WE have observed the very slight degree of inclination which Ange Pitou felt towards a long-continued sojourn with his Aunt Angélique; the poor child, endowed with instinct equal to, and perhaps superior to, that of the animals against whom he continually made war, had divined at once, we will not say all the disappointments—we have seen that he did not for a single moment delude himself upon the subject—but all the vexations, tribulations, and annoyances to which he would be exposed.
In the first place—but we must admit that this was by no means the reason which most influenced Pitou to dislike his aunt—Doctor Gilbert having left VillersCotterêts, there never was a word said about placing the child as an apprentice. The good notary had indeed given her a hint or two with regard to her formal obligation; but Mademoiselle Angélique had replied that her nephew was very young, and above all, that his health was too delicate to be subjected to labor which would probably be beyond his strength. The notary, on hearing this observation, had in good faith admired the kindness of heart of Mademoiselle Pitou, and had deferred taking any steps as to the apprenticeship until the following year. There was no time lost, the child being then only in his twelfth year.
Once installed at his aunt's, and while the latter was ruminating as to the mode she should adopt whereby to make the most of her dear nephew, Pitou, who once more found himself in his forest, or very near to it, had already made his topographical observations in order to lead the same life at Villers-Cotterêts as at Haramont.
In fact, he had made a circuit of the neighborhood, in which he had convinced himself that the best pools were those on the road to Dampleux, that to Compiègne and that to Vivières, and that the best district for game was that of the Wolf's Heath.
Pitou, having made this survey, took all the necessary measures for pursuing his juvenile sport.
The thing most easy to be procured, as it did not require any outlay of capital, was bird-lime; the bark of the holly, brayed in a mortar and steeped in water, gave the lime; and as to the twigs to be limed, they were to be found by thousands on every birch-tree in the neighborhood. Pitou therefore manufactured, without saying a word to any one on the subject, a thousand of limed twigs and a pot of glue of the first quality; and one fine morning, after having the previous evening taken on his aunt's account at the baker's a four-pound loaf, he set off at daybreak, remained out the whole day, and returned home when the evening had closed in.
Pitou had not formed such a resolution without duly calculating the effect it would produce. He had foreseen a tempest. Without possessing the wisdom of Socrates, he knew the temper of his Aunt Angélique as well as the illustrious tutor of Alcibiades knew that of his wife Xantippe.
Pitou had not deceived himself in his foresight, but he thought he would be able to brave the storm by presenting to the old devotee the produce of his day's sport; only he had not been able to foretell from what spot the thunder would be hurled at him.
The thunderbolt struck him immediately on entering the house.
Mademoiselle Angélique had ensconced herself behind the door, that she might not miss her nephew as he entered, so that at the very moment he ventured to put his foot into the room, he received a cuff upon the occiput, and in which, without further information, he at once recognized the withered hand of the old devotee.
Fortunately, Pitou's head was a tolerably hard one, and although the blow had scarcely staggered him, he pretended, in order to mollify his aunt, whose anger had increased, from having hurt her fingers in striking with such violence, to fall, stumbling as he went, at the opposite end of the room; there, seated on the floor, and seeing that his aunt was returning to the assault, her distaff in her hand, he hastened to draw from his pocket the talisman on which he had relied to allay the storm, and obtain pardon for his flight. And this was two dozen of birds, among which were a dozen redbreasts and half-a-dozen thrushes.
Mademoiselle Angélique, perfectly astounded, opened her eyes widely, continuing to scold for form's sake; but although still scolding, she took possession of her nephew's sport, retreating three paces towards the lamp.
“What is all this?” she asked.
“You must see clearly enough, my dear little Aunt Angélique,” replied Pitou, “that they are birds.”
“Good to eat?” eagerly inquired the old maid, who, in her quality of devotee, was naturally a great eater.
“Good to eat!” reiterated Pitou; “well, that is singular. Redbreasts and thrushes good to eat! I believe they are, indeed!”
