or sisters of the farm. Gregoire took no oath on the subject, but gayly declared that he was not such a fool as to despoil his wife of the best part of her inheritance, particularly as he proposed to cultivate those moors and, within two or three years’ time, make them the most fertile land in the district. That which belonged to him did not belong to others, and people would soon see that he was well able to defend the property which had fallen to his lot. Things took a similar course with respect to the mill, where Gregoire at first contented himself with repairing the old mechanism, for he was unwilling to upset the miller’s habits all at once, and therefore postponed until some future time the installation of an engine, and the laying down of a line of rails to Janville station — all those ideas formerly propounded by Mathieu which henceforth fermented in his audacious young mind.
In this wise, then, people found themselves in presence of a new Gregoire. The madcap had become wise, only retaining of his youthful follies the audacity which is needful for successful enterprise. And it must be said that he was admirably seconded by the fair and energetic Therese. They were both enraptured at now being free to love each other in the romantic old mill, garlanded with ivy, pending the time when they would resolutely fling it to the ground to install in its place the great white meal stores and huge new millstones, which, with their conquering ambition, they often dreamt of.
During the years that followed, Mathieu and Marianne witnessed other departures. The three daughters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, in turn took their flight from the family nest. All three found husbands in the district. Louise, a plump brunette, all gayety and health, with abundant hair and large laughing eyes, married notary Mazaud of Janville, a quiet, pensive little man, whose occasional silent smiles alone denoted the perfect satisfaction which he felt at having found a wife of such joyous disposition. Then Madeleine, whose chestnut tresses were tinged with gleaming gold, and who was slimmer than her sister, and of a more dreamy style of beauty, her character and disposition refined by her musical tastes, made a love match which was quite a romance. Herbette, the architect, who became her husband, was a handsome, elegant man, already celebrated; he owned near Monvel a parklike estate, where he came to rest at times from the fatigue of his labors in Paris.
At last, Marguerite, the least pretty of the girls — indeed, she was quite plain, but derived a charm from her infinite goodness of heart — was chosen in marriage by Dr. Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly fellow, who had inherited his father’s practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor. And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with Mathieu and Marianne in the slowly emptying nest were their two last boys, Nicolas and Benjamin.
At the same time, however, as the youngsters flew away and installed themselves elsewhere, there came other little ones, a constant swarming due to the many family marriages. In eight years, Denis, who reigned at the factory in Paris, had been presented by his wife with three children, two boys, Lucien and Paul, and a girl, Hortense. Then Leonce, the son of Ambroise, who was conquering such a high position in the commercial world, now had a brother, Charles, and two little sisters, Pauline and Sophie. At the farm, moreover, Gervais was already the father of two boys, Leon and Henri, while Claire, his sister, could count three children, a boy, Joseph, and two daughters, Lucile and Angele. There was also Gregoire, at the mill, with a big boy who had received the name of Robert; and there were also the three last married daughters — Louise, with a girl two years old; Madeleine, with a boy six months of age; and Marguerite, who in anticipation of a happy event, had decided to call her child Stanislas, if it were a boy, and Christine, if it should be a girl.
Thus upon every side the family oak spread out its branches, its trunk forking and multiplying, and boughs sprouting from boughs at each successive season. And withal Mathieu was not yet sixty, and Marianne not yet fifty-seven. Both still possessed flourishing health, and strength, and gayety, and were ever in delight at seeing the family, which had sprung from them, thus growing and spreading, invading all the country around, even like a forest born from a single tree.
But the great and glorious festival of Chantebled at that period was the birth of Mathieu and Marianne’s first great-grandchild — a girl, called Angeline, daughter of their granddaughter, Berthe. In this little girl, all pink and white, the ever-regretted Blaise seemed to live again. So closely did she resemble him that Charlotte, his widow, already a grandmother in her forty-second year, wept with emotion at the sight of her. Madame Desvignes had died six months previously, passing away, even as she had lived, gently and discreetly, at the termination of her task, which had chiefly consisted in rearing her two daughters on the scanty means at her disposal. Still it was she, who, before quitting the scene, had found a husband for her granddaughter, Berthe, in the person of Philippe Havard, a young engineer who had recently been appointed assistant-manager at a State factory near Mareuil. It was at Chantebled, however, that Berthe’s little Angeline was born; and on the day of the churching, the whole family assembled together there once more to glorify the great-grandfather and great-grandmother.
“Ah! well,” said Marianne gayly, as she stood beside the babe’s cradle, “if the young ones fly away there are others born, and so the nest will never be empty.”
“Never, never!” repeated Mathieu with emotion, proud as he felt of that continual victory over solitude and death. “We shall never be left alone!”
Yet there came another departure which brought them many tears. Nicolas, the youngest but one of their boys, who was approaching his twentieth birthday, and thus nigh the crossroads of life, had not yet decided which one he would follow. He was a dark, sturdy young man, with an open, laughing face. As a child, he had adored tales of travel and faraway adventure, and had always evinced great courage and endurance, returning home enraptured from interminable rambles, and never uttering complaints, however badly his feet might be blistered. And withal he possessed a most orderly mind, ever carefully arranging and classifying his little belongings in his drawers, and looking down with contempt on the haphazard way in which his sisters kept their things.
Later on, as he grew up, he became thoughtful, as if he were vainly seeking around him some means of realizing his twofold craving, that of discovering some new land and organizing it properly. One of the last-born of a numerous family, he no longer found space enough for the amplitude and force of his desires. His brothers and sisters had already taken all the surrounding lands, and he stifled, threatened also, as it were, with famine, and ever sought the broad expanse that he dreamt of, where he might grow and reap his bread. No more room, no more food! At first he knew not in which direction to turn, but groped and hesitated for some months. Nevertheless, his hearty laughter continued to gladden the house; he wearied neither his father nor his mother with the care of his destiny, for he knew that he was already strong enough to fix it himself.
There was no corner left for him at the farm where Gervais and Claire took up all the room. At the Beauchene works Denis was all sufficient, reigning there like a conscientious toiler, and nothing justified a younger brother in claiming a share beside him. At the mill, too, Gregoire was as yet barely established, and his kingdom was so small that he could not possibly cede half of it. Thus an opening was only possible with Ambroise, and Nicolas ended by accepting an obliging offer which the latter made to take him on trial for a few months, by way of initiating him into the higher branches of commerce. Ambroise’s fortune was becoming prodigious since old uncle Du Hordel had died, leaving him his commission business. Year by year the new master increased his trade with all the countries of the world. Thanks to his lucky audacity and broad international views, he was enriching himself with the spoils of the earth. And though Nicolas again began to stifle in Ambroise’s huge storehouses, where the riches of distant countries, the most varied climes, were collected together, it was there that his real vocation came to him; for a voice suddenly arose, calling him away yonder to dim, unknown regions, vast stretches of country yet sterile, which needed to be populated, and cleared and sowed with the crops of the future.
For two months Nicolas kept silent respecting the designs which he was now maturing. He was extremely discreet, as are all men of great energy,
