An Historical Mystery | Page 8

don't cling
to life; sell me that place or I'll blow your brains out!--"
"But do give me time to get off my bargain with Malin; he's
troublesome to deal with."
"I'll give you twenty-four hours. If you say a word about this matter I'll
chop your head off as I would chop a turnip."
Marion and Malin left the chateau in the course of the night. Marion
was frightened; he told Malin of the meeting and begged him to keep
an eye on the bailiff. It was impossible for Marion to avoid delivering
the property to the man who had been the real purchaser, and Michu
did not seem likely to admit any such reason. Moreover, this service
done by Marion to Malin was to be, and in fact ended by being, the
origin of the former's political fortune, and also that of his brother. In
1806 Malin had him appointed chief justice of an imperial court, and

after the creation of tax-collectors his brother obtained the post of
receiver-general for the department of the Aube. The State Councillor
told Marion to stay in Paris, and he warned the minister of police, who
gave orders that Michu should be secretly watched. Not wishing to
push the man to extremes, Malin kept him on as bailiff, under the iron
rule of Grevin the notary of Arcis.
From that moment Michu became more absorbed and taciturn than ever,
and obtained the reputation of a man who was capable of committing a
crime. Malin, the Councillor of State (a function which the First Consul
raised to the level of a ministry), and a maker of the Code, played a
great part in Paris, where he bought one of the finest mansions in the
Faubuorg Saint-Germain after marrying the only daughter of a rich
contractor named Sibuelle. He never came to Gondreville; leaving all
matters concerning the property to the management of Grevin, the
Arcis notary. After all, what had he to fear?--he, a former
representative of the Aube, and president of a club of Jacobins. And yet,
the unfavorable opinion of Michu held by the lower classes was shared
by the bourgeoisie, and Marion, Grevin, and Malin, without giving any
reason or compromising themselves on the subject, showed that they
regarded him as an extremely dangerous man. The authorities, who
were under instructions from the minister of police to watch the bailiff,
did not of course lessen this belief. The neighborhood wondered that he
kept his place, but supposed it was in consequence of the terror he
inspired. It is easy now, after these explanations, to understand the
anxiety and sadness expressed in the face of Michu's wife.
In the first place, Marthe had been piously brought up by her mother.
Both, being good Catholics, had suffered much from the opinions and
behavior of the tanner. Marthe could never think without a blush of
having marched through the street of Troyes in the garb of a goddess.
Her father had forced her to marry Michu, whose bad reputation was
then increasing, and she feared him too much to be able to judge him.
Nevertheless, she knew that he loved her, and at the bottom of her heart
lay the truest affection for this awe-inspiring man; she had never known
him to do anything that was not just; never did he say a brutal word, to
her at least; in fact, he endeavored to forestall her every wish. The poor

pariah, believing himself disagreeable to his wife, spent most of his
time out of doors. Marthe and Michu, distrustful of each other, lived in
what is called in these days an "armed peace." Marthe, who saw no one,
suffered keenly from the ostracism which for the last seven years had
surrounded her as the daughter of a revolutionary butcher, and the wife
of a so-called traitor. More than once she had overheard the laborers of
the adjoining farm (held by a man named Beauvisage, greatly attached
to the Simeuse family) say as they passed the pavilion, "That's where
Judas lives!" The singular resemblance between the bailiff's head and
that of the thirteenth apostle, which his conduct appeared to carry out,
won him that odious nickname throughout the neighborhood. It was
this distress of mind, added to vague but constant fears for the future,
which gave Marthe her thoughtful and subdued air. Nothing saddens so
deeply as unmerited degradation from which there seems no escape. A
painter could have made a fine picture of this family of pariahs in the
bosom of their pretty nook in Champagne, where the landscape is
generally sad.
"Francois!" called the bailiff, to hasten his son.
Francois Michu, a child of ten, played in the park and forest, and levied
his little tithes like a master; he ate the fruits; he