Volume I Part 34 (1/2)

”Are you looking at my garden?”

”Yes; it's extremely well kept.”

”Oh! it'll be much prettier when the orange trees are put out; but it's too early yet.”

”Aren't you afraid for the pomegranates and laurels?”

”Oh, no! we shan't have any more hard frosts, and they ain't so delicate.”

”You have some very fine espaliers.”

”Well! that's because they're well looked out for; but they have to be.

Trees, you see, are just exactly like people; if we didn't give 'em a bit of a touch-up now and then, what would we look like?”

They left the garden, crossed one broad street, then another bordered by garden walls.

”Ch.e.l.les is a large place!” said Honorine.

”Oh, yes; it ain't so small! Bless me! this used to be a famous country; it used to have a name of its own. Oh! you ought to hear Monsieur Antoine Beaub.i.+.c.hon, the doctor here, talk about it; he's a scholar and knows a lot--to say nothing of a brother of his in Paris, who's very famous too for his knowledge of business and teaches you how to manage books.”

”I know the history of this village,” said Honorine with a smile; ”I know that the Abbey of Ch.e.l.les was very famous; that under the first race of French kings religious establishments were founded here. King Chilperic often resided here, and was a.s.sa.s.sinated here.”

”I say! I say! madame knows as much as our doctor!” exclaimed Pere Ledrux, opening his eyes.

”One need only read history to learn that.”

”But I am very ignorant, my dear friend; do tell me how King Chilperic was a.s.sa.s.sinated here.”

”It's a very old story, my dear Agathe; it happened in the year 584, and between ourselves, all the narratives that we have of those days are somewhat apocryphal. But this is the way the story runs:

”A mayor of the palace--there were prime ministers then, called mayors of the palace; this one, whose name was Landry, was, if history is to be believed, the lover of Queen Fredegonde. Now the king, happening one day to enter his consort's chamber when he was not expected, found her leaning over and was.h.i.+ng her head; he amused himself by striking her from behind with his staff. A strange amus.e.m.e.nt for a king! but in those days there was very little refinement.

”The queen, not seeing who it was who had entered the room, thought that none but her favorite would venture to use such freedom, so she said: 'Why do you strike me, Landry?'

”But, on turning her head, she saw the king, her spouse, instead of her lover; she was stupefied with terror. As for Chilperic, he went off hunting, without a word.

”When the king had gone, Fredegonde sent for the mayor of the palace and told him everything that had happened. As they both feared torture and the death they had merited by their treacherous conduct, they resolved to kill King Chilperic. He did not return from the hunt until nightfall, and when he arrived at Ch.e.l.les and was dismounting from his horse, cutthroats in Fredegonde's pay stabbed him again and again with knives; he died on the spot.

”The queen, after causing the report to be spread abroad that the crime was instigated by King Childebert, had the courage to attend the obsequies of her deceased husband, which she caused to be celebrated with great pomp at Paris.

”That, my dear Agathe, is what history tells us; it is not a moral tale, far from it! and unhappily that sort of thing was too common in those days, which cannot have been the 'good old days' that so many poets have extolled. I will not tell you anything more about Ch.e.l.les, for in truth it would be even less edifying than what I have just told you.”

”My faith!” exclaimed Pere Ledrux, who had refrained from humming while the young woman was speaking; ”you do know a lot, all the same; and you tell it plainer than the doctor, because he uses such long words--words I don't know; so that he always has to tell us a story seven or eight times to make me understand it.”

”But the house--we don't seem to get to it?”

”Here we are, madame. Look, when we pa.s.s this wall which makes an elbow.

There! do you see that building with green blinds? that's Monsieur Courtivaux's house.”