There, from 1802 to 1804, all the bourgeois of Soulanges played at dominoes and a game of cards called "brelan," drank tiny glasses of liqueur or boiled wine, and ate brandied fruits and biscuits; for the dearness of colonial products had banished coffee, sugar, and chocolate.Punch was a great luxury; so was "bavaroise." These infusions were made with a sugary substance resembling molasses, the name of which is now lost, but which, at the time, made the fortune of its inventor.
These succinct details will recall to the memory of all travellers many others that are analogous; and those persons who have never left Paris can imagine the ceiling blackened with smoke and the mirrors specked with millions of spots, showing in what freedom and independence the whole order of diptera lived in the Cafe de la Paix.
The beautiful Madame Socquard, whose gallant adventures surpassed those of the mistress of the Grand-I-Vert, sat there, enthroned, dressed in the last fashion.She affected the style of a sultana, and wore a turban.Sultanas, under the Empire, enjoyed a vogue equal to that of the "angel" of to-day.The whole valley took pattern from the turbans, the poke-bonnets, the fur caps, the Chinese head-gear of the handsome Socquard, to whose luxury the big-wigs of Soulanges contributed.With a waist beneath her arm-pits, after the fashion of our mothers, who were proud of their imperial graces, Junie (she was named Junie!) made the fortune of the house of Socquard.Her husband owed to her the ownership of a vineyard, of the house they lived in, and also the Tivoli.The father of Monsieur Lupin was said to have committed some follies for the handsome Madame Socquard; and Gaubertin, who had taken her from him, certainly owed him the little Bournier.
These details, together with the deep mystery with which Socquard manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other reasons for their renown.Nothing better than wine could be got at Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley; from Conches to Ville-
aux-Fayes, in a circumference of twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard was the only place where the guests could play billiards and drink the punch so admirably concocted by the proprietor.There alone could be found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs, and brandied fruits.
Its name resounded daily throughout the valley, accompanied by ideas of superfine sensual pleasures such as men whose stomachs are more sensitive than their hearts dream about.To all these causes of popularity was added that of being an integral part of the great festival of Soulanges.The Cafe de la Paix was to the town, in a superior degree, what the tavern of the Grand-I-Vert was to the peasantry,--a centre of venom; it was the point of contact and transmission between the gossip of Ville-aux-Fayes and that of the valley.The Grand-I-Vert supplied the milk and the Cafe de la Paix the cream, and Tonsard's two daughters were in daily communication between the two.
To Socquard's mind the square of Soulanges was merely an appendage to his cafe.Hercules went from door to door, talking with this one and that one, and wearing in summer no other garment than a pair of trousers and a half-buttoned waistcoat.If any one entered the tavern, the people with whom he gossiped warned him, and he slowly and reluctantly returned.
Rigou stopped his horse, and getting out of the chaise, fastened the bridle to one of the posts near the gate of the Tivoli.Then he made a pretext to listen to what was going on without being noticed, and placed himself between two windows through one of which he could, by advancing his head, see the persons in the room, watch their gestures, and catch the louder tones which came through the glass of the windows and which the quiet of the street enabled him to hear.
"If I were to tell old Rigou that your brother Nicolas is after La Pechina," cried an angry voice, "and that he waylays her, he'd rip the entrails out of every one of you,--pack of scoundrels that you are at the Grand-I-Vert!"
"If you play me such a trick as that, Aglae," said the shrill voice of Marie Tonsard, "you sha'n't tell anything more except to the worms in your coffin.Don't meddle with my brother's business or with mine and Bonnebault's either."
Marie, instigated by her grandmother, had, as we see, followed Bonnebault; she had watched him through the very window where Rigou was now standing, and had seen him displaying his graces and paying compliments so agreeable to Mademoiselle Socquard that she was forced to smile upon him.That smile had brought about the scene in the midst of which the revelation that interested Rigou came out.
"Well, well, Pere Rigou, what are you doing here?" said Socquard, slapping the usurer on the shoulder; he was coming from a barn at the end of the garden, where he kept various contrivances for the public games, such as weighing-machines, merry-go-rounds, see-saws, all in readiness for the Tivoli when opened.Socquard stepped noiselessly, for he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost so little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the provinces.
"If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said Rigou; "it is a warm evening."
"Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.
"They are quarrelling for Bonnebault," said Rigou, sardonically.
The anger of the father was at once controlled by the interest of the tavern-keeper.The tavern-keeper judged it prudent to listen outside, as Rigou was doing; the father was inclined to enter and declare that Bonnebault, possessed of admirable qualities in the eyes of a tavern-