The Peasant and the Prince. Harriet Martineau
she has. When she saw the fine pavilion on the frontier, she was pleased enough.”
The boys wanted to hear about the pavilion.
“It was there,” said Jérome, “that she was to be made a French princess of. It was a very grand sort of tent, that cost more money than I can reckon.”
Randolphe sighed.
“There were three rooms,” continued Jérome; “a large one in the middle, and a smaller one at each end. In one of these smaller rooms she left everything she had worn, even to her very stockings, and all her German attendants; and then she went through to the other, where she found her French attendants, and her fine French wardrobe.”
“And shall we see her in some of her new clothes?” asked Marc.
“Certainly.” And Jérome went on describing the princess’s dress, and told all he had heard of her jewels, and furs, and laces, till the soldiers observed that their host had sighed very often. One of the soldiers then said that it was enough to make poor men like themselves sad to hear of such luxury, when they were hungry in the long summer days, and cold all the long winter nights.
“What need you care?” said the host, somewhat bitterly. “You are provided for by law, when we country people are ground down by it. You come upon us, and must be served with the best, when we have not enough for ourselves.”
The third soldier declared that he thought this a very uncivil speech. Jérome said that he, for his part, could dispense with civility in such a case, when he happened to know where the truth lay. He assured Randolphe that soldiers like himself were as little pleased with the state of things as any countryman. They themselves were the sons of peasants; and many had led a cottage life, and knew how to pity it. But he must say, a soldier’s life was very little better. The army could not get its pay. Glad enough would soldiers be to save trouble to their hosts, if they had a little money in their pockets; but pay was not to be got, in these days, by soldiers, any more than if none was due to them.
His smoking comrade thought there must be an earthquake somewhere in France, swallowing up all the money: for nobody could tell where it all went to.
“How can you say that,” said Randolphe, “when you think of the numbers of idle people that are feeding upon those who work?—I hear you, wife,” he said, in answer to a warning cough from his wife within. “It is no treason to say that in this land there are swarms of idle folk, living upon the toil of us who work.”
The guests declared that they were men of honour, who would be ashamed to repay hospitality by reporting the conversation of their host. Besides, nobody in France could question the feet. To say nothing of the old king, languishing in the midst of costly pleasures, so vicious that by every indulgence he purchased the curses of virtuous families, and the hatred of the poor—besides all the extravagances in that quarter, there were the nobility, sitting heavy upon the people throughout the land, like the nightmare upon the sleep of a wearied man. These nobles must all be rich—must all be pampered in luxury, though not one of them would work with his head or hands. If a nobleman had five sons, they must all be pampered alike; and the sons of five hundred peasants must be oppressed, to supply the means.
Randolphe said he had little thought to see the day when he should hear soldiers say these things openly at his own door. His face brightened as he declared this, though his wife again coughed more than once.
Jérome replied that it was a common thing now to hear these things told; for the oppressed do get to speak out, sooner or later. The story of the king’s meeting a coffin was in everybody’s mouth. No one here had heard it: so Jérome told that the king was fond of asking questions of strangers, and particularly about disease, death, and churchyards; because he thought his gay attendants did not like to hear of such things. One day, he was hunting in the forest of Sénard, when he met a man on horseback, carrying a coffin.
“Where are you carrying that coffin?” asked the king.
“To the village yonder.”
“Is it for a man or a woman?”
“For a man.”
“What did he die of?”
“Of hunger.”
The king clapped spurs to his horse, and rode away.
“He might find the same thing happening in many other villages,” said Randolphe, stroking the thin cheeks of his boy Robin. “Look here!” showing the boy’s arm. “Is this an arm that can work or fight as a Frenchman’s should do, when my boy is a man?”
“Things may be different when that boy is a man,” said the smoker, between two whiffs of his pipe.
“How? Where? When? Why? Is anything going to be done for the poor?” asked Randolphe and his family, within and without doors.
“I don’t know when and how: but I think you need not ask why, if you live some days of the week upon boiled nettles, as many of your neighbours do. Those that have looked into the matter say that the country people (they who really do the work of the land) possess only one-third of the country, and yet pay three-fourths of the taxes. One does not see why this should go on, when once they choose that it shall not: and many think that they won’t choose it much longer.”
“And then something will be done for the poor?” said the hostess, coming to the door.
“Certainly; unless the rich do something for the poor first; which would be their wisest way.”
“But if the rich should not choose to do anything for us?” said Robin.
“Then they must look to themselves.”
“And what will happen to them? What will happen to the Dauphiness?”
“Oh, poor lady! There is no saying that. She knows little of what the French people are suffering, and nothing of what they are thinking. How should she? What notion should she have of poverty and the poor, when she is now buying, out of her allowance, a pair of ear-rings that cost 360,000 francs?”
(Note: This is fact; but it happened a little later in her history, immediately after she became queen: 360,000 francs are about 15,000 pounds.)
“You are joking, comrade.”
“No, it is true. She thinks there is no harm in it, because she will pay the whole out of her own allowance, year by year; and the diamonds are so rare and wonderful that she thinks she has a good bargain. What should she know of poverty and the poor?”
“God bless her!” said the hostess, “and may she never know what it is to eat boiled nettles, for want of anything better!”
“I wish she would have done with throwing away our money in diamonds at that rate,” said Randolphe, gloomily. “The people will not love her if she does. We all know it is what we pay for this cursed salt, and our poll-tax, and all our grinding taxes, that go to pay for such freaks as these.”
“Well, love,” said his wife, “she is young, and may learn. Don’t let us be grudging to her as a stranger.”
“Not I, love; I would grudge her nothing, if only I could give my family food that would make them plump and rosy, as I hope to see this lady to-morrow, and if I could but apprentice my boys to some trade that would give them a chance of a better living than their father had before them, and take them a little from under the Count’s hand, for that is very heavy upon us. If my boys have nothing better before them than to divide my poor field, and live as peasants under the Count, I don’t know that I should cry to lay them in their graves before I lie down myself.”
“And cannot you apprentice one of them, at least?” inquired Jérome.
“How can I? Besides the transaction between the artisan and me, there is a great sum to be paid to the king upon the indenture, and another and a larger before the lad begins his trade. What can a poor peasant do with his boys but make them poorer peasants than himself,