Samson enjoyed from the outset the privilege of going to “hear Mass” with the Brethren upstairs in Sauveterre’s study whereas I had to remain downstairs in the chapel with François, listening to the Latin verses, hanging on to Barberine’s skirts. I had no other recourse than to make faces at little seven-year-old Hélix, who, hidden from her mother’s view, returned grimace for grimace, a practice we laughingly continued through the years, for she was a little scoundrel, as the rest of my story will bear out.
The lovable shepherdess was no more, but the fruit of her womb lived on within the walls of Mespech, more handsome and shining with his milky complexion and red hair than any illegitimate child who ever lived. Every God-given day (doubtless the work of the Devil, as well, as a punishment for my father) Jean Siorac was assailed by a flood of marital discomforts. On one occasion he entered a melancholy quote from the Bible in his
Book of Reason
: “A querulous woman is like a rainy day.” And added a bit further on: “A woman’s hair is long, but longer still her tongue.” And two pages later Isabelle’s Catholicism sticks in his craw: “Oh the hard-headedness of woman! This terrible abscess in her will, which nothing has ever been able to pierce! And her fatal attachment to error!” To which Sauveterre adds in the margin, substituting for his usual ceremonial “
vous
” a fraternal “
tu
”: “Would it not have been wiser to marry a woman of your own faith? Though her breast lay underneath her medallion, it nevertheless hid her Catholic icon from your sight.” This old complaint resurfacing on such an occasion blindsided myfather from the left, while he was heavily besieged on the right. It was not a very wounding comment for all that, since one can just as well imagine an equally intractable Huguenot wife.
Good things don’t always come easily, yet despite all the groans and opposition Samson was now among us, good looks and all, bringing to three the number of sons Siorac could count at his table. As streams flow into rivers, prosperity grows fat, sometimes even at others’ expense. The plague, by carrying off half the families in Taniès, had left much property untended, which the Brethren were able to purchase at greatly advantageous prices.
What heir would have wanted to live in a village where sickness could flare up any day out of the infected soil or the evil vapours emanating from it? For less than 3,000 livres, Mespech grew piece by piece to half its size again in the hillsides of Taniès, including a wood of beautiful chestnut trees, now fully grown and ready for cutting, suitable for heavy beams or woodworking and easily worth double the price paid for the property. But the Brethren, always on the lookout for any providential occurrence that might add to its “basket and store” conceived by chance or by inspiration a project that was more profitable yet.
One Saturday, Sauveterre was doing his marketing at Sarlat, when he spied before him on the church square a little dark man limping along carrying a box on his back. “Greetings, friend,” said Sauveterre, in a military but cordial way, “where did you catch that limp?” The dark little fellow turned in his tracks, looked long and hard at Sauveterre, placed his box on the ground and removed his cap. “I didn’t catch it,” he replied, “it caught me, and it was moving right smartly, the bullet that gave it to me at Ceresole.”
“At Ceresole? So you were a soldier!”
“Ay, an armourer in the legion of Guyenne.”
“And who was the commanding officer at Ceresole?”
This question was, of course, a trap, but the soldier replied evasively by naming the field general.
“D’Enghien.”
“And did your captain give you honorary discharge?”
“That he did! The paper is in my box. Would you read it?”
“Soldier,” replied Sauveterre, “you should not be so quick to show your papers. Someone might take them
The lovable shepherdess was no more, but the fruit of her womb lived on within the walls of Mespech, more handsome and shining with his milky complexion and red hair than any illegitimate child who ever lived. Every God-given day (doubtless the work of the Devil, as well, as a punishment for my father) Jean Siorac was assailed by a flood of marital discomforts. On one occasion he entered a melancholy quote from the Bible in his
Book of Reason
: “A querulous woman is like a rainy day.” And added a bit further on: “A woman’s hair is long, but longer still her tongue.” And two pages later Isabelle’s Catholicism sticks in his craw: “Oh the hard-headedness of woman! This terrible abscess in her will, which nothing has ever been able to pierce! And her fatal attachment to error!” To which Sauveterre adds in the margin, substituting for his usual ceremonial “
vous
” a fraternal “
tu
”: “Would it not have been wiser to marry a woman of your own faith? Though her breast lay underneath her medallion, it nevertheless hid her Catholic icon from your sight.” This old complaint resurfacing on such an occasion blindsided myfather from the left, while he was heavily besieged on the right. It was not a very wounding comment for all that, since one can just as well imagine an equally intractable Huguenot wife.
Good things don’t always come easily, yet despite all the groans and opposition Samson was now among us, good looks and all, bringing to three the number of sons Siorac could count at his table. As streams flow into rivers, prosperity grows fat, sometimes even at others’ expense. The plague, by carrying off half the families in Taniès, had left much property untended, which the Brethren were able to purchase at greatly advantageous prices.
What heir would have wanted to live in a village where sickness could flare up any day out of the infected soil or the evil vapours emanating from it? For less than 3,000 livres, Mespech grew piece by piece to half its size again in the hillsides of Taniès, including a wood of beautiful chestnut trees, now fully grown and ready for cutting, suitable for heavy beams or woodworking and easily worth double the price paid for the property. But the Brethren, always on the lookout for any providential occurrence that might add to its “basket and store” conceived by chance or by inspiration a project that was more profitable yet.
One Saturday, Sauveterre was doing his marketing at Sarlat, when he spied before him on the church square a little dark man limping along carrying a box on his back. “Greetings, friend,” said Sauveterre, in a military but cordial way, “where did you catch that limp?” The dark little fellow turned in his tracks, looked long and hard at Sauveterre, placed his box on the ground and removed his cap. “I didn’t catch it,” he replied, “it caught me, and it was moving right smartly, the bullet that gave it to me at Ceresole.”
“At Ceresole? So you were a soldier!”
“Ay, an armourer in the legion of Guyenne.”
“And who was the commanding officer at Ceresole?”
This question was, of course, a trap, but the soldier replied evasively by naming the field general.
“D’Enghien.”
“And did your captain give you honorary discharge?”
“That he did! The paper is in my box. Would you read it?”
“Soldier,” replied Sauveterre, “you should not be so quick to show your papers. Someone might take them
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