The Peasant and the Prince

Peasant and the Prince, by
Harriet Martineau

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Title: The Peasant and the Prince
Author: Harriet Martineau
Illustrator: Kronheim
Release Date: October 31, 2007 [EBook #23275]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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PEASANT AND THE PRINCE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Peasant and the Prince, by Harriet Martineau.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE.
THE LOVER IN THE WOOD.
One fine afternoon in April, 1770, there was a good deal of bustle in
the neighbourhood of the village of Saint Menehould, in the province
of Champagne, in France. The bride of the Dauphin of France,--the
lady who was to be queen when the present elderly king should
die--was on her journey from Germany, and was to pass through Saint
Menehould to Paris, with her splendid train of nobles and gentry; and
the whole country was alive with preparations to greet her loyally as
she passed. The houses of the village were cleaned and adorned; and
gangs of labourers were at work repairing the roads of the district;--not
hired labourers, but peasants, who were obliged by law to quit the work
of their own fields or kilns, when called upon, to repair the roads, for a
certain number of days. These road-menders were not likely to be
among the most hearty welcomers of the Dauphiness; for they had been
called off, some from their field-work, just at the time when the loss of
a few days would probably cause great damage to the crops;--and
others from the charcoal works, when their families could ill spare the
small wages they gained at the kilns. These forced labourers would
willingly have given up their sight of the Dauphiness, if she would
have gone to Paris by another route, so that this road-mending might
have been left to a more convenient season.
The peasants round Saint Menehould were not all out upon the roads,
however. In the midst of a wood, a little to the north of the village, the
sound of a mallet might be heard by any traveller in the lane which led
to the ponds, outside the estate of the Count de D--.
The workman who was so busy with his mallet was not a
charcoal-burner; and the work he was doing was on his own account. It
was Charles Bertrand, a young peasant well-known in the village, who
had long been the lover of Marie Randolphe, the pretty daughter of a
tenant of the Count de D--. When they were first engaged, everybody
who knew them was glad, and said they would be a happy couple. But
their affairs did not look more cheerful as time went on. Charles toiled
with all his might, and tried so earnestly to save money, that he did not

allow himself sufficient food and rest, and was now almost as sallow
and gaunt-looking as his older neighbours; and yet he could never get
nearer to his object of obtaining a cottage and field to which he might
take Marie home. Marie grew somewhat paler, and her face less pretty;
for, besides her anxiety for her lover, she had hard living at home. Her
father and mother had her two young brothers to maintain, as well as
themselves; and no toil, no efforts on the part of the family, could keep
them above want. Their earnings were very small at the best; and these
small gains were so much lessened by the work her father was called
out to do upon the roads--and, of the money brought home, so much
went to buy the quantity of salt which they were compelled by law to
purchase, that too little remained to feed and clothe the family properly.
This story of the salt will scarcely be believed now; but it was found,
throughout France, about eighty years ago, to be only too true. An
enormous tax was laid upon salt, as one of the articles which people
could not live without, and which therefore everybody must buy. To
make this tax yield plenty of money to the king, there was a law which
fixed the price of salt enormously high, and which compelled every
person in France above eight years old to buy a certain quantity of salt,
whether it was wanted or not. By the same law, people were forbidden
to sell salt to one another, though one poor person might be in want of
it, and his next-door neighbour have his