“And where did you steal these birds, you little wretch?”
“I did not steal them; I caught them.”
“Lime-twigging,—what do you mean by that?”
Pitou looked at his aunt with an air of astonishment; he could not comprehend that the education of any person in existence could have been so neglected as not to know the meaning of lime-twigging.
“Lime-twigging?” said he; “why, zounds! 'tis lime-twigging.”
“Yes; but, saucy fellow, I do not understand what you mean by lime-twigging.”
As Pitou was full of compassion for the uninitiated, “Well, you see, Aunt,” said he, “in the forest here there are at least thirty small pools; you place the lime twigs around them, and when the birds go to drink there, as they do not—poor silly things!—know anything about them, they run their heads into them and are caught.”
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Aunt Angélique, “I understand; but who gave you the money?”
“Money!” cried Pitou, astonished that any one could have believed that he had ever possessed a sou; “money, Aunt Angélique?”
“But where did you buy the birdlime, then?”
“I made them also, to be sure.”
“The trouble of stooping to pick them up.”
“And can you go often to these pools?”
“Why, because it would ruin it.”
“The lime-twigging. You understand, Aunt Angélique, that the birds which are caught—”
“Well, they can't return to the pool.”
“That is true,” said the aunt.
This was the first time, since Pitou had lived with her, that Aunt Angélique had allowed her nephew was in the right, and this unaccustomed approbation perfectly delighted him.
“But,” said he, “the days that one does not go to the pools one goes somewhere else. The days we do not catch birds, we catch something else.”
“Yes; we eat the rabbits and sell their skins. A rabbitskin is worth two sous.”
Aunt Angélique gazed at her nephew with astonished eyes; she had never considered him so great an economist. Pitou had suddenly revealed himself.
“But will it not be my business to sell the skins?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Pitou; “as Mamma Madeleine used to do.”
It had never entered the mind of the boy that he could claim any part of the produce of his sport excepting that which he consumed.
“And when will you go out to catch rabbits?”
“Ah! that's another matter; when I can get the wires,” replied Pitou.
“Why, you made the birdlime and the twigs.”
“Oh, yes, I can make birdlime and I can set the twigs, but I cannot make brass wire; that is bought ready made at the grocer's.”
“Oh, for four sous,” replied Pitou, calculating upon his fingers, “I could make at least two dozen.”
“And with two dozen how many rabbits could you catch?”
“That is as it may happen,—four, five, six perhaps,—and they can be used over and over again if the gamekeeper does not find them.”
“See, now, here are four sous,” said Aunt Angélique; “go and buy some brass wire at Monsieur Dambrun's, and go to-morrow and catch rabbits.”
“I will lay them to-morrow,” said Pitou, “but it will only be the next morning that I shall know whether I have caught any.”
“Well, be it so; but go and buy the wire.”
Brass wire was cheaper at Villers-Cotterets than in the country, seeing that the grocers at Haramont purchased their supplies in the town; Pitou, therefore, bought wire enough for twenty-four snares for three sous. He took the remaining sou back to his aunt.
This unexpected probity in her nephew almost touched the heart of the old maid. For a moment she had the idea, the intention, of bestowing upon her nephew the sou which he had not expended; unfortunately for Pitou, it was one that had been beaten out with a hammer, and which, in the dusk, might be passed for a twosous piece. Mademoiselle Angélique thought it would never do to dispossess herself of a coin by which she could make cent per cent, and she let it drop again into her pocket.
Pitou had remarked this hesitation, but had not analyzed it; he never could have imagined that his aunt would give him a sou.
He at once set to work to make his wires. The next day he asked his aunt for a bag.
“What for?” inquired the old maid.
“Because I want it,” replied Pitou.—Pitou was full of mystery.
Mademoiselle Angélique gave him the required bag, put into it the provision of bread and cheese which was to serve for breakfast and dinner to her nephew, who set out very early for Wolf's Heath.
