The Honor of the Name | Page 8

the only response she could draw from him.

Evidently he had received a terrible blow; and undoubtedly, as often
happens under such circumstances, the unfortunate man was reviewing
all the different phases of his life.
At twenty Lacheneur was only a poor ploughboy in the service of the
Sairmeuse family.
His ambition was modest then. When stretched beneath a tree at the
hour of noonday rest, his dreams were as simple as those of an infant.
"If I could but amass a hundred pistoles," he thought, "I would ask
Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not
refuse me." A hundred pistoles! A thousand francs!--an enormous sum
for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven
louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the
depths of his straw mattress.
Still he did not despair. He had read in Martha's eyes that she would
wait.
And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his god-mother;
and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps,
interest her in his love-affair.
Then the terrible storm of the revolution burst over France.
With the fall of the first thunder-bolts, the Duke of Sairmeuse left
France with the Count d'Artois. They took refuge in foreign lands as a
passer-by seeks shelter in a doorway from a summer shower, saying to
himself: "This will not last long."
The storm did last, however; and the following year Mlle. Armande,
who had remained at Sairmeuse, died.
The chateau was then closed, the president of the district took
possession of the keys in the name of the government, and the servants
were scattered.

Lacheneur took up his residence in Montaignac.
Young, daring, and personally attractive, blessed with an energetic face,
and an intelligence far above his station, it was not long before he
became well known in the political clubs.
For three months Lacheneur was the tyrant of Montaignac.
But this metier of public speaker is by no means lucrative, so the
surprise throughout the district was immense, when it was ascertained
that the former ploughboy had purchased the chateau, and almost all
the land belonging to his old master.
It is true that the nation had sold this princely domain for scarcely a
twentieth part of its real value. The appraisement was sixty-nine
thousand francs. It was giving the property away.
And yet, it was necessary to have this amount, and Lacheneur
possessed it, since he had poured it in a flood of beautiful louis d'or into
the hands of the receiver of the district.
From that moment his popularity waned. The patriots who had
applauded the ploughboy, cursed the capitalist. He discreetly left them
to recover from their rage as best they could, and returned to Sairmeuse.
There everyone bowed low before Citoyen Lacheneur.
Unlike most people, he did not forget his past hopes at the moment
when they might be realized.
He married Martha Barrois, and, leaving the country to work out its
own salvation without his assistance, he gave his time and attention to
agriculture.
Any close observer, in those days, would have felt certain that the man
was bewildered by the sudden change in his situation.
His manner was so troubled and anxious that one, to see him, would
have supposed him a servant in constant fear of being detected in some

indiscretion.
He did not open the chateau, but installed himself and his young wife in
the cottage formerly occupied by the head game-keeper, near the
entrance of the park.
But, little by little, with the habit of possession, came assurance.
The Consulate had succeeded the Directory, the Empire succeeded the
Consulate, Citoyen Lacheneur became M. Lacheneur.
Appointed mayor two years later, he left the cottage and took
possession of the chateau.
The former ploughboy slumbered in the bed of the Ducs de Sairmeuse;
he ate from the massive plate, graven with their coat-of-arms; he
received his visitors in the magnificent salon in which the Ducs de
Sairmeuse had received their friends in years gone by.
To those who had known him in former days, M. Lacheneur had
become unrecognizable. He had adapted himself to his lofty station.
Blushing at his own ignorance; he had found the courage--wonderful in
one of his age--to acquire the education which he lacked.
Then, all his undertakings were successful to such a degree that his
good fortune had become proverbial. That he took any part in an
enterprise, sufficed to make it turn out well.
His wife had given him two lovely children, a son and a daughter.
His property, managed with a shrewdness and sagacity which the
former owners had not possessed, yielded him an income of at least
sixty thousand francs.
How many, under similar circumstances,