"If I could but amass a hundred pistoles," he thought, "I would ask
Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not
refuse me." A hundred pistoles! A thousand francs!--an enormous sum
for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven
louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the
depths of his straw mattress.
Still he did not despair. He had read in Martha's eyes that she would
wait.
And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his god-mother;
and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps,
interest her in his love-affair.
Then the terrible storm of the revolution burst over France.
With the fall of the first thunder-bolts, the Duke of Sairmeuse left
France with the Count d'Artois. They took refuge in foreign lands as
a passer-by seeks shelter in a doorway from a summer shower, saying to
himself: "This will not last long."
The storm did last, however; and the following year Mlle. Armande, who
had remained at Sairmeuse, died.
The chateau was then closed, the president of the district took
possession of the keys in the name of the government, and the servants
were scattered.
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