As to Aunt Angélique, she set to work to pick the twelve redbreasts which she had destined for her own breakfast and dinner. She carried two thrushes to the Abbé Fortier, and sold the remaining four to the host of the Golden Ball, who paid her three sous apiece for them, promising her to take as many as she would bring him at the same price.
Aunt Angélique returned home transported with joy. The blessing of heaven had entered beneath her roof with Ange Pitou.
“Ah!” cried she, while eating her robin-redbreasts, which were as fat as ortolans and as delicate as beccaficos, “people are right in saying that a good deed never goes unrewarded.”
In the evening Ange returned; his bag, which was magnificently rounded, he carried on his shoulders. On this occasion Aunt Angélique did not waylay him behind the door, but waited for him on the threshold, and instead of giving him a box on the ear, she received the lad with a grimace which very much resembled a smile.
“Here I am!” cried Pitou, on entering the room with all that firmness which denotes a conviction of having well employed one's time.
“You and your bag,” said Aunt Angélique.
“And what have you in your bag?” inquired Aunt Angélique, stretching forth her hand with curiosity.
“Undoubtedly; you must understand, Aunt Angélique, that if old Father La Jeunesse, the gamekeeper at the Wolf's Heath, had seen me prowling over his grounds without my bag, he would have said to me, 'What do you come here after, you little vagabond?' And this without calculating that he might have suspected something; while having my bag, were he to ask me what I was doing there, I should say to him, 'why I am come to gather mast; is it forbidden to gather mast?' 'No.' 'Well, then, if it is not forbidden, you have nothing to say.' And indeed, should he say anything, Father La Jeunesse would be in the wrong.”
“Then you have spent your whole day in gathering mast instead of laying your wires, you idle fellow!” exclaimed aunt Angélique angrily, who thought that the rabbits were escaping her through her nephew's excessive cunning.
“On the contrary, I laid my snares while he saw me at work gathering the mast.”
“And did he say nothing to you?”
“Oh, yes, he said to me, 'You will present my compliments to your aunt, Pitou.' Hey! Is not Father La Jeunesse a kind, good man?”
“But the rabbits?” again repeated the old devotee, whom nothing could divert from her fixed idea.
“The rabbits? Why, the moon will rise at midnight, and at one o'clock I will go and see if there are any caught.”
“How! would you go into the woods at one o'clock in the morning?”
Angélique was as much astounded at Pitou's courage as she had been astonished at his calculations.
The fact is, that Pitou, as simple as a child of nature, knew nothing of those factitious dangers which terrify children born in cities.
Therefore at midnight he went his way, walking along the churchyard wall without once looking back. The innocent youth who had never offended, at least according to his ideas of independence, either God or man, feared not the dead more than he did the living.
There was only one person of whom he felt any sort of apprehension, and this was Father La Jeunesse; and therefore did he take the precaution to go somewhat out of his way to pass by his house. As the doors and shutters were all closed, and there was no light to be perceived, Pitou, in order to assure himself that the keeper was really at home and not upon the watch, began to imitate the barking of a dog, and so perfectly that Ronflot, the keeper's terrier, was deceived by it, and answered it by giving tongue with all his might, and by sniffing the air under the door.
From that moment Pitou was perfectly reassured; as Ronflot was at home, Father La Jeunesse must be there also. Ronflot and Father La Jeunesse were inseparable; and at the moment the one was seen, it was certain that the other would soon make his appearance.
Pitou, being perfectly satisfied of this fact, went on towards the Wolf's Heath. The snares had done their work; two rabbits had been caught and strangled.
Pitou put them into the capacious pocket of that coat, which, then too long for him, was destined within a year to become too short, and then returned to his aunt's house.
The old maid had gone to bed, but her cupidity had kept her awake; like Perrette, she had been calculating what her rabbit-skins might produce, and this calculation had led her on so far, that she had not been able to close her eyes; and therefore was it with nervous tremulation that she asked the boy what success he had had.
