he _chauffeurs_ had lots of outside
friends; people really loved them. They were not skinflints like those
of to-day; they spent their money royally, those fellows! Just fancy,
madame, one evening Farrabesche was chased by gendarmes; well, he
escaped them by staying twenty minutes under water in the pond of a
farm-yard. He breathed air through a straw which he kept above the
surface of the pool, which was half muck. But, goodness! what was that
little disagreeableness to a man who spends his nights in the tree-tops,
where the sparrows can hardly hold themselves, watching the soldiers
going to and fro in search of him below? Farrabesche was one of the
half-dozen _chauffeurs_ whom the officers of justice could never lay
hands on. But as he belonged to the region and was brought up with them,
and had, as they said, only fled the conscription, all the women were on
his side,--and that's a great deal, you know."

"Is it really certain that Farrabesche did kill several persons?" asked
Madame Graslin.

"Yes, certain," replied Colorat; "it is even said that it was he who
killed the traveller by the mail-coach in 1812; but the courier and the
postilion, the only witnesses who could have identified him, were dead
before he was tried."

"Tried for the robbery?" asked Madame Graslin.

"Yes, they took everything; amongst it twenty-five thousand francs
belonging to the government."

Madame Graslin rode silently after that for two or three miles. The sun
had now set, the moon was lighting the gray plain, which looked like an
open sea. Champion and Colorat began to wonder at Madame Graslin, whose
silence seemed strange to them, and they were greatly astonished to see
the shining track of tears upon her cheeks; her eyes were red and full
of tears, which were falling drop by drop as she rode along.

"Oh, madame," said Colorat, "don't pity him! The lad has had his day.
He had pretty girls in love with him; and now, though to be sure he
is closely watched by the police, he is protected by the respect and
good-will of the rector; for he has really repented. His conduct at
the galleys was exemplary. Everybody knows he is as honest as the most
honest man among us. Only he is proud; he doesn't choose to expose
himself to rebuff; so he lives quietly by himself and does good in his
own way. He has made a nursery of about ten acres for you on the other
side of the Roche-Vive; he plants in the forests wherever he thinks
there's a chance of