimond V. was far too angry to notice the expression of sadness and grief that was depicted on the countenances of the two betrothed. Addressing Honorat, he said, in a loud voice:
“Manjour! do you know, forsooth, what Trinquetaille has just informed me? Would you believe, my son, that the citizens of La Ciotat, those vile swine that have fattened on my bounty and that I have saved from the teeth of Barbary dogs, wish to summon me, to-morrow morning, before the overseers of the port, on the matter of our fishery contest! And the abbé pretends that—” Then, returning to the door, the baron called out:
“But come on, abbé, where in the devil have you hid yourself?”
The good chaplain showed his tall form among the folds of the portière, for he had been discreetly waiting in the antechamber.
“The abbé,” continued Raimond V., “pretends that this fine tribunal is sovereign, if you please,—a tribunal composed of old man Cadaou, a fish vender, and some other triton garlic eaters, who hardly own, among them all, one boat or net. Manjour! my children, think of my being placed under a ban by those old scoundrels!” “Monseigneur,” said Abbé Mascarolus, “the decision of the overseers of the port on all matters pertaining to the fisheries is supreme, and without appeal. It has been confirmed by the patent letters of Henry II. in 1537, by Charles IX. in 1564, and by the king, our count, in 1622. It is one of the oldest customs of the Proven?al community. There is no instance of a nobleman, priest, or citizen who has set it aside, and, monseigneur—”
“Enough, abbé, enough!” rudely interrupted the baron. “If they have the impudence to summon me, I shall not have the weakness to obey their summons, even when it is made in virtue of all the kings the abbé has just declared to us. As to the patents of the kings, I will oppose titles and privileges conceded by other kings to my house for services rendered to them, as an offset, and my seines and nets will stay where they are, and, by the devil, I will take care that they do stay!”
“Monsieur, permit me,” said Honorat.
“Monsieur? Eh! Why in the devil do you call me monsieur? Am I not your father?” cried the baron, looking at Honorat.
Honorat cast a distressed look at Reine, as if to make her understand that it was due to her that he could no longer call the baron by the tender name of father.
Honorat replied, in a voice trembling with emotion, “Ah, well, since you wish it, my father—”
“Ah, come now, what is the matter, pray?” asked the astonished baron of his daughter. “Eh! Of course I wish you to call me father, since you are, or will be, my son in a few days.”
Reine blushed, looked down, and remained silent. “Ah, well, come, speak now, I pray you,” said the old gentleman to Honorat. “What have you to tell me?”
“From what I have learned,” answered Honorat, “the consuls, excited by the recorder Isnard, have manifested some hostility to you, father; do you not fear that the citizens and fishers may join these wicked people, when they see that you refuse to appear, and—”
“I, afraid of those scoundrels! Why, I laugh at them as I would at a broken spur,” cried the old gentleman, impetuously. “I have, from father to son, the right to lay my seines and nets in the cove of Castrembaou. I will maintain my right, even if all the fishers on the coast, from here to Sixfours, oppose it.”
“The fact is, monseigneur,” said the abbé, “that however much they may contest it, you have the right. Your titles and privileges of fishery date back to the year 1221, the 14th day of February, under the reign of Philippe, King of France, and your claims have been registered by Bertrand de Cornillon.”
“Eh! what do I want with the authority of Bertrand de Cornillon!” cried the baron. “Power makes the right, and I have the force to sustain the right. Man-jour! did ever one see such trickery? What rascals! I, who have always helped them, and defended them! Ah, just let them come and talk to me!”
“Ah, my dear father, they would find you still, as they have always found you, generous and kind and—” “I believe it, certainly; how could I revenge myself on such boobies, if it was not by showing them that a gentleman is of better stock than they?”