“A couple,” said he. “Ah! the deuce! Aunt Angélique, it is not my fault that I have not brought more, but it appears that Father Jeunesse's rabbits are of a cunning sort.”
The hopes of Aunt Angélique were fulfilled, and even more. She seized, trembling with joy, the two unlucky quadrupeds and examined their skins, which had remained intact, and locked them up in her meat-safe, which never had seen such provisions as those it had contained since Pitou had hit upon the idea of supplying it.
Then, in a very honeyed tone, she advised Pitou to go to bed, which the lad, who was much fatigued, did instantly, and that without even asking for his supper, which raised him greatly in the opinion of his aunt.
Two days after this Pitou renewed his attempts, and on this occasion was more fortunate than the first. He brought home three rabbits. Two of them took the road to the Golden Ball, and the third that of the presbytery. Aunt Angélique was very attentive to the Abbé Fortier, who on his side strongly recommended her to the pious souls of the parish.
Things went on in this manner during three or four months. Aunt Angélique was enchanted, and Pitou found his position somewhat supportable. In fact, with the exception of the tender cares of his mother, Pitou led nearly the same life at Villers-Cotterets which he had done at Haramont. But an unexpected circumstance, which, however, might have been foreseen, at once dashed to the ground the milk-pitcher of the aunt and put a stop to the excursions of the nephew.
A letter had been received from Doctor Gilbert, dated from New York. On placing his foot on the soil of the United States the philosophic traveller had not forgotten his protégé. He had written to Master Niguet, the notary, to inquire whether his instructions had been carried into effect, and to claim the execution of the agreement if they had not been, or to cancel it altogether if the old aunt would not abide by her engagements.
The case was a serious one; the responsibility of the public officer was at stake; he presented himself at the house of Aunt Pitou, and with the doctor's letter in his hand called upon her to perform the promise she had made.
There was no backing out; all allegations as to illhealth were at once belied by the physical appearance of Pitou. Pitou was tall and thin. Every sapling of the forest was also thin and tall, but this did not prevent it from being in a perfectly healthy and thriving condition.
Mademoiselle Angélique asked for a delay of eight days, in order to make up her mind as to the trade or occupation in which she should place her nephew.
Pitou was quite as sorrowful as his aunt. The mode of life he led appeared to him a very excellent one, and he did not desire any other.
During these eight days there was no thought of going bird-catching or poaching; moreover, the winter had arrived, and in winter the birds find water everywhere; but some snow had fallen, and while that was on the ground Pitou did not dare go out to lay his snares. Snow retains the impression of footsteps, and Pitou possessed a pair of feet so huge that they gave Father La Jeunesse the greatest possible chance of ascertaining in four-andtwenty hours who was the skilful poacher who had depopulated his rabbit warren.
During these eight days the claws of the old maid again showed themselves. Pitou had once more found the aunt of former days, she who had caused him so much terror, and whom self-interest, the primum mobile of her whole life, had for a while rendered as smooth as velvet.
As the day for the important decision approached, the temper of the old maid became more and more crabbed, and to such a degree that, about the fifth day, Pitou sincerely desired that his aunt would immediately decide upon some trade, be it what it might, provided it should no longer be that of the scolded drudge which he had been filling in the old maid's house.
Suddenly a sublime idea struck the mind of the old woman who had been so cruelly agitated. This idea restored her equanimity, which for six days had altogether abandoned her.
This idea consisted in entreating the Abbé Fortier to receive into his school, and this without any remuneration whatever, poor Pitou, and enable him to obtain the purse for entering the seminary, founded by his highness the Duke of Orleans. This was an apprenticeship which would cost nothing to Aunt Angélique; and Monsieur Fortier, without taking into calculation the thrushes, blackbirds, and rabbits with which the old devotee had so abundantly supplied him for the last month, was bound to do something, more than for any other, for the nephew of the chair-letter of his own church. Thus kept as under a glass frame, Ange would continue to be profitable to her at the present time, and promised to be much more so in the future.
