CHAPTER I
THE BETROTHAL
Pere Merlier's mill, one beautiful summer evening, was arranged for
a grand fete. In the courtyard were three tables, placed end to
end, which awaited the guests. Everyone knew that Francoise,
Merlier's daughter, was that night to be betrothed to Dominique, a
young man who was accused of idleness but whom the fair sex for
three leagues around gazed at with sparkling eyes, such a fine
appearance had he.
Pere Merlier's mill was pleasing to look upon. It stood exactly in
the center of Rocreuse, where the highway made an elbow. The
village had but one street, with two rows of huts, a row on each
side of the road; but at the elbow meadows spread out, and huge
trees which lined the banks of the Morelle covered the extremity of
the valley with lordly shade. There was not, in all Lorraine, a
corner of nature more adorable. To the right and to the left thick
woods, centenarian forests, towered up from gentle slopes, filling
the horizon with a sea of verdure, while toward the south the plain
stretched away, of marvelous fertility, displaying as far as the eye
could reach patches of ground divided by green hedges. But what
constituted the special charm of Rocreuse was the coolness of that
cut of verdure in the most sultry days of July and August. The
Morelle descended from the forests of Gagny and seemed to have
gathered the cold from the foliage beneath which it flowed for
leagues; it brought with it the murmuring sounds, the icy and
concentrated shade of the woods. And it was not the sole source of
coolness: all sorts of flowing streams gurgled through the forest;
at each step springs bubbled up; one felt, on following the narrow
pathways, that there must exist subterranean lakes which pierced
through beneath the moss and availed themselves of the smallest
crevices at the feet of trees or between the rocks to burst forth in
crystalline fountains. The whispering voices of these brooks were
so numerous and so loud that they drowned the song of the
bullfinches. It was like some enchanted park with cascades falling
from every portion.
Below the meadows were damp. Gigantic chestnut trees cast dark
shadows. On the borders of the meadows long hedges of poplars
exhibited in lines their rustling branches. Two avenues of enormous
plane trees stretched across the fields toward the ancient Chateau
de Gagny, then a mass of ruins. In this constantly watered district
the grass grew to an extraordinary height. It resembled a garden
between two wooded hills, a natural garden, of which the meadows
were the lawns, the giant trees marking the colossal flower beds.
When the sun's rays at noon poured straight downward the shadows
assumed a bluish tint; scorched grass slept in the heat, while an
icy shiver passed beneath the foliage.
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