“Ah! I recognise all that very well, monseigneur,” said the abbé. “If the overseers could only examine your titles—”
“What, examine my titles! I have driven away with my whip a recorder sent by a duke and a peer, a marshal of France, and I must go and submit to the arbitration of those old tar-jackets, who will descend from their wretched boats to mount their tribunal? I must go and take off my hat before those old scoundrels, who the very morning of their audience have cried in the port, ‘Buy—buy—soup—fish—buy—buy,’—a people that my family has loaded with benefits. In his last voyage to Algiers to redeem captives, did not my brave and good brother, Elzear, bring back from Barbary five inhabitants of La Ciotat? Did not my brother, the commander, three years ago, chase away with his black galley five or six chebecs from the coast, because they were interfering with these fishermen, and make them fly before him like a cloud of sparrows before a falcon? And these are the people who accuse me! Let them go to the devil! Let them send me their recorder, and they will see how I shall receive him. I have just had a new lash put on my whip! But enough of these miseries. Give me your arm, my daughter. The weather is fine; we will promenade. Come with us, Honorat.”
“You will excuse me, father; I am needed at home, and I shall not be able to accompany you.”
“So much the worse. Go, then, quick, so as to come back quicker still. I fear nothing from these idiot sheep penned up in La Ciotat, but if they make any attempts upon my fishing-nets, I shall need you to keep me from making Laramée hang several of them over my nets as scarecrows!”
Then the baron, yielding to his changing and impetuous moods, altered his tone, and said, gaily, to the abbé, “Now, abbé, if I had some of these insolent rascals hanged, it would be serious, because I do not think you have in all your pharmacy a remedy for hanging.”
“I beg your pardon, monseigneur, but I have been told that if you make the patient, before his execution, drink a great quantity of iron water, which, so to speak, envelopes and saturates the vital principle, and if, on the other hand, the patient will apply to his naked skin some large magnetic stones, or a loadstone, the power of the said stone is such that, in spite of the hanging, he will retain the vital principle in his body, for reason of the irresistible power of attraction possessed by this metal. I would not dare affirm it, but I have been recently told of this remedy.”
“By Our Lady, that is a wonderful remedy, eh! Who informed you of it, abbé?”
“A poor man, who gives very little thought to the welfare of his soul, but who knows many beautiful recipes,—it is the Bohemian who healed your greyhound, monseigneur.”
“The Singer, Manjour! I imagine he occupies himself with the hanged and with hanging; he thinks of his future, you see. Each one preaches his own saint, does he not, abbé?—which does not prevent this vagabond being a skilful man. Never a better farrier lifted the foot of a hunting-horse than this same Bohemian,” added Raimond V.
When she heard the vagabond mentioned, Reine blushed again, and Honorat could scarcely repress a gesture of indignation.
Raimond V. continued:
“Dame Dulceline is enchanted with him; she tells me that, thanks to him, she will have a magnificent cradle for Christmas. But you have heard him sing, my daughter, what do you think of it? Because I am a bad judge, I am not acquainted with any songs but those the abbé sings, and our old Proven?al refrains. Is it true that this wanderer has a wonderful voice?”
Wishing to put an end to a conversation which, for many reasons, was painful to her, Reine replied to her father:
“No doubt, he sings very well. I have scarcely heard him. But if you wish to do so, father, we will take our promenade; it is two o’clock already, and the days are short.”
The baron descended, followed by his daughter. In passing through the court, he saw through the half-open door of the coach-house the ancient and heavy carriage he always used when he attended service in the parochial church of La Ciotat, at the solemn festivals of the year, although he had his own chapel at Maison-Forte.
Knowing the kind of antipathy which prevailed against him in the little city, the bold and obstinate old baron took the ingenious idea of braving public opinion by going to church next day with a certain pomp.
Reine’s astonishment was unspeakable when she heard her father order Laramée to have this, carriage ready next day at midday, the hour of high mass.
To every question of his daughter, the baron replied only by a persistent silence.
Now let us return to less important actors.
As she left the apartment of her mistress with Luquin, Stephanette had disdained to reply to the jealous suspicions of t............