Consequently Ange was received into the Abbé Fortier's school without any charge for his education. This abbé was a worthy man, and not in any way interested, giving his knowledge to the poor in mind, and his money to the poor in body. He was, however, intractable on one single point; solecisms rendered him altogether furious, barbarisms would send him almost out of his mind; on these occasions he considered neither friends nor foes, neither poor nor rich, nor paying pupils nor gratuitous scholars; he struck all with agrarian impartiality and with Lacedemonian stoicism, and as his arm was strong he struck severely.
This was well known to the parents, and it was for them to decide whether they would or would not send their sons to the Abbé Fortier's school; or if they did send them there, they knew they must abandon them entirely to his mercy, for when any maternal complaint was made to him, the abbé always replied to it by this device, which he had engraved on the handle of his cane and on that of his cat-o'-nine-tails, “Who loves well chastises well.”
Upon the recommendation of his aunt, Ange Pitou was therefore received by the Abbé Fortier. The old devotee, quite proud of this reception,—which was much less agreeable to Pitou, whose wandering and independent mode of life it altogether destroyed,—presented herself to Master Niguet, and told him that she had not only conformed to her agreement with Doctor Gilbert, but had even gone beyond it. In fact, Doctor Gilbert had demanded for Ange Pitou an honorable means of living, and she gave him much more than this, since she gave him an excellent education. And where was it that she gave him this education? Why, in the very academy in which Sebastian Gilbert received his, and for which he paid no less than fifty livres per month.
It was indeed true that Ange Pitou received his education gratis; but there was no necessity whatever for letting Doctor Gilbert into this secret. And if he should discover it, the impartiality and the disinterestedness of the Abbé Fortier were well known; as his sublime Master, he stretched out his arms, saying, “Suffer little children to come unto me;” only the two hands affixed to these two paternal arms were armed, the one with a Latin grammar, and the other with a large birch rod; so that in the greater number of instances, instead of, like the Saviour, receiving the children weeping and sending them away consoled, the Abbé Fortier saw the children approach him with terror in their countenances and sent them away weeping.
The new scholar made his entrance into the schoolroom with an old trunk under his arm, a horn inkstand in his hand, and two or three stumps of pens stuck behind his ears. The old trunk was intended to supply, as it best might, the absence of a regular desk. The inkstand was a gift from the grocer, and Mademoiselle Angélique had picked up the stumps of pens at Monsieur Niguet, the notary's, when she had paid him a visit the evening before.
Ange Pitou was welcomed with that fraternal gentleness which is born in children and perpetuated in grown men,—that is to say, with hootings. The whole time devoted to the morning class was passed in making game of him. Two of the scholars were kept for laughing at his yellow hair, and two others for ridiculing his marvellous knees, of which we have already slightly made mention. The two latter had said that each of Pitou's legs looked like a well-rope in which a knot had been tied. This jest was attended with great success, had gone round the room and excited general hilarity, and consequently the susceptibility of the Abbé Fortier.
Therefore, the account being made up at noon when about to leave the school,—that is to say, after having remained four hours in class,—Pitou, without having addressed a single word to any one, without having done anything but gape behind his trunk, Pitou had made six enemies in the school; six enemies, so much the more inveterate that he had not inflicted any wrong upon them, and therefore did they over the fire-stove, which in the schoolroom represented the altar of their country, swear a solemn oath, some to tear out his yellow hair, others to punch out his earthenware blue eyes, and the remainder to straighten his crooked knees.
Pitou was altogether ignorant of these hostile intentions. As he was going out he asked a boy near him why six of their comrades remained in school, when all the rest were leaving it.
The boy looked askance at Pitou, called him a shabby tale-bearer, and went away, unwilling to enter into conversation with him.
