LAbbe Constantin, vol 1 | Page 5

of Blanche-Couronne, 300 hectares, valued at 500,000
francs.
3. The farm of La Rozeraie, 250 hectares, valued at 400,000 francs.
4. The woods and forests of La Mionne, containing 450 hectares,
valued at 550,000 francs.
And these four amounts, added together at the foot of the bill, gave the
respectable sum of 2,050,000 francs.
Then they were really going to dismember this magnificent domain,
which, escaping all mutilation, had for more than two centuries always
been transmitted intact from father to son in the family of Longueval.
The placards also announced that after the temporary division into four
lots, it would be possible to unite them again, and offer for sale the
entire domain; but it was a very large morsel, and, to all appearance, no
purchaser would present himself.
The Marquise de Longueval had died six months before; in 1873 she
had lost her only son, Robert de Longueval; the three heirs were the
grandchildren of the Marquise: Pierre, Helene, and Camille. It had been
found necessary to offer the domain for sale, as Helene and Camille
were minors. Pierre, a young man of three-and-twenty, had lived rather
fast, was already half-ruined, and could not hope to redeem Longueval.
It was mid-day. In an hour it would have a new master, this old castle
of Longueval; and this master, who would he be? What woman would
take the place of the old Marquise in the chimney-corner of the grand

salon, all adorned with ancient tapestry?--the old Marquise, the friend
of the old priest. It was she who had restored the church; it was she
who had established and furnished a complete dispensary at the
vicarage under the care of Pauline, the Cure's servant; it was she who,
twice a week, in her great barouche, all crowded with little children's
clothes and thick woolen petticoats, came to fetch the Abbe Constantin
to make with him what she called 'la chasse aux pauvres'.
The old priest continued his walk, musing over all this; then he thought,
too--the greatest saints have their little weaknesses--he thought, too, of
the beloved habits of thirty years thus rudely interrupted. Every
Thursday and every Sunday he had dined at the castle. How he had
been petted, coaxed, indulged! Little Camille--she was eight years
old--would come and sit on his knee and say to him:
"You know, Monsieur le Cure, it is in your church that I mean to be
married, and grandmamma will send such heaps of flowers to fill, quite
fill the church--more than for the month of Mary. It will be like a large
garden--all white, all white, all white!"
The month of Mary! It was then the month of Mary. Formerly, at this
season, the altar disappeared under the flowers brought from the
conservatories of Longueval. None this year were on the altar, except a
few bouquets of lily-of-the-valley and white lilac in gilded china vases.
Formerly, every Sunday at high mass, and every evening during the
month of Mary, Mademoiselle Hebert, the reader to Madame de
Longueval, played the little harmonium given by the Marquise. Now
the poor harmonium, reduced to silence, no longer accompanied the
voices of the choir or the children's hymns. Mademoiselle Marbeau, the
postmistress, would, with all her heart, have taken the place of
Mademoiselle Hebert, but she dared not, though she was a little
musical! She was afraid of being remarked as of the clerical party, and
denounced by the Mayor, who was a Freethinker. That might have been
injurious to her interests, and prevented her promotion.
He had nearly reached the end of the wall of the park--that park of
which every corner was known to the old priest. The road now
followed the banks of the Lizotte, and on the other side of the little

stream stretched the fields belonging to the two farms; then, still farther
off, rose the dark woods of La Mionne.
Divided! The domain was going to be divided! The heart of the poor
priest was rent by this bitter thought. All that for thirty years had been
inseparable, indivisible to him. It was a little his own, his very own, his
estate, this great property. He felt at home on the lands of Longueval. It
had happened more than once that he had stopped complacently before
an immense cornfield, plucked an ear, removed the husk, and said to
himself:
"Come! the grain is fine, firm, and sound. This year we shall have a
good harvest!"
And with a joyous heart he would continue his way through his fields,
his meadows, his pastures; in short, by every chord of his heart, by
every tie of his life, by all his habits, his memories, he clung to this
domain whose last hour had come.
The Abbe perceived in the distance the farm of Blanche-Couronne;