Carrousel. I was there! oh! I had the luck
of it! went through it all without a scratch! Now this Farrabesche of
ours, though he's a brave fellow, took it into his head he wouldn't go
to the wars; in fact, the army wasn't a healthy place for one of his
family. So when the conscription caught him in 1811 he ran away,--a
refractory, that's what they called them. And then it was he went and
joined a party of _chauffeurs_, or maybe he was forced to; at any rate
he _chauffed_! Nobody but the rector knows what he really did with
those brigands--all due respect to them! Many a fight he had with
the gendarmes and the soldiers too; I'm told he was in seven regular
battles--"

"They say he killed two soldiers and three gendarmes," put in Champion.

"Who knows how many?--he never told," went on Colorat. "At last, madame,
they caught nearly all his comrades, but they never could catch him;
hang him! he was so young and active, and knew the country so well,
he always escaped. The _chauffeurs_ he consorted with kept themselves
mostly in the neighborhood of Brives and Tulle; sometimes they came down
this way, because Farrabesche knew such good hiding-places about here.
In 1814 the conscription took no further notice of him, because it was
abolished; but for all that, he was obliged to live in the woods in
1815; because, don't you see? as he hadn't enough to live on, he helped
to stop a mail-coach over there, down that gorge; and then it was they
condemned him. But, as I told you just now, the rector persuaded him to
give himself up. It wasn't easy to convict him, for nobody dared testify
against him; and his lawyer and Monsieur Bonnet worked so hard they got
him sentenced for ten years only; which was pretty good luck after being
a _chauffeur_--for he did _chauffe_."

"Will you tell me what _chauffeur_ means?"

"If you wish it, madame, I will tell you what they did, as far as I know
about it from others, for I never was _chauffed_ myself. It wasn't a
good thing to do, but necessity knows no law. Well, this is how it was:
seven or eight would go to some farmer or land-owner who was thought to
have money; the farmer would build a good fire and give them a supper,
lasting half through the night, and then, when the feast was over, if
the master of the house wouldn't give them the sum demanded, they just
fastened his feet to the spit, and didn't unfasten them till they
got it. That's how it was. They always went masked. Among all their