Pitou asked himself how it could have happened that he, not having uttered a single word during the whole time, could be called a shabby tale-bearer. But while the class had lasted he had heard so many things said, either by the pupils or by the Abbé Fortier, which he could in no way comprehend, that he classed this accusation of his schoolfellow with those things which were too elevated for him to understand.
On seeing Pitou return at noon, Aunt Angélique, with great ardor for the success of an education for which it was generally understood she made great sacrifices, inquired of him what he had learned.
Pitou replied that he had learned to remain silent. The answer was worthy of a Pythagorean; only a Pythagorean would have made it by a sign.
The new scholar returned to school at one o'clock without too much repugnance. The hours of study in the morning had been passed by the pupils in examining the physical appearance of Pitou; those of the afternoon were employed by the professor in examining his moral capabilities. This examination being made, the Abbé Fortier remained convinced that Pitou had every possible disposition to become a Robinson Crusoe, but very little chance of ever becoming a Fontenelle or a Bossuet.
During the whole time that the class lasted, and which was much more fatiguing to the future seminarist than that of the morning, the scholars who had been punished on account of him repeatedly shook their fists at him. In all countries, whether blessed with civilization or not, this demonstration is considered as a sign of threat. Pitou therefore determined to be on his guard.
Our hero was not mistaken. On leaving, or rather when he had left, and got clear away from all the dependencies of the collegiate house, it was notified to Pitou by the six scholars who had been kept in the morning, that he would have to pay for the two hours of arbitrary detention, with damages, interest and capital.
Pitou at once understood that he would have to fight a pugilistic duel. Although he was far from having studied the fifth book of the Æneid, in which young Dares and the old Entellus give proofs of their great skill in this manly exercise before the loudly applauding Trojan fugitives, he knew something of this species of recreation, to which the country people in his village were not altogether strangers. He therefore declared that he was ready to enter the lists with either of his adversaries who might wish to begin, and to combat successively with all his six enemies. This demonstration began to raise the last comer in the consideration of his schoolfellows.
The conditions were agreed on as Pitou had proposed. A circle was soon formed round the place of combat, and the champions, the one having thrown off his jacket, the other his coat, advanced towards each other.
We have already spoken of Pitou's hands. These hands, which were by no means agreeable to look at, were still less agreeable to feel. Pitou at the end of each arm whirled round a fist equal in size to a child's head, and although boxing had not at that time been introduced into France, and consequently Pitou had not studied the elementary principles of the science, he managed to apply to one of the eyes of his adversary a blow so well directed that the eye he struck was instantly surrounded by a dark bistre-colored circle, so geometrically drawn that the most skilful mathematician could not have formed it more correctly with his compasses.
The second then presented himself. If Pitou had against him the fatigue occasioned by his first combat, on the other side, his adversary was visibly less powerful than his former antagonist. The battle did not last long. Pitou aimed a straightforward blow at his enemy's nose, and his formidable fist fell with such weight that instantly his opponent's two nostrils gave evidence of the validity of the blow by spouting forth a double stream of blood.
The third got off with merely a broken tooth; he received much less damage than the two former. The other three declared that they were satisfied.
Pitou then pressed through the crowd, which opened as he approached with the respect due to a conqueror, and he withdrew safe and sound to his own fireside, or rather to that of his aunt.
The next morning, when the three pupils reached the school, the one with his eye poached, the second with a fearfully lacerated nose, and the third with his lips swelled, the Abbé Fortier instituted an inquiry. But young collegians have their good points too. Not one of the wounded whispered a word against Pitou, and it was only through an indirect channel, that is to say, from a person who had been a witness of the fight, but who was altogether unconnected with the school, that the Abbé Fortier learned, the following day, that it was Pitou who had done the damage to the faces of his pupils, which had caused him so much uneasiness the day before.
And, in fact, the Abbé Fortier was responsible to the parents, not only for the morals, but for the physical state of his pupils. He had received complaints from the three families. A reparation was absolutely necessary. Pitou was kept in school three days: one day for the eye, one day for the bloody nose, and one day for the tooth.
This three days' detention suggested an ingenious idea to Mademoiselle Angélique. It was to deprive Pitou of his dinner every time that the Abbé Fortier kept him in school. This determination must necessarily have an advantageous effect on Pitou's education, since it would naturally induce him to think twice before committing a fault which would subject him to this double punishment.
Only, Pitou could never rightly comprehend why it was that he had been called a tale-bearer, when he had not opened his lips, and why it was he had been punished for beating those who had wished to beat him; but if people were to comprehend everything that happens in this world, they would lose one of the principal charms of life,—that of mystery and the unforeseen.
Pitou was therefore detained three days in school, and during those three days he contented himself with his breakfast and supper.
Contented himself is not the word, for Pitou was by no means content; but our language is so poor, and the Academy so severe, that we must content ourselves with what we have.
Only that this punishment submitted to by Pitou, without saying a word of the aggression to which he had been subjected, and to which he had only properly replied, won him the esteem of the whole school. It is true that the three majestic blows he had been seen to deliver might also have had some little influence on his schoolfellows.
From that time forward the life of Pitou was pretty nearly that of most of the scholars, with this sole difference, that from his compositions being more defective than those of any of the rest, he was kept twice as often as any of his condisciples.
But it must be said there was one thing in Pitou's nature which arose from the primary education he had received, or rather from that which he had not received,-a thing which is necessary to consider as contributing at least a third to the numerous penalties he underwent; and this was his natural inclination for animals.
The famous trunk which his Aunt Angélique had dignified with the name of desk, had become, thanks to its vastness, and the numerous compartments with which Pitou had decorated its interior, a sort of Noah's ark, containing a couple of every species of climbing, crawling, or flying reptiles. There were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles, and frogs, which reptiles became so much dearer to Pitou from their being the cause of his being subjected to punishment more or less severe.
It was in his walks during the week that Pitou made collections for his menagerie. He had wished for salamanders, which were very popular at Villers-Cotterets, being the crest of François I., who had them sculptured on every chimney-piece in the chateau. He had succeeded in obtaining them; only one thing had strongly preoccupied his mind, and he ended by placing this thing among the number of those which were beyond his intelligence; it was, that he had constantly found in the water these reptiles which poets have pretended exist only in fire. This circumstance had given to Pitou, who was a lad of precise mind, a profound contempt for poets.
Pitou, being the proprietor of two salamanders, set to work to find a chameleon; but this time his search was altogether vain, and success did not attend his labors. Pitou at last concluded, from these unfruitful researches, that the chameleon did not exist, or at all events that it existed in some other latitude.
This point being settled, Pitou did not obstinately continue his search for the chameleon.
The two other thirds of Pitou's punishments were occasioned by those accursed solecisms and those confounded barbarisms, which sprang up in the themes written by Pitou as tares do in a field of wheat.
As to Sundays and Thursdays, days when there was no attendance at school, he had continued to employ them in laying his lime-twigs or in poaching; only, as Pitou was still growing taller, as he was already five feet six, and sixteen years of age, a circumstance occurred which somewhat withdrew Pitou's attention from his favorite occupations.
Upon the road to the Wolf's Heath is situated the village of Pisseleu, the same perhaps which gave a name to the beautiful Anne d'Heilly, the mistress of François I.
Near this village stood the farm-house of Father Billot, as he was called throughout the neighborhood, and at the door of this farm-house was standing, no doubt by chance, but almost every time when Pitou passed and repassed, a pretty girl from seventeen to eighteen years of age, fresh-colored, lively, jovial, and who was called by her baptismal name, Catherine, but still more frequently after her father's name, La Billote.
Pitou began by bowing to La Billote; afterwards he by degrees became emboldened, and smiled while he was bowing; then at last one fine day, after having bowed, after having smiled, he stopped, and although blushing deeply, ventured to stammer out the following words, which he considered as great audacity on his part:
